Negotiations on a truce in the fighting in Gaza during Ramadan are due to resume on Sunday in Cairo as the Palestinian territory is threatened with famine after almost five months of war between Israel and Hamas which has left more than 30,300 dead.
A delegation from the Palestinian Islamist movement is traveling to Egypt on Saturday to give an “official response” to a proposal drawn up at the end of January by the mediating countries – Qatar, United States, Egypt – and Israeli negotiators, a source confirmed to AFP close to Hamas.
An agreement, which the Israelis have “more or less accepted”, is “on the table” and now “the ball is in Hamas’ court”, assured a senior American official in Washington on Saturday
This proposal includes in a “first phase” a six-week pause in fighting and the release of 42 hostages held in Gaza in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
Israel has not confirmed its approval of the plan.
US President Joe Biden repeated on Friday “hope” for a truce by the holy month of Muslim fasting which begins this year on the evening of March 10 or the 11th.
In almost five months, the war has left 30,320 dead in the Gaza Strip, the majority civilians, according to the latest report from the Hamas Ministry of Health, including at least 92 deaths between Friday and Saturday.
Shelling
It was triggered by an unprecedented attack carried out on October 7 in southern Israel by Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza, where the movement took power in 2007.
The attack resulted in the death of at least 1,160 people, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.
In addition around 250 people were kidnapped. According to Israel, 130 hostages are still being held in the Gaza Strip, 31 of whom are believed to have died. A truce at the end of November allowed the release of 105 hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian detainees.
Israel has vowed to annihilate Hamas, which it considers a terrorist organization, as have the United States and the European Union, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced the upcoming launch of a major operation on Rafah ( South).
The city is home to nearly 1.5 million Palestinians, the vast majority displaced people trapped against the closed border with Egypt.
“A big explosion”
The Israeli army continued its bombings on Saturday, especially in Khan Younes and Rafah, according to AFP correspondents.
PHOTO MOHAMMED ABED, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
View of Rafah
At least 11 people were killed “and around 50 others injured, including children” in a strike on tents of displaced civilians near a hospital in Rafah, the health ministry said.
“Suddenly there was a big explosion. [Les Israéliens] bombed a square full of people. […] There are a lot of deaths,” resident Belal Abou Jekhleh told AFP.
The war has caused a humanitarian catastrophe in the Palestinian territory where 2.2 million of the 2.4 million inhabitants are threatened with famine, according to the UN. The Hamas health ministry reported 13 children died of “malnutrition and dehydration” in recent days.
Faced with the difficulties of transporting humanitarian aid by road, particularly to the north of the besieged territory, several countries have recently parachuted cargoes there, notably Jordan with France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, as well as Egypt in cooperation with the United Arab Emirates.
The United States carried out its first aid drop operation on the coast on Saturday.
PHOTO KOSAY AL NEMER, REUTERS
People watch as the US military drops first aid on Gaza on March 2.
Three American military planes dropped 66 “packages” containing more than 38,000 meals, in a joint operation with Jordan, according to an American military official.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY CENTCOM
“Everyone is hungry”
But these aid drops or possible deliveries by sea, another option studied by the United States, “cannot replace the necessary entry of aid by as many land routes as possible”, insisted a senior American official.
On Friday, Joe Biden said that Washington would “insist with Israel to facilitate the entry of more trucks”.
Cargoes by land, subject to the green light from Israel which has imposed a blockade on Gaza since 2007, only arrive in very limited quantities via Rafah from Egypt.
And their transport, particularly in the north of the territory, is perilous due to fighting, Israeli bombings, rubble blocking roads and sometimes looting.
An aid distribution in Gaza City turned tragic on Thursday when several hundred people rushed onto humanitarian aid trucks.
Hamas says the Israeli army opened fire on the hungry crowd, while Israel acknowledges “limited shooting” by soldiers who felt “threatened”, assuring that the majority of those killed were killed in a stampede .
The tragedy left 116 dead, according to Hamas.
A UN team said it found “a large number” of gunshot wounds at a hospital in the city where many victims had been admitted.
PHOTO KOSAY AL NEMER, REUTERS
A Palestinian injured by Israeli fire while waiting for help lies on a bed at al-Chifa hospital on 1er March in Gaza.
“We secured and organized this humanitarian operation,” army spokesperson Daniel Hagari said on Saturday. “To say that we attacked the convoy and deliberately hit people is baseless.”
The international community has called for an investigation and an immediate ceasefire.
“We received two bags of flour from the aid that arrived on the day of the massacre in Gaza on Thursday,” said Hicham Abou Eïd, a 28-year-old resident of the Zeitoun neighborhood: “This is not enough. Everyone is hungry. Aid is rare and insufficient.”
Benjamin Netanyahu also faces pressure from relatives of the hostages to reach an agreement with Hamas on their release. On Saturday, thousands of demonstrators in Jerusalem completed a four-day march that began near the border with Gaza.
“Together we will bring back […] people kidnapped at home,” Gabriela Leimberg, a former hostage released at the end of November, told AFP.