UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, visiting the edge of the Gaza Strip, again called on Saturday for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, to put an end to the “nightmare” in this Palestinian territory on the verge of starvation.
Information to remember:
- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is visiting Egypt, on the edge of Gaza, this Saturday
- He again called on Saturday for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas
- The Palestinian people are prisoners of “an endless nightmare”, insisted Antonio Guterres
- The Israeli army said on Saturday it had killed more than 170 Palestinian fighters
- Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz called the UN an “anti-Israeli organization” on Saturday
- Hamas Health Ministry reports 19 people killed by Israeli fire Saturday while waiting for aid distribution on the outskirts of Gaza City
“Endless Nightmare”
After five and a half months of a devastating war in the Gaza Strip, which plunged it into a catastrophic humanitarian situation, Antonio Guterres went to the Egyptian side of the border town of Rafah, where he said he came to attract attention to the “pain” of the inhabitants of Gaza, prisoners of “an endless nightmare”. “Nothing justifies the horrific attacks by Hamas on October 7. And nothing justifies the collective punishment suffered by the Palestinian people. Now more than ever, it is time for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire,” he said. he throws.
Clashes show no respite in this besieged territory, particularly in and around the al-Chifa hospital in the northern city of Gaza, where the Israeli army claimed on Saturday to have killed more than 170 Palestinian fighters and arrested hundreds of suspects since the start of the week. Combat planes also struck around thirty “terrorist targets” across the Gaza Strip on Friday. In Rafah, in the south, a nighttime bombing of a house killed a grandmother, Nadia Kawareh, 65, and four of her grandchildren aged between 3 and 12, according to relatives and the Ministry of Health. Hamas which also reported 14 injured. “The whole house was destroyed,” said family member Fawzy Kawareh, who said other people were still trapped under the rubble.
Israel denies shooting at Gazans waiting for help, Hamas announces 19 dead
The Israeli army denied shooting on Saturday at Palestinians who were waiting for aid distribution in the north of the Gaza Strip, as accused by Hamas, which reported a new death toll of 19 dead. “Reports claiming that Israeli forces attacked dozens of Gazans near an aid convoy are incorrect,” the army said in a statement. According to “first elements”, “there was no air strike against the convoy, nor shooting by (Israeli) forces on people near the aid convoy”, she added.
9 people killed by Israeli fire while waiting for help
The Hamas Health Ministry on Saturday reported nine deaths in Israeli fire on a crowd waiting for aid distribution in the northern Gaza Strip. In a press release, the ministry mentions “at least nine martyrs and dozens of injured by tank fire and shells from the Israeli occupation army”, at the time when “they were waiting for aid trucks at the roundabout of Kuwait”. Asked by AFP, the Israeli army indicated that it was verifying this information.
“The injured were transported to Baptiste-Ahli hospital,” said Mahmoud Basal, a Gaza civil defense spokesman, describing “very serious injuries, some shrapnel wounds.” On March 14, the Hamas Ministry of Health had already reported 20 dead and more than a hundred injured in “Israeli fire” in similar circumstances, in the same area. The next day, the Israeli army spoke of shooting by “armed Palestinians”, denying these accusations. On February 29, an aid distribution also turned tragic in the west of Gaza City, leaving 120 dead, according to the ministry, while famine threatens the Palestinian territory.
Israel’s top diplomat calls UN ‘anti-Israeli organization’
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz described the UN as an “anti-Israeli organization” on Saturday immediate humanitarian fire”. “Under his leadership, the UN has become an anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli organization that harbors and encourages terrorism,” writes Mr. Katz on his X account, adding that “Antonio Guterres came today to the Egyptian side of the Rafah and blamed Israel for the humanitarian situation in Gaza…
the UN Secretary-General @antonioguterresstood today on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing and blamed Israel for the humanitarian situation in Gaza, without condemning in any way the Hamas-ISIS terrorists who plunder humanitarian aid, without condemning @UNRWA that…
— ישראל כ”ץ Israel Katz (@Israel_katz) March 23, 2024
“Enough”
Early Saturday, the Hamas health ministry reported 67 deaths overnight and evening across the territory. “We have had enough, I assure you. Drop a bomb on us and free us from this life (…) No human being could bear what is happening to us,” said Turkiya Barbakh, close to victims of strikes, crying. in southern Gaza. The UN boss is due to meet humanitarian workers on Saturday on the “Egyptian side” of Rafah, a Gaza town backed by the border where 1.5 million Palestinians are crowded, hence the fears for the population in the event of a disaster. land operation on site.
The question was at the heart of discussions Friday in Tel Aviv between the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken, who disagree on how to weaken Hamas militarily. “I said that we did not have the possibility of defeating Hamas without entering Rafah and without eliminating the battalions that remained there. I told him that I hoped to do it with the support of the United States, but s “We have to, we will do it alone,” Benjamin Netanyahu said after the meeting with the American Secretary of State.
The latter affirmed that such an operation “risks killing more civilians (…), further isolating Israel globally and endangering its long-term security.” “We have the same objectives as Israel: the defeat of Hamas. But a major ground operation in Rafah is not the way to achieve this,” he added on X, specifying that he would meet the week next Israeli officials in Washington to discuss it.
“Hypocritical”
Antony Blinken completed a new tour of the region on Friday, which took him to Egypt and Saudi Arabia, to also try to increase humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip and support talks in Qatar with a view to a truce. Meanwhile at the UN, a draft Security Council resolution, presented by the United States, on an “immediate ceasefire”, was not adopted on Friday due to Russian and Chinese veto.
Since the start of the war, the United States had opposed the use of the term “ceasefire” in UN resolutions, blocking three texts in this sense. They finally decided to put to the vote this new text which mentioned “the need for an immediate and lasting ceasefire”.
But Russia and China criticized ambiguous wording that did not directly call for silencing the guns. Russian Ambassador Vassili Nebenzia notably denounced the “hypocritical spectacle” of the United States while “Gaza has almost been erased from the map”. A new vote on a new draft resolution demanding an “immediate” ceasefire, prepared by eight of the ten non-permanent members of the Council, is scheduled for Monday.
The war broke out on October 7 when Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza carried out an unprecedented attack in southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of at least 1,160 people, mainly civilians, according to a count by the AFP established from official Israeli data.
Insufficient help
According to Israel, around 250 people have been kidnapped and 130 of them are still hostages in Gaza, of whom 33 are believed to have died. In retaliation, Israel vowed to destroy Hamas in power in Gaza since 2007, which it considers a terrorist organization along with the United States and the European Union. His army launched an offensive which left 32,070 dead in Gaza, according to the latest report from the Islamist movement’s Ministry of Health.
Israel has imposed a complete siege on Palestinian territory since the start of the war and strictly controls aid that arrives mainly from Egypt via Rafah. However, these controls have the effect, according to the UN, of reducing the number of trucks entering the territory.
“Before October 7, an average of 500 to 700 trucks entered Gaza every day. Today, the average is barely 150,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency, told X for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA). “The siege, hunger and disease will soon become the main causes of death in Gaza,” he recently warned. To relieve the population, several countries are organizing food airdrops and have opened a maritime corridor from Cyprus to Gaza. But aid remains insufficient to meet the needs of Gaza’s 2.4 million inhabitants. The Israeli army said on Saturday it had killed more than 170 Palestinian fighters