The deadly fighting between the Israeli army and Hamas continued to rage on Friday in the Gaza Strip, after the “initial” approval given, according to Qatar, by the Palestinian Islamist movement to a truce agreement providing for an exchange of hostages and prisoners.
Israeli raids, according to witnesses, targeted the center and south of Gaza, notably the area of Khan Younes, the second city in the territory transformed into a field of ruins. Thousands of residents continued to flee Friday in the rain, on foot or crowded on carts.
The Hamas Health Ministry counted 112 deaths in 24 hours across the Gaza Strip, besieged by Israel and largely destroyed after almost four months of war.
PHOTO MAHMUD HAMS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Palestinians flee Khan Younes, in the south of the Gaza Strip, on February 2.
More than 1.3 million of its inhabitants, according to the UN, out of a total of 2.4 million, are now refugees in Rafah, in the South, stuck against the closed border with Egypt, threatened in the middle of winter by famine and epidemics.
The tents and plastic sheeting which invaded the streets of the overcrowded city by the thousands were again flooded on Friday by torrential rains, according to AFP images.
Faced with this major humanitarian crisis and heavy civilian losses, diplomacy is trying to impose a second truce, longer than that of one week which allowed in November the release of around a hundred Israeli hostages in Gaza and Palestinians held by Israel.
Hamas leader Ismaïl Haniyeh, based in Qatar, is expected in Egypt to discuss a proposal drawn up during a recent meeting in Paris between CIA chief William Burns and Egyptian, Israeli and Qatari officials.
A “rushed” announcement
According to a Hamas source, the proposal involves three phases, the first of which provides for a six-week truce during which Israel will have to release 200 to 300 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for 35 to 40 hostages held in Gaza, and 200 to 300 trucks of Aid will be able to enter the territory every day.
This proposal was “approved by the Israeli side”, declared Thursday the spokesperson for Qatar’s diplomacy, Majed al-Ansari.
“We now have a first positive confirmation from Hamas,” he said, adding that he hoped that “in the next two weeks we will be able to share good news on this subject.”
A source close to Hamas in Gaza, however, told AFP that there was still no consensus and that Qatar’s statement was “rushed and false.”
Some 250 people were kidnapped and taken to Gaza on October 7 when Hamas commandos carried out an unprecedented attack on Israeli soil, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to a tally by the ‘AFP produced from official Israeli data.
PHOTO SUSANA VERA, REUTERS
A man holds a poster of Tal Shoham as he takes part in an event to celebrate the 39e anniversary of the Israeli hostage kidnapped with his wife and children during the deadly October 7 attack on Israel by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas on February 2 in Tel Aviv.
According to Israeli authorities, 132 hostages are still being held in Gaza. Among them, 27 were declared dead by the army.
In response to this attack, Israel vowed to “annihilate” Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007, and launched a military offensive which left 27,131 dead, the vast majority civilians, according to the movement’s Ministry of Health. Palestinian.
“The only doctor”
In Khan Younes, fighting is raging particularly around the two large hospitals, Nasser and al-Amal, which lack all basic equipment.
Oxygen supplies are running out at al-Amal hospital, the Palestinian Red Crescent warned on Friday, while rainwater seeps into the damaged roofs of buildings where thousands of displaced people are sheltering.
Further north, in Gaza City, other residents found refuge near Chifa hospital.
PHOTO HATEM ALI, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Palestinians queue for a free food distribution in Khan Yunis on February 2.
The army “dropped leaflets asking us to leave, where should we go? Our homes were destroyed, our children were killed,” a woman, Abir Al Madhoun, told AFP.
A doctor, Mohamad Ghrab, says he is “the only doctor available, in addition to a few nurses” in this hospital, the largest in the territory, where “the central oxygen station was shut down” by Israeli soldiers when they stormed at the end of November.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under strong pressure both from the families of hostages, who are demanding an agreement allowing the release of their loved ones, and from several ministers who are threatening to leave the government, in the event of an agreement that is too generous. according to them towards the Palestinians.
Israel, which considers Hamas a terrorist organization, as do the United States and the European Union, continues to assert that it will only end its offensive in Gaza once the Islamist movement is eliminated, the hostages released and after having received guarantees on the future security of its territory.
The war in Gaza has exacerbated tensions across the Middle East, between Israel and its allies on one side, and Iran and what it calls the “axis of resistance” on the other, including, in addition to Hamas, the Lebanese Islamist movement Hezbollah, Iraqi militias and the Yemeni Houthi rebels.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raïssi warned on Friday against any possible attack by the United States in retaliation for a strike that killed three American soldiers in Jordan on January 28, blamed by Washington on a pro-Iran group.
“We have said many times that we would not start a war, but if a country, a cruel force wants to intimidate [l’Iran]the Islamic Republic will respond firmly,” affirmed Mr. Raïssi.
At least 17,000 children separated
At least 17,000 children are “unaccompanied or separated” from their families in the Gaza Strip, where the population is congregating in Rafah, in the south, a veritable “despair factory”, the UN warned on Friday.
“At least 17,000 children […]. This corresponds to around 1% for the entire displaced population,” a UNICEF spokesperson for the Palestinian territories, Jonathan Crickx, told reporters in Geneva.
PHOTO IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA, REUTERS
Children stand next to tents at a camp in Rafah, on the border with Egypt, on January 26.
Speaking by videoconference from Jerusalem, he said it was “extremely difficult” to trace his children because sometimes “they cannot even say their names” when they arrive at hospitals, injured or in poor condition. of choc.
During conflicts, children who find themselves without their parents are often cared for by other relatives. But currently in Gaza, where people lack food, water and shelter, “these extended families themselves are struggling to provide for their own children and families,” Crickx said.
According to UNICEF, more than a million children in the Gaza Strip, “almost all of them”, need mental health help, compared to more than 500,000 before the start of this war triggered by the attack of unprecedented scale launched on October 7 by Hamas.
“They show symptoms such as extremely high levels of anxiety, loss of appetite, they cannot sleep, they have emotional outbursts or panic every time they hear the bombings,” said the UNICEF spokesperson.