Israeli strikes on Gaza, Hamas discusses ceasefire in Egypt

2023-12-29 05:08:00

The Israeli army is bombing the south of the Gaza Strip this Friday, December 29, while a Hamas delegation is expected in Egypt to discuss a ceasefire project, also providing for the release of hostages in the hands of the Palestinian Islamist movement. During the night from Thursday to Friday, Israeli forces increased strikes in the Gaza Strip, particularly on Rafah, where Palestinians rushed into piles of rubble in search of survivors.

“We were sitting quietly [à la maison, NDLR] and suddenly we heard a loud explosion and debris started falling on us,” Tayseer Abou Al-Eish told AFP. “The apartment was completely destroyed and my daughters were screaming. There were several victims […] we try to pull neighbors out of the rubble but there are martyrs. » And south of Jerusalem, a Palestinian injured two Israelis in a knife attack before being shot dead himself, according to police and rescuers, with Hamas hailing a “heroic operation” carried out in “response” to the situation in Gaza.

Talks in Cairo

A Hamas delegation is expected in Cairo on Friday to discuss a three-step Egyptian plan that provides for renewable truces, staggered releases of Palestinian hostages and prisoners and, ultimately, a ceasefire ending hostilities . The war, triggered by the bloody attack launched on October 7 by the Palestinian Islamist movement against Israel, left 21,320 dead in Gaza, the majority of them women and minors, according to the Hamas administration’s Health Ministry. .

In Israel, the attack by Hamas commandos left around 1,140 dead, most of them civilians, according to an AFP count based on the latest official Israeli figures. Around 250 people were kidnapped by Hamas, 129 of whom remain detained in Gaza, according to the Israeli army which has sworn, in retaliation for the October 7 attacks, to “destroy” the Islamist movement in power since 2007 in Gaza.

In Cairo, the Hamas delegation will transmit to the Egyptians “the response of the Palestinian factions, which includes several observations, to their plan”, told AFP an official of the Islamist movement requesting anonymity. These observations relate in particular “to the modalities of the planned exchanges and the number of Palestinian pioneers who will be released, and to obtaining guarantees for a total Israeli military withdrawal from the Gaza Strip”, added this official. ” We are in touch [avec les médiateurs, NDLR] at this moment. I cannot provide further details. We are working to bring them all back. This is our objective,” declared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting Thursday in Tel Aviv with families of hostages.

The population of Gaza in “great danger”

Presented as the oldest woman held hostage in the Gaza Strip, Israeli-American hostage Judith Weinstein Haggai, 70, was announced dead Thursday by her kibbutz, Nir Oz, located just on the edge of the Gaza Strip. Gaza. This mother of four children, grandmother of seven grandchildren and English teacher for children with special educational needs, according to her kibbutz, had grown up in Toronto and also held Canadian citizenship. Earlier this week, her kibbutz announced the death of her husband Gadi Haggai, 73, also a hostage in Gaza where their remains are believed to still be.

The population of Gaza remains in “great danger”, warns the World Health Organization (WHO), affirming that “hunger and despair” are worsening in the territory where, according to the UN, nearly two million people (85% of the population) were displaced. Many fled several times, pushed onto the roads by the advance of fighting from north to south and evacuation orders from the Israeli army, without however escaping the incessant bombings.

In recent days, with the intensification of operations in Khan Younes (south) and in the center of Gaza, “at least 100,000 people” have been displaced towards Rafah, in the very south of the territory, underlines Ocha, the office of coordination of UN humanitarian aid citing estimates from “humanitarian actors on the ground”. “What Israel is doing to the Palestinians, and primarily to Gaza, is “the monstrosity of our century.” Western complacency becomes complicity,” Francesca Albanese, the UN rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian Territories, declared on X.

Israel is bombing areas of Gaza it had designated as “safe”. It is wiping out entire families, making countless children orphans & forcing countless men & women to survive their offspring. Each story is excruciating.

“The monstruosity of our century”.

— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPT (@FranceskAlbs) December 29, 2023

Humanitarian aid, the entry of which is controlled by Israel, only arrives in very limited quantities despite the vote on a Security Council resolution on December 22. Israel announced on Thursday its agreement “in principle” with Cyprus for the opening of a maritime humanitarian corridor between the island and the besieged Palestinian territory.

A possible “expansion of the fighting”

The conflict in Gaza has reignited tensions across the Middle East, particularly on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, where the Israeli general staff has spoken of a possible “expansion of fighting”. The Israeli army reported numerous shots from southern Lebanon towards northern Israel, where warning sirens sounded several times in the afternoon on Thursday, and announced strikes on “positions » of Hezbollah.

And late Thursday evening, the Syrian Defense Ministry announced an Israeli strike near Damascus and in the south of the country. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the strikes particularly targeted the area around Damascus international airport, barely 24 hours after the resumption of flights suspended since an Israeli attack at the end of November. Israel, which rarely comments on these allegations, has increased strikes in Syria in recent years, targeting Iranian-backed forces there. However, Iran has threatened Israel with “direct actions and others carried out by the resistance front” after the death on Monday, in a missile attack in Syria which it blames on Israel, of Razi Moussavi, a general of the Revolutionary Guards, whose funeral took place Thursday in Tehran.

Another front in this expanding conflict: Yemen, from where the Houthi rebels, allies of Tehran, are increasing their fire towards the Red Sea to slow down international maritime traffic in “support” of Gaza. The US Navy shot down a drone and an anti-ship missile fired by the Houthis in the Red Sea on Thursday evening.