The war knows no respite between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, with Washington defending a ceasefire plan on Tuesday during a conference in Jordan on humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, under bombs for more than eight months.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on tour in the Middle East, stressed in Israel that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had “reaffirmed his commitment” to a ceasefire plan announced on May 31 by the president Joe Biden and adopted Monday by the UN Security Council.
Mr. Blinken also described as an “encouraging sign” the reaction of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which said it welcomed “favorably” a certain number of elements of the American resolution.
After Israel, the Secretary of State traveled to Jordan for an international conference aimed at mobilizing funds for humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, a besieged territory deprived of water and electricity, where the United Nations is worried about the risk of famine.
On Tuesday, deadly Israeli strikes targeted in particular the center of the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli army said it had “completed an operation” in eastern Deir al-Balah and eastern al-Boureij.
“The horror must end,” said UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who was participating in the conference on aid for Gaza in Jordan. “It is high time to establish a ceasefire and release the hostages unconditionally,” he added, calling on “all parties to seize the opportunity” provided by the new road map.
The war in the Gaza Strip was sparked on October 7 by an unprecedented Hamas attack in southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally compiled in from official Israeli data.
Some 251 people were kidnapped in this attack and 116 are still held in Gaza, of whom 41 died, according to the Israeli army.
In response, the Israeli army launched an offensive on the Palestinian territory which left at least 37,164 dead, including 40 in 24 hours, mostly civilians, according to data from the Ministry of Health of the Gaza government led by the Hamas.
In Jordan, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said at least 1.7 million people of the Gaza Strip’s estimated 2.4 million residents have been repeatedly displaced by the Israeli military operations.
“Around 60% of residential buildings and at least 80% of commercial facilities were damaged by Israeli bombings,” he added, deploring the destruction of health centers and schools.
“This war has destroyed our lives,” Soad Al-Qanou told AFP, trying to save her son, Amjad, who had been emaciated by malnutrition, in the ruined camp of Jabalia (north).
On May 7, the army launched a ground offensive on the town of Rafah, in the south of the besieged Palestinian territory, which led to the closure of the border crossing with Egypt, crucial for the entry of humanitarian aid , now controlled by Israel.
And “for more than 700,000 people besieged in the northern sector, the number of (aid) trucks per day does not exceed 35, while this is their only source of food and medicine,” Hamas’ media office lamented on Tuesday.
On the diplomatic front, the UN Security Council adopted on Monday by 14 votes and one abstention, that of Russia, the American resolution supporting the plan which aims to establish in stages a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
Neither side has responded officially to this proposal, with Hamas so far demanding a definitive ceasefire and a total withdrawal of Israeli soldiers from the Gaza Strip, and Israel refusing to end the war until The Palestinian movement, in power in Gaza since 2007 and which it considers a terrorist organization, as do the United States and the European Union, will not be eliminated.
The road map was presented by Joe Biden as coming from Israel, which has so far not formally accepted it.
For his part, Benjamin Netanyahu seeks to take advantage of a special forces operation which made it possible to free four hostages on Saturday in the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli media, during which 274 Palestinians were killed, according to the Ministry of Security. Health of Hamas.
The UN High Commissioner said it was both “deeply shocked” by the impact of the operation on civilians and “deeply distressed” that hostages were still being held.
For Jeremy Laurence, its spokesperson, “all these actions, by both parties, could amount to war crimes”.
