The war between Israel and Palestinian Hamas entered its 200th day on Tuesday, April 23, with no sign of respite despite pressing calls for a truce and the release of hostages. In the last twenty-four hours, Israeli bombings have killed thirty-two Palestinians, according to the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip, administered by Hamas, bringing the total death toll to 34,183, mostly civilians.
According to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) correspondent, the Israeli army carried out intense artillery fire during the night from Monday to Tuesday. Airstrikes targeted central Gaza, near the Al-Boureij refugee camp, while artillery fire hit the Nousseirat camp. The army said it had struck several Hamas positions in the south of the besieged territory. During the night, its planes targeted “around twenty-five targets,” including military observation posts.
Hamas’ political office will remain based in Doha as long as its presence is “useful and positive” to mediation efforts aimed at ending the war in Gaza, Qatar said on Tuesday.
The Gulf country, which has hosted the political office of the Palestinian Islamist movement since 2012 with the blessing of the United States, plays the role of mediator in negotiations between Israel and Hamas on a truce accompanied by the release of hostages and prisoners. .
But these discussions, also carried out through Egypt and the United States, are at a standstill, with both camps accusing each other of blocking them. Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Ben Abdelrahmane Al Thani said the week of April 15 that his country was “conducting a global reassessment of [its] role” as mediator, fueling speculation about a possible departure of Hamas from the emirate.
Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari stressed Tuesday that no decision regarding the Hamas office in Doha “will be made until we have completed this reassessment.”
Qatar’s approach is explained by its frustration with the political attacks to which it is the subject, including from “ministers of Mr. Netanyahu’s government, who have spoken negatively about Qatari mediation”, underlined Mr. Ansari. “They all know what Qatar’s role is (…) and they lied,” he added.
Faced with the current “climate of impunity”, the UN has called for independent international investigations after the discovery of mass graves in the two main hospitals in the Gaza Strip. In a statement, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said he was “horrified” by the destruction of the enclave’s two largest hospitals, Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza. and the Nasser government medical complex in Khan Younes.
He therefore called for “independent, effective and transparent investigations to be carried out”, adding that “given the prevailing climate of impunity, international investigators should be involved in this process”. “Hospitals are entitled to very special protection under international humanitarian law,” he continued. “And intentionally killing civilians, detainees, and others considered “hors de combat” is a war crime. »
The Israeli army responded, asserting that the claim that it “buried the Palestinian bodies is baseless.”
On Monday, the civil defense of the Gaza Strip claimed to have exhumed in three days about 283 bodies of people killed and buried by Israeli forces in mass graves inside the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis.
Norway, which chairs the Palestine Donor Group (AHLC), on Tuesday urged all countries to resume aid to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
This call comes the day after the publication of a report by UN-commissioned experts concluding that UNRWA lacked “neutrality” in the Gaza Strip but also that Israel had not provided “proof” of alleged links of some members to “terrorist organizations.”
“I am very happy that countries like Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Japan and Sweden have already reversed their decision and resumed funding to UNRWA,” he said. said the head of Norwegian diplomacy. “I would now like to call on countries that are still freezing their contributions to UNRWA to resume their funding,” added Espen Barth Eide, in a statement.
The United States, for its part, is waiting to “see real progress” within UNRWA before resuming its funding, which is “still suspended”. “We welcome the results [of the] report and we strongly support the recommendations” it contains, however, underlined John Kirby, spokesperson for the National Security Council.
Palestinian doctors delivered a baby whose injured mother was dying by cesarean section. This one, Sabreen Al-Sakani, arrived in an emergency room seriously injured in the head and stomach in an Israeli airstrike which hit the family home, east of Rafah, people said. witnesses to the AFP.
“It was a miracle that she was still alive, despite her difficulty breathing,” Sahib Al-Hams, surgeon and director of the Kuwait Specialist Hospital, told AFP. “The mother died ten minutes later,” says the doctor, adding that the baby’s father and sister arrived at the hospital dead.