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ENVOYS HAVE PUSHED on with efforts for a Gaza truce and hostage release deal in Cairo talks today, hoping to halt nearly five months of fighting with days to go before Ramadan.
US President Joe Biden had urged Hamas to accept a ceasefire plan with Israel before the Muslim fasting month begins, which could be as early as Sunday depending on the sighting of the crescent moon.
As negotiators in Egypt sought to overcome tough stumbling blocks, deadly fighting again rocked Gaza where the UN warns famine looms and desperate crowds have stopped and looted food aid trucks.
Gazans were waiting to collect bags of flour outside an office of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, in Rafah, now home to nearly 1.5 million Palestinians, most of them displaced by the war.
“The flour they provide is not enough,” said displaced man Muhammad Abu Odeh. “They do not provide us with sugar or anything else except flour.”
In Khan Yunis, dozens of people went to inspect their homes before streaming out along streets lined by bombed-out buildings carrying what belongings they could recover after Israeli forces pulled out of the city centre, an AFP correspondent said.
The army has yet to respond to an AFP request to confirm such a withdrawal.
Biden on Tuesday called on Hamas to accept the truce plan brokered by US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators, saying “it’s in the hands of Hamas right now”.
The proposed deal would pause fighting for “at least six weeks”, see the “release of sick, wounded, elderly and women hostages” and allow for “a surge of humanitarian assistance”, the White House said.
One known sticking point centres on an Israeli demand for Hamas to provide a list of about 100 hostages believed to still be alive – a task Hamas says it is unable to complete while bombing continues.
The group said in a statement it had “shown the required flexibility with the aim of reaching an agreement”, insisting on a complete halt to the fighting.
While the conflict has reduced vast stretches of Gaza to a wasteland of gutted buildings and rubble, the siege has sparked a humanitarian disaster for its 2.4 million people.
Hunger has reached “catastrophic levels” in the north, the UN World Food Programme has warned.
“Children are dying of hunger-related diseases and suffering severe levels of malnutrition,” it said, with the latest victim according to the health ministry being a 15-year-old girl who died at Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital.
Health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said “the famine in northern Gaza has reached lethal levels” and could claim thousands of lives unless Gaza receives more aid and medical supplies.
South Africa today petitioned the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to impose more emergency measures against Israel over what it described as the “widespread starvation” occurring in Gaza as a result of its offensive.
It is the second time Pretoria has asked the court for additional measures – its first request in February was denied.
British foreign minister David Cameron today pressed Israel to increase the flow of aid into Gaza.
“We are still not seeing improvements on the ground. This must change,” Cameron said he told Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz during a meeting.
At a Fianna Fáil parliamentary party meeting this evening, Tánaiste Micheál Martin said he was extremely concerned about the “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza amid the uncertainty about whether an agreement on a ceasefire will be agreed before Ramadan.
He told the meeting that the humanitarian situation is “shocking” and described it as the worst humanitarian crisis he has ever seen.
Martin welcomed the EU Commission decision on funding for UNWRA, noting that Canada has also announced it is resuming funding.
He also told the meeting that Ireland’s initial stance assisted in funding being restored by other countries.
More than 100 people were killed last week when Israeli soldiers reportedly opened fire on a crowd of civilians who were desperately trying to access food in Gaza. More than 750 people were also injured in the attack, the Palestinian health ministry said.
Israeli officials denied that their soldiers opened fire on the crowd, blaming the deaths on a stampede and saying warning shots had been fired.
Another truck convoy was diverted by Israeli troops within Gaza late Tuesday and then stopped by “a large crowd of desperate people who looted the food”, said the WFP.
Jordanian, US and other planes have repeatedly airdropped food into Gaza.
But WFP deputy chief Carl Skau said “airdrops are a last resort and will not avert famine”.
The Journal understands that Ireland is preparing to join the international operation to drop aid into Gaza.
Israel, which has recalled its UN envoy in a sign of growing tensions, said the Security Council should “designate Hamas immediately as a terrorist organisation” and impose sanctions on it.
Government spokesman Eylon Levy also demanded “a fierce condemnation” of sexual violence committed during the Hamas attack, after a UN report found “reasonable grounds to believe” there had been instances of rape on 7 October.
In past years, violence has flared during Ramadan in annexed east Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound – Islam’s third-holiest site and Judaism’s most sacred, known to Jews as the Temple Mount.
Hamas has urged Muslims to flock there in great numbers, as they do every year, while some Israeli far-right politicians have urged restrictions.
Israel has said Muslims will initially be allowed into the site “in similar numbers” as in recent years, but that this will be followed by a weekly “situation assessment”.
The current conflict has been ongoing since Hamas launched the 7 October attack on southern Israel that resulted in about 1,160 deaths, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
The militants also took around 250 hostages. Israel believes 99 of them remain alive in Gaza and that 31 have died.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 30,717 people, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to push on with the campaign to destroy Hamas, before or after any truce deal.
The Israeli army said today it lost one more soldier in Gaza, taking the total killed to 247 since ground operations began on 27 October.
© AFP 2024, with reporting from Jane Moore
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