Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday called on Hamas to “quickly” conclude a truce agreement to avoid an Israeli offensive on Rafah, at a time when negotiations are being held in Cairo on a pause in hostilities in the Gaza Strip.
In the Palestinian territory besieged and devastated by more than four months of war, Israeli bombings have not stopped, killing 104 people during the night, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas movement’s Ministry of Health, which said took power in the Palestinian territory in 2007.
The raids targeted Khan Younes and Rafah in particular, a city that has become the last refuge for 1.4 million Palestinians according to the UN, the vast majority of people displaced by the war, stuck against the closed border with Egypt and living in disastrous conditions.
“We call on Hamas to quickly conclude the agreement on the prisoners, to spare our Palestinian people from another catastrophe, no less dangerous than the Nakba of 1948, and to avoid an attack by the occupation on Rafah which would result in thousands of victims and an exodus of our people,” Abbas said, quoted by the Palestinian Wafa agency.
The “Nakba” (“Catastrophe” in Arabic) is the term used by Palestinians to designate the exodus of some 760,000 of them, initially driven by the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.
Mr. Abbas and the Palestinian Authority he leads are accused by many Palestinians of having remained largely passive in the face of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
Based in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, they are not participating in the ongoing negotiations in Cairo, where a Hamas delegation is expected to arrive on Wednesday according to a source in the Palestinian Islamist movement.
Since Tuesday, Egypt has hosted representatives from the United States, Israel’s main supporter, and Qatar, where the Hamas leader is based, for talks on a truce on a new release of hostages taken in Gaza on October 7 during an unprecedented Hamas attack against Israel.
Relatives of hostages in The Hague
The head of Mossad, Israel’s secret service, David Barnea, participated in discussions with CIA Director William Burns, Qatar Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdelrahmane Al-Thani and Egyptian officials before leaving Cairo, AlQahera News television, close to Egyptian intelligence, said Tuesday evening.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, very critical of the Israeli offensive in Gaza, also arrived in Cairo.
According to Israel, 130 hostages are still held in Gaza, 29 of whom are believed to have died, out of around 250 people kidnapped on October 7. A one-week truce at the end of November allowed the release of 105 hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
Around a hundred relatives of hostages went to The Hague on Wednesday to file a complaint against Hamas for “crimes against humanity” with the International Criminal Court (ICC), according to their representatives.
The war was sparked by the October 7 attack by Hamas commandos infiltrated from the neighboring Gaza Strip in southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to a count of AFP produced from official Israeli data.
Israel vowed to “destroy” Hamas in retaliation, and carried out a major military offensive which left 28,576 dead in Gaza, the vast majority civilians, according to the latest report from the Hamas Ministry of Health.
Israeli strikes in Lebanon
On Tuesday, the Israeli army released a video showing, according to it, Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinouar, alleged mastermind of the October 7 attack, in a tunnel on October 10. The “hunt will only stop when we have captured him dead or alive,” she said.
Since the start of the war, entire neighborhoods in Gaza have been razed by incessant Israeli bombardments and 1.7 million people, according to the UN, have been displaced out of the overpopulated territory’s approximately 2.4 million inhabitants. 362km2besieged by Israel and plunged into a major humanitarian crisis.
Rafah is the last urban center where the Israeli army has not yet penetrated and the main entry point for humanitarian aid, insufficient to meet the needs of a population threatened in the middle of winter by famine and epidemics according to the UN.
At the beginning of February, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the army to prepare an offensive on Rafah, the “last stronghold” according to him of Hamas, considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.
Despite international warnings, he said he was determined to continue “military pressure until complete victory” over Hamas, and the release of the hostages. He nevertheless assured Sunday that Israel would open “a secure passage” to the population to leave Rafah, without specifying where.
Washington has said it opposes an offensive against Rafah without guarantees for the safety of civilians, and UN humanitarian affairs chief Martin Griffiths has warned it “could lead to a massacre”.
On another battle front, the Israeli army launched “a series of raids in Lebanon”, after a rocket fired from the south of this neighboring country caused injuries in northern Israel.