[Ce direct est désormais terminé]
The caption states that she was kidnapped “on the first day” of the Hamas attack on Israeli soil on October 7. The Palestinian Islamist movement broadcast, Monday October 16 on its official Telegram account, the video of“one of the prisoners in Gaza”, in which a young woman speaking Hebrew appears. In this video, impossible to immediately authenticate, we see this young woman awake and lying down, injured in the arm. She says she is being held in Gaza and calls for her release, saying she is being treated well. In a second sequence, she appears on camera and says she is from central Israel. Israeli officials on Monday morning estimated the number of hostages held in the Gaza Strip at 199. The armed wing of Hamas, for its part, affirmed Monday evening that they were “between 200 and 250”.
A humanitarian air corridor to Gaza opened by the EU. Europe will open a humanitarian air corridor to the Gaza Strip, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced on Monday. “Palestinians in Gaza need humanitarian aid”that is why “We are launching a humanitarian corridor via Egypt. The first two flights will leave this week, and they will bring humanitarian materials to Gaza”, she said from Tirana, Albania. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Catherine Colonna, announced a little earlier, from Lebanon, that “Efforts are underway to open a humanitarian corridor through Rafah”the only entry point into the Gaza Strip controlled by Egypt and not by Israel.
The Rafah terminal bombed. Before these EU announcements, a new strike hit the area of the Rafah crossing point on Monday, between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, AFP journalists noted, while hundreds of Palestinians were massed nearby, hoping to flee the area. Three Israeli strikes had already taken place in recent days, prompting the Egyptian authorities to close the border crossing. The belligerents also denied on Monday reports of a ceasefire and an opening of the crossing point, which separates the Palestinian enclave from its neighbor to the south.
The Gaza Strip is heading towards disaster, warns the WHO. Gaza and its 2.4 million inhabitants, half of whom are children, are running at “real disaster”warns Ahmed Al-Mandhari, WHO director for the Eastern Mediterranean. “There are 24 hours of water, electricity and fuel left” in Gaza, if no aid reaches the Palestinian enclave. Doctors will only have to “prepare death certificates”, he warns. According to this official, since October 7, “111 medical infrastructures were targeted [par des tirs israéliens]12 healthcare executives were killed and 60 ambulances targeted”, while the injured are unable to flee to the south of the Gaza Strip.
Germany has called on Iran not to take any decisions leading to an escalation in the war in the Middle East. Every person “Whoever throws fuel on the fire should really think carefully, because it is possible that we are facing a major regional conflict”, declared the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs during a press briefing on Monday in Berlin. Sebastian Fischer was questioned about the meeting on Sunday in Qatar between the Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs and the leader of Hamas in exile.