The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas claimed Monday to have released two women kidnapped during its attack on Israeli territory on October 7 and detained since in the Gaza Strip which it controls. In this territory, more than 5,000 people have been killed since the start of the war 17 days ago, according to the organization.
The spokesperson for Hamas’s military wing, Abu Obeida, said in a statement that the two female hostages had been released “for pressing humanitarian reasons” thanks to mediation from Qatar and Egypt. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) explained for its part that it had facilitated their release.
This release, which comes three days after that of two American women, was not immediately confirmed by the Israeli authorities.
Israeli media gave the identities of the two women, octogenarians from Kibbutz Nir Oz, Yocheved Lifshitz and Nourit Kuper, taken hostage with their husbands during the bloody Hamas attack on October 7. According to estimates by kibbutz officials, about a quarter of its 400 residents have been killed, kidnapped or are missing.
The Egyptian press reported that two hostages released by Hamas were arriving at the Rafah crossing in the south of the Gaza Strip.
Israel also intensified its strikes on Monday on this small Palestinian territory, where the “catastrophic” situation is pushing several countries to call for a truce in the fighting.
The Israeli army, which has been relentlessly bombing the Gaza Strip since October 7, has promised to “annihilate” Hamas. And to do this, it has been saying for several days that it is preparing for a land offensive.
This prospect worries the international community, which fears an escalation of the conflict. Iran, an ally of Hamas, warned that the situation risked getting “out of control” in the Middle East, transformed into a “powder keg”.
The Islamist movement accused Israel of having “violated on eight occasions the arrangements governing the liberation operation which had been agreed with the mediators for it to be carried out”.
More than 220 Israeli, foreign or binational hostages have been identified by Israel. They were kidnapped and taken to Gaza by Hamas Islamists in an unprecedented bloody attack on October 7, which sparked a war, with Israel shelling from the Gaza Strip.
The United States has at the same time strengthened its military presence in the region. And in Tehran, the head of Russian diplomacy, Sergei Lavrov, judged that this strengthening ran the risk of an “escalation” of the conflict.
Continuous flow help?
In the Gaza Strip, a small, poor territory where 2.4 million Palestinians are crowded together, international aid began to arrive in dribs and drabs since Saturday via Egypt. On Monday, a third convoy crossed the border at Rafah, the only exit from the territory not controlled by Israel.
In total, around fifty trucks entered the Gaza Strip in three days, although according to the UN at least 100 trucks are needed per day to meet the needs of the population. The UN is also demanding deliveries of fuel, essential for example for hospital generators.
The United States, which obtained the agreement of Israel and Egypt to allow the aid to flow, announced on Sunday “that there would henceforth be a continuous flow into Gaza of this crucial assistance”.
But the head of diplomacy of the European Union, Josep Borrell, called for “more aid, more quickly” as well as a “humanitarian pause” to allow its distribution. The leaders of the 27 could support a call to this effect at their summit at the end of the week, he added.
Ceasefire
The United States is more circumspect. According to the State Department, they reject calls for a “ceasefire”, judging that it would primarily benefit Hamas.
France, on the other hand, is in favor. On the eve of a visit to Tel Aviv on Tuesday by President Emmanuel Macron, she called for a “humanitarian truce” which “could lead to a ceasefire”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for “unhindered” access for humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, and for a “rapid ceasefire”.
And the heads of diplomacy from Russia, Turkey and Iran called for stopping “targeting innocent civilians,” in a joint statement also signed by Armenia and Azerbaijan.
320 targets hit by Israel
Because, far from easing, Israeli bombings have intensified in the last 24 hours.
On Monday, the Israeli army announced that it had struck “more than 320 military targets” during the night, infrastructure of Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad. These two groups are classified as “terrorist” organizations by the United States, Canada, the European Union and Israel.
The raids left more than 70 dead, according to Hamas, including 17 people killed by a strike on a house in Jabaliya (north).
On October 7, in the middle of Shabbat, the weekly Jewish rest, and on the last day of the Sukkot holiday, hundreds of Hamas fighters infiltrated Israel from Gaza, spreading terror in an attack unprecedented since the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.
More than 1,400 people were killed in Israel, most civilians shot, burned or mutilated on the day of the attack, according to authorities. Hamas kidnapped 222 hostages, Israelis and foreigners, according to the army.
On Monday, Hamas claimed that 5,087 Palestinians, mostly civilians, including 2,055 children, had been killed in the Gaza Strip by Israeli bombings that destroyed entire neighborhoods.
These figures could not be independently verified by AFP.
“Catastrophic” situation
Since October 15, the Israeli army has called on civilians in the north of the Gaza Strip, where the bombardments are most intense, to flee to the south.
But the strikes also continue to affect the south, close to the Egyptian border, where the displaced are massed by the hundreds of thousands.
Two days after the Hamas attack, Israel imposed a “complete siege” on Gaza – already subject to an Israeli blockade for more than 16 years – by cutting off the supply of water, electricity and food.
The humanitarian situation is “catastrophic”, warned the UN, in this territory of 362 km2 where at least 1.4 million Palestinians have fled their homes.
In Rafah, men filled plastic containers with water from cisterns, while others searched the ruins of a building destroyed by a strike, looking for survivors.
In Khan Younes, still in the south, a family was preparing to bury children killed in a bombing, their bodies draped in white carried to the cemetery by relatives.
19,000 displaced in Lebanon
Faced with the risk of opening a second front, the Israeli army has massed tens of thousands of soldiers on the outskirts of the Gaza Strip and on its northern border with Lebanon.
Small units have already carried out limited incursions into Palestinian territory, targeting Hamas infrastructure and seeking to locate missing or abducted people.
Since October 7, the army has evacuated the surroundings of Palestinian territory. Orit Cohen, 29, from the town of Sderot, says he came to look for his mother “who until now refused to leave”. “But the army is bombing right on the other side. I was afraid for her. »
In Lebanon, more than 19,000 people have been displaced after an increase in clashes between the Israeli army and Lebanese Hezbollah, supported by Iran and ally of Hamas, on the border between the two countries, according to the International Organization for migrations.
The border area on the Israeli side was also evacuated.