After the Israeli announcement of an upcoming offensive on Rafah, international pressure intensified on Tuesday February 13 in favor of a truce agreement between Israel and Hamas including a new release of hostages. Egypt, the traditional mediator between Israel and the Palestinians, hosted the American and Israeli intelligence directors as well as the Qatari prime minister on Tuesday for discussions on a truce.
The families of the hostages held in Gaza, who continue to urge the government to do everything possible to enable their release, sent a pleading message to the Israeli delegation: “Do not return until everyone is income − the living and the dead. »
China on Tuesday called on Israel to stop its military operation in Rafah “as quickly as possible,” in order to “prevent an even more serious humanitarian catastrophe.” The Secretary General of the United Nations (UN), Antonio Guterres, hoped on Tuesday that the negotiations “would succeed, in order to avoid a total offensive on Rafah, where the heart of the humanitarian system is located, which would have devastating consequences.”
For its part, Germany called on Israel on Tuesday to guarantee safe passages for the protection of civilians in Rafah. “Hundreds of thousands of people have sought refuge in Rafah on the orders of Israel, these people must be able to continue to find protection there,” declared the Minister of Foreign Affairs during a press conference with her counterpart from the Palestinian Authority, Riyad Al-Maliki, in Berlin.
Israel’s attacks against Hamas in Gaza, which kill “too many Palestinian civilians”, are “disproportionate”, criticized Tuesday the Italian Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani, whose country currently chairs the G7. “At this stage, Israel’s reaction against the Palestinian civilian population is disproportionate,” the minister said on public radio Radio 1.
The head of Norwegian diplomacy, for his part, called for a “lasting ceasefire”. “A ground operation would worsen an already catastrophic situation and make humanitarian support almost impossible,” he added.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently ordered the army to prepare an offensive against Rafah, home to 1.4 million Palestinians, according to the UN, more than half of the Strip’s total population. Gaza, most having fled the war that has raged for four months in the territory besieged by Israel.
Israeli military operations in Rafah “could lead to a massacre in Gaza,” UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths warned on Tuesday, calling on Israel not to “continue to ignore” calls from the international community.
“More than half of Gaza’s population – well over a million people – are crowding into Rafah, seeing death coming: they have little to eat, almost no access to medical care, nowhere to sleep, no safe place,” he commented in a statement, describing an “assault incomparable in intensity, brutality and scale.”
Discussions between the American and Israeli intelligence directors, the Qatari prime minister and Egyptian leaders on Tuesday in Cairo to “work towards a truce in the Gaza Strip” were “positive,” reported television close to Egyptian intelligence.
CIA boss William Burns, Mossad chief David Barnea and Qatari head of government Mohammed Ben Abderrahmane Al Thani spoke with Egyptian leaders “in a positive atmosphere,” AlQahera reported News, citing “a senior Egyptian official.”
The Israeli army released on Tuesday for the first time a video showing, according to it, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinouar, in a tunnel on October 10, three days after the attack of the Palestinian Islamist movement on Israeli soil.
The images, where he is seen walking in a tunnel with part of his family, come from a surveillance camera discovered during a special forces operation, said Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari. This is “the result of our hunt, this hunt will only stop when we have captured him – dead or alive,” he added.
Israeli municipal elections, scheduled for February 27, are expected to be postponed until November 19 in areas in the north near the Lebanese border and in the south near the Gaza Strip that have been evacuated because of the war against Hamas, a Parliament announced on Tuesday. This recommendation from the committee should be validated very soon by the Knesset.
In the rest of the country, municipal elections, which concern 253 municipalities in Israel, the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the annexed Syrian Golan, will take place on February 27. Initially scheduled for October 31, they were postponed twice due to the war, the first time to January 30.
Two Al-Jazeera journalists were seriously injured Tuesday by an Israeli strike in the Rafah sector, the Qatari channel reported. These are the correspondent Ismaïl Abou Omar and his cameraman, Ahmed Matar.
Ismaïl Abou Omar’s right leg has been “amputated” and doctors are trying to save the left, the channel announced, broadcasting images of the reporter surrounded by doctors in an operating theater, while specifying that his life is in danger . In Ahmed Matar’s case, he is “seriously injured,” Al-Jazeera added.