The tanks of the Israeli Army attacked the north of the Gaza Strip again this Wednesday, April 17, while its fighter planes attacked the center and south of the enclave, including the city of Rafah, where the majority of the population remains internally. displaced. The offensives of the last 24 hours left at least 56 people dead. Meanwhile, Qatar, one of the mediating countries in the conflict, assured that talks on a possible truce between Israel and Hamas are going through a “stalemate.”
Attacks on schools and refugee camps, deaths and arrests. The Israeli Army's offensive gives no respite to the 2.3 million Palestinians who survive in the Gaza Strip.
In the last 24 hours, at least 56 people were killed by the Israeli offensive, so The total number of fatalities in more than six months of war amounted to 33,899, The Gaza Ministry of Health indicated this Wednesday.
Tanks of the Israeli troops, which had withdrawn in recent weeks, They resumed their lethal attacks in the north of the enclave this Wednesday, April 17.
The vehicles advanced towards Beit Hanoun and Jabalia and They surrounded some schools where displaced families have taken refuge, while the inhabitants of those localities experienced cuts in Internet servicesthe witnesses described.
The soldiers detained many men
Beit Hanoun, in the north, and home to 60,000 people, was one of the first areas hit by the ground offensive that Israel launched on that area of the enclave on October 27, 20 days after the surprise attack by Hamas in southern Israel. which left around 1,200 people dead and 240 kidnapped.
“The occupation soldiers ordered all families inside the schools and nearby houses where the tanks had advanced to evacuate. The soldiers detained many men,” a resident of northern Gaza told the Reuters news agency.
Most of Beit Hanoun, once known as “the fruit basket” because of its orchards, was turned into a ghost town, reduced to rubble.
But in recent weeks, after the withdrawal of a large part of the northern troops and amid warnings of a ground incursion in Rafah in the south of the enclave, where most of the internally displaced population moved, many families They returned to the north.
However, the military is once again intensifying attacks and arrests in that area.
Likewise, the Hamas-run Interior Ministry, cited by Reuters, said an Israeli airstrike hit a police vehicle in the Tuffah district of Gaza City, killing seven officers.
Refugee camps, among the bombed targets
Simultaneously, the Israeli Army launched several air strikes in the last 24 hours against the center and south of Gazan territory, including Rafah.the last corner where more than half of the total population still takes refuge.
One of the air strikes in that town hit a home and killed seven people: four children, two women and a man, health officials in the enclave said. Their bodies were buried in the Tal Al-Sultan cemetery in Rafah.
Another assault in the same city left at least four people dead.
The bombings also caused deaths in the Nuseirat campin central Gaza, according to medical sources.
I lost my son. I no longer have a house, nor husband, nor anything.
In the Al-Maghazi refugee camp, also in the center of the besieged coastal strip, an Israeli airstrike killed 11 Palestiniansincluding children, according to health officials and the enclave's media office.
“My brothers were sitting by the door, my brother was injured, and his cousin too, and I lost my son. I no longer have a house, no husband, no anything,” she lamented in conversation with the Palestinian news agency Wafaa Issa. al-Nouri, whose son Mohammad and her husband were killed in the attack.
“He was playing at the door, we didn't do anything, I swear we didn't do anything,” he added.
For its part, Israeli forces claimed to have attacked more than 40 targets linked to Hamas militants with fighter jetssuch as observation posts and military infrastructure.
The military institution confirmed that it continued hitting the center and south of the enclave “to eliminate the terrorists and destroy their infrastructure,” without giving more details.
Qatar: Truce talks are going through “a delicate phase”
While Israel intensifies its offensive on Gaza, hopes for reaching a ceasefire are crumbling in the diplomatic field.
This Wednesday, Qatar's Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said that talks on a truce in Gaza and the release of hostages are in a “delicate phase.”
“We are going through a delicate stage with certain stagnationand we are trying to address it as much as possible,” he said.
The statements by the Qatari Government – one of the countries that, together with Egypt and the United States, mediate before the Israeli Army and Hamas – come after the Islamist group rejected the latest agreement proposal on April 14, stating that its requests were not taken into account.
On April 11, the movement that controls Gaza had already indicated that it rejected most of the offer.
In recent months, Hamas has insisted on a truce that leads to the end of the ongoing war, calling for the complete withdrawal of troops from the enclave.the return of the displaced and the entry of humanitarian aid, in exchange for the delivery of the remaining hostages in their possession, after the first week-long cessation of hostilities, which took place at the end of 2023.
But Israel refuses and emphasizes that it is only willing to a provisional ceasefire, that allows the handover of the kidnapped people, but that it will continue with its offensive until it meets its objective of “eradicating” Hamas.
UN Security Council to vote on Palestinian membership on Friday
The 15 members of the UN Security Council will vote on a draft resolution that recommends to the 193 States that make up the United Nations General Assembly that “the State of Palestine be admitted as a member” of that international organization, said diplomats in favor of this recognition.
The vote is scheduled for next Friday at 3:00 p.m., New York time, the organization's headquarters city.
However, The United States, a country with the right to veto and Israel's greatest ally, is expected to block this measure, since if approved it would recognize an eventual Palestinian State.
Washington justifies that the establishment of an independent State, as the Palestinians demand, should occur through direct negotiations between the parties involved and not within the United Nations.
But For decades Israel has refused such recognition, while justifying security reasons.
“We don't see that a resolution in the Security Council will necessarily take us to a place where we can find (…) a two-state solution in the future,” said the US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, on Wednesday.
Earlier this month, Israel's ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, said that “whoever supports the recognition of a Palestinian state at that time not only rewards terrorism, but also supports unilateral measures that are contradictory to the agreed principle.” of direct negotiations”.
Currently, at the UN, the Palestinians are considered a non-member observer state, a de facto recognition, which was granted by the UN General Assembly in 2012. But an application to become a full member of the United Nations must be approved by the Security Council and then by at least two-thirds of the General Assembly.
The UN Security Council has long supported the vision of two States living side by side within secure and recognized borders. The Palestinians demand a state formed in the territories of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, all territories that were captured by Israel in 1967.
In 2005, Israeli troops withdrew from Gaza, the West Bank is currently governed on a limited basis by the Palestinian Authority, and all of Jerusalem, including its eastern part, is controlled by Israel.
Jerusalem is claimed as its capital by both Israelis and Palestinians, one of the crucial flashpoints in the long-running conflict.
Little progress has been made toward achieving a Palestinian state since the signing of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the early 1990s.
With Reuters, AP and EFE
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