International mediators intensify their efforts this Wednesday to reach a truce agreement between Israel and the Palestinian movement Hamas in the Gaza Stripwhere the UN fears a “massacre” if the Israeli army launches an operation in the city of Rafah.
According to the Ministry of Health of Hamaswhich took power in Gaza in 2007, 104 people, mostly women and children, died in Israeli night bombings in recent hours in the besieged Palestinian territory, devastated by more than four months of war.
The attacks targeted in particular the cities of Khan Younes and Rafah, in the south, next to the closed border with Egypt, which has become the last refuge for 1.4 million Palestinians, according to the UNthe vast majority displaced by the war and living in extreme conditions.
Since Tuesday, Egypt has received representatives of USAthe main support of Israel, and Qatar, where the Hamas leader lives.
The objective of negotiating a truce that includes the release of the hostages kidnapped in Gaza on October 7 during an unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement on Israeli territory.
The head of Mossad, the Israeli secret service, David Barnea, participated in the talks along with the director of the CIA, William Burns, the Prime Minister of Qatar, Mohammed bin Abdelrahmane Al-Thani, and Egyptian officials, reported AlQahera News television. close to Egyptian intelligence.
The Israeli delegation then left Cairo, according to Israeli media, but negotiations will continue for “the next three days,” AlQahera News said on Tuesday.
A Hamas delegation led by Khalil Al Hayya is scheduled to travel to Cairo, probably on Wednesday, according to a source from the Palestinian movement, considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, highly critical of the Israeli offensive in Gaza, will be received on Wednesday in Cairo by his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah Al Sisi.
““We are working intensively with Egypt and Qatar on a proposal for the release of the hostages,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday.
Relatives of hostages in The Hague
According to Israelof the approximately 250 people kidnapped on October 7, 130 are still held in Loop29 of whom are believed to have died.
A week-long truce in November allowed the release of 105 hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
This Wednesday, nearly a hundred relatives of the hostages went to The Hague to present a complaint against Hamas for “crimes against humanity” before the International Criminal Court (ICC), according to its representatives.
The war was sparked by the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants in southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli data.
In retaliation, Israel promised to “destroy” Hamas and its military offensive has left 28,473 dead in Gaza, the vast majority civilians, according to the latest balance from the Ministry of Health in Gaza.
Since the start of the war, entire neighborhoods in Gaza have been leveled by relentless Israeli bombardment and 1.7 million people have been displaced, according to the UN.
The Gaza Strip, an overpopulated territory of 362 km2, besieged by Israel and mired in a major humanitarian crisis, has approximately 2.4 million inhabitants.
“I prefer to die here”
Rafah is the last urban center where the Israeli army has not yet penetrated and the main entry point for humanitarian aid, insufficient to meet the needs of a population threatened in the middle of winter by famine and epidemics, according to the UN.
In early February, the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, ordered the army to prepare an offensive on Rafah, the “last bastion” of Hamas, according to him. However, on Sunday he assured that Israel would open “a safe passage” for the population to leave the city, without specifying where.
The United States, Israel’s great ally, said it opposes an offensive against Rafah if there are no guarantees for the safety of civilians, while the head of UN Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths, warned that “military operations in Rafah could lead to a massacre.”
“If they ask me to return to Gaza City, I will only do so if it is safe,” said a mother, Ahlam Abu Assi, displaced with her family in Rafah. “If not, I prefer to die here. “They are already dying of hunger there.”
Source: Gestion
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