2023-12-04 23:40:00
Explanations for the lack of agreement on an extension of the truce? According to a US official, discussions between Israel and the Hamas terrorist group failed, in part, because the Palestinian movement did not want female hostages to reveal what they had suffered. Israel had stopped its offensive in Gaza as part of an agreement negotiated under the aegis of Qatar and the United States providing for the release of hostages kidnapped by Hamas during its bloody terrorist attack on Israeli soil on October 7.
Israeli authorities said Friday they were resuming their military offensive because Hamas had not released all the female hostages. “It seems that one of the reasons why they don’t want to release women that they’re holding hostage and why this break has been shattered is because they don’t want these women to tell what they are told. arrived during their detention,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters.
The spokesperson declined to provide further details, emphasizing the sensitivity of the issue, but said the United States had “no reason to doubt” reports of sexual violence attributed to terrorists in Hamas. “There is very little that I think Hamas is not capable of when it comes to the treatment of civilians and particularly the treatment of women,” he said.
More than 1,500 “shocking and painful” testimonies
On October 7, Hamas commandos killed 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to Israeli authorities. In addition, 240 people were kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip, of whom 137 are still being held hostage, according to the Israeli army. In retaliation, the Israeli army launched bombings on the Gaza Strip – interrupted during a week of truce – which have so far caused, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health in Gaza, 15,899 deaths, 70% of the population. women and under 18s. An assessment impossible to confirm independently.
The Israeli police also claim to be investigating possible sexual violence committed on October 7, including gang rapes and mutilations of corpses.
Israeli investigators have so far collected “more than 1,500 shocking and distressing testimonies,” a police officer told the Israeli Parliament last week, referring to “girls stripped naked above and below the waist” and reporting the testimony of the gang rape, mutilation and murder of a young woman. Hamas “rejected” accusations of rape and sexual violence, calling them “lies.”
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