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After the Israeli army announced that it had freed two hostages held by Hamas in Rafah, on the night of Sunday February 11 to Monday February 12, the Israeli Prime Minister, Benyamin Nétanhayou, welcomed a rescue operation “perfectly” a few hours later. executed” and “one of the most successful in the entire history” of Israel. Israel estimates that there are around 130 hostages still held in Gaza, 29 of whom are believed to have died, out of around 250 people kidnapped in Israel on October 7, 2023.
Mr. Netanhayou also reiterated on Monday his determination to continue “military pressure until complete victory” on the Palestinian Islamist movement, of which Rafah is, according to him, the “last bastion”, to free “all our hostages”. The prospect of a ground assault on the city located in the south of the Gaza Strip is causing serious concern abroad as nearly 1.4 million Palestinians who have fled the war are massed there, according to the UN. “This war can end quickly, without further suffering, if Hamas immediately surrenders, lays down its arms, releases the hostages and delivers its war criminals to a tribunal,” Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy warned on Monday .
For its part, the Hamas health ministry said Monday that the Israeli army’s nighttime operation in Rafah had left “around a hundred dead.” According to the same source, the Israeli offensive in response to the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7, 2023 left 28,340 dead in the Gaza Strip, the vast majority of them civilians.
Warnings against a possible attack by the Israeli army in Rafah, located in the south of the Gaza Strip, increased on Monday to the government of Benjamin Netanyahu. “The possibility of a real military incursion in Rafah – where some 1.5 million Palestinians are crowded against the Egyptian border and have nowhere to flee – is terrifying,” warned the High Commissioner for United Nations for Human Rights, Volker Türk, in a press release.
“Given the carnage that has taken place so far in Gaza, one can only imagine what will happen in Rafah,” he also said. The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, said he was “deeply concerned” about “a ground offensive by Israeli forces in Rafah”.
For its part, the United States reiterated its opposition to a large-scale military operation in Rafah, without action aimed at protecting civilians. “Without a project in this sense that is credible, and that [Israel] is[t] able to carry out, we do not support a large-scale military operation,” the spokesperson for the Department of Defense said on Monday. State, Matthew Miller.
In the same tone, the head of British diplomacy, David Cameron, called on Israel to “think seriously” before launching such an attack. “We are very concerned about what is happening in Rafah, because, let’s be clear, the people there have often moved four, five or six times before arriving there (…), they have no somewhere to go,” he told reporters Monday.
The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borell, on Monday urged the United States to deliver fewer weapons to Israel, after Joe Biden deemed the Israeli response to Gaza “excessive”. “If you think too many people are being killed, maybe you should provide fewer guns to prevent so many people from being killed. Doesn’t that make sense? », Assaid the Spanish diplomat to the press, following a meeting of European Union development ministers.
“Everyone is going to Tel Aviv begging, please don’t do this, protect the civilians, don’t kill so many people,” Mr. Borell continued, adding that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu , “don’t listen to anyone.”
The Netherlands must stop exporting parts of F-35 fighter jets used by Israel in the Gaza Strip, the Hague Court of Appeal ruled on Monday. The Dutch court thus ruled in favor of human rights organizations who argue that these documents contribute to violations of the law by Israel in its war against Hamas.
“The court considers that there is a clear risk that serious violations of the humanitarian laws of war will be committed in the Gaza Strip with Israeli F-35 fighter jets,” said the court of appeal. The case concerns F-35 parts belonging to the United States and stored in the Netherlands from where they are sent to partner countries, including Israel, under export agreements.
The Hague District Court ruled in December that providing the documents was primarily a political decision in which judges should not interfere. The appeals court overturned this decision, finding that the attacks in Gaza “caused a disproportionate number of civilian casualties, including thousands of children.”
Gaza’s population is suffering an “unprecedented” level of “starvation-like conditions” due to the conflict between Israel and Hamas, the World Food Program (WFP) estimated on Monday.
Nearly 550,000 people – out of a population of 2.2 million in the Gaza Strip – face food insecurity, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Agency (FAO). catastrophic. “We are witnessing unprecedented levels of acute food insecurity, hunger and famine-like conditions in Gaza,” FAO Deputy Director-General Beth Bechdol was quoted as saying in an FAO statement. According to the latter, “the top priority is to ensure that food, water and medical supplies are the priority deliveries entering Gaza.”