German Chancellor Olaf Scholz met this Sunday in Jerusalem with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Scholz has stressed the need to achieve a truce in Gaza and the release of the Israeli hostages who are still in the hands of Hamas. “Persecuting Hamas is a legitimate goal of Israel. But no matter how important the final objective is, the means and the death of civilians cannot be justified,” he said in a media appearance alongside the Israeli prime minister. “We cannot stand by while Palestinians risk starvation,” he added.
Netanyahu, for his part, criticized this morning the “short memory” of the international community with the Hamas attacks and assured that there will be a military offensive in Rafah, before stating that he will “let the Gazan population leave the enclave before to attack. He has insisted that military defense and the total destruction of Hamas is the only way to ensure peace in Israel and that a terrorist attack like the one perpetrated by the Islamist militia on October 7 is not repeated. “Attacking Rafah is not something we will do while keeping the civilian population locked down. In fact, we will do the opposite, we will allow them to leave. “That is our conscience for your protection,” he stated.
Meanwhile, Israel and Hamas returned to the negotiating table this Sunday, this time in Doha (Qatar) to try to achieve a ceasefire. The envoys of both parties, with the mediation of the United States, Qatar and Egypt, will discuss a truce of at least six weeks in which there would be new exchanges of hostages and prisoners, with the ultimate goal that this truce can become permanent.
On the other hand, the death toll in the Strip has risen to 31,645 people, as reported by the Gaza Ministry of Health, controlled by Hamas. The organization has also reported that 73,676 people have been injured since the start of the conflict, and the number of Palestinians trapped in the rubble rises to between 7,000 and 8,000. The UN children’s agency (UNICEF) has stated in a statement that more than 13,000 children have already died in the Gaza Strip due to Israel’s offensive. “Thousands more have been injured or we cannot even determine where they are. It is possible that they are trapped under the rubble… We have not seen that death rate among children in almost any other conflict in the world,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell in an interview for the American network CBS News.
Furthermore, the president of the European Commission, Úrsula von der Leyen, one of the voices of the Union closest to Israel, has insisted on the need to reach a truce in the enclave to stop the death of civilians. “Gaza is facing famine and we cannot accept it. It is essential to quickly reach a ceasefire agreement that releases the hostages and allows more humanitarian aid to arrive,” she said.
