The Israeli occupation army continues to sow death in the Gaza Strip, while the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) announced it was suspending the delivery of aid from a key crossing point with Israel .
New Israeli bombings have killed at least 15 people in the Gaza Strip, the Reuters news agency reported yesterday.
A strike on a house in the Nusseirat camp, in the center of the Palestinian enclave, killed 6 people, and another killed 3 in the city of Ghaza, according to Palestinian medical staff cited by the news agency. While 2 children were killed by a missile fired at a tent camp in Khan Younes, in the south of the Gaza Strip, 4 other people died in a bombing in Rafah, near the border with Egypt.
According to residents, the Israeli army exploded blocks of houses in the areas of Djabaliya, Beit Lahya and Beit Hanoun, in the north of the Gaza Strip, where the army has been carrying out bombings since the beginning of October. intense and orders forced evacuations, while depriving the area of humanitarian aid.
During the night from Friday to Saturday, Israeli strikes also killed at least 32 people in Gaza, according to the Reuters agency citing medical sources. The Ministry of Health announced yesterday a new death toll of 44,429 deaths in the Palestinian territory since October 2023. At least 47 people were killed in the last twenty-four hours, he said in a press release. .
UNRWA suspends aid delivery…
The United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) announced yesterday that it would suspend the delivery of aid to the Gaza Strip from a key crossing point with Israel, as delivery had become “impossible”. “We are suspending the delivery of aid through Kerem Shalom, the main crossing point for humanitarian aid in Gaza.” “It’s a difficult decision (…) while hunger is rapidly worsening,” said the head of Unrwa, Philippe Lazzarini, on X. Most trucks containing humanitarian aid enter through the Kerem Shalom crossing on the border between Israel and the southern Gaza Strip. However, “the road leading out of this crossing point has not been safe for months.
On November 16, a large convoy of aid trucks was stolen by armed gangs,” added Philippe Lazzarini. “We tried to transport a few food trucks on this same road. They were all caught,” he wrote. “The humanitarian operation has become impossible”, in particular, according to Lazzarini, due to the “ongoing siege, the obstacles posed by the Israeli authorities” and the “lack of security” on the routes. “The responsibility for the protection of humanitarian workers and equipment rests with the State of Israel as the occupying power.
He must ensure that aid reaches Gaza safely and refrain from attacking humanitarian workers,” said the head of UNRWA, who is calling for a ceasefire. The Gaza Strip has descended into anarchy, with an increase in famine, widespread looting and increasingly frequent rapes in refugee camps, while public order has collapsed, warnings last Friday , UN officials. Most trucks enter through Kerem Shalom before being checked for security reasons. These controls are one of the reasons for the slowness of deliveries, according to NGOs, but the Israeli authorities cite the inability of these organizations to take charge of the quantities of aid.
The shortage of fuel for trucks, poor road conditions and fighting in very dense areas add to the complexity of operations. The temporary cessation of deliveries by Unrwa is therefore “a very bad omen” and “dramatic in a context which was already dramatic” reacted Jean-François Corty, president of Médecins du monde, according to which “the mortality indicators are exponential and hallucinatory”, due in particular to the lack of food, medicine and access to water. For Claire Nicolet, head of mission for Médecins sans frontières, it is “catastrophic”. “Commercial deliveries have been stopped, there is no longer a bakery, and the UN agency is the backbone of aid for the supply of food and equipment”, and part of the medical sector.
Efforts for a ceasefire
On the diplomatic front, the United States is “actively working” on a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, but “we are not there yet,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said. of the White House. “There will be further discussions and consultations, and we hope to be able to reach a ceasefire with an agreement on the hostages, but we are not there yet,” said this adviser to US President Joe Biden, on NBC, according to a transcript of the interview published by the channel. “We are actively working to make this happen. We are very involved with key players in the region, and there is activity even today,” he said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said there were “indications” that progress could be made toward an agreement. “What I can say is that there are signs that we could see a greater degree of flexibility on the part of Hamas due to the circumstances, including the agreement in Lebanon, but not only” , he said during a press conference. The Israeli government “has the desire to move forward on this subject,” added the minister.
For his part, the Emir of Kuwait called for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip during a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit. “We call for an immediate ceasefire (in Ghaza), to provide international protection for innocent civilians and to guarantee the opening of safe corridors and the arrival of urgent humanitarian aid,” declared the emir of Kuwait, Michal Al Ahmad Al Sabah, to the six members of the Council of Gulf States meeting in his country. The Emir of Kuwait criticized a policy of “double standards in the application of laws, charters and international resolutions” having “led to the extension of Israeli occupation and the destabilization” of the region. For its part, Hamas is “ready” to discuss “any proposal” for a truce in the Gaza Strip, assured, the day before yesterday, an official of the Palestinian group, while a delegation was in Cairo to meet mediators Egyptians.
The White House announced last Wednesday a new diplomatic effort by the United States, with the help of Turkey, Qatar and Egypt, to secure an agreement on a ceasefire. in Gaza and the release of the hostages held there. Since the start of the year, mediation led by Washington, Doha and Cairo has increased efforts towards a new truce agreement and the release of hostages, but so far in vain.
“Ethnic cleansing”
In rare testimony, former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon claimed that the Israeli army was carrying out “ethnic cleansing” in the Gaza Strip, provoking an outcry within the political class. “The road we are being led on is conquest, annexation and ethnic cleansing,” Yaalon said in an interview on private channel DemocratTV.
Restarted by the journalist who asked him if he thought that Israel was heading towards “ethnic cleansing”, Ya’alon replied: “What is going on there? There is no more Beit Lahia, no more Beit Hanoun, the army intervenes in Jabaliya and in reality we are clearing the land of the Arabs.”
Reactions did not fail to abound, with the Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, describing as “shame” the fact that Israel had “such a character as head of the army and minister of Defense”. Likud, the party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, reacted in a statement castigating Ya'alon “whose (…) lying comments are a gift to the ICC and to the camp of Israel's enemies.”
Moshe Ya'alon was the head of the Israeli army between 2002 and 2005, just before Israel's unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Joining Likud, the party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he was Minister of Defense and Deputy Prime Minister, before resigning in 2016, following differences with Netanyahu.
Israel has 'no excuses' on humanitarian aid, says Berlin
Israel has “no excuse” for preventing the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, a senior representative of German diplomacy said yesterday, on the eve of a conference on the subject in Cairo. Israel must “finally keep its promises to streamline humanitarian aid to Gaza and to grant sufficient humanitarian access at all times,” asked Tobias Lindner, Deputy Foreign Minister, in a press release published ahead of his trip to Egypt. “There is no excuse for this. Israel's right to self-defense finds its limits in international humanitarian law,” he stressed. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock made similar comments in early November, accusing Israel of “constantly” escaping its commitments. The United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) announced yesterday that it would suspend the delivery of aid to the Gaza Strip from a key crossing point with Israel, as delivery had become “impossible”. R. I
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