The hope of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has been revived again, with US President Joe Biden speaking on Monday of a possible truce by next week, at a time when the humanitarian crisis threatens to turn into a famine in Gaza.
Egypt, Qatar, the United States, France and other countries have been trying to negotiate a new ceasefire between Israel and Hamas for several weeks.
According to a source within the Palestinian Islamist movement, the discussions concern a six-week truce associated with the release of hostages held by Hamas and that of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, as well as the entry into Gaza of a significant amount of humanitarian aid.
“I am hopeful that by next Monday, we will have a cease-fire,” the American president declared Monday evening in New York. “My national security adviser tells me that we are close, it is not done yet,” he qualified.
An Israeli official told the Ynet news site that “the trend is positive” on condition of anonymity.
Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, the emir of Qatar, a country at the center of negotiation efforts and which hosts Hamas, begins a two-day state visit in Paris on Tuesday, the French presidency announced.
But Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirmed on Sunday that Israel would soon launch a ground operation against Rafah, allowing, according to him, a “total victory” over Hamas in “a few weeks”.
A truce would only “delay” this offensive, he stressed.
The army presented Monday to the war cabinet “a plan for the evacuation of populations from combat zones in the Gaza Strip, as well as the plan for future operations”, according to the prime minister’s office, without giving any details. detail on where civilians could take refuge.
“Ringing the death knell” for help
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned Monday that an offensive on the overpopulated town of Rafah, from where Israel wants to evacuate civilians to definitively defeat Hamas, would “sound the death knell” for aid programs.
Leaning against the closed border with Egypt, in the south of Gaza, Rafah is the only entry point for humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip, which is home to 1.4 million Palestinians and where fighting has raged since almost five months between the Israeli army and Hamas.
PHOTO SAID KHATIB, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
International aid is trickling in from Egypt, subject to Israel’s green light, and its delivery to the north is almost impossible due to destruction and fighting.
The Israeli offensive left 29,782 people dead in Gaza, the vast majority of them civilians, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.
The war broke out on October 7 when Hamas commandos launched an unprecedented attack on southern Israel, resulting in the deaths of at least 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally taken from official Israeli data.
During the attack, some 250 people were kidnapped and taken to Gaza. According to Israel, 130 hostages are still being held there, 31 of whom are believed to have died.
The Israeli prime minister faces growing public pressure over the fate of hostages still held in Gaza and protests against his government have resumed.
Israelis are due to vote on Tuesday in municipal elections, initially scheduled for the end of October, but postponed twice due to the war.
Starving Gazans
Foreign governments and humanitarians have increased warnings against an offensive on Rafah that would cause many casualties and further worsen the humanitarian catastrophe.
Palestinians in Gaza told AFP of being forced to eat leaves, fodder for livestock, and even slaughter draft animals for food while the rare aid convoys reaching the north are looted by the population .
“We are dying of hunger,” said Abdallah Al-Aqra, 40, a refugee in Gaza City. He said the army had fired on Sunday “at hungry people who were trying to get flour” brought by an aid truck.
Two NGOs, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW), accused Israel on Monday of continuing to limit the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza despite a request in January from the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
PHOTO AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Palestinians walk past buildings destroyed by Israeli strikes in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, on February 26, 2024.
The Jordanian army said Monday it had carried out a series of airdrops of humanitarian aid, food and other supplies “directly to the population” of Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip, including one by a French army plane.
The Palestinian Authority government submitted its resignation to President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday, as calls intensify for reform of Palestinian political leadership in the “post-war” Gaza.
Since 2007, the Palestinian leadership has been divided between the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas, which exercises limited power in the West Bank, territory occupied since 1967 by Israel, while Hamas controls the Gaza Strip.