(Gaza) Concern remains high on Wednesday for more than 2 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, despite hopes of a truce between Israel and Hamas that the United States and Qatar are trying to achieve.
The devastated Palestinian territory is plunged into a major humanitarian crisis and 2.2 million people, according to the UN, the vast majority of the population, are threatened with famine.
The United States and Qatar, engaged with Egypt in mediation between Israel and Hamas, hope to obtain a truce before the start of Ramadan, which begins around March 10 or 11, allowing the release of part of the 130 hostages held in the territory.
The discussions concern a six-week truce, during which one hostage – among women, minors and sick elderly people – would be exchanged each day for ten Palestinians detained by Israel, according to a source close to Hamas. Additionally, the Islamist movement wants an increase in humanitarian aid entering Gaza.
American President Joe Biden spoke on Monday evening of “an agreement by the Israelis according to which they would not engage in operations during Ramadan” in order to “get all the hostages out”.
“I am hopeful that by next Monday, we will have a ceasefire,” he said earlier, stressing that it was “not done yet.”
“We would of course be happy to achieve this by the end of the week,” assured American diplomatic spokesperson Matthew Miller on Tuesday. “We’re trying to get this deal across the finish line, and we think it’s possible.”
Nearly 30,000 dead
The Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, visiting Paris, and French President Emmanuel Macron reiterated on Tuesday their common desire to achieve “very quickly a ceasefire”.
The release of the hostages is an absolute “priority” for Paris, recalled Emmanuel Macron. The Emir of Qatar, for his part, denounced a “genocide of the Palestinian people”, with “forced displacements” and “savage bombings”.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose country is hosting a meeting of G20 finance ministers starting Wednesday dominated by conflicts in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip, also reaffirmed Tuesday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin committed a “genocide against Palestinian women and children”.
The war broke out on October 7 when Hamas commandos infiltrated from the Gaza Strip launched an unprecedented attack in southern Israel, which left at least 1,160 people dead, mostly civilians. according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.
During the attack, some 250 people were kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip. According to Israel, 130 are still held there, 31 of whom are believed to have died, after the release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners during a first truce in November.
PHOTO AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
The international community is particularly concerned about the potentially disastrous consequences of an upcoming ground offensive announced by Israel on the overpopulated city of Rafah.
Israel has vowed to annihilate Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007, in retaliation, which it considers, along with the United States and the European Union, to be a “terrorist” organization.
The Israeli offensive has left 29,878 dead in Gaza, the vast majority of them civilians, according to the latest report Tuesday from the Hamas Ministry of Health.
The same ministry reported a death toll of 91 overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday in Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip.
“Ocean of needs”
The international community is alarmed by a humanitarian catastrophe in the event of a ground offensive, announced by the Israeli Prime Minister, on Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, where nearly a million and a half Palestinians, according to the UN are trapped against the closed border with Egypt.
The head of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), Jan Egeland, interviewed live from Rafah by CNN, said on Tuesday that he had “never seen a place so bombed for so long with a population so trapped with no escape”.
Humanitarian aid organizations “are overwhelmed in this ocean of needs,” he acknowledged.
Rafah is the only entry point for aid into the territory, subject to the green light from Israel and which arrives in very limited quantities. Its transport to the north is made almost impossible by the destruction, fighting and pillaging.
“If nothing changes, famine is imminent in northern Gaza,” Carl Skau, deputy executive director of the World Food Program (WFP), told the UN Security Council.
No convoy has been able to reach the north of the Gaza Strip since January 23, according to the UN, which denounces the obstructions of the Israeli authorities.
“There is no food here. Even the fodder that we were supposed to eat is no longer available,” Marwan Awadieh, a resident of this region, told AFP, adding: “We don’t know how we will be able to survive.”