Israel's Defense Minister publicly presented proposals for post-war Gaza for the first timewhere local officials reported this Friday dozens of deaths in the last 24 hours in the incessant Israeli bombings.
Yoav Gallant's plan, communicated to the media late Thursday, recommends that neither Israel nor Hamas govern the narrow Palestinian territory, and rejects the establishment of Jewish settlements there.
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This is a preliminary plan, not yet adopted by the Israeli war cabinet. Its general lines were announced on the eve of the fourth trip of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the region since the bloody attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas against Israel on October 7, which left 1,140 dead and sparked the war.
The future of the Palestinian territory is at the center of the concerns of the international community, amid growing calls for a ceasefire. According to Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, Israeli military operations have left 22,600 dead in almost three months, many of them women and children.
In addition, much of the territory has been reduced to rubble. and the UN fears a humanitarian crisis with hundreds of thousands of people displaced who deal with hunger and disease.
Shelling continued overnight in the areas of Khan Yunis and Rafah in the south of the Strip, as well as in parts of central Gaza, according to AFP correspondents.
The Israeli military said its troops “hit more than 100 targets” in Gaza over the past 24 hours, including military positions, rocket launching points and weapons depots. The enclave's Ministry of Health reported 162 deaths in the last 24 hours.
Neither Hamas nor Israel
Under Gallant's plan, the war will continue until Israel has dismantled the “military and governance capabilities” of Hamas, which it has vowed to “annihilate,” and freed it. to the 132 hostages still in the hands of the Islamist group. It is estimated that at least 24 of the 250 prisoners taken by Hamas were killed.
Once Israel achieves its objectives — a horizon for which there is no set timetable — Palestinian “civil committees” will begin to assume control of the territory.
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“Hamas will not govern Gaza, (and) Israel will not govern the civilians of Gaza,” Gallant said., when presenting his plan to the press. “The inhabitants of Gaza are Palestinians. Consequently, Palestinian entities will be in charge (of management) on the condition that there is no hostile action or threat against the State of Israel,” he added.
Rafah overflowing
The living conditions of the 2.4 million Gazans are more than precarious, and the United Nations estimates that there are 1.9 million displaced.
YoAFPTV images show entire families seeking safety from the fighting, arriving at the border town of Rafah in overloaded cars and on foot. “We fled from Jabalia camp to Maan (in Khan Yunis) and now we are fleeing from Maan to Rafah,” said a woman who did not want to give her name. “(We have) no water, electricity or food,” she added.
A spokesman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees told AFP that Rafah is overflowing. “Usually 250,000 people live there. And now there are more than 1.3 million,” said Adnan Abu Hasna. “We observed a collapse of sanitary conditions” and a “significant spread” of diseases, he added.
Ahmad al Sufi, head of Rafah's emergency committee, said 50,000 tents were urgently needed to house the refugees.
At the Al Amal hospital in Khan Younis, one of the few medical centers in Gaza still operating, The Palestinian Red Crescent said seven displaced people, including a five-day-old baby, died.
Immediate relief measures
Blinken landed in Istanbul on Friday, the first stop on his tourin which he plans to discuss with Israeli leaders “immediate measures to substantially increase humanitarian aid to Gaza,” said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.
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In addition to Turkey and Greece, Blinken will travel to Israel, the Palestinian enclave in the West Bank and five Arab countries. Fear of a regional conflagration increased this week after the death of Hamas number two, Saleh al Aruriin a missile attack in Lebanon.
The leader died in southern Beirut, a stronghold of the Hezbollah party, a movement supported by Iran that since the beginning of the conflict has been involved in skirmishes with Israeli troops on Lebanon's southern border. The head of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, assured on Friday that his fighters were going to “respond” on the “battlefield” to the attack.
AFP
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