(Tel Aviv) Families of hostages held in the Gaza Strip on Saturday urged the Israeli government to act as quickly as possible to obtain their release, after the death of three captives killed “by mistake” by Israeli soldiers.
What there is to know
- The three Israeli hostages had appeared in an area where troops face numerous ambushes and waved an improvised white flag and spoke in Hebrew.
- After more than two months of war and a total siege imposed by Israel since October 9, living conditions in the Gaza Strip are described as nightmarish by the UN.
- Some 1.9 million residents of the Gaza Strip, or 85% of the population, have been displaced.
- According to a latest report from the Hamas Ministry of Health, 18,800 people, 70% of them women, children and adolescents, were killed by Israeli bombings.
- More than 60 journalists and media workers have died since the start of the war, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to hold a press conference at 8:30 p.m. local time (1:30 p.m. Eastern time) amid mounting pressure to secure a truce between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.
“We only recover dead bodies. We want you to stop the fighting and start negotiations,” Noam Perry, daughter of an Israeli held by Hamas and its allies, said at a rally in Tel Aviv on Saturday evening.
PHOTOS PROVIDED BY FAMILIES VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
From left to right: Alon Lulu Shamriz, Samer al-Talalqa and Yotam Haïm
“It feels like Russian roulette: who will be the next to learn of the death of a loved one? We want to know what proposal is on the government’s table,” adds Ruby Chen, father of Itay Chen, a 19-year-old hostage.
The three hostages killed in a tragic mistake by Israeli soldiers during an operation in Gaza City were among some 250 people captured during the unprecedented attack launched on October 7 from the Gaza Strip by Hamas on the Israeli soil.
Around 1,140 people, mostly civilians, were killed by Hamas commandos and its allies, according to the latest official Israeli data. To date, 129 hostages remain in the hands of Hamas or allied groups.
In retaliation, Israel has promised to “destroy” Hamas and is relentlessly bombing the small, overpopulated Palestinian territory. Since October 27, the army has been carrying out a ground offensive against the Islamist movement throughout the Gaza Strip, including in the south where hundreds of thousands of civilians displaced by the war have gathered.
According to a latest report from the Hamas Ministry of Health, in power in Gaza, 18,800 people, 70% of them women, children and adolescents, were killed by Israeli bombings.
“Against our rules”
On Saturday, the army delivered the first elements of its investigation into the death of the three hostages, Yotam Haïm, 28 years old, Samer al-Talalqa, 25 years old and Alon Lulu Shamriz, 26 years old.
All three had appeared in a sector where the troops suffered numerous ambushes. They “didn’t wear t-shirts” and waved a makeshift white flag with a stick.
One of the soldiers nevertheless felt “threatened”, fearing a trap, and fired, killing two hostages, a military official told journalists.
The third hostage, “wounded,” tried to take shelter in a building, and the soldiers then “heard a cry for help in Hebrew.”
PHOTO ALBERTO PIZZOLI, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Demonstration demanding the release of hostages kidnapped by Hamas on December 16 in Tel Aviv
Despite an order to stop shooting from the battalion commander, soldiers fired again, killing the third person, said this official, who assured that the incident was “against our rules”.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, deplored “an unbearable tragedy” which plunges “the entire State of Israel into mourning”.
“The Zionist army knows very well our conditions for releasing (the hostages), none will be released if our conditions are not accepted,” declared Abou Obeida, spokesperson for the armed wing of Hamas – a movement classified as terrorist by the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and Israel, among others.
Second truce?
Several media outlets claim that after this fiasco for the army, the Israeli authorities are returning to negotiations.
The American news site Axios claims that David Barnea, the head of Mossad, Israel’s foreign secret service, is due to meet Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdelrahmane Al-Thani in Europe this weekend to discuss a second truce with a view to the release of hostages.
PHOTO AHMAD GHARABLI, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
People look at portraits of Israeli hostages held in Gaza since the October 7 attack displayed on a wall in Tel Aviv on December 15.
On Saturday, the website of the Israeli daily Haaretz went further and affirmed, citing an Israeli political source, that the meeting took place, without further details.
At the end of November, a one-week ceasefire allowed a pause in the fighting as well as the release of around a hundred hostages held by Hamas and 240 Palestinian prisoners imprisoned by Israel.
“Heavy fighting”
In the Gaza Strip, early Saturday, Hamas reported “fierce fighting” in the Jabaliya sector (north), air strikes and intense artillery fire in Khan Younes, the epicenter of clashes in the south of the territory. Palestinian.
For civilians, many of whom are forced into an increasingly small area to the south, around Rafah in the hope of escaping the fighting, living conditions are described as nightmarish by the UN and NGOs.
Some 1.9 million inhabitants, or 85% of its population, have been displaced, according to the UN, many of whom have had to flee several times, and are now suffering from shortages of food, water, medicine and sanitation, while epidemics spread.
PHOTO SAID KHATIB, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Smoke rises into the sky over Khan Yunis after an Israeli bombardment on December 16.
On Friday, in a context of strong international pressure, notably from its American ally, Israel authorized the “temporary” opening of a new entry point for humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip via the Kerem Shalom crossing, but without specifying when.
In the occupied West Bank, where violence intensified after the outbreak of the Gaza war, the Hamas health ministry announced the deaths of two Palestinians aged around 20 on Saturday after another aged 30 shot dead south of Nablus on Friday evening.
Journalist killed
Journalists in Gaza also continue to pay a very heavy price: an Al Jazeera journalist was killed on Friday. His burial took place on Saturday, in the middle of a large crowd gathered over his coffin, where his helmet and bulletproof vest were placed.
Al Jazeera bureau chief in Gaza, Waël Dahdouh, who lost his wife and two of his children at the start of the war, was injured in the arm by shrapnel and transferred to a hospital in Khan Younes .
A journalist from the Turkish Anadolu news agency was also injured by Israeli police in East Jerusalem, annexed and occupied by Israel. An Israeli police spokesperson said the officers involved had been suspended.
More than 60 journalists and media workers have died since the start of the war, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Regional tensions
The war in Gaza continues to increase tensions in the region. A drone was shot down by the Egyptian air force on Saturday in Egyptian Sinai, bordering Israel, and another by a British warship in the Red Sea, where Houthi rebels, close to Iran, carry out almost daily attacks that they justify in support of Hamas.
The Swiss shipowner MSC therefore announced that it was suspending, like the CMA CGM, Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd groups, the crossing of the Red Sea by its container ships.
To try to avoid a regional escalation, the head of French diplomacy Catherine Colonna will visit Israel and the West Bank on Sunday, before joining Lebanon on Monday.