Discussions on a truce in the Gaza Strip and on the release of hostages held since October 7 by Hamas were at an impasse. To try to get out of this, American President Joe Biden’s advisor for the Middle East, Brett McGurk, is in Israel on Thursday February 22. For now, discussions “are going well”, assured a White House spokesperson, John Kirby, from Washington. The latter specified that the emissary had gone to Cairo (Egypt) on Wednesday and was to meet, during this day in the Hebrew state, the government as well as families of American hostages. Follow our live stream.
• Airstrikes on Rafah. New airstrikes launched on Rafah during the night from Wednesday to Thursday left 97 dead, according to Hamas. LThe bombings notably destroyed the al-Faruq mosque, of which only the minaret now remains standing in the middle of the ruins, noted an AFP journalist. It is in this overcrowded town, located in the south of the Gaza Strip, that the Israeli army is preparing a ground offensive.
MSF criticizes the American veto at the UN Council. The secretary general of Doctors Without Borders attacked the United States during a meeting of the UN Council. After Washington vetoed for the third time a resolution allowing the Council to demand a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, Christopher Lockyear said:dismayed”, during a speech on Thursday February 22. The day before, the NGO announced thatan Israeli strike against one of its residences, in the south of the Gaza Strip, caused the death of two relatives of one of its employees.
One dead and 8 injured in attack near settlement in occupied West Bank. Three Palestinians opened fire with automatic weapons in the afternoon on vehicles in a traffic jam near the Jewish settlement of Maale Adoumim in the occupied West Bank, killing one person and wounding eight others. Since the start of the war in Gaza, the West Bank has been the scene of attacks perpetrated by Palestinians against Israelis, and almost daily raids by the Israeli army, often deadly. Hamas, in power in the Gaza Strip, applauded the attack, calling it “natural response to the massacres and crimes of the occupation in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank.”