Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: SAID KHATIB / AFP 10:00 a.m., February 22, 2024

On the 137th day of the conflict, Israel launched new airstrikes against Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip during the night from Wednesday to Thursday, according to an AFP journalist, as complicated talks begin in Cairo to try to establish a truce on Palestinian territory.

THE ESSENTIAL

While 2.2 million people, the vast majority of the population, are threatened with famine in Gaza according to the UN, humanitarian organizations denounce strikes against their installations.

During the night from Wednesday to Thursday, the Israeli air force carried out around ten strikes against Rafah, noted an AFP journalist.

No report was immediately available.

The main information to remember:

  • Israel launched new airstrikes against Rafah during the night from Wednesday to Thursday, while nearly 1.5 million people are massed in this city

  • Talks are still underway to find a truce agreement, a first phase should provide for a six-week truce, associated with an exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners

  • Hamas announces new death toll of 29,410

“We wait for death, day after day”

Rafah is the "last bastion" of Hamas in the eyes of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu determined, despite international protests, to launch a ground offensive there in order to defeat the Palestinian Islamist movement and free the hostages held in Gaza.

Nearly 1.5 million people, according to the UN, are massed in this city located on the closed border with Egypt.

“We are waiting for death, day after day,” said a resident of Rafah, Wissam Lafi, to AFP.

"We thank God that the day is over and we are still alive. We are just waiting for death."

American President Joe Biden's adviser for the Middle East, Brett McGurk, is expected in Israel on Thursday after a stop in Egypt where new talks with a view to a truce are being held.

Towards a “first phase” of a truce agreement

“We want an agreement to be reached (…) as quickly as possible,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told the press.

On Wednesday in Cairo, the head of the Hamas political bureau, Ismaïl Haniyeh, based in Qatar, was to discuss with the head of the Egyptian intelligence services, Abbas Kamel, in particular the "first phase" of a plan developed in January, according to a Hamas source to AFP in Gaza.

This first phase of the plan designed by the mediating countries - Qatar, the United States and Egypt - provided for a six-week truce, associated with an exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and the entry into Gaza of a significant amount of humanitarian aid.

Hamas demands a ceasefire, an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, an end to the Israeli blockade and safe shelter for the hundreds of thousands of civilians displaced by the war. Israel, for its part, says its offensive will continue as long as Hamas will not have been eliminated and the hostages released.

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Sexual violence

According to Israel, 130 hostages are still held in Gaza, 30 of whom are believed to have died, out of around 250 people kidnapped on October 7.

That day, Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza launched an unprecedented attack in southern Israel and killed more than 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data. .

According to a report by an Israeli organization published Wednesday, these attacks gave rise to systematic and premeditated sexual violence.

On Monday, UN human rights experts called for an independent investigation into allegations of violence, including sexual violence, against Palestinian women allegedly perpetrated by Israelis in Gaza and the West Bank.

In retaliation for the October 7 attack, Israel vowed to annihilate Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007, which it considers a terrorist organization along with the United States and the European Union.

The Israeli army offensive left 29,410 people dead in Gaza, the vast majority of them civilians, according to Hamas.

On Wednesday, the Israeli parliament overwhelmingly voted for a resolution proposed by Benjamin Netanyahu opposing any “unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state”, which according to the text would amount to rewarding the “unprecedented terrorism” of Hamas.

A few days earlier, the Washington Post reported that the United States and several Arab allies were working on a comprehensive plan intended to establish lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace after the end of the war between Israel and Hamas, including a timetable for the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state.

Divisions at the G20

International differences were on display again on Wednesday during a meeting of G20 foreign ministers in Brazil.

The head of Brazilian diplomacy Mauro Vieira deplored "the unacceptable paralysis of the Security Council" particularly regarding Gaza, where the United States, Israel's ally, vetoed a draft Council resolution the day before UN Security Council which demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.

For its part, the United States criticized the controversial remarks of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva comparing the war in Gaza to the Holocaust.

The humanitarian situation is particularly alarming in the north of Gaza, prey to "chaos and violence", according to the World Food Program (WFP), which suspended the distribution of its aid there on Tuesday.

Subject to the green light from Israel, aid enters Gaza mainly through Rafah via Egypt, but its transport to the north is made almost impossible by the destruction and fighting.

The Israeli authorities announced on Wednesday the entry the day before of 98 trucks with humanitarian aid into Gaza, while a collective of international NGOs (AIDA) deplored the slowness of the inspection process and the blockage of dozens of trucks for several days at the border.

Israeli strikes

In the south, in Khan Younes, scene in recent weeks of ground fighting, shooting and air raids, an Israeli tank, according to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), fired late Tuesday on a house sheltering some employees of the NGO , killing two members of the family of one of them.

MSF denounced this strike “with the greatest firmness” on Wednesday.

The Israeli army expressed its regret, telling AFP that it had fired on a building "identified" as hosting "terrorist activities", but that afterwards "reports emerged of the deaths of two civilians not involved" in these alleged activities.

In the same city, the Palestinian Red Crescent reported "multiple attacks" against the Al-Amal hospital, two floors of which were, according to it, hit by Israeli artillery fire.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), the main humanitarian aid organization in the Gaza Strip, is facing a new controversy.

The mother of Yonatan Samerano, a 21-year-old Israeli killed in the October 7 attack, accused an UNRWA employee on Wednesday of taking his remains to the Gaza Strip.

“How could the UN pay (the salary) of a man who dragged the thin body on the ground and then took it as if it were a reward for Gaza?” Ayelet said indignantly Samerano, during a press conference in Tel Aviv.

Several countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan, suspended funding to UNRWA after Israeli accusations that 12 of its employees were involved in the October 7 attack.

For its part, United Airlines announced the resumption of its flights to Israel starting next month, becoming the first American airline to make such a return since the October 7 attack.