Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised again on Thursday that "all" hostages, "without exception", from the Gaza Strip, the devastated Palestinian enclave where the civil defense announced the deaths of at least 73 Palestinians in yesterday's Israeli army operations, will be returned to their homes.
The head of the Israeli government spoke at Kibbutz Nir Oz, which paid an extremely high price during the attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, which triggered the war.
His visit, his first since then, came just 24 hours before his scheduled meeting next week in Washington with US President Donald Trump, who is pushing for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and has announced that he has secured an agreement from the Israeli side on the terms of a 60-day truce. “I feel deeply committed, first and foremost, to guaranteeing the return of all of our hostages, without exception,” Mr. Netanyahu said, according to a statement from his office. For his part, US President Trump told reporters yesterday that “above all, I want the people of Gaza to be safe. They have been through hell.”
In this way, he avoided giving a clear answer to a journalist's question about whether he still wants the US to "take control" of the Palestinian enclave, as he had said in February, provoking a storm of reactions. For its part, Hamas said it was studying "proposals" for declaring a ceasefire and that it was now "consulting" with other Palestinian movements. It promised the day before yesterday, Wednesday, that it would give a "very responsible" response. According to a Palestinian source, the proposal envisages the release of about half of the hostages - nine or ten - who remain alive and the handover of the bodies, in exchange for the release of the Palestinians held by the Israeli authorities.
Of the 251 people kidnapped during the Hamas raid on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, 49 still remain in the Palestinian enclave, but 27 of them have been declared dead by the Israeli military.
According to information from the New York Times, which cited Israeli and Palestinian sources, it is planned to release 10 live hostages and hand over the bodies of 18 dead hostages in five stages over 60 days. Yesterday, the Civil Defense in the Gaza Strip told Agence France-Presse that a nighttime bombing of the Mustafa Hafez school in Gaza City (north), which had been converted into a reception center for internally displaced persons, killed 15 people, “mostly children and women.”
When contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said it had targeted a "first-class" Hamas fighter and that it had "taken numerous measures to reduce the risk of harm to civilians."
According to Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesman for the Civil Defense, 38 other people were killed by Israeli fire while waiting in the hope of receiving humanitarian aid from various facilities.
A new aid distribution mechanism, denounced by international aid agencies, began operating in late May under the responsibility of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a non-profit organization with murky funding, supported by the UN and Israel. The United Nations rejects any possibility of cooperation with it.
Amnesty International yesterday condemned this "militarized system" through which Israel "continues to use the starvation of civilians as a weapon of war against Palestinians."
The Civil Defense, through Mr. Bassal, has repeatedly accused the Israeli army of blocking access to Gaza City, where dozens of people are trapped under rubble.
"We are systematically and completely destroying the terrorist infrastructure, while maintaining firm control over the area," said Israeli military spokeswoman Effie Defrin, referring to "high-intensity" operations in neighborhoods in the eastern part of Gaza City.
Given the restrictions imposed by Israel on the media in the Gaza Strip and the impossibility of access to the area during the war, AFP notes that it is unable to independently verify reports from any party operating in the Palestinian enclave.
In Israel, the political class continues to be divided between those who favor a deal that would secure the return of the hostages and those who want operations to continue until Hamas ceases to exist.
"If we fail to eliminate Hamas, it will be our children who will suffer," Israel's National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, said in an interview with Channel 14.
Relatives of hostages remaining in the Gaza Strip have written to Prime Minister Netanyahu urging him to "sign an agreement that guarantees the return of all hostages" and end the war.
Indirect negotiations to declare a ceasefire and release hostages have so far been hampered by Hamas's central desire to end the war and make the ceasefire permanent.
Netanyahu vowed the day before yesterday, Wednesday, to eliminate Hamas "at the root," which is a publicly stated goal of the war.
Hamas' incursion into southern Israel on October 7, 2023 killed 1,219 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Large-scale Israeli military retaliatory operations have since killed at least 57,130 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to the latest figures from Gaza's Hamas-run Health Ministry, which the UN has deemed credible.
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