The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas said that negotiations for a truce with Israel no longer had “no sense” in the aftermath of the announcement by Israel of a plan of “conquest” of the Gaza Strip, including a minister of Benjamin Netanyahu predicted total destruction.
The objective displayed by the Israeli government is to defeat Hamas whose attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 sparked the war in Gaza, and bringing back the hostages removed that day and still retained in the Palestinian territory.
The Israeli army reprisal offensive has devastated the Gaza Strip, made tens of thousands of deaths and caused a humanitarian disaster. Israel, which besieges the 2.4 million inhabitants in Gaza, prohibited since March 2 the entry of all humanitarian aid in the enclave.
The head of diplomacy of the European Union Kaja Kallas judged on Tuesday “untenable” the situation in Gaza. “Humanitarian aid must resume immediately and should never be politicized,” she wrote on X, by reporting a telephone interview with the Israeli Foreign Affairs Gideon Saar.
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The latter earlier accused Hamas “to use humanitarian aid entering Gaza to feed his war machine”.
The UN has accused Israel accused of using humanitarian aid as a “weapon” of war, by sending “bombs” rather than water and food to the Palestinian population.
On Monday, the Israeli government announced a new military campaign which provides for the “conquest” of the Gaza Strip and a massive displacement of its population within the territory.
“Gaza will be completely destroyed,” the Israeli far-right finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Tuesday, questioned about his post-war vision in Gaza.
After being moved to the south, the Gazan population will begin to “go in large numbers to third countries,” he said during a conference in the Israeli colony of Ofra, in the West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
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Any attempt by Israel to annex territories to Gaza would be “unacceptable”, warned London.
After 38 years of occupation, Israel had unilaterally withdrew in 2005 from the Gaza Strip. After he was taken by Hamas, he imposed an air, maritime and terrestrial blockade there for more than 15 years.
“There is no sense to initiate negotiations, nor to examine new proposals as a ceasefire as long as the war of hunger and the war of extermination in Gaza continue,” Bassem Naïm, a member of the Hamas political bureau, told AFP.
-Despite the blocking, Qatar, one of the mediators between Israel and Hamas, said he continued his efforts for a truce.
In Gaza, the civil defense reported 31 dead and “dozens of injured” in two consecutive Israeli air strikes during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, against a school housing people in Bureij, in the center of the territory. The Israeli army said it had targeted “a command and control center” in Hamas.
The Israeli army resumed its offensive on Gaza on March 18, ending two months of truce with Hamas.
In Israel, the army called for tens of thousands of reservists for an expansion of its offensive in Gaza.
But a senior security official said on Monday that there was a “window” of negotiations for the release of hostages until the end of the visit of American president Donald Trump, expected from May 13 to 16 in the Middle East.
Trump on Tuesday promised a “very, very big announcement” before his trip to the Middle East, however refusing to give any index on his nature.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said that “all parties should make additional efforts (…) to see our hostages come back immediately”.
The attack on October 7, 2023 led to the death of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data.
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The Israeli offensive left at least 52,615 dead in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to data from the Ministry of Hamas, deemed reliable by the UN.
Donald Trump said on Tuesday that three of the hostages still retained in Gaza, removed during the attack on October 7, died and that 21 were alive.
According to the previous assessment established by the Israeli army, out of the 251 people kidnapped that day, 58 of whom are still in Gaza, 34 had so far been declared dead.
Since the start of the war, several series of difficult negotiations between Hamas and Israel have enabled two truce – one week in November 2023 and the other two months in early 2025 – during which hostages retained in Gaza and Palestinian prisoners held by Israel have been released.
Challenge (with AFP)
