Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: MARK SCHIEFELBEIN / POOL / AFP 4:35 p.m., February 7, 2024, modified at 4:40 p.m., February 7, 2024
The head of American diplomacy indicated Wednesday in Jerusalem that he hoped for an agreement on the hostages held in Gaza, while noting that there remained "a lot of work" to achieve this and make progress on the delivery of aid there. Antony Blinken met with several Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken meets Israeli leaders on Wednesday to try to move towards a new truce agreement in Gaza, including the release of hostages, as the war between Israel and Hamas enters its fifth month. Israeli bombings, according to an AFP journalist, once again targeted Khan Younes, in the south of the Palestinian territory, and the neighboring town of Rafah, refuge for hundreds of thousands of terrorized displaced people, who now fear a ground assault.
According to the Hamas Ministry of Health, 123 people have been killed in the past 24 hours across the Gaza Strip. "We did not sleep all night. The noise of the planes did not stop. The bombings became so close and so violent. I am terrified that Israel will launch a ground operation on Rafah," he said. told AFP Dana Ahmed, a 40-year-old woman who fled Gaza City in the north and is living in a tent in Rafah. “I can’t imagine what will happen to us,” she added. "Where will we go? I feel like I'm watching a horror movie."
The main information:
The head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken meets with Israeli leaders on Wednesday to try to move towards a new truce agreement in Gaza
Israeli bombings again targeted Khan Younes, in the south of the Palestinian territory, and the neighboring town of Rafah
Hamas Health Ministry says 123 people killed in past 24 hours across Gaza Strip
Hamas announced on Wednesday a death toll of 27,708 people, mostly women, children and adolescents, in the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli army said on Wednesday it had discovered and destroyed a tunnel more than a kilometer long in the Gaza Strip, where Hamas has held a dozen hostages since October
Egypt and Qatar sponsor "new round of negotiations" to begin Thursday in Cairo
New round of negotiations to begin Thursday in Cairo
Egypt and Qatar are sponsoring "a new round of negotiations" which will begin Thursday in Cairo and aim to obtain "calm in the Gaza Strip" as well as an exchange of Palestinian prisoners and Israeli hostages, a government official announced on Wednesday. Egyptian official at AFP.
Cairo urges "both parties to show the necessary flexibility" to reach a truce in Gaza, added this official on condition of anonymity, assuring that "Egypt was making intense and persistent efforts to reach an agreement truce" between Israel and the Islamist movement Hamas. A Hamas source close to the matter, also speaking on condition of anonymity, also confirmed to AFP that Hamas had accepted this new round of negotiations, with the objective of "a ceasefire, the end of war and an exchange of prisoners.
Israeli army says it destroyed tunnel where hostages were held
The Israeli army claimed on Wednesday to have discovered and destroyed a tunnel more than a kilometer long in the Gaza Strip, where Hamas has held a dozen hostages since October. This tunnel, located in Khan Younes where the fighting between Israel and the terrorist movement has been concentrated for several weeks, was discovered during a "targeted raid" and "destroyed" in the process, specifies a press release from the Israeli forces. "The tunnel was used to hide senior officials of the Hamas terrorist organization and to hold hostages (...), nearly a dozen at different times", of which "three were returned to Israel", affirm they.
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To achieve this, they say they "fought the terrorists in the tunnel, broke down metal doors and neutralized bombs". They then "discovered several rooms, including a cell with bars where hostages were held, a bathroom, a corner where their jailers rested", as well as "intelligence collection equipment and weapons belonging to Hamas" . Photos attached by Israeli forces show in particular fully tiled underground rooms, including one where there is a cell demarcated by metal bars, as well as weapons, including around twenty grenades and small rockets.
A “generally positive” response from Hamas
After Egypt and Qatar on Tuesday, the American Secretary of State met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday in Jerusalem, during this fifth tour of the region since the start of the war on October 7. Hamas announced that it had submitted its response to Egyptian and Qatari mediators to a truce proposal formulated at the end of January in Paris by American, Qatari and Egyptian officials. “There is still a lot of work to do. But we continue to believe that an agreement is possible and even essential, and we will continue to work tirelessly to achieve it,” Antony Blinken said on Tuesday.
Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdelrahmane Al-Thani described Hamas' response as "overall positive". In Israel, this was “carefully examined by the officials involved in the negotiations”, according to Benjamin Netanyahu’s services. A Hamas source indicated last week that the three-phase project included a six-week truce during which Israel will have to release 200 to 300 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for 35 to 40 hostages held in the Gaza Strip, as well as the increased entry of humanitarian aid into the Palestinian territory.
The war was sparked on October 7 by an unprecedented attack carried out on Israeli soil by Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count. made from official Israeli data. In response, Israel vowed to "destroy" Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007, and launched an offensive which left 27,708 people dead in the Palestinian territory, the vast majority of them women, children and adolescents, according to Hamas, which said also reported 67,147 injured.
Fears for Rafah
Around 1.7 million people, according to the UN, have been displaced by the war out of the 2.4 million inhabitants of the small territory devastated and besieged by Israel, plunged into a major humanitarian crisis. After fleeing the fighting further north, more than 1.3 million displaced people, according to the UN, are crowded together in desperate conditions in Rafah, five times the initial population of this town backed by the closed border with the Egypt.
Rafah could be Israel's next target, with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warning on Monday that the army would "reach places where it has not yet fought ... up to the last stronghold of Hamas, namely Rafah. “An escalation of hostilities in Rafah could lead to large-scale loss of civilian life. We must do everything in our power to avoid this,” warned the UN humanitarian aid coordination office ( Ocha).
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Antony Blinken's visit "is a nightmare", because with each visit, Israel "intensifies its attacks to show him that it refuses any truce", affirmed Mohammad Abou Nada, who came to pay his respects at the Najjar hospital in Rafah on the remains of a relative killed in a strike. In the ruins of Khan Younes, where residents continue to flee, images shot Tuesday by the Palestinian Red Crescent show an elderly woman transported to a hospital bed during the evacuation of al-Amal hospital.
"We won't stop"
At the end of November, a first one-week truce allowed the release of 105 hostages and 240 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, as well as the increased entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. In total, around 250 people were kidnapped in Israel on October 7. According to Israel, 132 hostages are still being held in Gaza, of whom 29 are believed to have died. So far, Hamas demands a complete ceasefire. Israel, which considers the movement a terrorist organization like the United States and the European Union, refuses to do so, maintaining that it will only definitively end its offensive once Hamas is eliminated and the hostages released. .
“We are on the path to total victory and we will not stop,” Benjamin Netanyahu repeated on Tuesday. In France, where tribute was paid on Wednesday to the French victims of the October 7 attack, President Emmanuel Macron denounced "the greatest anti-Semitic massacre of our century", adding that "all lives are equal" in the "heartbreaks " from the Middle-East. Outside Gaza, tensions remain high in the region between Israel and its allies on the one hand and Iran and allied groups on the other including Lebanese Hezbollah, militias in Iraq and Syria and the Houthi rebels in Yemen . During the night, Israeli strikes on the Homs region, in Syria, left ten people dead, including six civilians, according to an NGO.