The Israeli army bombs the south of the Gaza Strip on Friday while a Hamas delegation is expected in Egypt to discuss a ceasefire project also providing for the release of hostages held in Gaza. During the night from Thursday to Friday, Israeli forces increased strikes in the Gaza Strip, particularly on Rafah in the south, where Palestinians rushed into piles of rubble in search of survivors.
“We were sitting quietly (at home, editor’s note) and suddenly we heard a loud explosion and debris started falling on us,” Tayseer Abou Al-Eish told AFP. “The apartment was completely destroyed and my daughters were screaming. There were several victims (…) we are trying to get the neighbors out of the rubble but there are martyrs.”
South of Jerusalem, a Palestinian also injured two Israelis in a knife attack before being shot dead, according to police and rescuers, with Hamas hailing a “heroic operation” carried out in “response” to the situation in Gaza.
Information to remember:
- The Israeli army bombs the southern Gaza Strip on Friday
- A Hamas delegation is expected in Egypt to discuss a ceasefire project also providing for the release of hostages
- Hamas Health Ministry announces new death toll of 21,507
- “At least 100,000 Gazans” were displaced to Rafah in its final days
- Syria threatens Israel with ‘direct actions’ after death of Revolutionary Guard general
Pretoria appeals to ICJ against “genocide” in Gaza, Israel rejects accusations “with disgust”
South Africa filed a petition against Israel on Friday before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for “genocide” against the Palestinian people in Gaza, accusations immediately brushed aside “with disgust” by the government of Benjamin Netanyahu. “Israel rejects with disgust the defamation (…) propagated by South Africa and its appeal to the International Court of Justice”, reacted on X the spokesperson for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Lior Haiat.
Hamas Health Ministry announces new death toll of 21,507
The Palestinian Hamas Ministry of Health announced Friday that Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip had left 21,507 dead since the start of the war on October 7. This toll includes 187 people killed in the last 24 hours, said the ministry, which also reported 55,915 injured since October 7.
Discussions in Cairo to end hostilities
A Hamas delegation is expected in Cairo on Friday to discuss a three-step Egyptian plan that provides for renewable truces, staggered releases of Palestinian hostages and prisoners and, ultimately, a ceasefire ending hostilities . The war, triggered by the bloody attack launched on October 7 by Hamas against Israel, left 21,320 dead in Gaza, the majority of them women and minors, according to Hamas.
In Israel, the attack by Hamas commandos left around 1,140 dead, most of them civilians, according to an AFP count based on the latest official Israeli figures. Around 250 people were kidnapped by Hamas, 129 of whom remain detained in Gaza, according to the Israeli army which vowed, in retaliation for the October 7 attacks, to “destroy” Hamas in power since 2007 in Gaza. In Cairo, the Hamas delegation will transmit to the Egyptians “the response of the Palestinian factions, which includes several observations, to their plan”, told AFP an official of the Islamist movement requesting anonymity.
These observations relate in particular “to the modalities of the planned exchanges and the number of Palestinian prisoners who will be released, and to obtaining guarantees for a total Israeli military withdrawal from the Gaza Strip”, added this official. “We are in contact (with the mediators, editor’s note) at this very moment. I cannot provide more details. We are working to bring them all back,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared during a meeting. Thursday in Tel Aviv with families of hostages.
The oldest Israeli hostage is believed to have died
Presented as the oldest woman held hostage in the Gaza Strip, Israeli-American Judith Weinstein Haggai, 70, was announced dead Thursday by her kibbutz, Nir Oz, located just on the edge of the territory. This mother of four children, grandmother of seven grandchildren and English teacher for children with special educational needs, according to her kibbutz, had grown up in Toronto and also held Canadian citizenship. Earlier this week, her kibbutz announced the death of her husband Gadi Haggai, 73, also a hostage in Gaza where the remains are still believed to be.
“At least 100,000 Gazans” displaced to Rafah in last days
The population of Gaza remains in “great danger”, warns the World Health Organization (WHO), affirming that “hunger and despair” are worsening in the territory where, according to the UN, nearly two million people (85% of the population) were displaced. Many fled several times, pushed onto the roads by the advance of the fighting and the evacuation orders from the Israeli army, without however escaping the incessant bombings. In recent days, with the intensification of operations in Khan Younes (south) and in central Gaza, “at least 100,000 people” have been displaced towards Rafah, in the very south of the territory, underlines Ocha, the coordination office of UN humanitarian aid citing the estimates of “humanitarian actors on the ground”.
“What Israel is doing to the Palestinians, and mainly to Gaza, is ‘the monstrosity of our century’. The West’s complacency becomes complicity,” Francesca Albanese, the UN rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian Territories.
Syria threatens Israel with ‘direct actions’ after death of Revolutionary Guard general
The conflict in Gaza is also reviving tensions across the Middle East, particularly on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, where the Israeli general staff has spoken of a possible “expansion of the fighting”. The Israeli army reported numerous shots from southern Lebanon towards northern Israel, where warning sirens sounded several times in the afternoon on Thursday, and announced strikes on “positions ” of Hezbollah.
Late Thursday evening, the Syrian Defense Ministry spoke of Israeli strikes near Damascus and in the south of the country. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the strikes particularly targeted the area around Damascus airport, 24 hours after the resumption of flights suspended since an Israeli attack at the end of November. Israel has increased strikes in Syria in recent years, targeting Iranian-backed forces there.
This country threatened Israel with “direct actions” after the death on Monday, in a missile attack in Syria that it blames on Israel, of Razi Moussavi, a general in the Revolutionary Guards. Another front in this expanding conflict: Yemen, from where the Houthi rebels, allies of Tehran, are increasing their fire towards the Red Sea to slow down international maritime traffic in “support” of Gaza. The US Navy said it shot down a drone and an anti-ship missile fired by the Houthis in the Red Sea on Thursday evening, saying it was the “22nd attempted attack” of its kind by the Yemeni rebels since mid -october.