Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credits: AFP 7:17 p.m., March 1, 2024
On the 145th day of the conflict between Hamas and Israel, the international community on Friday demanded a ceasefire in Gaza and an investigation after Israeli shooting and a stampede during a distribution of humanitarian aid which turned into tragedy on Thursday.
Europe 1 takes stock of the situation.
THE ESSENTIAL
The international community on Friday called for a ceasefire in Gaza and an investigation after Israeli shooting and a stampede during a distribution of humanitarian aid which turned into tragedy on Thursday, leaving more than 110 dead, according to Hamas, in the Palestinian territory threatened with famine.
Nearly five months after the start of the war between Israel and the Islamist movement, deadly Israeli strikes continued on Gaza, where the death toll now exceeds 30,200, according to Hamas.
The main information:
International community calls for ceasefire, investigation after Israeli shooting during aid distribution in Gaza
Hamas says seven hostages died in Israeli strikes in Gaza
2.2 million people at risk of famine in Gaza Strip, says UN
Seven hostages died in Israeli strikes in Gaza, Hamas says
The armed wing of Hamas said Friday evening that seven hostages held in the Gaza Strip had died in recent weeks in Israeli "bombings" on the Palestinian territory.
“In recent weeks, we have confirmed the death of a number of our fighters and that of seven enemy prisoners in the Gaza Strip following Zionist bombardments,” Abu Obeida, the spokesman, said in a statement. word of the al-Qassam brigades, the armed wing of the Islamist movement Hamas.
Hamas claimed that three hostages, of whom the terrorist movement released a video on Thursday, were among the seven dead.
They said the names of the four other deceased hostages would be revealed when they were "confirmed."
It was not possible on Friday to confirm these presumed deaths from an independent source.
The al-Qassam brigades made the announcement shortly after the start of Shabbat, a weekly break in Jewish tradition, and against the backdrop of talks for a new truce in the fighting between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
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2.2 million people at risk of famine
According to the UN, 2.2 million people, the vast majority of the population, are threatened with famine in the territory besieged by Israel, particularly in the north where destruction, fighting and looting make it almost impossible to survive. delivery of humanitarian aid.
A famine “is almost inevitable, if nothing changes,” the spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Jens Laerke, once again warned on Friday.
On Thursday, witnesses said Israeli soldiers fired on a hungry crowd rushing toward humanitarian aid trucks in the northern Gaza City.
The toll is 115 dead and around 760 injured, according to Hamas.
An Israeli army official confirmed "limited shooting" by soldiers who felt "threatened" and spoke of "a stampede during which dozens of residents were killed and injured, some run over by aid trucks".
Shooting on the sidelines of humanitarian aid: the United States demands “answers” from Israel
Israel's main ally, Washington demanded "answers" from Benjamin Netanyahu's government after the tragedy and pleaded for "an agreement on a temporary ceasefire".
Italy and Spain have stressed the urgency of a ceasefire.
France called for an “independent investigation” and Germany called for a “humanitarian truce”.
The European Union also called for an investigation and a ceasefire to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for “an effective independent investigation.”
On Thursday, a witness said, some "aid trucks got too close to army tanks deployed in the area and the crowd stormed the trucks. Soldiers fired on the crowd as people s 'came too close to the tanks'.
The conflict in brief
The war was sparked on October 7 by a bloody attack carried out by Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza 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 Israeli data.
Around 250 people were kidnapped and taken to Gaza during the attack.
According to Israel, 130 hostages are still being held there, 31 of whom are believed to have died, after the release of 105 hostages and 240 Palestinians held by Israel during a truce at the end of November.
In retaliation, 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.
His army relentlessly shelled the Gaza Strip and launched a ground offensive on October 27 in the north of the territory, which gradually extended to the south.
Israeli bombings and military operations have killed 30,228 people in Gaza so far, according to the Hamas health ministry.
No concrete progress for a truce
Hamas' military wing said Friday that seven hostages had died in recent weeks in Israeli bombings.
This information could not be confirmed from an independent source.
Also on Friday, dozens of strikes targeted Khan Younes and Rafah in the south, according to Hamas.
Ground fighting continues in Gaza City as well as in Khan Younes.
Thursday's tragedy is a blow to the efforts of the mediating countries, which had hoped for a truce during Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting which begins on the evening of March 10 or 11.
Qatar, the United States and Egypt have been trying for weeks to extract from the two camps a compromise that would make possible a truce associated with new releases of hostages, but no concrete progress has been announced until now .
Hamas is demanding in particular a definitive ceasefire before any agreement on the release of the hostages, as well as the lifting of the Israeli blockade imposed on Gaza since 2007 and the entry of increased humanitarian aid.
Israel, for its part, repeats that a truce should be accompanied by the release of all hostages and would not mean the end of the war, promising that it will continue until the total elimination of Hamas.
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The offensive on Rafah feared by the international community
In order to defeat the Islamist movement in its "last bastion", Benjamin Netanyahu announced an upcoming ground offensive on Rafah, in the far south of the territory, the last urban center where soldiers have not yet penetrated.
He said a possible truce would only “delay” such an offensive.
Nearly a million and a half Palestinians, according to the UN, are trapped, with no escape, in this city stuck against the closed border with Egypt and bombarded daily.
The international community fears the potentially disastrous humanitarian consequences of an offensive on Rafah, which is the main entry point, via Egypt, for aid to Gaza, already very insufficient and subject to the green light from Israel.
“We were at home and suddenly we saw stones falling on our heads and my children under the rubble, I started screaming for help and we were able to save them,” Duaa Khaled al- said through tears. Kablawi, a woman who took her children injured in a bombing to al-Najjar hospital in Rafah.