Deadly Israeli bombings targeted the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, where many Palestinians gathered to pray amid the ruins on the first day of Eid al-Fitr as Israel relentlessly continues its offensive against Hamas.
From Jerusalem, where thousands of faithful braved the cold and rain, to Gaza, whose children awaited the distribution of traditional sweets, this festival which marks the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan is unlike any other this year. .
Despite increasingly pressing calls for a ceasefire, Israeli strikes hit the north and center of the Palestinian territory on Wednesday, including the Nousseirat camp, where 14 people, including children, were killed according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.
Six months after the start of the war triggered on October 7 by the bloody attack of the Islamist movement against Israel, American President Joe Biden, Israel’s most powerful ally, described the conduct of the war in Gaza by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in an interview broadcast Tuesday by the Spanish-language channel Univision.
“The saddest Eid”
Across the Gaza Strip, Palestinians gathered sadly on Wednesday to pray, amid the ruins or in their shelters, around cupcakes prepared despite shortages.
“We made the cakes with dates. There are no ingredients for cakes and sweets, we want to rejoice despite all the blood, death and bombing, it’s a sad and tired Eid because they destroyed Gaza,” he told ‘AFP Abir Sakik, a 40-year-old man who fled Gaza City to take refuge in Rafah, in the south of the territory.
“Our heart is not celebrating, because everyone we loved has left, we have lost them,” said Hikmat Abu Anza, a 43-year-old woman also a refugee in Rafah.
In Jerusalem, everyone in the crowd of tens of thousands of faithful gathered on the Mosques esplanade had the tragedy of Gaza in mind.
“This is the saddest Eid we have ever experienced. In the mosque you could see the sadness on their faces,” testified Rawan Abd, a 32-year-old nurse.
New proposition
The mediating countries — Qatar, Egypt, the United States — are now awaiting responses to a new three-step proposal submitted to both sides on Sunday to try to end the war.
The first stage provides for a six-week truce, the release of 42 hostages held in Gaza in exchange for 800 to 900 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, the entry of 400 to 500 trucks of food aid each day and the return home of residents from the northern Gaza Strip displaced by the war, according to a source within Hamas.
Hamas said it was “studying the proposal” before transmitting its response to mediators.
Israel, for its part, maintains its plan for a ground offensive on the town of Rafah, bordering Egypt, which it presents as the last major bastion of Hamas, despite the presence of a million and a half people, according to the UN, mostly displaced people who came to seek refuge there.
“What I’m asking is that the Israelis call for a ceasefire, that they allow for the next six or eight weeks full access to food and medicine coming into the country,” Joe said. Biden to Univision.
This interview was, however, recorded before the withdrawal, on Sunday, of Israeli soldiers from the large town of Khan Younes, in the south of the Gaza Strip, and the increase, in recent days, of humanitarian aid authorized by Israel to enter the territory.
Israel had announced that its soldiers were leaving Khan Younes, transformed into a field of dusty ruins after several months of fighting, in order to prepare for the offensive on Rafah, a few kilometers away.
” Radical change “
The war broke out on October 7 when Hamas commandos infiltrated from the Gaza Strip carried out an unprecedented attack in southern Israel, resulting in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to a report established by the AFP based on official Israeli figures.
More than 250 people have been kidnapped and 129 remain detained in Gaza, including 34 who have died, according to Israeli officials.
In retaliation, Israel vowed to annihilate Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007, which it considers a terrorist organization along with the United States and the European Union. Its army launched an offensive that has so far left 33,360 dead in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to Hamas’ health ministry.
Israel, which has completely besieged the Gaza Strip since the start of the war, is also facing very strong international pressure to allow more humanitarian aid to pass into the territory threatened by famine.
On March 18, five NGOs submitted a petition to the Israeli Supreme Court in the hope that the authorities would “respect their obligations as an occupying power” by providing all necessary assistance to the population.
The court gave the government until Wednesday to answer a series of questions about its policy on humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Ahead of the deadline, authorities said 468 trucks entered the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, the highest number in one day since the start of the war.
“We are seeing a radical change that we hope will continue and expand,” the head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) Samantha Power said on Tuesday, calling on Israel to let in more 500 trucks per day.