The Israeli army announced on Sunday the withdrawal of its troops from the south of the Gaza Strip, on 7e month of the devastating war against Palestinian Hamas and the day of the expected resumption of negotiations on a truce.
Israel is “one step away from victory”, insisted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, warning that there would be no ceasefire without the release of all the hostages, at the weekly government meeting in Jerusalem .
The army’s surprise announcement comes after six months of conflict in the Palestinian territory which has claimed the lives of 33,175 people, most of them civilians, including 38 in the last 24 hours, according to the Hamas health ministry. It has also caused a humanitarian catastrophe with the majority of the 2.4 million inhabitants threatened with famine according to the UN.
On October 7, commandos from the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas infiltrated from Gaza carried out an unprecedented attack in southern Israel resulting in the death of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to a report established by AFP based on official figures. . More than 250 people have been kidnapped and 129 are still detained in Gaza, 34 of whom have died according to Israeli officials.
In retaliation, Israel vowed to destroy Hamas and launched intense bombardments on Palestinian territory before a ground offensive that saw its soldiers advance from the north to the south of the small strip of land about 40 km from long and 10 wide, besieged by the army since October 9.
“Today, Sunday April 7, the 98e Israeli army commando division completed its mission in Khan Yunis. The division left the Gaza Strip in order to […] to prepare for future operations,” the army said in a statement sent to AFP.
According to Israeli media, all troops have left the south of the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli daily Haaretzciting an anonymous military official, explained the withdrawal by the fact that the army had achieved its objectives by dismantling Hamas in Khan Younes.
Return of displaced people
Located 3 km south of Rafah and transformed into a field of ruins by Israeli bombings, the town of Khan Younes, the largest in the south of the territory, was for months the epicenter of the battle between soldiers and fighters. of Hamas.
On foot, by car or on carts pulled by donkeys, dozens of Palestinian refugees in Rafah headed back to Khan Younes, immediately after the Israeli withdrawal preceded by strikes on the two towns, according to images from the ‘AFP.
The army’s announcement was made on the day when yet another round of indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel via international mediators – United States, Qatar, Egypt, is to be held in Cairo, after urgent calls from the American president Joe Biden to take them back and find an agreement.
Present or expected in Cairo on Sunday are the head of the CIA, Bill Burns, the head of the secret service, David Barnea, the Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdelrahmane Al-Thani and a Hamas delegation, according to the pro-government Egyptian media Al-Qahera News .
Objective: conclude a truce agreement associated with the release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and a significant increase in humanitarian aid to the Palestinian population.
PHOTO JACK GUEZ, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Relatives of hostages organized an event to mark six months of their captivity on April 6 in Tel Aviv.
On Saturday, Hamas said it would not give up its demands for a deal: “a complete ceasefire”, an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, a return of the displaced, and a “serious” exchange agreement Palestinian hostages and prisoners.
It was not immediately possible to have a reaction from the Islamist movement to the Israeli withdrawal.
Only one truce has taken place since the start of the war, and it allowed at the end of November the release of around a hundred hostages in exchange for Palestinian detainees and the entry of more aid into Gaza where the population lives “l ‘hell on earth’ according to the UN.
“Shame on the whole world”
“Shame on the whole world. The children are dying of hunger,” says Labad, a mother of four who took refuge with relatives after her house was destroyed by Israeli raids in Jabaliya (center).
PHOTO AMIR COHEN, REUTERS
Humanitarian aid was dropped from a plane over the Gaza Strip on April 7.
“My 8 year old son asks me for food but I have nothing to give him […] We even ate animal and bird food. I wish death for me and my children to be freed from this torment,” she told AFP.
In Rafah, threatened by an Israeli ground offensive and where nearly 1.5 million Palestinians, the majority displaced, are crowded together, beggars are seen in a market, alongside children selling canned goods and vegetables, including one showing a single bag of frozen vegetables that he is struggling to sell.
” Whatever the price is ”
While aid transported by land via Egypt is strictly controlled by Israel and arrives in dribs and drabs, aid trucks entered Rafah on Sunday, while UN medical aid reached the medical complex Kamal Adwan in Beit Lahia in the north.
But this aid remains largely insufficient.
Considered a terrorist group by Israel, the United States and the European Union, Hamas took power in Gaza in 2007, two years after Israel withdrew from the poor and overpopulated territory it occupied for 38 years. . Before the total siege imposed on October 9, Israel had subjected the Palestinian territory to a blockade since 2007.
The day after rallies in Israel demanding the resignation of Mr. Netanyahu, relatives of hostages organized an event in Tel Aviv to mark six months of their captivity.
“Please do everything, pay the price, whatever it is, the highest price, I don’t care. I want Ofer and all the others to come back home, said Yifat Kalderon, cousin of Ofer Kalderon, a father held hostage in Gaza.