More hostages held by Hamas are to be released on Tuesday in exchange for prisoners held by Israel, after a two-day extension of the truce in the war provides further respite for residents of the devastated Palestinian territory of Gaza.
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Ten Israeli hostages and 30 Palestinian prisoners must be released, according to a source close to the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas. The extension of the truce, until 05:00 GMT Thursday, should allow the release of a total of 20 hostages and 60 additional prisoners, according to the Qatari mediator.
But, a sign of a precarious situation, an AFP journalist in Gaza City saw the Israeli army fire three tank shells towards dozens of civilians who were trying to return to the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, and at least a casualty.
The army claimed that “suspects had approached Israeli troops” and that a tank had carried out “warning shots”, while the Palestinian movements denounced “violations of the truce” by Israel.
The extension of the truce, which came into force on November 24, simultaneously allows the entry of new humanitarian aid trucks into the Gaza Strip, besieged and bombarded for seven weeks by the Israeli army in retaliation for a bloody attack launched on October 7 against Israel by Hamas commandos from the neighboring Gaza Strip.
According to the authorities, 1,200 people, the vast majority civilians, were killed in the attack, unprecedented in the history of Israel.
In retaliation, Israel promised to “annihilate” Hamas, classified as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel, relentlessly bombing the Palestinian territory and launching a ground offensive on October 27.
According to the Hamas government, 14,854 people, including 6,150 under the age of 18, were killed in Israeli strikes.
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An “incomplete” joy
The truce agreement negotiated under the aegis of Qatar, with the support of Egypt and the United States, has so far enabled the release of 50 Israeli hostages and 150 Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons.
Nineteen foreign hostages, the majority Thais living in Israel, were released outside the framework of this agreement.
On the fifth day of the truce, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains under very strong pressure from public opinion, traumatized by the Hamas attack and demanding the return of the hostages.
“We will release all the hostages,” he said on Tuesday. “We will destroy this terrorist organization (Hamas) and ensure that Gaza is no longer a threat to the State of Israel,” he repeated.
The army estimates that around 240 people were kidnapped and taken to Gaza, where Hamas took power in 2007.
Before dawn, eleven of them were released and returned to Israel by helicopter. Among the ex-hostages are three teenagers with dual French nationality, Erez and Sahar Calderon, 12 and 16 years old, and Eitan Yahalomi, 12 years old, kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz, near Gaza.
Images released by the army showed Eitan, whose father Ohad was also kidnapped, finding his mother holding him close.
Lawyers for the Calderon family expressed their “immense joy,” but “incomplete” joy because Erez and Sahar’s father, Ofer, also remains in the hands of Hamas.
Shortly after, Israel released 33 Palestinians.
“I can’t describe what I feel. “It’s an indescribable joy,” said one of them, Mohamed Abou al-Humus, upon returning home to East Jerusalem, occupied and annexed by Israel, where he hugged his mother, according to a team from the ‘AFP on site.
But in Beitunia, in the occupied West Bank, the celebrations were cut short: a young Palestinian was shot and killed during clashes with Israeli forces, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
On Tuesday, the same ministry announced the death of two other Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
Blinken back in Israel
Shortly before the renewal of the truce, Mr. Netanyahu’s office agreed to include “50 prisoners” including Ahed Tamimi, a young icon of the Palestinian cause arrested in early November, in the list of Palestinians likely to be released.
Behind the scenes, mediators are working to extend the truce beyond Thursday and American Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected back in Israel and the West Bank this week.
The heads of the American and Israeli intelligence services are in Doha.
The Israeli government, which approved an additional “war” budget of 30.3 billion shekels (7.5 billion euros), has reiterated in recent days its intention to resume fighting at the end of the truce.
“It’s all gone”
More than half of homes were damaged or destroyed in the Gaza Strip during the war, according to the UN.
Already subject to an Israeli land, sea and air blockade since 2007, the overpopulated territory was placed under total siege by Israel on October 9, and has since suffered serious shortages of water, food, fuel, medicine and of electricity.
Despite the arrival since November 24 of hundreds of trucks in the small territory where 1.7 of the 2.4 million inhabitants have been displaced by the war, the situation remains “catastrophic”, judged the director of the World Food Program (PAM) for the Middle East, Corinne Fleischer, estimating that “there is a risk of famine” in Gaza.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has noted a “massive increase” in certain contagious diseases.
Thousands of Palestinians, displaced in the south of the Gaza Strip, took advantage of the truce to return to their homes in the north, the most devastated region, ignoring the ban by the Israeli army which took control of several sectors.
“I’m trying to find memories of my house,” says a Palestinian from al-Zahra, pointing to the mountains of rubble where his house stood, destroyed by Israeli strikes.
“Al-Zahra was the most beautiful city in the world (…) and now it has disappeared,” said Zein Ashour, a young woman who also lived in this now razed neighborhood.
Taghrid al-Najjar, a 46-year-old mother, found refuge with her family in a school in the southern Gaza Strip, before returning home to the village of Abassane, in the same area, and discovering his house destroyed.
“Twenty-seven years to build it and it’s all gone!”