War in the Middle East
New attempt for hostage deal in Gaza war
The city of Rafah is largely destroyed. According to the UN World Food Program (WFP), more and more people are at risk of starvation. photo
© Rizek Abdeljawad/XinHua/dpa
The humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is getting worse. Can the mediators negotiate a ceasefire this time? The news at a glance.
According to media reports, the mediators are meeting in Paris today for a new round of negotiations. Israel also wants to send a delegation in light of reports that the Islamist Hamas has weakened its position, the Times of Israel reported.
Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Galant said after a meeting with White House Middle East Coordinator Brett McGurk that Israel would “expand” the mandate of its negotiators for the hostage talks, according to the Ynet news site. A Hamas leader said the same day that he believed a new hostage deal was possible in the near future.
During a week-long ceasefire last November, 105 hostages were released in return for 240 Palestinian prisoners as part of a deal between Israel and Hamas. According to Israeli information, at most around 100 of the remaining hostages are still alive.
Eyewitnesses: Protests in Gaza against Hamas
According to eyewitnesses, hundreds of Palestinians demonstrated in the Gaza Strip for more aid deliveries and against Hamas. Participants in the spontaneous rally in the north of the coastal area held signs with slogans like “Down with Hamas!” and “We want to eat, end the war – our children are dying of hunger.”
Children reportedly knocked on empty dishes to show the lack of food. Eyewitnesses reported to the dpa that police officers provided by Hamas fired in the direction of the demonstrators in order to disperse the people. There were initially no reports of injuries. The information can hardly be verified independently.
According to the UN World Food Program (WFP), more and more people in the Gaza Strip are at risk of starvation. According to reports, there were riots during food deliveries to the north. In some places, entire trucks have recently been looted. Shots were fired and a truck driver was attacked and injured. The WFP then announced that it would temporarily suspend food deliveries to northern Gaza.
The head of the UN refugee agency UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, meanwhile accused Israeli forces within the government apparatus of concerted actions to hinder the organization’s work. The aid organization could soon no longer fulfill the mandate given by the UN General Assembly, wrote Lazzarini in a letter to the President of the UN General Assembly.
Report: Netanyahu presents post-war plan
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has presented his plan for managing the Gaza Strip after the war to the Security Cabinet, according to the paper. This provides – as Netanyahu has repeatedly reiterated – for full security control over the entire coastal area by the Israeli military, the newspaper reported.
Regarding the future administration of the Gaza Strip, the policy paper states in vague terms that it would be led by “local officials” with professional experience. These will be people without connections to “countries or organizations that support terrorism”.
The Palestinian Authority (PA), which governs the West Bank, is not specifically named in the plan, the report said. However, this does not exclude their participation in the future administration of the Gaza Strip. The USA is relying on a revamped PA led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and wants it to take control again in the Gaza Strip.
Israel rejects this and accuses the autonomous authority of supporting terror. In 2007, Hamas violently seized sole power in the Gaza Strip a year after its election victory. Israel’s stated goal is to destroy Hamas militarily and free the hostages.
Demand in Israel for settlement construction in the West Bank
After a Palestinian terrorist attack near Jerusalem, Israel’s right-wing extremist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich wants to push ahead with settlement construction in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. As the Times of Israel newspaper reported last night, the committee responsible for approving the construction of settler houses will meet shortly for this purpose.
Smotrich wants more than 3,000 additional houses to be built in the West Bank, it said. He was reacting to a terrorist attack the day before on a highway near Jerusalem in which, according to paramedics, at least one Israeli was killed and several people were injured, some seriously. According to Israeli domestic intelligence, the three perpetrators were Palestinians from Bethlehem in the West Bank. They were killed in the attack.
What is important today
According to unconfirmed reports, senior mediators in the Gaza war in Paris want to continue talks about a possible ceasefire and the release of the hostages.