Israeli and Hamas officials on Monday tempered hopes for an upcoming truce and a release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip, after new indirect negotiations in Cairo which, according to them, did not make it possible to overcome the blockages.
Despite international pressure, Israel is meanwhile maintaining its plans for a ground offensive on the town of Rafah, at the southern end of Palestinian territory, where nearly a million and a half people are massed, according to the UN, the most of the displaced having fled the war that has been raging for six months between Israel and the Islamist movement.
On Monday, the Hamas Ministry of Health counted 32 deaths in 24 hours.
Israeli soldiers withdrew on Sunday from the south of the Gaza Strip, in particular from the large city of Khan Younes, engaged in fighting for several months, in order to “prepare the continuation of their missions […] in the Rafah area”, on the border with Egypt, declared Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirmed his determination to eradicate Hamas “across the entire Gaza Strip, including Rafah”, which he presents as the last major bastion of the Islamist movement in power since 2007 in the territory.
On Sunday and then Monday, thousands of Palestinians who had fled returned to Khan Younes, on foot, by car or on carts pulled by donkeys. AFP photos showed men, women and children making their way through the ruins of their disfigured city.
PHOTO AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
View of a street in Khan Younes
“We were hoping to find the house or what was left of it,” said Safa Qandil, a 46-year-old woman. Nothing remains of the house. Safa also lost her son and her daughter-in-law, who was pregnant. ” It is […] indescribable,” she confides.
Salim Sharab, a 37-year-old man also looking for his house, said he was “shocked” by the spectacle. “Nothing is like what we used to know,” he said.
On Monday, witnesses told AFP that several airstrikes had hit a house and agricultural land in Rafah, as well as the areas of Nousseirat and Deir el-Balah, in the center of the territory. Artillery fire also targeted the southwest of Gaza City in the north.
“We’re not there”
The army’s announcements came alongside a new round of negotiations in Cairo between Hamas and Israel through Egypt, the United States and Qatar.
These discussions, aimed at achieving a truce as well as the release of hostages held in Gaza since the start of the war on October 7, are experiencing “significant progress”, pro-government Egyptian media Al-Qahera News said on Monday, citing a highly placed Egyptian source.
PHOTO VATICAN MEDIA VIA AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Pope Francis met with relatives of Israelis held hostage by Hamas since the October 7 attack, April 8 at the Vatican.
But officials on both sides have tempered that optimism.
“We do not yet see an agreement on the horizon,” declared an Israeli official, quoted by the media Ynet, stressing that “the distance remained significant” between the positions on both sides.
” You have to be patient. There is potential, but we are not there,” added a senior Israeli official.
According to a Hamas official contacted by AFP on Monday, “we cannot speak of concrete progress so far” and the differences mainly concern the return of displaced people to Gaza City, demanded by the Islamist movement.
According to Al-Qahera, the delegations of Qatar and Hamas left Cairo and will return there “within two days to finalize the terms of the agreement.” The American and Israeli delegations were also due to leave the Egyptian capital, according to the same source.
On Saturday, Hamas, considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union, assured that it would not give up its demands: “a complete ceasefire”, an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza , a return of the displaced and a “serious” agreement to exchange hostages and Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
Mr. Netanyahu retorted on Sunday that there would be no ceasefire without the release of all the hostages.
“More than catastrophic” situation
The war was launched 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 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.
Tribute to the victims and kidnapped of the Nova festival
In retaliation, Israel vowed to destroy Hamas and launched an offensive that has so far left 33,207 people dead, most of them civilians, and nearly 76,000 injured in Gaza, according to the Hamas health ministry.
The war has also caused a humanitarian catastrophe in the territory of 2.4 million people besieged by Israel, where humanitarian aid controlled by Israel has been trickling in from Egypt.
On Sunday, several United Nations agencies and humanitarian organizations described the situation in Gaza as “more than catastrophic”.
“Houses, schools, hospitals are in ruins. Teachers, doctors, humanitarian workers are killed. Famine is imminent,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell told X.
The war also has repercussions on the border between Lebanon and Israel. The Israeli army claimed on Sunday to have completed a “new phase” in its preparation for “war” on this border where deadly exchanges of fire with Lebanese Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, are intensifying.
The UN called on Monday for an end to this violence in order to avoid “a further deterioration of an already alarming situation”.