After 42 days of massive offensive against the Hamas jihadist group in Gaza, Israel accepts for the first time the daily entry of fuel into the Strip, while local and international warnings about the serious humanitarian crisis increase.
The decision of the Israeli war management cabinet, which contradicts its promise not to do so without the release of those kidnapped by Hamas on October 7, coincides with the UN announcement of the suspension of the delivery of humanitarian aid due to fuel shortages and communication outages.
International agencies have launched a new appeal for the entry of fuel and a ceasefire. The UN World Food Program (WFP) has warned that people in the Gaza Strip face the “immediate possibility of starvation” due to lack of food. “The war management cabinet agreed to the special US request to supply two tanker trucks a day for wastewater treatment facilities in the Gaza Strip under threat of collapse due to lack of electricity and capacity for UN-managed sewage and water systems “, declared the national security advisor, Tsaji Hanegbi, who emphasized the need to prevent the spread of epidemics. The decision was so criticized by some ministers that the head of government, Benjamin Netanyahu, tried to calm them down by calling the cabinet meeting wider for this Saturday night.
“The entry of gasoline transmits weakness, gives oxygen to the enemy and allows Sinwar (Hamas leader) to sit comfortably in an air-conditioned bunker, watch the news and continue manipulating Israeli society and the families of those kidnapped,” he protested. the Minister of Finance, the ultranationalist Bezalel Smotrish, who is not part of the more restricted forum after the entry of Benny Gantz’s centrist formation.
The 60,000 liters of fuel per day authorized by Israel are vital, but it is a drop in the ocean. Hanegbi has indicated in an internal message that this is 4% of the fuel that entered before the war, given those who condition the entry of fuel into Gaza on the return home of the 239 hostages.
In the Israeli cabinet they believe that without fuel in Gaza, Israel will not be able to continue counting on full American support for the offensive and without it it will not be able to put an end to Hamas or increase pressure for it to agree to release more than 50 hostages as it says in the negotiation. . According to Channel 12, Israel announced that there will be no agreement if the children and mothers are not released together now. Sinwar is aware that the worsening of the humanitarian crisis benefits the interests of his armed wing as it increases international pressure on Israel for a stop. the fire of several days. Enough to freeze plans to extend its land operation to the south.
According to Hamas, at least 12,000 Palestinians have died in the Israeli military offensive launched after its attack that left more than 1,200 dead in southern Israel. Hanegbi takes stock of the ground operation that began three weeks ago: “21 days in which we paid a high price (52 dead soldiers) but we are already in the heart of Gaza City attacking all the places we wanted to attack. Thousands of terrorists died and senior leaders of terrorist groups will never again commit monstrous atrocities.”
“We have shown in Rantisi and Al Shifa how Hamas uses hospitals for its terrorist activities,” said officer Elad Goren, head of the civil affairs office in Gaza, noting that “Hamas needs fuel for its actions in the tunnels.”
After the Army showed weapons and a tunnel hole in the Al Shifa Hospital complex with which it wanted to demonstrate that the armed wing of Hamas used it as a command center, the Islamists denied it and refused to hide hostages in hospitals. In addition, they announced the death of one of them “due to the panic attacks he suffered as a result of the repeated bombings around his place of detention.”
The Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry called the Israeli claim a “falsehood.” Its spokesman Ashraf al Qudra accused the soldiers of turning the Al Shifa facilities into a “military base for their operations” after entering several areas on November 15. In addition, he assured that “24 patients died in the last 48 hours due to lack of electricity.”
The center’s director, Mohamed Abu Salmiya, raised the alarm over the absence of fuel and medical supplies. “Sometimes, we are forced to let the patients die, we cannot perform any surgical operation on them, the only thing we can do is give them some painkillers so that the victims can die peacefully,” he said.
“The needs are immense,” admitted the head of diplomacy of the European Union (EU), Josep Borrell, in Ramallah, where he met with the Palestinian president, Abu Mazen. After emphasizing Israel’s right to defend itself following international law, Borrell pointed out the importance of contributing to the “giant effort” to meet the needs of the 2.2 million Gazans to whom, he indicated, the EU quadruples its assistance to almost 100 millions of euros.