2023-10-23 15:56:56
Humanitarian aid began to arrive this Saturday to the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing with the first 20 trucks, while sources from Kibbutz Nir Oz confirmed to PageI12 that they received official news of the murder of Argentine José Luis Silberman in the attack carried out by the Islamist movement Hamas in Israeli territory on October 7.
The long-awaited humanitarian assistance arrived shortly following 10:00 local time, in an operation that was carried out by the Red Crescent. The supplies included canned food, medications, blankets, mattresses and coffins. However, only 2 of the 20 trucks were carrying a load of water, which will supply only 22,000 people for one day, indicated the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef). The organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF) considered that the aid provided was “totally insufficient” in a message published on its social networks. Upon arriving in the Strip, the shipment was taken to warehouses of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), which took charge of the distribution. An official from this organization told the EFE agency that they were not allowed to take the aid to the north of the Strip and that it might only be distributed to hospitals in the south.
In its latest report, UNRWA raised the number of displaced Gazans to 1.4 million – almost 60% of the population – while the Ministry of Health reported in a statement that the death toll rose to 4,385 – of which more than 70% are minors, women and the elderly– and 14,000 injured, in the framework of Israel’s bombing campaign in retaliation for the Hamas attack that killed 1,400 people and took 210 hostages, among them them José Luis Silberman, who became the ninth Argentine to die in this event.
The 67-year-old man had been kidnapped by the terrorist group along with his Israeli wife, Margit, his daughter Shiri, his son-in-law and two young grandchildren. In this way, there are now two people who appeared dead, among the 22 Argentine hostages. The first had been reported by the Argentine Foreign Ministry on Wednesday: Matias Burstein, 41, who had attended the electronic party near the Gaza Strip and regarding whom there was no news.
“We will enter the Gaza Strip”
Israel is intensifying plans and maneuvers to carry out the ground offensive, while the Air Force continues to relentlessly bombard various points in the Strip. The head of the Defense Forces, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, gave a speech to his troops in which he told them to be prepared to enter Gaza. “We will enter the Gaza Strip. We will begin an operational and professional mission to destroy Hamas agents and infrastructure and we will also keep in our minds the images, the scenes and the fallen from two weeks ago,” Halevi said. “Gaza is complex and the enemy is preparing many things there, but we are also preparing things for them,” he added.
The Israeli Army also launched an operation in the hometown of Hamas number two Saleh al-Aruri, located in the occupied West Bank. Dozens of residents were questioned and more than 20 were detained, including a brother of Al-Aruri and nine of his nephews, according to the mayor, Ali al Jasib, and witness accounts.
The border with Lebanon
While all attention seems to be focused on Gaza, tension is progressively increasing on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, where exchanges of fire between Israeli troops and the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah are increasingly recorded.
This Saturday, several rockets launched from Lebanese territory fell in the area of Mount Dov, better known internationally as Cheba Farms – an area disputed between Lebanon and Israel. In response, Israeli forces shelled Lebanese territory with artillery. In total, according to the latest local reports, at least 28 people have died so far on the Lebanese side since October 8, a day following Benjamin Netanyahu’s government declared a “state of war” once morest Hamas.
Hezbollah warned that it will intervene in support of Hamas if Israel enters Gaza and assured that if that happens it will be a “cemetery for the enemy.” “As events develop and something arises that requires our intervention, we will do so,” stressed Hezbollah’s deputy secretary general, Naim Qasem, in a speech during the funeral of one of the members of his organization killed in the last days of violence in southern Lebanon. And he added that “the United States must know that it will bear the consequences of everything that happens.” This group is considered terrorist by the US and Israel, as is its armed wing by the European Union, Canada, the United Kingdom and Egypt. However, many governments in the Arab world consider it a resistance movement.
The summit in Egypt
Meanwhile, the Peace Summit for Gaza and the “Palestinian question” organized by Egypt in the so-called New Administrative Capital, east of Cairo, ended without a joint final declaration from the 34 countries and international organizations that participated in the meeting. . Instead, the country that called the meeting issued a note in which it thanked the effort to seek consensus above political or religious positions to address this crisis and the situation in Israel and Palestine, and for its common position when it came to “see the importance of reevaluating the international strategy to address the conflict.”
All those who expressed their opinion at the beginning of the event were categorical in defending the same ideas: the coexistence of two States is the only viable solution to the conflict, civilian lives must be protected everywhere and humanitarian aid must be able to enter the Strip. from Gaza. Also noted, however, was the gap in sensitivity between the Arab world and the West when it came to assessing the situation of the Palestinians and the responsibilities for their situation. In fact, Arab sources informed EFE that the final declaration did not occur, despite the agreement on many issues, due to the European refusal to hold Israel responsible for the deaths of civilians and to demand a ceasefire.
Inform: Axel Schwarzfeld
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