New Israeli strikes in Gaza, sanctions on Iran

The European Union, which has called for “utmost restraint”, decided on Wednesday to impose new sanctions on Iran, targeting the makers of drones and missiles, the devices used in the first direct attack on Israeli soil by Tehran, a Hamas ally.

“We are on the brink of a war in the Middle East that will send shock waves to the rest of the world,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned ahead of the G7 summit in Italy.

At the same time, Israel continues its operation in the Gaza Strip, launched in response to an October 7 attack by Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza, which resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP estimate. according to official Israeli data.

More than 250 people were abducted and 129 remain in custody in Gaza, of whom 34 have died according to Israeli officials.

During the night from Wednesday to Thursday, witnesses reported that deadly Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip led to a humanitarian disaster. At least 71 more deaths were reported in 24 hours, the Hamas Health Ministry reported, bringing the total number of deaths in the Israeli offensive to 33,970, mostly civilians.

“The bodies of eight people from the Ayyad family, including five children and two women, were discovered after a strike on their farm in Al-Salam district” in Rafah (south), according to the same source.

“I woke up to the sound of girls shouting ‘mum, mum’ (…) I ran and found the children (…) there were dead bodies scattered everywhere,” Palestinian Jamalat Ramidan told AFP the strike in Rafah, where there are one and a half million people displaced by the war.

Bombing also hit Al-Mawasi (South), which became a camp with thousands of tents sheltering displaced people.

“Our land was razed, our house destroyed (…) and our memories buried under the ruins, our hopes and dreams were destroyed,” confides Shams Majid, 22, one of these displaced persons.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also maintaining his plan for a ground offensive on Rafah, on the border with Egypt, which he represents as the last major bastion of Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007 and which Israel also considers a terrorist organization like the United States and the European Union.

Israel’s military said on Thursday it had hit dozens of “targets” across the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours, including “terrorists, observation posts and military structures.”

The war in the Palestinian territory has exacerbated tensions in the region between Israel and its allies such as the United States on the one hand and Hamas and its supporters such as Iran and Iran’s Hezbollah on the other.

Iran said it launched the attack on Israel in response to an attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus on April 1, attributed to Israel, that killed seven members of the Revolutionary Guards, the Islamic Republic’s ideological army.

Israel, which said it foiled the attack, which was carried out with 350 drones and missiles, almost all of which were intercepted by Israeli air defenses with allied countries, reiterates that it will not go “unpunished”.

According to the Israeli public service Khan, Mr. Netanyahu decided not to implement plans for retaliatory strikes after talks with US President Joe Biden, who is trying to avoid a direct Iranian-Israeli confrontation.

“There will be a response, but it will be different from what was originally planned,” a senior official told the channel on condition of anonymity. According to the American channel ABC, the Israeli government has twice considered attacking Iran without taking action.

On Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Ami-Abdollahian indicated that his country had sent several “messages” to Washington to ensure that Iran “does not seek to expand tensions” with Israel.

The United States, Israel’s eternal ally, says it will not participate in Israel’s response.

The White House, however, on Tuesday announced new sanctions “in the coming days” against Tehran.

European Council President Charles Michel also announced on Wednesday that the EU had decided to impose new sanctions on Tehran to send a “clear message” following the attack on Israel.

At a meeting in Capri, Italy, G7 countries are expected to call for individual sanctions against individuals involved in Iran’s missile and drone supply chain, according to a source in Italy’s foreign ministry.

Amid truce talks in the Gaza Strip, the UN, which fears widespread starvation in the territory of 2.4 million people, on Wednesday appealed for $2.8 billion in donations to help Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

Benjamin Netanyahu refuted “allegations of international organizations about hunger in Gaza” and confirmed that Israel is doing “everything possible on the humanitarian issue”.

The Israeli army immediately announced the entry into Gaza of eight trucks carrying flour from the World Food Program through the Israeli port of Ashdod.

In this context, the vote of the UN Security Council at the initiative of Algeria, on the request of the Palestinians to become a full member of the United Nations, should take place on Thursday or Friday, several diplomats said.

The initiative, however, seems doomed, due to the opposition of the United States, which has veto power.