The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Friday accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of seeking to obstruct efforts for a truce in the devastating war in Gaza, fueling doubts about a quick ceasefire deal.
In the 7th month of the war triggered by an unprecedented bloody attack by Hamas against Israel on October 7, daily Israeli bombings on the Gaza Strip threatened by famine continue, killing 26 people in the last 24 hours according to the movement’s Ministry of Health. Palestinian.
The strikes notably targeted Rafah, a town in the south of the besieged Palestinian territory where Mr. Netanyahu wants to launch a ground offensive to “annihilate” according to him the last brigades of Hamas, a movement that he considers terrorist along with the United States and the European Union.
“We will do what is necessary to win and defeat our enemy, including in Rafah,” he repeated Thursday, reaffirming his intention to launch this offensive “with or without an agreement” of truce.
Israel-Hamas war: ground operation in Rafah would be “an unspeakable tragedy”, says UN
While saying he was studying the truce offer “in a positive spirit”, Hossam Badran, a member of the Hamas political bureau, affirmed that Mr. Netanyahu’s declarations on an offensive in Rafah “clearly aim to derail any possibility of agreement”.
“Netanyahu is not interested in a deal and so he is making statements in the media to thwart ongoing efforts” for a 40-day truce combined with the release of hostages held in Gaza, he said. he accuses.
Mr. Badran told AFP that Hamas negotiators were examining the offer before returning to Cairo where discussions are generally held via mediators – Qatar, Egypt, United States.
Hamas, which took power in 2007 in Gaza, maintains its demands before any agreement, first of all a “definitive” ceasefire and a “complete and total withdrawal” of Israeli forces from Gaza, according to it.
What Israel refuses.
“Bloodbath”
These statements by the protagonists cast doubt on the rapid conclusion of an agreement for a ceasefire despite the efforts and appeals of the international community, especially the United States, Israel’s main ally.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the suspension of trade relations with Israel, announced Thursday, aimed to “force” the country to accept a ceasefire.
During a tour of the Middle East this week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on Hamas to accept the truce offer.
Israel-Hamas war: Hamas says it is studying the truce offer in Gaza with a “positive spirit”
He also urged Israel to abandon an offensive in Rafah, where there are some 1.2 million Palestinians, most of them displaced by the war.
The UN and many countries say they fear for the civilian population in the event of an Israeli assault.
“A large-scale military operation in Rafah could lead to a bloodbath (…),” said the head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Rafah, located on Egypt’s closed border, is the main land crossing point for humanitarian aid for the Palestinian territory besieged by Israel since October 9.
An offensive would be “a major blow to humanitarian operations throughout the Gaza Strip” because Rafah “is at the heart of these operations”, warned the UN Office of Humanitarian Affairs.
Death of a hostage
International aid, strictly controlled by the Israeli authorities, arrives in trickles, mainly from Egypt via Rafah, but remains very insufficient given the immense needs of some 2.4 million Gazans.
Faced with difficulties in delivering aid by road, several countries are participating in operations to airdrop food into the Gaza Strip. But on Friday, a Gaza civil defense spokesman, Mahmoud Bassal, told AFP that packages had fallen on civilians, killing one and injuring several.
The WHO nevertheless judged that the food situation was improving slightly in Gaza but that the risk of famine remained.
On October 7, an attack by Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza in the south of Israel resulted in the death of more than 1,170 people, mainly civilians, according to an AFP report based on official Israeli data.
During the attack, more than 250 people were kidnapped and 128 remain captive in Gaza, 35 of whom died, according to the army.
In retaliation, Israel launched a large-scale offensive – air then land – in the Gaza Strip which has so far left 34,622 dead, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.
On Friday, the government confirmed the death of hostage Dror Or, two of whose children, also kidnapped during the Hamas attack, were released at the end of November during the only truce since the start of the war.
The same day, the army indicated that the remains of Eliakim Livman, previously considered a hostage in Gaza, had been discovered in Israel. “He was assassinated during the massacre of October 7,” according to her.
“What did they do?”
In a district of Rafah, several bodies, including those of children, were found under the rubble of the Chahine family’s house hit by an Israeli strike before dawn.
Sanaa Zourob lost her sister and six of her nephews and nieces in this bombing. “What are these children’s fault? What did they do to cause their building to be bombed? These children were sleeping!” she cried.
Abroad, the student movement against the Israeli offensive in Gaza continues to expand: starting from American campuses, and sometimes being the subject of police repression, it has reached Paris, Lausanne, Berlin, Montreal, Mexico and Sydney.
Israel-Hamas war: ‘If Jews don’t protect themselves, no one will protect them,’ says Netanyahu
