Why Israel is cutting the Gaza Strip in half

“Today there is one Gaza in the north and another Gaza in the south,” Israel’s chief military spokesman Daniel Hagari said on Sunday evening, confirming something that has begun to become clear in recent days.

Hagari’s comments coincided with a night of heavy Israeli bombing and a new internet outage in Gaza, Rushdi Abualouf, a BBC journalist on the scene, reported.

The correspondent assures that this was so a “very hard” night and that although communications resumed Monday morning, it remains difficult to obtain information from Gaza City.

The director of Al-Shifa hospital in that city reported this in turn people transported corpses on donkeys and in their own car because the ambulance service was no longer working due to the power outage.

In addition, the report stated that 200 deaths occurred during the night due to Israeli bombing.

The Israeli military insists that Hamas uses hospitals in northern Gaza for “combat purposes,” something the director of Al-Shifa hospital denies, explaining that the medical center is open to UN inspections.

The death toll in Gaza since Israel began bombing the area rose to 10,022 on Monday, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza.

Israel on the two main roads

With the appearance last week of a tank on the Saladin highway, the main road through the Gaza Strip that connects the north with the south of the area, it became clear that isolate the northern third of the enclave It was a priority for Israel, BBC diplomatic correspondent Paul Adams reported.

During the days that followed, heavy fighting was reported in the relatively open terrain between the Saladin Road and the coast.

Several buildings in the area, such as the Turkish Friendship Hospital, were caught in the crossfire, while others, such as Al-Azhar University, with its elegant new buildings funded by Morocco and Saudi Arabia, appear to have been destroyed. completely destroyed because of last weekend’s bombings.

Similarly, the other route connecting the north and south along the coast, the Al Rashid Highway, was packed with Israeli armored vehicles late last week, Adams added.

Attacks throughout Gaza

Despite Israel’s repeated calls for civilians in northern Gaza to move south of the Wadi Line, which is just halfway across, it has become clear that the Israeli army attacking objectives it considers crucial throughout the Strip from Gaza.

This became even clearer with Saturday’s attack on the Maghazi refugee camp, located in the heart of Gaza.

But the Israeli military’s main focus is on the densely urbanized area of ​​Gaza City and the nearby Jabalia and Al-Shati refugee camps.

Israel believes this is Hamas’s main stronghold.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in recent days that his security forces’ counteroffensive had extended beyond the outskirts of Gaza City, which is under complete siege.

Israel continues to urge more than 300,000 civilians in the north to leave, but those who are unwilling or unable to leave the area are now condemned to live amid intense urban conflict.

The pain of the hostages’ families

The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt reopened on Monday for foreign nationals or dual nationals and seriously injured Palestinians in need of medical attention.

Rafah has been the only open border to and from Gaza since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 and the Israeli army began its retaliatory attacks.

On the other hand, calls in Israel continue for the government to secure the release of more than 240 hostages -including women, children and the elderly- which the Islamist group captured in its first attack, killing more than 1,400 Israelis.

Adva Adar, whose 85-year-old grandmother was kidnapped by Hamas, told the BBC she is confident the Israeli counter-offensive will aim to free the hostages.

“If they carry out a ground invasion in Gaza, they do it because it can help bring back the hostages,” he said by telephone from Israel.

‘If I don’t believe it, I can’t have hope. And if I can’t have hope, I have no reason to wake up in the morning. “I have to believe she’ll come back,” he concluded.

Blinken and his accommodating messages for both camps

Analysis by Jeremy Bowen

BBC international editor

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is back in the Middle East.

This Monday he was in Ankara, the capital of Turkey, to talk with Turkish leaders.

The American official gave messages your audience wants to hear.

On the one hand, he assured the leader of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), President Mahmoud Abbas, that the organization should play a role in Gaza after the war.

He also condemned settler violence in the West Bank and said he wants to reduce Palestinian civilian casualties in Gaza and improve living conditions.

But as he continues this speech, he is also telling Israel that if you have 100% support, militarily and diplomatically, you just have to do it in accordance with international law.

In practice, however, I don’t see many changes.

It appears that the Americans continue to discourage countries like Iran and its allies from getting involved in the war, and this could have consequences. (JO)