Officials from Hamas and Israel anonymously reaffirmed on Saturday the deep disagreement of the two parties on the possibility of a truce agreement. Hamas demands that the agreement explicitly provide for the withdrawal of Israeli troops; Israel and its president repeat their desire to attack Rafah to destroy the Palestinian Islamist organization, with or without a truce. In the West Bank, where tension is also rising, “five terrorists” were killed on Saturday May 4, announced the Israeli army, while in Western universities, the pro-Palestinian protest movement is gaining momentum.
Information to remember
⇒ There will be no truce without assurance of an end to the war, repeats Hamas
⇒ Record number of anti-Semitic acts in the world in 2023 according to a Jewish defense organization
⇒ The pro-Palestinian student movement is growing in Europe and the United States
Hamas does not want agreement without assurance of end of war
Israel and Hamas are once again displaying their deep disagreement over the possibility of a truce, following a first round of negotiations in Cairo (Egypt), Saturday May 4. A Hamas official reiterated to AFP on Saturday that the Palestinian movement would “under no circumstances accept a truce agreement that does not explicitly provide for an end to the war.” He accuses Israel of seeking “to recover its captives without having to stop its aggression on Gaza.” Shortly before, an Israeli official accused Hamas of blocking any agreement by insisting on its demand for an end to the war, and predicted difficult negotiations.
“Our information confirms that Netanyahu is personally slowing down an agreement through personal calculations,” said the Hamas official regarding the Israeli Prime Minister, whom Hamas had previously accused of increasing the number of comments aimed “clearly at derailing any possibility of an agreement “. Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly affirmed that he is determined to carry out a major offensive on Rafah, a town in the south of the Gaza Strip which he considers to be the last bastion of Hamas, and has ruled out ending the war that has been underway for seven months before. for having destroyed the Islamist movement.
Five Palestinian “terrorists” killed by Israel
Five Palestinian “terrorists” were killed on Saturday May 4 in Jordan, in the north of the occupied West Bank, after a 12-hour siege of a village, according to the Israeli army. During an “operation aimed at neutralizing a terrorist cell,” Israeli forces “surrounded a building,” the army said in a statement. After “coming under fire, the security forces responded”, notably with rockets. “An army drone targeted and hit the building twice, while engineering units worked to destroy it” with a bulldozer, the IDF continues. “The confrontation ended with the elimination of five terrorists and the seizure of military equipment and weapons.”
The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian Hamas, reported three fighters killed, including its leader in Tulkarem Alaa Adeeb. The West Bank, territory occupied by Israel since 1967, has been the scene of an outbreak of violence for two years, exacerbated by the attack of October 7.
The number of anti-Semitic acts reaches new heights around the world
An “unprecedented” number of anti-Semitic acts have been recorded in 2023, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the main group defending Jewish rights, warned this Sunday, May 5. The cause, according to the organization: the war between Hamas and Israel, which fuels a “fire which was already out of control”, it states in its published world report. Written jointly with Tel Aviv University, the report said anti-Semitic incidents in 2023 were far higher than 2022 figures in most countries with significant Jewish minorities, including the United States, France, United Kingdom, Australia, Italy, Brazil and Mexico.
Gaza: the global student movement expands
The student movement against the Israeli offensive, starting from American campuses in New York, continues to expand and in a few weeks has reached Lausanne, Berlin, Montreal, Mexico City and even Sydney, but also Paris, Lille, Dijon and Reims.
Since April 17, a wave of mobilization for Gaza has swept across American campuses, in around forty universities, from east to west, where nearly 2,000 people were arrested, according to American media. Several pro-Palestinian camps have been forcibly dismantled by the police in recent days, such as at New York University (NYU) on Friday, at the request of the establishment.
In Paris, the police evacuated on Friday the pro-Palestinian activists who had occupied the prestigious Parisian school Sciences Po, which accommodates 5,000 to 6,000 students, since the day before. This Sunday, in the pages of La Tribune Sunday, Emmanuel Macron condemned “with the greatest firmness” the blockades at Sciences Po and in universities of pro-Palestinian demonstrators. Actions which “prevent debate”, he judges.