2024-04-08 18:14:24
The war between Israel and Hamas could take another turn. Negotiations for a truce in the Gaza Strip and the release of hostages held by Hamas are making “significant progress”, pro-government Egyptian media Al-Qahera News reported on Monday, April 8.
Paradoxically, the city of Rafah, where nearly 1.5 million Palestinians are crowded together on the Egyptian border, is preparing on Monday for a possible offensive by the Israeli army.
Information to remember
⇒ Hopes for a truce tempered by Israel and Hamas
⇒ Rafah prepares for a possible military offensive by Israel
⇒ Germany before the ICJ accused of “facilitating” a genocide in Gaza
Netanyahu says ‘there is a date’ for Rafah offensive
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that a date had been set for an offensive on the town of Rafah, which Israel says is one of the last Hamas strongholds in the Gaza Strip. Victory over the Palestinian Islamist movement “requires entry into Rafah and the elimination of the terrorist battalions there. This will be done – there is a date,” the Israeli prime minister said in a video statement.
The United States, for its part, reaffirmed its opposition to any major Israeli operation in the city in the south of the Gaza Strip, where nearly 1.5 million Palestinians are gathered. “We have made it clear to Israel that we believe that a massive military invasion of Rafah would have an extremely harmful effect on these civilians and would ultimately harm Israel’s security,” he told reporters. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller.
Six-week truce proposal considered by Hamas
Hamas, at war with Israel in the Gaza Strip, is examining a three-stage truce proposal, the first of which provides for a six-week ceasefire, a source within the Islamist movement told AFP on Monday. Palestinian.
This first phase also provides for the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for 800 to 900 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, the entry of 400 to 500 trucks of food aid per day and the return home of residents of the north of the Strip. of Gaza displaced by the war, said this source.
Turkey says Israel rejects offer to drop aid on Gaza
Turkey said on Monday that Israel had blocked its request to drop aid on Gaza and announced that it had decided to respond with “a series of new measures” against this country. Like other countries, the Turkish Air Force wanted to participate in a humanitarian aid operation with its cargo planes.
READ ALSO: Fabrice Balanche: “Sooner or later, Israel will want to clean house and strike Hezbollah”
“Today we learned that our request, which was welcomed by the Jordanian authorities, was rejected by Israel. There is no excuse for Israel to block our attempt to parachute aid to the Gazans hungry,” said Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan. “We have decided to take a series of new measures against Israel,” he added, specifying that these would be announced by the institutions concerned.
Israel and Hamas dampen truce hopes
Israeli and Hamas officials on Monday tempered hopes for an upcoming truce and a release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip, after new indirect negotiations in Cairo which, according to them, did not make it possible to overcome the blockages.
Earlier on Monday, a high-ranking Egyptian source cited by the pro-government Egyptian media outlet Al-Qahera News, close to the security services, reported “significant progress” in discussions between Israel and Hamas. But officials on both sides have tempered that optimism. “We do not yet see an agreement on the horizon,” declared an Israeli official, quoted by the media Ynet, stressing that “the distance remained significant” between the positions on both sides. According to a Hamas official contacted by AFP on Monday, “we cannot speak of concrete progress so far” and the differences mainly concern the return of displaced people to Gaza City, demanded by the Islamist movement.
According to Al-Qahera, the delegations of Qatar and Hamas left Cairo and will return there “within two days to finalize the terms of the agreement.” The American and Israeli delegations were also due to leave the Egyptian capital, according to the same source.
Rafah prepares for possible Israeli military offensive
The city of Rafah, where nearly 1.5 million Palestinians are crowded, is preparing Monday for a possible offensive by the Israeli army. On Sunday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said his country’s forces are “preparing to continue their missions […] in the area of Rafah”, a town on the Egyptian border at the southern tip of Gaza where nearly 1.5 million Palestinians are gathered, the majority displaced.
READ ALSO: Gaza: between Israel and humanitarians, the break is complete
A few hours earlier, Israeli troops had withdrawn from Khan Younes, another town in the south of the coastal territory, the epicenter of the fighting, in order to “prepare for future operations” according to the army. A few hours earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirmed his determination to eradicate Hamas “across the entire Gaza Strip, including in Rafah”, a city which he presents as the last great bastion of the Islamist movement.
IDF announces killing of Hezbollah commander in Lebanon
The Israeli army announced that it had killed a commander of an elite Hezbollah unit during a raid on southern Lebanon overnight from Sunday to Monday.
Since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Palestinian Hamas on October 7, there have been daily exchanges of fire between the Israeli army and Lebanese Hezbollah, which claims to support the Palestinian Islamist movement. Israeli fighters “struck and eliminated Ali Ahmad Hussein, the commander of the al-Radwan forces of the Hezbollah terrorist organization in the al-Houjair region,” said an Israeli army statement. A Lebanese security source told AFP that a “leader of the al-Radwan forces” had been killed, as well as two other Hezbollah fighters, in an Israeli raid on Sultaniyé in southern Lebanon.
Germany provides aid to Gaza and arms to Israel, Nicaragua denounces before ICJ
Nicaragua criticized Germany on Monday before the UN’s highest court for its support for Israel, calling it “pathetic” to give arms to the Israeli government while simultaneously providing aid to Gaza.
“It is indeed a pathetic excuse, for Palestinian children, women and men, to provide humanitarian aid, including through airdrops, on the one hand, and to provide the military equipment used to kill them and annihilate them” on the other hand, declared before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) Daniel Mueller, lawyer from Nicaragua.
READ ALSO: UNRWA, an agency in turmoil: “It is inevitable that it will be infiltrated by Hamas”
In a 43-page document addressed to the court, Managua claims that Berlin is violating the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention, established in the wake of the Holocaust. “We reject Nicaragua’s allegations,” Sebastian Fischer, spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry, said ahead of the hearings.
Australia appoints adviser to investigate deaths of aid workers
Australia on Monday appointed a former military chief to investigate with Israel the deaths in Gaza of seven aid workers, including an Australian, so that all those responsible for the strikes are “held to account”. Lalzawmi “Zomi” Frankcom, a 43-year-old Australian, along with six other aid workers from the American NGO World Central Kitchen (WCK), were killed on April 1 in the Gaza Strip by three Israeli space strikes. four minutes on their convoy. The Israeli army, which admitted to having made a series of “serious errors”, fired two military officers but this did not quell international outrage.
READ ALSO: Hamas attack: in Cyprus, the long recovery of survivors of the Tribe of Nova festival
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong on Saturday described the information on the strike provided by Israel as “insufficient”. On Monday, she appointed Mark Binskin, a former Australian air force chief, as special adviser tasked with working with Israel to ensure “transparency” in the investigation.
#Netanyahu #set #date #offensive #Rafah #LExpress