Fury and fire once again fall on southern Israel and the Gaza Strip, a few months after the signing of a truce negotiated by Egypt. Israel woke up on Saturday to rockets fired from Gaza, and since then, the Israeli Prime Minister has only one word on his mouth: “war”. In response to the attacks, the Jewish state bombed Gaza, and the whole world feared an extension of the fighting. From the first shots to the provisional assessment, 20 minutes retraces for you the first twenty-four hours of this new episode in the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
The surprise attack
The timing was chosen carefully. Saturday is Shabbat, a day of rest in the Jewish religion. The day is traditionally a non-working day in Israel, public transport does not operate, we went to bed full the day before after a traditional meal. This Saturday, fifty years and one day after the start of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, around 6:30 a.m., hundreds of rockets fired from the Gaza Strip fell on Israel. Hamas announces having unleashed the “Al-Aqsa flood” and fired more than 5,000 rockets.
Israel is taken by surprise. “There must have been a failure at the intelligence level, I’m not hiding it,” Raphaël Morav, the Israeli ambassador to France, admitted a few hours later on BFMTV. Dozens of Palestinian fighters have “infiltrated” into towns in southern Israel, announce the police, who are blocking the roads. Within a few hours, the Israeli army nevertheless launched its response, Operation “Iron Swords”. Gaza is bombarded from the air and ground fighting begins, which still concerns “22 places” early Saturday evening.
The world wakes up
From Berlin to Washington, Israel’s great allied powers were quick to condemn “the horrible attacks by Hamas”, in the words of British Foreign Minister James Cleverly. Italy “supports Israel’s right to defend itself” against a “brutal attack”, Spain says it is shocked by the “indiscriminate violence” of Hamas and India declares itself “in solidarity” with Israel. Ukraine also sides with the Jewish state. In the afternoon, the United States reaffirmed an “unwavering” commitment alongside Tel Aviv, wishing to ensure that Israel “has what it needs to defend itself”.
Other countries, such as Russia, are calling for “an immediate ceasefire.” This is the case of Egypt, which asks for “maximum restraint”, and of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who urges the Israelis and Palestinians to “act reasonably”. In France, Emmanuel Macron “strongly condemns the terrorist attacks currently hitting Israel”. Only LFI stands out from this condemnation, justifying the Hamas attack by “a context of intensification of the Israeli occupation policy in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem”. A position which creates controversy within the French political class.
Hezbollah comes into play, fear of spreading conflict
Among the reactions to the attack, that of Iran is naturally at odds with the rest of the international community. “We support this proud operation” undertaken by Hamas, declared Saturday midday the general of the Revolutionary Guards, Yahya Rahim-Safavi. As an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council gets underway, the United States warns “any actor hostile to Israel who would seek to take advantage of the situation.” The idea that the conflict could degenerate is on everyone’s mind.
If the fighting with Hamas mainly concerns the south of the country, Israel must also monitor its northern border. From Lebanon, Hezbollah congratulates Hamas for its “heroic operation”. On Sunday morning, the Islamist organization claimed responsibility for the bombing of three Israeli positions on the border “in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance and people”.
But the conflict can also ignite the powder inside certain countries. Anticipating unrest between the Jewish and Muslim communities, Gérald Darmanin ordered the strengthening of security at places of worship and Jewish schools. During the night, the London police also announced that they were strengthening their patrols in certain neighborhoods after “a number of incidents linked to the conflict”.
Hostages and an already very heavy provisional toll
At the end of Saturday morning, Hamas announced that it had taken hostages, civilians and soldiers. Sunday morning, Ambassador Raphaël Morav estimates that 150 Israelis were taken hostage. “We have no details on the identity of the hostages. But we know that there are some who have been transferred to the territory of Gaza,” he specifies. Among them could be a 26-year-old Franco-Israeli from Bordeaux, kidnapped while participating in a music festival, says MP Meyer Habib.
In just twenty-four hours, the toll is already very heavy. The fighting left “more than 200 dead”, including 26 soldiers, and “more than 1,000 injured” on the Israeli side. A major blood drive has been launched at the national level. The Israeli army also accuses Hamas of having “massacred civilians” in their homes. In the Gaza Strip, where a hospital was bombed by Israeli forces, Hamas has counted 313 dead and nearly 2,000 injured.