Europe 1 with AFP 8:20 a.m., February 29, 2024

On the 144th day of the conflict between Israel and Hamas, the terrorist movement announced that the number of victims in the Gaza Strip had exceeded the threshold of 30,000, according to a latest report.

The fighting continues, while Israel has promised to eliminate Hamas after the deadly attack on October 7. 

Hamas announced Thursday that the number of deaths in the Gaza Strip was "more than 30,000" since the start of the conflict with Israel on October 7.

"The number of martyrs (killed, editor's note) is more than 30,000," the ministry said in a statement, reporting at least 79 new deaths in nighttime Israeli strikes.

This assessment comes as the main mediators in the war, the United States and Qatar, say they hope to obtain a truce allowing the release of hostages held in Gaza before the start of Ramadan, the holy month of Muslim fasting which begins around from March 11.

The war, which transformed the Palestinian territory into a "death zone" according to the UN, is already, by far, the deadliest of the five conflicts that have pitted Israel against Hamas since the latter took power in Gaza in 2007. On a daily basis, civilians pay the heaviest price of the fighting and bombings which spared no area, devastated entire neighborhoods and forced 1.7 million Palestinians out of the 2.4 million inhabitants to flee their homes.

"For me, this is genocide. Who bombs a tower on residents, especially civilians, children and women?" testified Jihad Salha, a displaced Palestinian whom AFP met in a camp makeshift camp in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip.

On October 7, Hamas commandos infiltrated from the neighboring Gaza Strip carried out an unprecedented attack in southern Israel, which caused the deaths of at least 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to a count by the 'AFP produced from official data.

During the attack, some 250 people were kidnapped and taken to Gaza.

According to Israel, 130 hostages are still being held there, 31 of whom are believed to have died, after the release of 105 hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners during a truce at the end of November.

“Famine looms”

In retaliation, Israel vowed to annihilate Hamas, which it considers, along with the United States and the European Union, to be a terrorist organization.

On Thursday, New Zealand, one of the last Western countries not to have done so, announced that it would now also designate "the entirety of Hamas", that is to say including the branch political, as a “terrorist entity”.

After carrying out a campaign of bombings by land, sea and air, the Israeli army launched a ground offensive on October 27 in the north of the territory while advancing towards the south.

Since then, it has lost 242 soldiers.

In the territory besieged since October 9 by Israel, 2.2 million people, the vast majority of the population, are threatened with famine according to the UN, particularly in the north where destruction, fighting and looting make it almost impossible to deliver aid.

The UN also denounced obstacles imposed by Israel which controls the entry of aid from Egypt.

According to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), humanitarian needs are “unlimited”.

"Famine is looming. Hospitals have turned into battlefields. A million children face daily trauma," she said.

According to the Hamas Ministry of Health, seven children died of "dehydration and malnutrition" at Al-Chifa hospital in Gaza City (north), and seven others at Kamal Adwan hospital, also in the north.

The international community is also worried about an upcoming Israeli ground offensive on Rafah, where nearly 1.5 million Palestinians are massed, according to the UN, most of the displaced, trapped against Egypt's closed border.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he wanted to defeat Hamas in its “last bastion”.

He said a truce would only "delay" such an offensive while ensuring that civilians would be evacuated from combat zones.

Target of daily Israeli bombings, Rafah, which had 270,000 inhabitants before the war, is the main entry point for aid into Gaza, which arrives in very limited quantities.

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) says it is discussing with Palestinian officials the opening of "many more crossing points".

“It’s a matter of life and death,” said its administrator, Samantha Power, on the social network X.

A truce before Ramadan?

Faced with this devastating war, Qatar, the United States and Egypt are trying to secure a truce agreement covering a six-week break in fighting, during which a hostage, among women, minors and sick elderly people, would be exchanged every day for ten Palestinians detained by Israel, according to a Hamas source.

On Monday, US President Joe Biden spoke of “an agreement by the Israelis that they would not engage in operations during Ramadan” in order to “get all the hostages out”.

“I hope that by next Monday, we will have a ceasefire,” he said, while emphasizing that it was “not done yet.”

Demanding an agreement from their government to release the hostages, some 150 Israelis launched a four-day march from Reim in southern Israel to Jerusalem.

“There will be no victory if our citizens remain in captivity,” one of them, Niv Cohen, survivor of the October 7 attacks, told AFP.

On the diplomatic front, representatives of Palestinian factions, including the rival movements of Hamas and Fatah, are in Moscow this Thursday for talks with the head of Russian diplomacy, Sergei Lavrov.