“Gazans in extreme peril while the world watches,” according to a UN aid group Israeli forces attack civilian homes with 70 strikes.
GAZA STRIP: Following Israel’s spy chief’s attendance at meetings in Paris aimed at resuming peace talks, the health ministry of the territory announced on Saturday that scores of Palestinians have perished in the most recent Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip.
The negotiations follow the rejection of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s post-war Gaza plan by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, as well as criticism from the US, a major ally.
The negotiations coincide with growing anxieties for the food-starved population of Gaza. Gazans are “in extreme peril while the world watches,” according to UNRWA, the primary UN agency that provides help to the Palestinian people.
On Saturday, Hamas announced that on the preceding day, Israeli troops had carried out over seventy strikes on residential buildings in Gazan cities, including Deir al-Balah, Khan Yunis, and Rafah. According to the health ministry, at least 92 persons lost their lives.
Using tanks, aircraft, and close-quarters fire, the Israeli military declared that it was “intensifying the operations” in the western Khan Yunis.
According to a military statement, “the soldiers raided the residence of a senior military intelligence operative” in the area and demolished a subterranean shaft.
Fighting was reported to be raging in the Zeitun neighborhood of northern Gaza, according to Hamas, the Palestinian organization that has dominated Gaza since 2007. Tensions are building in the adjacent Jabalia refugee camp, and on Friday, dozens of people staged an unplanned demonstration.
A child was holding a sign that read, “We are dying from hunger, not from air strikes.”
With plastic containers and damaged cooking pots in hand, the bedraggled children in the camp waited impatiently for what little food was available. The locals have started consuming leaves, animal dung that is unfit for human food, and scavenged bits of rotten maize.
Mahmud Fatuh, a two-month-old baby, passed away from “malnutrition,” according to the health ministry in Gaza. According to the nonprofit Save the Children, “the risk of famine is projected to increase as long as the government of Israel continues to impede the entry of aid into Gaza,” along with access to healthcare, water, and other necessities.
In a report released on Friday, the UN humanitarian organization OCHA stated that residents of Rafah, close to the Egyptian border, are allegedly so desperate that they are halting relief trucks to seize food.
According to the most recent count given on Saturday by Gaza’s health ministry, Israel’s offensive since October 7 has killed at least 29,606 individuals, the majority of whom were women and children.
After more than four months of fighting, Netanyahu on Thursday announced a plan for Gaza after the war. According to the suggestions, Israel’s army would have “indefinite freedom” to operate across Gaza even after the conflict to stop any rebirth of terror activity.
Netanyahu, according to top Hamas operative Osama Hamdan, “is presenting ideas which he knows full well will never succeed.”
The United States also expressed disapproval of the scheme. According to National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby, “the Palestinian people should have a voice and a vote… through a revitalized Palestinian Authority,” which presently has some administrative authority in the West Bank.
Head of the Mossad spy agency David Barnea led an Israeli mission to Paris in an attempt to revive negotiations for the release of the remaining captives.
Before this, the US, Egypt, and Qatar were all heavily involved in discussions to secure a ceasefire and prisoner-hostage exchanges.
Brett McGurk, the envoy from the White House, spoke with other mediators in Cairo who had met with Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas, before holding discussions with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant this week in Tel Aviv.
According to a Hamas source, the new plan calls for a six-week break in hostilities and the release of 200–300 Palestinian inmates in return for the 35–40 hostages that Hamas is holding.