Discussions continued on Wednesday March 6 in Cairo between international mediators and Hamas to try to reach, after five months of war in the Gaza Strip, a truce between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement, which is under strong pressure. the United States. Mediators hope to reach a truce agreement before Ramadan in the devastated and besieged territory, where relentless Israeli bombardments have left 86 dead in twenty-four hours, according to the Gaza Strip’s health ministry. administered by Hamas.
The war has plunged the Gaza Strip into a large-scale humanitarian crisis and 2.2 million people, according to the UN, the vast majority of the population, are threatened with famine, with international aid subject to control by ‘Israel only arriving in trickles from Egypt while the needs are immense. “The famine is getting worse, and will cause thousands of deaths if the aggression does not stop and if the immediate entry of humanitarian and medical aid is not authorized,” the spokesperson said on Wednesday. of the Ministry of Health, Ashraf Al-Qudra.
Faced with this humanitarian catastrophe, the United States, Israel’s main ally, is increasingly demanding a truce before Ramadan, the holy month of Muslim fasting, which begins next week. “It’s in the hands of Hamas,” US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday, judging that the Israelis were “cooperative”. But the United States has also raised its tone vis-à-vis Israel. Joe Biden on Tuesday called on Israel to let “more aid” into Gaza and said he had “no excuses” for restricting the passage of convoys. Hamas accused Israel on Wednesday of “evading the demands” of a future agreement and assured “of having demonstrated the necessary flexibility in order to reach an agreement providing for a total cessation of the aggression against [their] people” .
On Wednesday, dozens of Israeli strikes again targeted Khan Younes in the south, Gaza City in the north and Deir Al-Balah, in the center of the Palestinian territory, according to Hamas authorities who report dozens of deaths daily. in Israeli bombings.
While international aid is only trickling in, the World Food Program has warned that hunger is reaching “catastrophic levels” in the north of the small Palestinian territory, made difficult to access by destruction, fighting and looting. According to the Hamas Ministry of Health, a fifteen-year-old girl “died of malnutrition” in this region, bringing, according to it, the number of people who died of malnutrition and dehydration to 18.
To try to relieve the population, Jordanian, American, French and Egyptian transport planes airdropped aid to the north of the Gaza Strip. “Airdrops will not prevent famine,” said Carl Skau, WFP Deputy Executive Director. “We need entry points into northern Gaza to deliver enough food for half a million people who desperately need it. » “The flour [provided by the UN] is not enough. We have children who need milk. They can’t stand,” said Mohammad Abou Audeh, a displaced person from Gaza, outside a UN office in the town of Rafah where Palestinians are waiting to receive their bags of flour.
Thanks to the work carried out by two researchers based in the United States, Corey Scher, doctoral student in earth sciences, specialist in natural disasters and political conflicts at the Graduate Center of New York University (CUNY), and Jamon Van Den Hoek , professor of geography at Oregon State University, Le Monde was able to map the unprecedented extent of the damage suffered by the Palestinian enclave. According to the lowest estimate, as of March 5, 54.6% of buildings (cities, villages) have been degraded or destroyed, commensurate with the very heavy human toll: more than 30,000 deaths, according to the ministry. of the health of the enclave, administered by Hamas.
Recently, the highest increase in damage was recorded in the governorates of Khan Yunis (52.8% of buildings were damaged as of March 5) and Rafah (29.3%). The situation in Gaza City (73.6% of buildings damaged in total) and in the rest of the north of the enclave (69.7%), bombed from October 7, remains relatively stable. These figures do not take into account variations described as “ephemeral damage”, linked to “seasonal changes in vegetation or even the occasional presence of displaced people’s tents”.
“We urge an immediate and lasting humanitarian ceasefire,” said in a joint statement the leaders of a dozen countries – including Indonesia and Malaysia, both with a Muslim majority – meeting since Monday in Melbourne , after days of diplomatic tensions around this text. The situation in the Gaza Strip was the subject of heated discussions during the three-day summit between the leaders of the ten member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Countries (Asean) and their Australian counterparts.
“We condemn attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure that are leading to a further deterioration of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, including restricted access to food, water and other basic needs,” the statement said. Asean and Australia. “We call for rapid, safe, unhindered and sustainable humanitarian access to all those in need, including by increasing the capacity of border crossing points, including by sea,” details their joint statement.
ASEAN and Australia also supported the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), despite Canberra’s decision to suspend funding for this agency, 12 of whose employees are accused by Israel of involvement in the deadly Hamas attack on October 7 in southern Israel. Singapore, however, refused to allow the statement to mention “the use of starvation” in the Gaza Strip, a wording that would have drawn Israel’s ire. Diplomats also disagreed over whether the statement should call for a full ceasefire or a “humanitarian” pause.
A missile fired from Yemen hit a commercial ship named True-Confidence in the Gulf of Aden and the crew reported at least two deaths and six injuries, a US official said, under cover of the anonymity. The missile caused “significant damage” to the Barbados-flagged, Liberian-owned vessel, the official said, and led its crew to “abandon[ing] ship.”
According to the Greek operator of the cargo ship, cited by Reuters, the ship was struck while it was about fifty nautical miles southwest of the Yemeni port of Aden, whose gulf borders access to the sea Red. It then burst into flames and drifted away. No official information was immediately available on the state of health of the twenty sailors and three armed guards who were on board the cargo ship, adds the press agency, while the extent of the damage caused by the typing remains unclear.
