(Jerusalem) The United States said on Tuesday that it was “time to finalize” a truce agreement in Gaza, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to yield to pressure on the issue, on 11e months of war with the Palestinian Hamas.
The American statement comes two days after the Israeli army announced the discovery in a Gaza tunnel of six hostages killed according to it at “point-blank range” by the Islamist movement.
The hostages were kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip in an unprecedented attack by Hamas on October 7 against Israel, which prompted Israeli retaliation that left tens of thousands dead in the besieged Palestinian territory, which was the target of new deadly strikes on Tuesday.
The announcement of the discovery of the six bodies has increased the pressure on Mr Netanyahu, leading to demonstrations by thousands of people in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, accompanied by a strike in several cities to demand an agreement allowing the release of the hostages still held in Gaza.
“There are still dozens of hostages in Gaza, still waiting for a deal that will bring them home. It is time to finalize that deal,” U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Tuesday.
He said that “in the coming days, the United States will continue to engage with our partners in the region to reach a final agreement,” referring to the negotiations under the aegis of the mediators – the United States, Qatar, Egypt – with a view to a truce agreement associated with the release of hostages.
“In coffins”
US President Joe Biden, whose country is Israel’s main ally, had himself criticized the Israeli prime minister for not doing enough to reach an agreement on the hostages.
After publicly asking for “forgiveness for not bringing back alive” the six hostages, Mr. Netanyahu vowed to make the Islamist movement pay “a very high price.” “I will not give in to pressure,” he insisted.
He also reaffirmed the need for Israel to maintain control of a corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border, a sticking point in the negotiations.
Hamas is demanding an Israeli withdrawal from the corridor, which was seized by Israeli forces last May, and ultimately Israel’s complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
PHOTO FLORION GOGA, REUTERS
Demonstration in Tel Aviv for the release of hostages held by Hamas
On Monday evening, Hamas’s military wing spokesman Abu Obeida warned that the hostages still held in Gaza would be returned “in coffins” if Israel continued its military pressure “instead of reaching an agreement.”
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Tuesday called for an “independent” investigation into the “summary execution” of the six hostages.
“Never agree”
Mr Netanyahu ‘wants to occupy Gaza indefinitely’ […] “Israel will never give back territory that it needs for its security,” Mairav Zonszein, an analyst at the International Crisis Group, told AFP on Tuesday. “It has basically announced that there will never be a deal on hostages.”
The Israeli prime minister says he wants to continue the war until the destruction of Hamas, which seized power in Gaza in 2007 and is considered a terrorist movement by the United States and the European Union.
The attack carried out by Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza into southern Israel on October 7 resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.
Of the 251 people abducted that day, 97 are still being held in Gaza, including 33 declared dead by the army.
In response, Israel launched a major offensive in Gaza that has so far killed at least 40,819 people, according to Hamas’s health ministry, causing a humanitarian and health disaster and the displacement of almost all of the city’s 2.4 million residents. The majority of the dead are women and minors, according to the UN.
Deadly strikes in Gaza
Under three-day “humanitarian pauses”, an anti-polio campaign was launched on Sunday in central Gaza with the aim of vaccinating more than 640,000 children under the age of ten across the territory.
PHOTO HUSSAM AL-MASRI, REUTERS
Palestinian children sit in front of the rubble of a mosque destroyed by an Israeli strike in Deir Al-Balah.
The campaign is going “well,” said Rik Peeperkorn, a World Health Organization official. The total number of children under 10 vaccinated so far is 161,000, he said.
The campaign is expected to move to the south of the territory on Thursday with the aim of vaccinating some 340,000 children, then to the north to vaccinate another 150,000.
Meanwhile, the Israeli offensive in Gaza continues unabated.
In the south, two Palestinians were killed when a shell hit a tent for displaced people in Khan Younis, according to the civil defense. In the center, a strike targeted a house near Al-Bureij and artillery fire targeted Nusseirat.
In the north, two people were killed and about 30 injured, some seriously, in an Israeli bombing of a school in Gaza City, according to the civil defense. According to the Israeli army, the strike targeted a Hamas command center on a site that previously housed a school.
The army is also continuing its “anti-terrorist” operation in the north of the occupied West Bank for the seventh consecutive day, during which three people were killed on Tuesday, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, bringing the number of Palestinian deaths since August 28 to 30.
UN wants independent investigation
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Tuesday called for an “independent, impartial and transparent” investigation into the “summary execution” of six Israeli hostages in the Gaza Strip, in a message on X.
“#Gaza: We are horrified by reports that Palestinian armed groups have summarily executed six Israeli hostages, which would constitute a war crime,” the High Commissioner continued.
High Commissioner Volker Türk also calls for those responsible to be held to account.
US Justice Department Prosecutes Hamas Leaders for ‘Terrorism’
The American justice system on Tuesday made public the charges against six leaders of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on charges of “terrorism”.
Six Hamas leaders, including its political leader Ismail Haniyeh, assassinated in Tehran on July 31 in an operation attributed to Israel, as well as its leader Yahya Sinwar, head of the movement in the Gaza Strip and considered the mastermind of the October 7 attack, are targeted by the charges issued on October 1er FEBRUARY.
The charges target “Yahya Sinwar and other senior Hamas officials for planning the terrorist organization’s campaign of mass violence and terror over decades, including on October 7,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a video statement released by his office.
“In its attacks over the past three decades, Hamas has murdered and injured thousands of civilians, including dozens of American citizens,” he said.