The international community demanded a truce in Gaza on Friday and asked to investigate the tragedy the day before, when Israeli soldiers fired on a hungry crowd that attacked a humanitarian aid convoy, leaving, according to Hamas, more than 110 dead.
The president of the USA, Joe Biden announced that his country will participate “in the coming days” in the airdrop of aid to Gaza, where the inhabitants suffer shortages of food, water and medicine due to the siege imposed by Israel. According to the UN, 2.2 million of the 2.4 million inhabitants of this narrow territory are threatened by famine after almost five months of conflict, which has claimed the lives of more than 30,000 people.
Thursday, A hospital doctor and witnesses said Israeli soldiers fired on a hungry crowd that had surrounded a humanitarian aid convoy in northern Gaza. According to Hamas, 115 people were killed and 760 injured..
An Israeli army officer confirmed “limited shooting” by soldiers who felt “threatened” and described “a stampede during which dozens of residents were killed and wounded, some of them run over by aid trucks.”
Biden admitted that the tragedy complicates negotiations for a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas. After the drama, Washington demanded “answers” from Israel, its ally, and called for a “thorough investigation.” The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, urged clarification of what happened, as did Germany and France. Italy and Spain considered that it was “urgent” to reach a truce.
“A barbaric and brutal act”
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva proposed a motion from the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) to demand an “immediate end” to the “genocide” in Gaza. China, for its part, called for a “ceasefire” and to guarantee the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Several countries, including Jordan, began dropping air aid on Gaza. France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Egypt also supported this gesture.
Saudi Arabia, heavyweight of the Arab world, condemned “the attacks by the occupation forces against defenseless civilians” and Qatar, one of the main mediators in the war, called for “international action to immediately put an end to the (Israeli) aggression.”.
According to Hamas and several witnesses, Israeli soldiers positioned to protect the convoy fired at the crowd that rushed towards the trucks. The Security Council met urgently on Thursday, after UN chief Antonio Guterres called for “an effective independent investigation.”
A UN team visited the wounded at the Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City on Friday, where they found “a large number of gunshot wounds,” said Guterres’ spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric. There are still 200 injured of the 700 taken to the hospital, he explained.
New Israeli bombings
In the early morning, Israel bombed again Khan Younis and Rafah, in the south, where thousands of refugees are crowded. There were also clashes between Israeli soldiers and Hamas fighters in Gaza City and Khan Younis, according to witnesses. The Gaza Ministry of Health reported that the total number of victims amounts to 30,228 dead. And he pointed out that four other children died of “malnutrition and dehydration” in the north of the territory, bringing the number of minors killed by these causes to ten since the start of the war.
Qatar, the US and Egypt have been trying for weeks to reach an agreement on a six-week truce, which includes the release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and the entry of large amounts of aid into Gaza. But after Thursday’s tragedy, Biden, who this week raised the possibility of an agreement before Monday, declared that that deadline “probably” will not be able to be met.
More hostages killed
Hamas announced the deaths of seven more hostages “in Israeli bombings” and claims that more than 70 have died in similar circumstances since the war began, an announcement that increases pressure on Israel to reach a truce after talks this week. in Paris and Doha have stalled.
“We tried to keep them alive, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted on killing all seven of them through attacks by the Israeli Army,” said Abu Obeida, spokesman for the al-Qasam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, who confirmed the identity of three. of the supposedly dead hostages: the elderly Israelis Haim Peri, Yoram Itak Metzger and Amiram Cooper, of whom he already warned weeks ago that he had no information about their status or whereabouts, having lost contact with the cell that was holding them.
“After examination and verification over the past few weeks, we have confirmed the martyrdom of several of our fighters and the murder of seven enemy prisoners in the Strip as a result of the Zionist bombardment. We will announce the names of the other four deceased after confirming their identities,” Obeida said.
With the seven hostages presumed dead by Hamas, the group raised the death toll to about 70 “as a result of military operations by the enemy army,” while Israel has only confirmed the deaths of about 30.
The Israeli authorities have not yet commented on the veracity of these claims; and according to their data, 130 hostages of the 253 who were kidnapped on October 7 remain inside the Strip, of which around thirty are dead. There are also four captives for years, two of them deceased.
About the negotiations, Hamas insists that a temporary truce be accompanied by an agreement for a cessation of hostilities in a second phase, which Israel opposes, determined to continue its ground offensive in the Strip in Rafah, the extreme south on the border with Egypt, where Four battalions remain of the Islamist group. A truce could delay the incursion into Rafah, where 1.4 million people are displaced, but never cancel it, Netanyahu has insisted.
“We will not capitulate to the delirious demands of Hamas. We are determined to bring back all the hostages, with or without a framework agreement”Netanyahu said about a possible truce, although he said it is still “too early” to know if it will go ahead.
Draft agreement
The draft agreement not yet closed contemplates a truce of about six weeks, possibly coinciding with Ramadan that begins on March 10, and an exchange of ten Palestinian prisoners for each hostage.
“The price we will accept for five or ten live prisoners is the same price we would have paid for all the prisoners if they had not died in enemy bombing”Hamas said about the negotiations for a truce agreement.
Since the war began, Israel and Hamas only reached a one-week truce agreement in late November, which allowed the release of 105 hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners.
Four hostages were freed by Hamas in October and three were rescued by the Army – two of them a few weeks ago in a successful operation in Rafah -, while the bodies of eleven hostages have been recovered, three of whom the troops killed by mistake. Israelis.
However, Egypt expressed hope for the possibility of a truce and pointed out that Ramadan would be the “limiting time”, because if the war continues during the holy month for Islam, it will have “dire consequences”, stated the Foreign Minister. Sameh Sukri.
