2024-02-01 11:12:00
Efforts are intensifying for a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian Hamas in the Gaza Strip, where fighting and deadly Israeli raids continue on Thursday, worsening the already dire humanitarian situation.
Published at 6:12 a.m. Updated at 11:30 a.m.
Adel ZAANOUN, with Béatrice LE BOHEC in Jerusalem Agence France-Presse
Witnesses reported Israeli strikes near the Nasser hospital in Khan Younes, where, according to Israel, leaders of the Palestinian Islamist movement are hiding.
In this large city in the south of the territory, partly destroyed, more than 30,000 displaced people sheltered in schools around the Nasser hospital are faced with a lack of food, water, medicine and infant formula. Hamas Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said Thursday.
Hamas leader Ismaïl Haniyeh, who lives in exile in Qatar, is expected in Egypt on Thursday or Friday to discuss a new cessation of fighting, almost four months following the start of the war triggered by the movement’s bloody attack Palestinian Islamist once morest Israel on October 7.
These discussions are to focus on a proposal emerging from a recent meeting in Paris between CIA chief William Burns and Egyptian, Israeli and Qatari officials.
PHOTO MOHAMMED SALEM, REUTERS
A refugee camp in Rafah, February 1, 2024
“Proposal in three phases”
According to a Hamas source, the movement is examining a proposal in three phases, the first of which provides for a six-week truce during which Israel will have to release between 200 to 300 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for 35 to 40 hostages held in Gaza, and 200 to 300 aid trucks will be able to enter the Palestinian territory every day.
Some 250 people were kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip on the day of the Hamas attack, around a hundred of whom were released at the end of November following a first truce, in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. According to Israeli authorities, 132 hostages remain held in Gaza. Among them, 27 were declared dead by the army.
To support efforts for a second truce, the head of American diplomacy, Antony Blinken, will return “in the coming days” to the Middle East, according to Washington.
At this stage, Hamas, considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union in particular, is demanding a total ceasefire as a prerequisite for any agreement, particularly on the release of hostages.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for his part, evokes a possible truce but continues to affirm that he will only end his offensive in Gaza once Hamas is eliminated, the hostages released, and following having received guarantees on the future security of Israel.
“We are working to obtain another agreement for the release of our hostages, but not at any price,” declared Mr. Netanyahu on Tuesday evening, under pressure both from the families of hostages for a release and from members of his government, hostile to an agreement which would be too generous, according to them, for the Palestinians.
PHOTO IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA, REUTERS
Rafah, February 1, 2024
In response, Israel vowed to “annihilate” Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007, and launched a military offensive which left 27,019 dead, the vast majority civilians, according to the Palestinian movement’s Ministry of Health.
Unrwa proposed for the Nobel Peace Prize
In the devastated Palestinian territory which has become “uninhabitable”, according to the UN, the population is “starving” and “being pushed to the brink”, denounced the World Health Organization (WHO).
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), which said on Thursday it feared having to cease its activities “by the end of February”, was however nominated by a Norwegian elected official for the Nobel Peace Prize, “for his long-term work to provide vital support to Palestine and the region.”
Thirteen donor countries suspended their contributions to this agency following accusations by Israel once morest 12 of its employees suspected of involvement in the October 7 attack. Unrwa announced that it had dismissed most of the employees concerned.
In the Nasser hospital, the largest in Khan Younes, which lacks everything, overwhelmed doctors try to cope with the influx of wounded.
The war has forced 1.7 million Gaza residents, according to the UN, out of a total of 2.4 million, to flee their homes.
PHOTO MAHMUD HAMS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Palestinians flee Khan Younes, January 30, 2024.
As the fighting spread, more than 1.3 million displaced people, according to the UN, are now crowded into Rafah, trapped once morest the closed border with Egypt.
Outside of Gaza, the conflict still risks igniting the Middle East region. Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who since mid-November have been targeting international shipping in “solidarity” with the Palestinians, claimed responsibility for an attack on an American ship in the Gulf of Aden overnight.
Shortly following, Washington announced that it had destroyed ten attack drones and a Houthi command post in Yemen.
British Foreign Minister David Cameron, for his part, discussed Thursday in Beirut “means of restoring calm” on the Israeli-Lebanese border, the scene of bombings between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, a Lebanese movement allied with the Iran and Hamas.
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