The Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues to escalate, and the Israeli army is still preparing for a full-scale attack on Rafah and has already used armored forces. Seeing the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza continue to intensify, all parties, including the European Union, are urging Israel to stop, but Israel is not only insisting on going its own way, but what is even more surprising is that under Israel's continuous actions, this round of Palestinian-Israeli conflict has seen these three chaotic situations.
First, the Israeli army suddenly killed its own people by mistake.
According to CCTV News, the Israel Defense Forces admitted on the 16th that on the 15th, the Israeli army did cause a serious accidental injury in Jabaliyah, northern Gaza.
Preliminary investigations by the Israeli military indicate that during operations at the Jabaliyah camp, Israeli tank units found the barrel of a gun from the window of a building, and because it was identified as an enemy weapon, a tank fired two shells at the building, killing five Israeli soldiers and wounding seven Israeli soldiers, all of whom belonged to the 202nd Battalion of the Paratrooper Brigade.
At present, the manslaughter incident is still under further investigation. However, this is not the first time that Israeli forces have mistakenly killed friendly troops in Gaza. According to a report by reference sources on May 3, an internal IDF investigation report showed that on April 28, the same Israeli tank fired shells at buildings in Gaza, killing two of its own people and injuring two others.
Israel's several accidental killings of its own people cannot help but make people doubt the level of training of the Israeli soldiers fighting in Gaza, and make people even more "worried" about how many casualties the Israeli army will pay if the Israeli ground forces launch an all-out offensive in Rafah.
Second, the former Indian colonel was killed in Gaza.
According to the Global Times, citing the Hindustan Times and other Indian media, on May 13, a United Nations staff member was killed and injured in an attack in Rafah, and the dead staff member was Vaibaf Anil Kale, a retired Indian military officer. It is reported that Kale, a former colonel of the Indian Army, retired from the Indian Army in 2022 and later served as the Security Coordinator of the United Nations Department of Safety and Security, working for the United Nations for only a few weeks when he was killed.
It is worth noting that this is the first foreign UN staff member to die in Gaza since the outbreak of this round of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At a time when the United Nations has spoken out in anger, condemning all attacks on UN staff and calling for a thorough investigation, India's Ministry of External Affairs has mourned Kale's death while supporting an investigation into the incident, but Israel has also said it wants a separate investigation.
Israel's attitude raises doubts as to whether it was injuring United Nations staff members by mistake or whether it was carrying out targeted "beheadings".
First of all, Israel has always been dissatisfied with the United Nations and has criticized the United Nations no less. Secondly, this is not the first time that the United Nations has suffered an accident, as at the end of March this year, a United Nations team was bombed on the Lebanese-Israeli border, and Lebanon blamed Israel, but Israel distanced itself from it.
Whatever the truth, however, the killing of UN staff members is bound to have a further negative impact on the United States and Israel, putting the United States and Israel under increasing international pressure.
Thirdly, Israel has openly gone into trouble with the United Nations.
According to a report on the 16th, the Israeli military said in a statement on the 15th that Hamas appeared on the United Nations campus in Rafah and called on the United Nations to investigate the matter. An Israeli military spokesman said drone footage showed Hamas militants walking next to U.N.-tagged vehicles at the logistics centre of the United Nations relief agency, the United Nations relief agency, the United Nations Relief Agency for Palestine Relief in the Near East (UNRWA), east of Rafah.
(UN Secretary-General António Guterres)
It is reported that the establishment of UNRWA is aimed at helping Palestinian refugees, but since the outbreak of this round of Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Israel and the United Nations have been quite unfriendly, and before that, Israel has criticized this United Nations agency in Gaza, and demanded that the United Nations dissolve this agency on the grounds that UNRWA cooperated with Hamas. However, UNRWA categorically denies Israel's allegations.
Now that Israel has once again made accusations against the UN body, as if accusing the UN of "shielding" Hamas, what is Israel's next move?
It is imperative for the Israeli army to attack Rafah, and for Israel, the presence of United Nations agencies in Rafah will undoubtedly cause great problems for the Israeli army. Does Israel's accusation against the United Nations before launching its formal ground offensive against Rafah be used as a political means to "bring the United Nations into one force" or is it intended to use it as a lever to attack the United Nations institutions "in the open" under the pretext of attacking Hamas?
Of course, how the situation develops next will depend on how the United Nations responds to Israel's accusations.