After more than four months of airstrikes and artillery fire that displaced hundreds of thousands of people in the small Palestinian territory, an estimated 2.2 million residents, the vast majority of the Strip’s population, Gaza, are threatened with famine, according to the UN. On Friday February 23, airstrikes targeted the town of Khan Younes and Rafah, at the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The Hamas health ministry said the bombings killed 110 people overnight across the territory. In its latest report on Friday, the ministry reported 29,514 deaths, the vast majority of them civilians, since the start of the war on October 7, 2023. On the Israeli side, more than 1,160 people have been killed, also the majority of them civilians. , according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, on Friday denounced “gross violations” of human rights “by all parties” in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. “Justice is a prerequisite for ending cycles of violence and for Palestinians and Israelis to take meaningful steps toward peace,” he said when releasing his office’s report on the situation. human rights in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank for the twelve months ending October 31, 2023.
“The deep-rooted impunity reported by the Office of the High Commissioner [for Human Rights, OHCHR] for decades cannot be allowed to continue. All parties must be held accountable for the violations observed during the fifty-six years of occupation, the sixteen years of blockade of Gaza and until today,” underlined Mr. Türk, in the press release published in occasion of the release of the report.
According to the document, Hamas commandos and other Palestinian armed groups “committed serious violations of international law on a large scale on October 7 and 8. These include attacks against civilians, willful killings and ill-treatment of civilians, wanton destruction of civilian objects and hostage-taking, which constitute war crimes. the press release.
In contrast, OHCHR says that accusations “that members of Palestinian armed groups and others committed rape, sexual assault and torture require further investigation and that the perpetrators will be fully held accountable in accordance with to international law.”
Concerning Israel’s response, the report finds that the “choice of means and methods of warfare has led to enormous suffering for Palestinians, including the large-scale massacre of civilians, massive and repeated displacements, destruction of homes and denial of sufficient food and other essentials of life.”
“Women and children particularly suffered. Blatant violations of international law have been committed,” the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights further underlines. “The blockade and siege imposed on Gaza constitutes collective punishment and may also represent the use of starvation as a method of warfare, both of which are war crimes,” the document states.
He does not exclude that these acts could constitute “other serious crimes under international law” but emphasizes that this can only be determined following a more in-depth investigation.
An Israeli delegation led by Mossad chief David Barnea arrived in Paris on Friday hoping to “unblock” talks for a new truce with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, according to an Israeli official. The delegation also includes the head of Shin Beth (domestic intelligence services), Ronen Bar, according to Israeli media.
A Hamas source also affirmed that the plan discussed in Paris provided for a six-week pause in the fighting, and the release of 200 to 300 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for 35 to 40 hostages held by Hamas.
Talks also took place in Egypt, where Hamas leader Ismaïl Haniyeh visited, a visit which ended Thursday evening, according to the Palestinian Islamist movement. The discussions focused in particular on the “end of Israeli aggression”, the “return of the displaced to their homes” and an “exchange of prisoners”, he added.
The Palestinian movement is calling for a “complete ceasefire” and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. Requests deemed “delusional” by the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government is open to a pause in the fighting, but affirms that it ultimately wants to continue its military operation in order to “annihilate” Hamas. Mr. Netanyahu also opposes the release of prisoners who participated in anti-Israeli attacks, demanded by Hamas.
Also on Thursday, American envoy Brett McGurk was in Israel where he discussed in particular, according to the White House, an “extended pause in order to release all the hostages”. At the end of this meeting, on the eve of the departure for Paris of the head of the Mossad, the Israeli Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, announced that the government “was going to increase” the prerogatives of the “hostage negotiators”.
The Israeli Prime Minister submitted a plan for the post-war period in the Gaza Strip to the government security cabinet on Thursday evening. The document in several points, which AFP was able to consult on Friday, recalls in the preamble the objectives of the army in Gaza: dismantling of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad and release of all the hostages still held.
The Israeli army “will exercise security control over the entire area west of Jordan, including the Gaza Strip” and “to prevent the strengthening of terrorist elements there” and stem “threats against Israel”, projects the document. Israel would also retain “its operational freedom of action throughout the Gaza Strip, without time limits.”
On the strategic border between Egypt and the south of the Gaza Strip, where Hamas had dug tunnels for more than a decade to smuggle weapons, Israel “will maintain a closure” in “cooperation with Egypt and with the help of the United States” in order to avoid a rearmament of the Palestinian factions there, specifies the document. Other provisions include the “complete demilitarization of Gaza (…) beyond what is necessary for the purposes of maintaining order,” as well as “deradicalization in all religious, educational and social institutions in Gaza.” .
Above all, the plan does not provide for the creation of an independent State of Palestine, a perspective once again advocated by Washington, London and Paris. “The plans proposed by Mr. Netanyahu aim to perpetuate the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories and to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state,” reacted Friday Nabil Abou Roudeïnah, spokesperson for Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the Palestinian Authority .
Only a plan recognizing Gaza as an integral part of “an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital will be acceptable. Any project to the contrary is doomed to failure. Israel will not succeed in changing the geographic and demographic reality of the Gaza Strip,” he said in a statement.
This plan also provides for the dismantling of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. The head of this agency, which employs some 30,000 people in the occupied Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria – where it notably manages schools and hospitals – declared on Thursday that UNRWA had reached a “breaking point”. .
