To better understand the latest events in the conflict between the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and Israel, 20 minutes takes stock every evening. Between the strong declarations, the diplomatic advances or the dramatic results of the fighting, here are the main points of the day.
The fact of the day
Catherine Colonna visiting Tel Aviv. The French Minister of Foreign Affairs called for a “new immediate and lasting truce” in the Gaza Strip, saying she was “concerned” by the situation of Palestinians and Israeli hostages after more than two months of war. “Too many civilians are being killed,” declared Catherine Colonna after a meeting with her Israeli counterpart, Eli Cohen, in Tel Aviv.
The head of French diplomacy also recalled that three French people are “detained, missing or hostages in the Gaza Strip” and that France is sparing no effort to free them. Meeting the families of the missing French people, the head of diplomacy stressed that France “does not forget” the people “murdered with absolute cruelty, including 41 compatriots” on October 7, recalling in particular the crimes of which the women been victims. “Any denial, any relativization of these sexual crimes is unacceptable but above all unworthy. It is an insult to human conscience,” she said before adding: “the facts are real. The facts speak. We must have the courage to look them in the face, as they are a barbarity that nothing, ever, can justify. »
For his part, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen described any call for a ceasefire as “an error” and a “gift for Hamas”, the Islamist movement in power in Gaza, author of the October 7 massacres. .
The number of the day
12. At least 12 people were killed in Israeli strikes on the town of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza on Sunday, the Hamas health ministry said. In total, 18,800 people, 70% of them women, children and adolescents, according to the Islamist group, have been killed since the start of the offensive that Israel launched in retaliation on Gaza.
Sentence of the day
The team (who visited the hospital) described the emergency department as a ‘bloodbath’, with hundreds of injured patients inside and new patients arriving every minute. »
These are the words of the World Health Organization (WHO), which published a press release this Sunday. The emergency department of al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza, devastated by Israeli bombings, is “a bloodbath,” the organization warned on Sunday, which sent a team there to deliver medical equipment. . The WHO also stressed that “tens of thousands of displaced people” took refuge within the hospital complex for shelter.
Today’s trend
Relatives of Israeli hostages gathered again Saturday evening in Tel Aviv, urging the government to quickly present a new plan to obtain the release of theirs, after the announcement of the death of three Israeli hostages killed by mistake by the army in Gaza City.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “responded” to the families on Sunday, saying during his weekly cabinet meeting: “we will fight until the end. We will achieve all of our goals: eliminating Hamas, freeing all our hostages and ensuring that Gaza does not once again become a center of terrorism, incitement or attacks against the State of Israel.”
Benjamin Netanyahu also declared that he wanted to maintain “military pressure” against Hamas, despite the emotion aroused in Israel by the death of three hostages killed “by mistake” by soldiers. The death of the three hostages “broke my heart. This has broken the hearts of the entire nation,” he said at a press conference. However, he added that “military pressure is necessary both for the return of the hostages and to ensure victory over our enemies.”
Several media outlets claim that after the fiasco for the army of the three hostages killed, the Israeli authorities are returning to negotiations. Without clearly talking about possible negotiations, Netanyahu actually stated on Saturday evening: “The directives that I give to the team of negotiators are based on this pressure and without it we have nothing. » The American news site Axios reported a meeting this weekend between David Barnea, the head of Mossad, the Israeli foreign secret service, and the Qatari Prime Minister, Mohammed ben Abdelrahmane Al-Thani, in Europe to discuss a second truce with a view to the release of hostages. According to the Israeli daily website Haaretzthe meeting took place.