2024-02-08 21:58:04
Israel intensified its bombing of Rafah this Thursdayin the south of the Gaza Strip, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected pressure from the head of US diplomacy to stop their offensive against Hamas. More than half of Palestinians living in Gaza fled to Rafah, on the border with Egypt and the main entry point for humanitarian aid. Egypt warned that any ground operation there by Israel — or a mass movement of Palestinians stampeding across the Egyptian border — would jeopardize its peace treaty with the Israelis signed four decades ago.
Rafah “is not a safe place”
After a first phase of the offensive concentrated in the north of Gaza, Israeli troops progressed towards the center and south of the narrow territory towards Khan Younis, the epicenter of the fighting and bombings of recent weeks. Attention now falls on Rafah, a city to which 1.3 million Palestinians have fled, more than half of the population of the Gaza Strip, most of them refugees in UN facilities.
Sources at the Kuwaiti Hospital in Rafah said that bodies of 13 people taken to hospital after Israeli attacks on buildings, including those of two children and five women. “It’s proof that Rafah is not a safe place,” said Umm Hassan, a 48-year-old Palestinian whose home was hit by bombing. Abu Ayman, a 46-year-old Palestinian who lives nearby, added: “Our world has been reduced to ashes.”
The Secretary General of the UN, Antonio Guterreswarned that a ground offensive in Rafah “would exponentially increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare” in Gaza, where more than 27,000 Palestinians died in four months of Israeli bombing that devastated much of the impoverished territory. White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said an Israeli operation in Rafah would be a “disaster” for civilians, something the US “would not support.”
However, Netanyahu ordered an operation in that territory after rejecting a Hamas counterproposal to a ceasefire plan in exchange for freeing hostages, which was presented by the US and other countries. Before leaving Israel on a tour of Egypt and Qatar, Antony Blinken insisted that he still saw “room for an agreement” and called on Israel to protect civilians in Gaza.
In an unusual criticism for the top diplomat of Israel’s main ally, Blinken said the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel “cannot serve as an excuse to dehumanize” Palestinians. In a televised speech, Netanyahu said he ordered the military to “prepare to operate” in Rafah and that “complete victory” against Hamas will be a matter of months. “Giving in to the bizarre Hamas demands that we have heard would only invite another massacre,” the prime minister added.
A delegation from the Islamist movement arrived in Cairo this Thursday to continue negotiations. A Hamas source assured that they had agreed to participate in negotiations with a view to “a ceasefire, the end of the war and an exchange of prisoners.” Hamas demands that Israel definitively end the offensive and withdraw its troops from Gaza, which would allow it to continue governing the territory and replenish its military capabilities. Netanyahu rejects that option outright.
Concern for hostages
Israeli society is paying attention to the hostage situation. Netanyahu insists that military action is the only way to get them back, but faces growing pressure from the Israeli public to reach an agreement with Hamas in order to free them. “I am very afraid and very concerned that if you continue this line of destroying Hamas, there will be no hostages left to free,” said Adina Moshe, a hostage freed in a first truce in November.
The HIM reported that Israel is destroying “all buildings in Gaza that are within one kilometer of the fence” that separates this territory from Israel to clear the area and create a buffer or security zone, which could constitute a war crime. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said this level of destruction for the supposed purpose of creating a security area for Israel “constitutes a serious violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and a war crime.”
The Palestinian Red Crescent declared that the lives of some 80 wounded admitted to the Al Amal Hospital in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, are “in danger” due to lack of oxygen and the inability to carry out operations in the besieged center. by the Israeli Army. According to data from the World Health Organization (WHO), there are no fully functioning hospitals left in Gaza, while only 36 percent of them and 17 percent of primary care centers were “partially functioning.”
Antonio Guterres advocated this Thursday in favor of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), embroiled in controversy after Israel’s accusations that 12 of its members participated in the October 7 attacks alongside Hamas. The UN Secretary General recalled that the accusations raised by Israel were “credible”, but asked the countries that suspended their funding to that agency (including the US, Germany and Japan) to “recognize their efforts” and reconsider. his decision, which he found “surprising.”
UNRWA denounced that the organization has not been able to deliver food to northern Gaza for two weeks, while the Palestinians who remain in the area are “on the verge of famine.” “The last time UNRWA was authorized” by the Israeli Army “to deliver food” to the northern area of the Strip, was on January 23, said the entity’s general commissioner, Philippe Lazzarini. According to Lazzarini, “since the beginning of the year, half of the organization’s requests for aid missions to the north were rejected.”
In the north of Gaza, it is believed that there are 800,000 Palestinians who did not evacuate, among which some 300,000 people who depend on UNRWA aid to survive, noted Lazzarini, who denounces that “preventing access prevents humanitarian aid from saving lives”. “With the necessary political will, this can be easily reversed,” added the organization’s general commissioner.