The air strikes started at two in the morning. Bombs fell less than a kilometer from his house, in Khan Younis. There, in that largely destroyed city, the teacher Karam Al-Saadouni (38) stays with his family. In Khan Younis alone, dozens of people were killed on Monday night, Al-Saadouni says by telephone. “Everyone is very afraid of what is to come.”
After a night of heavy Israeli air strikes in various places in the Gaza Strip, on Tuesday afternoon, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, more than four hundred people were killed and six hundred injured people. There are 174 children among the dead.
After more humanitarian aid was allowed as part of the Hamas file, Israel set a full blockage again two weeks ago. The consequences for care in Gaza are great, where the few still functioning hospitals are struggling with a lack of energy and medical means, while there is now an influx of dead and injured.
Amputations
“Since last night, sixty people and 27 people have been killed, most women and children,” says Suhaib al-Hams, director of the Al-Kuwaiti Hospital, by telephone from the south of Gaza. “Many injured people have life -threatening injuries on their heads or intestines, or need amputations.”
But the hospital no longer has intensive care. Al-Hams also fears a reduced capacity of ambulances due to the blockade, which are already difficult to operate in the midst of the devastation in Gaza. Many dead and injured are transported on wooden carts or in passenger cars.
On Monday night, 55 dead and 113 injured were brought in in the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. “The injuries are very complex: from amputations from limbs to orthopedic cases and burns,” says Mohammed Abu Mughaiseeb, deputy medical coordinator of Doctors without Borders (MSF) in southern Gaza, in audio messages NRC obtained through MSF Nederland.
There was hardly any of a ceasefire for the heavy bombing of Monday night. Since the entrance of the file between Israel and Hamas on January 19, Israel killed more than a hundred Palestinians in Gaza. Last weekend it carried out a fatal air raid on a car in the north, which also contained three journalists.
Second phase further out of sight
The second phase of the file has become even further out of sight due to the attacks. Part of the first phase of the file that has now expired was that the nearly two million displaced Palestinians in Gaza could return to their houses and places of residence destroyed – in most cases.
But on Tuesday the Israeli army again gave an order for residents of parts of Gaza to leave. The area designated by the army is a zone along the borders of Gaza with Israel and Egypt.
With this, Israel resumes the strategy of ‘evacuation trips’ – with which the residents of Gaza have hunted since October 2023 in the context of the fight against Hamas. Almost the entire population is displaced by this.
The injuries are very complex; From amputations to burns
The Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said on Tuesday that the most recent air strikes were carried out due to a lack of progress in the negotiations with Hamas. In recent weeks, however, Israel has refused to negotiate the implementation of the second phase, and tried to move Hamas to an extended first phase.
“The most important motivation of Israel is to avoid the second phase of the January agreement and thus derail the agreement,” says analyst Mouin Rabbani, as a researcher affiliated with the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies in Doha. In addition to a further exchange of prisoners, the second phase would entail a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a long-term ceasefire.
According to Rabbani, it is still unclear whether the air strikes are the start of ‘a new genocidal campaign in Gaza that makes the agreements of the January completely irrelevant’, or whether they are an attempt ‘to put pressure on Hamas to agree to an agreement that deviates substantially from it’.
Cease-fire violated
An Israeli official said to the newspaper Israel Hayom That Israel with the attacks hopes to move Hamas towards the proposal for a file of the American Middle East envy Steve Witkoff. With that plan for a renewed prison exchange within an extended first phase, without withdrawal from Gaza, Israel put the agreements of the file to his own hands. For Hamas, that one -sided change change is unacceptable.
The group announced on Tuesday that it is still committing to the indirect negotiations on a continuation of the file, mediated by Qatar and Egypt. It called Israel’s accusation that Hamas would have prepared an attack prior to the air strikes, a false pretext to resume war.
Among the dead of Monday night are some of Hamas officials. Among them are the head of the Ministry of the Interior, Mahmoud Abu Watfa, and the head of the Security Service, Bahjat Abu Sultan.
Netanyahu kills the hostages, including my son, because of his throne
The Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the Israeli air strikes on Tuesday a “flagrant violation of the file” and said that the negotiators will nevertheless continue to commit themselves to a continuation of the file.
Until Israel’s irritation, the US started direct discussions with Hamas earlier this month about release of Israeli-American hostages in Gaza. According to analyst Rabbani, the direct American dialogue with Hamas plays in Israel’s decision to resume his air strikes. In addition, the new army leader Eyal Zamir wants to show that he can achieve better results in Gaza than his predecessor. “
Political survival
Netanyahu is still at the war in Gaza for his political survival. There are still corruption cases hanging over the head. A session planned on Tuesday was postponed.
His extreme right-wing coalitionmates are strongly opposed to agreements with Hamas. The extreme right-wing Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, left the government against the file earlier. Following the air strikes in Gaza, his party announced on Tuesday that he wanted to participate in the government again.
In Israel, families of hostages in Gaza reacted furiously to the air strikes on Gaza, because they can jeopardize the 24 -living male Israelis who are being held in Gaza. According to the families, Netanyahu may sacrifice their lives for his political survival.
On Tuesday there were demonstrations at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, whereby was called for a continuation of the file. Families of hostages also demonstrated at the border fence with Gaza.
Yehuda Cohen, the father of the Israeli soldier Nimrod Cohen who is held in Gaza, said to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that Netanyahu “kills the hostages, including my son, because of his throne.”