04/27/2024
Hamas promised on Saturday to study a counterproposal from Israel that plans to establish a truce in Gaza and the release of hostages captured by the Palestinian Islamist movement since the start of the war more than six months ago.
Hamas, on the other hand, released a video in which two of the hostages it has held captive in Gaza since October 7 urge the Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to reach an agreement as soon as possible that will allow them to regain their freedom.
These communication initiatives coincide with the presence in Israel of an Egyptian delegation that seeks to reactivate truce negotiations.
“Today, Hamas has received the official response from the Zionist occupation [Israel] to our position submitted to the Egyptian and Qatari mediators on April 13,” declared the number two of the political arm of the movement in Gaza, Khalil al Hayya.
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“The movement will study this proposal and will send its response once its study has finished,” he added.
Rafah in Israel’s sights
The discussions go hand in hand with international pressure to dissuade Israel from invading Rafah, a city in the south of the Gaza Strip where 1.5 million people are crowdedmostly displaced by war.
The Israeli government affirms that four Hamas battalions were equipped in that town, border with Egypt, and that the war will not end until the Islamist movement is extirpated, considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union.
Waiting for this eventual ground operation, the Israeli army bombed Rafah again on Saturday, an AFP reporter indicated. According to medical sources, at least ten people died in these operations.
One family was decimated by the attacks, said Mohamed Yusef, a relative of the dead. “There was no one left: the father, the mother, a girl and two boys” They lost their lives when their house was bombed, he said.
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The war began on October 7, with an incursion by Islamist militiamen that killed 1,170 people, mostly civilians, in southern Israel and kidnapped about 250, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.
Following a hostage exchange for Palestinian prisoners during a week-long truce in November, 129 people remained captive in Gaza, 34 of whom have died since then, according to Israeli authorities.
The Israeli retaliatory offensive has so far left more than 34,000 deads, the vast majority civilians, according to the Ministry of Health of the Gaza Strip, governed since 2007 by Hamas.
Blinken in Riyadh
The details of Hamas’ counterproposal are currently unknown, although the Israeli press reported this week that it includes the possible release of 20 hostages considered “humanitarian cases”.
The Egyptian information network Al Qahera News, linked to the intelligence services, noted “notable progress in bringing together the views of the Egyptian and Israeli delegations.”
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The head of US diplomacy, Antony Blinken, will hold discussions with regional leaders on Monday and Tuesday in Saudi Arabia, the State Department reported.
The war in Gaza multiplied the clashes on the border between Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement.
Hezbollah claimed on Saturday that it bombed northern Israel with “drones and guided missiles”, in response to Israeli bombings that killed three people, two of them belonging to the pro-Iran Islamist movement.
“We are tired”
In Khan Younis, a southern Gaza city devastated by fighting in February, some residents returned.
“We are tired”, said Abdelqader Mohamed Qwaider. “We insist on returning and we are going to settle in a tent on the rubble of our house,” he added.
The UN World Food Program (WFP) warned that if a massive and constant flow of food aid is not achieved, which until now mainly enters through Rafah, Gaza will fall. “in famine in the next six weeks.”
Faced with the difficulties of transporting international aid by road from Egypt due to strict controls by Israel, The United States began building a temporary pier on the coast of Gaza, where military or civil ships can deposit their cargoes.
Hamas releases video with hostages
In the video released by Hamas, two hostages — Omri Miran, 47, and Keith Siegel, 64 —urge Israelis to keep up the pressure on Netanyahu to accept a deal.
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“I have been here in Hamas captivity for 202 days.”. “The situation is unpleasant, difficult and there are many bombs,” Miran claims, which would indicate that the images were taken earlier this week.
“It is time to reach an agreement that will get us out of here safely (…). “Keep protesting, so that there is an agreement now”he adds.
The Israeli Forum of Families of Hostages and Missing Persons considered that the release of that video should Pushing the government to increase its efforts to free all the hostages.
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“The living must return for recovery and those killed must receive a dignified burial,” he added.
University unrest in the US
A pro-Palestinian solidarity movement emerged last week at Columbia University in New York and spread to universities in the United States, from California to New England (northeast), passing through the south of the country.
About a hundred protesters were arrested on Saturday on a campus in Boston, United States, and their camp was evacuated by riot police. according to a press release from the establishment and images on social networks.
The University indicated on the social network “violent anti-Semitic insults.”
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