What is the situation in Gaza, between sweeps and new bombardments
Rights — di Luigi Mastrodonato
As the Israeli offensive in southern Gaza intensifies, sweeps are under way in the north. But the US vetoes the ceasefire.
What is the situation in Gaza, between sweeps and new bombardments
As the Israeli offensive in southern Gaza intensifies, sweeps are under way in the north. But the US vetoes the ceasefire.
- Israel carried out sweeps in northern Gaza, with men left naked, bound, kneeling and blindfolded.
- Thousands of Palestinians are gathering at the Rafah crossing following the increase in bombardments in southern Gaza.
- After the US veto on the ceasefire and criticism from Guterres, the UN General Assembly is now convening.
The situation in Gaza is becoming increasingly dire. After November ended with seven days of ceasefire, the Israeli offensive on the Strip resumed on 1 December, now focused on the south. Palestinian civilians no longer know where to flee, while for those who remained in the north the time has come for house-to-house sweeps. Hundreds of people have been detained and tortured by the Israel Defense Forces, accused of being Hamas militants. The vast majority were subsequently released because they were in fact civilians.
Meanwhile, tensions have flared within the UN. Secretary-General Antònio Guterres called for a ceasefire, invoking Article 99 for the first time. However, the United States vetoed a resolution to that effect. And the death toll in Gaza continues to rise, reaching 18,000.
The sweeps in northern Gaza
On 7 December, the Israeli army began circulating photos and reports of an alleged surrender by hundreds of Hamas militants. This was initially picked up by many of the leading international newspapers, but as the hours passed the surrender narrative was disproved and replaced by a far more disturbing account of events.
The images of the alleged surrender showed rows of men naked, bound, kneeling and blindfolded amid the rubble of northern Gaza. This is where Israel concentrated its military operations during the first weeks of the offensive on the Strip, and the vast majority of the population had fled south. Thousands of people, however, remained, while others returned to their homes during the seven-day ceasefire at the end of November. And it was in northern Gaza that the sweeps began on 7 December.
A Gaza proseguono i rastrellamenti.
Nudi, bendati, legati l'uno all'altro come insaccati. La maggior parte poi vengono liberati.
"Ci hanno ributtato in strada e siamo tornati a piedi, nudi, nelle nostre case. E le abbiamo trovate distrutte", mi ha raccontato uno di loro.
Nudi, bendati, legati l'uno all'altro come insaccati. La maggior parte poi vengono liberati.
"Ci hanno ributtato in strada e siamo tornati a piedi, nudi, nelle nostre case. E le abbiamo trovate distrutte", mi ha raccontato uno di loro.
The Israel Defense Forces raided homes and a UN-run school housing displaced people. Males aged over 15 were taken away — the ones we later saw naked, blindfolded and kneeling in the streets. Some were released after being identified; others were transported, crammed onto trucks and jeeps, to isolated areas. In this case too, most people were eventually freed. "They threw us back onto the street and we walked home, naked, only to find our homes destroyed," one of them recounted. In recent hours, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, as well as the American New York Times, also reported that 85–90 per cent of those caught up in the sweep were civilians. Among them were journalists and UN employees.
The offensive in southern Gaza
While civilian sweeps are taking place in the north, the humanitarian situation in the south is becoming ever more complicated. 1.8 million people are in this part of the Strip, many of them evacuated from the north by Israel itself. And now that the latter is concentrating its military operations on the south, with the aim of tracking down more Hamas leaders, people no longer know where to flee.
First there were leaflets about Khan Yunis, the main southern city, urging people to move even further south. Then the city was bombed and occupied by Israeli tanks, with thousands of people taking refuge in Rafah, the last city in the Strip before Egypt, where the eponymous crossing is located. But Rafah too is now under heavy Israeli bombardment. The result is that Palestinian civilians are massing at the very crossing, with no food, water or shelter. Their only hope is to manage to cross the border — which, however, remains closed.
Since the start of the #IsraelHamasWar civilians in the Gaza Strip have struggled to access food, water and other basic goods.
Footage shows Rafah's citizens gathering to get water from the few humanitarian aid trucks that entered the Strip through the border with Egypt.
Footage shows Rafah's citizens gathering to get water from the few humanitarian aid trucks that entered the Strip through the border with Egypt.
Today, UN figures indicate that 85 per cent of the population of the Gaza Strip has been forced to leave their homes since 7 October — that is, nearly two million displaced people. And then there is the terrible death toll: 18,000 victims in two months, of whom around 8,000 are minors. In recent weeks, figures such as US President Joe Biden had called into question these tallies provided by Gaza's Health Ministry, which is controlled by Hamas. Now the scientific journal The Lancet has published a study concluding that "there is no evidence that the death toll is inflated."
Guterres vs the US
Faced with this increasingly dramatic situation, UN Secretary-General Antònio Guterres raised his voice. On 6 December, for the first time during his tenure, he invoked Article 99 of the UN Charter, which alerts the Security Council to situations that may threaten international peace and security, urging it to intervene to achieve a ceasefire.
On 8 December, the Security Council — the only UN body with the power to make binding decisions for its members — debated and voted on a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. But the United States exercised its veto, effectively reaffirming, as it had done in the past, that "Israel has the right to defend itself." Agnés Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International, condemned the fact that "the United States has shown a callous disregard for the suffering of civilians in the face of a staggering death toll, widespread destruction and an unprecedented ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in the occupied Gaza Strip."
Following the failure to pass the Security Council resolution, UN Secretary-General Guterres made himself heard again, this time in the context of Cop28 in Dubai. "We are running a serious risk of collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza, where the situation is rapidly turning into a catastrophe with potentially irreversible implications for Palestinians," he stressed, once again calling for a ceasefire and challenging the geo-strategic divisions that are paralysing the Security Council. An emergency session of the United Nations General Assembly has been convened for 12 December, where the text on the ceasefire that the US vetoed could be adopted. A symbolic move, given that General Assembly resolutions are not binding.