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 Muslim month of fasting which begins around from March 11.
The main information:
- At least 30,000 people have died in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023
- More than 100 people were killed in Gaza during a humanitarian aid distribution, according to Hamas, which accuses the Israeli army of opening fire on the crowd
- 2.2 million people at risk of ‘mass starvation’ in Gaza Strip, says UN
- “Total victory” over Hamas would only be a matter of “a few weeks,” says Benjamin Netanyahu
- A truce could be held before Ramadan
Joe Biden spoke with Qatari and Egyptian leaders on a ceasefire in Gaza
Joe Biden discussed Thursday with the Emir of Qatar and the President of Egypt on an agreement for an “immediate and lasting” ceasefire of at least six weeks in the Gaza Strip, in exchange for the liberation hostages, the White House said in a statement.
In separate calls to Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the US president also discussed the “tragic and alarming” episode of food aid distribution on Thursday in the city of Gaza during which Israeli soldiers opened fire, causing a scene of chaos which cost the lives of more than 100 people according to Hamas.
“More than 25,000” Palestinian women and children killed since war began, Pentagon chief says
More than 25,000 Palestinian women and children have been killed in Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip since the war began on October 7, Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin said Thursday.
“It’s more than 25,000,” he told a parliamentary committee in response to a question on the toll of women and children killed in the war, launched in retaliation for the Hamas attack on Israeli soil.
Two Israelis killed in attack in occupied West Bank
Two Israelis were shot and killed Thursday in an attack near the Ely settlement in the northern occupied West Bank, according to Israeli emergency services. “Rescuers noted the death of two men, one around 40 years old and another around 20 years old,” announced Magen David Adom, the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross. According to the Israeli army, a “terrorist who arrived at the Ely gas station opened fire” before being “neutralized”.
‘Probably’ no ceasefire in Gaza by Monday, says Biden
US President Joe Biden, who said this week he hoped for a ceasefire in Gaza by Monday, returned to his assertion on Thursday, declaring that this pause in hostilities would “probably not happen by” that date. .
The United States is also examining “conflicting versions” of the killing that took place Thursday during an aid distribution in Gaza, the American president told the press as he left the White House for a trip to the border with Mexico.
1.7 million Palestinians have fled their country
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.
Israeli fire during aid distribution in Gaza leaves around 100 dead, says Hamas
More than a hundred Palestinians were killed Thursday in Gaza during a humanitarian aid distribution that turned into chaos, Hamas announced, accusing Israeli soldiers of opening fire on a starving crowd, after the war had already ended. more than 30,000 dead in the territory threatened by famine.
Israeli sources confirmed that soldiers, feeling “threatened”, had fired live ammunition but denied that these shots were responsible for this death toll. The army reported “dozens of dead and injured”, pushed or trampled by the crowd who “surrounded the trucks and looted” the cargo.
On Thursday, a doctor at al-Chifa hospital in Gaza City in the north announced that soldiers had fired on “thousands of citizens” who were rushing towards aid trucks. The Hamas Ministry of Health announced a death toll of 104 and 760 injured. Witnesses told AFP of scenes in which thousands of people rushed towards aid trucks in a roundabout in the west of the city.
“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 Hamas, 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 concerned 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.