The international pressurel increased on Tuesday over Israel to reach an agreement truce with Hamaswhich would include a new hostage exchange and prevent an announced offensive against Rafahin southern Gaza, where They shelter more than a million Palestinians.
(You may be interested in: Israel: between the dilemma of rescuing more hostages or ending the war in Gaza).
Don't come back until everyone is back. The quick and the dead
CIA Director William Burns, Mossad chief David Barnes and Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani met with Egyptian officials in Cairo on Tuesday “to discuss a truce in Gaza“, according to television AlQahera News.
The talks took place “in a positive atmosphere,” according to the network, which cited a “senior Egyptian official.” The families of the hostages held in Gaza sent a message to the Israeli delegation: “Do not return until everyone is back. The living and the dead.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently ordered the army to prepare a offensive against Rafah, on the border with Egypt. There they concentrate 1.4 million Palestinians, according to the UN, more than half of the total population of the Gaza Strip, most of them displaced by the war that began four months ago.
The Secretary General of the UN, Antonio Guterres, said he hopes that the negotiations “will be successful, to avoid an all-out offensive against Rafah (…), which would have devastating consequences“and that, according to the organization's head of humanitarian operations, Martin Griffiths, “could lead to a massacre.”
China asked Israel to stop “as soon as possible” its operation, to “avoid an even more serious humanitarian catastrophe“.
Netanyahu reiterated the day before his determination to continue with military pressure “until complete victory” against Hamas, which has Rafah as its “last bastion”, and to release “all” the hostages.
(Also: This was the military operation in which Israel freed two hostages in the Gaza Strip).
Israel released on Monday two Israeli-Argentine hostages in Rafah during a night operation accompanied by bombings that killed a hundred peopleaccording to the authorities of the Palestinian Islamist movement, in power in Gaza since 2007.
The Israeli army announced on Tuesday the death of three soldiers in the fighting in the Gaza Strip, bringing to 232 the number of Israeli soldiers killed since the start of the ground operation on October 27.
The army also released a video that it claims shows the head of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinuar, filmed in a Palestinian territory tunnel October 10th. The discovery of the video during a military operation is part of “a crawl [de Sinuar] that will only end when we have captured him alive or dead“said Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari.
How is the war between Israel and Gaza going?
AFP journalists saw columns of smoke on Tuesday bombings of Khan Younis and Rafahwhere two Al Jazeera journalists were “seriously injured” in a “deliberate attack” by Israel, according to Qatari television.
On a visit to the Gaza border, Israeli army chief Herzi Halevi stated that they were “preparing for the fighting to continue for a long time.”
The war was unleashed on October 7 by a Hamas commando attack in southern Israelwhich resulted in the deaths of more than 1,160 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data. In retaliation, The Israeli government vowed to “annihilate” Hamas.
The Israeli offensive has left 28,473 dead in the Gaza Strip, the vast majority civilians, according to the Hamas government's Ministry of Health. According to Israel, 130 hostages remain in Gaza, of whom 29 are believed to have died, out of some 250 people kidnapped on October 7.
(We recommend you read: The CIA, Mossad, Qatar and Egypt meet in Egypt to discuss a new truce in Gaza).
A week-long truce in November allowed the release of 105 hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinians held by Israel.
Hamas's armed wing claimed that five hostages were killed by shelling in recent days. However, AFP was unable to verify this information.
What is expected from the truce?
We fled the north with nothing, then we went to Khan Yunis with nothing
Amid international fears of a major military offensive, Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel would open “safe passage” to the population to leave Rafah, without specifying to which destination.
According to him Wall Street Journalwhich quotes senior Egyptian officials, Israel proposes creating 15 large fields of 25,000 tents each in the southwest of the Gaza Strip, as part of an evacuation plan. Many Palestinian families who have already been displaced several times and fear having to move again, began to dismantle their tents in Rafah and collect their belongings.
“We fled the north with nothing, then we went to Khan Yunis with nothing,” said Ismail Joundiyah, one of the displaced. “This time, we want to be ready.”
About 1.7 million people, according to the UN, out of a total of 2.4 million inhabitants, have fled their homes since October 7 in the Palestinian territory, besieged by Israel and plunged into a major humanitarian crisis.
The war also caused an escalation of tensions in the Middle East. On Tuesday, Hassan Nasrallah, head of the Lebanese pro-Iran Hezbollah – which has exchanged fire with Israel since the beginning of the war in support of Hamas – made the end of these attacks conditional on “a ceasefire being reached” in Gaza.
AFP
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