The essential

  • Discussions for a truce in Gaza are due to resume this weekend in Cairo, where Joe Biden urged negotiators to convince Hamas, almost six months of war in the Palestinian territory ravaged by destruction and on the verge of famine.

  •  As talks stall on a truce and the release of hostages still held by the Palestinian Islamist movement, CIA chief Bill Burns will travel to Cairo for new talks scheduled for this weekend, according to media reports Americans. The director of the American intelligence agency will meet his Israeli Mossad counterpart David Barnea as well as Egyptian and Qatari officials, according to the New York Times.

  • The war between the Israeli army and Hamas enters its 7th month on Sunday. Nearly 33,100 people have died in the Gaza Strip, most of them civilians, according to the Palestinian Islamist movement's health ministry. 

The essentials of the day before:

  • The UN Human Rights Council adopted a non-binding resolution in Geneva calling for a halt to arms sales to Israel.

  • Israel has given the green light to the "temporary" delivery, in order to transport supplies to the Gaza Strip via the port of Ashdod and the Erez crossing point.

  • This announcement comes at a time when international pressure is increasing on the Israeli government, with the President of the United States, Joe Biden, having raised for the first time the possibility of conditioning American aid to Israel on "tangible" measures against to the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.

  • The Israeli army admitted a series of "errors" which led to the death of seven humanitarian workers on Monday evening in the Gaza Strip. The team operating the drones made an “operational error in situational assessment” after spotting a “Hamas gunman” firing from the roof of one of the trucks.

  • The Hamas Ministry of Health announced on Friday a new toll of 33,091 people killed in the Gaza Strip since the start of the conflict.

Please note: the number of victims is provided by the Gaza Ministry of Health run by Hamas

The ministry collects information provided by hospitals in the enclave and by the Palestinian Red Crescent.

The Gaza Health Ministry does not indicate how the Palestinians were killed, whether by Israeli airstrikes and/or barrages or failed Palestinian rocket attacks. It describes all victims as victims of "Israeli aggression" and also does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

During the four wars and numerous skirmishes between Israel and Hamas, United Nations agencies regularly cited Health Ministry figures in their reports. The International Committee of the Red Cross and the Palestinian Red Crescent also use these figures.

In the aftermath of previous episodes of war, the United Nations Humanitarian Office published casualty figures based on its own research into medical records. The UN figures largely agree with those of the Gaza Ministry of Health, with a few differences.

To learn more about the reports from the Gaza Ministry of Health, click here or here.

France 24 with AP

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