Gaza: Israeli bombing continues, new ceasefire talks

The Israeli army has bombed several areas of the Gaza Strip, including the town of Rafah, where it is preparing for a major ground operation, despite warnings from the international community.

According to witnesses, the fighting took place north of the Nusseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. AFP correspondents and witnesses also reported artillery fire and airstrikes on the Zeïtoun neighborhood in southern Gaza City. The Hamas Health Ministry counted 43 deaths in 24 hours.

Many capitals and humanitarian organizations fear, in the event of an offensive, bloodshed in this city in the south of the Gaza Strip bordering Egypt, a refuge for almost one and a half million Palestinians, the vast majority of whom are displaced.

Israeli government spokesman David Menzer announced Thursday that the war cabinet had met to discuss the offensive. Several Israeli media outlets, citing unnamed officials, reported that the government had also discussed a new truce plan linked to the release of hostages, ahead of a visit by an Egyptian delegation scheduled for Friday.

The political leader of Hamas, Ghazi Hamad, for his part, assured AFP on Thursday from Qatar that the attack on Rafah will not allow Israel to gain “What does he want“, “eliminate Hamas or recover“hostages. Hamas warned “Egypt and Qatar“, two mediating countries in the conflict with the United States, as well as “other countries” of “the danger posed by the invasion of Rafah“, he emphasized.

In this town in the south of the Gaza Strip, survivors tried to retrieve items from the rubble on Thursday. “Enough destruction, enough war. Enough of the bloodshed of children, women, old people and unarmed civilians (…) it has gone too far (…) Let the people live», One of them, Samir Daban, launched among the ruins.

According to the Egyptian officials he cites The Wall Street Journal, Israel is preparing to move civilians from Rafah to the nearby town of Khan Younes, in particular, where it plans to set up shelters and food distribution centers. This evacuation would last two to three weeks and would be carried out specifically in coordination with the United States, Egypt and other Arab countries, the officials said.

The Gaza Civil Defense said that since Saturday it has exhumed more than 392 bodies of people killed by Israeli forces and buried in mass graves inside Nasser Hospital in Khan Younes. Among them would be the corpses of women and small children with their hands tied behind their backs, indicating summary executions during the attack on this hospital complex.

The UN has called for an international investigation into the mass graves discovered in the two main hospitals of Al-Chifa in Gaza and Nasser in Khan Younes, a request supported by the European Union.

An October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on Israeli soil resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

In retaliation, Israel has been mercilessly shelling the Gaza Strip for almost 7 months, which it has kept under blockade for 17 years and under complete siege since the beginning of the war. In the bombing and ground operations of the Israeli army, 34,305 Palestinians were killed, the vast majority of them women, children and adolescents, and almost 77,000 were injured, according to a report published by the Hamas Health Ministry on Sunday.

The Israeli army is also conducting military operations in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967 and where Hamas is not represented. As of October 7, 2023, at least 486 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank, and hundreds of people have been “arrested” by Israeli forces.

On Thursday, relatives of the hostages demonstrated again in Tel Aviv, to pressure the government to obtain their release. Some had their hands tied and stained red, their mouths covered with a plaster marked with the number “202”, the number of days that had passed since October 7, or they carried a sign that read “Deal with the hostages now“.

Leaders of 18 countries, including the United States, France, the United Kingdom and Brazil, called on Hamas on Thursday to “immediate release of all hostages“. “The hostage release agreement would allow for an immediate and prolonged ceasefire in Gaza», it says in the text.

Port under construction

As the 2.4 million residents of the besieged Palestinian territory face a humanitarian disaster, the United States has begun building a temporary port and wharf facing the Gaza coast, which will allow military or civilian vessels to deliver their aid shipments.

American President Joe Biden announced at the beginning of March the construction of an artificial port due to difficulties in transporting international aid by land from Egypt, due to Israeli military operations, but also due to very restrictive controls introduced by Israel, and several aid trucks were blocked for several weeks at the entrance to the crossing Rafah, on the Egyptian side.

“Just 50 kilometers from the Gaza Strip, vital aid and equipment, including water desalination equipment, first aid kits, oxygen tanks and mobile toilets (…) remain buried in warehouses, barred from entering Gaza under the pretext that they can use them fighters“, said Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories, on Thursday.