The international community is calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and an investigation into responsibility after a distribution of humanitarian aid turned into tragedy on Thursday following Israeli fire and a stampede. Witnesses said Israeli soldiers fired on a hungry crowd rushing toward humanitarian aid trucks in the northern Gaza City. The death toll is 115 dead and around 760 injured, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health – figures that cannot be independently verified.
A UN team visiting Gaza’s al-Chifa hospital on Friday, which received dozens of wounded after the tragedy, saw “a large number of gunshot wounds”, said Stéphane Dujarric, a spokesperson. of ONU. Staff from the UN humanitarian office (Ocha), WHO and UNICEF, the first to be able to travel to the north in more than a week, spent a little over two hours on Friday morning in this hospital in Gaza City, bringing medicine and fuel, explained Stéphane Dujarric.
Information to remember
⇒ Paris castigates Israeli authorities deemed “accountable” for “unjustifiable” situations in Gaza
⇒ Joe Biden “hopes” that a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas could occur by Ramadan
⇒ African Union chief ‘strongly condemns massacre of Palestinians’ seeking aid
Paris judges Israeli authorities “accountable” for the situation in Gaza
The French Minister of Foreign Affairs castigates the Israeli authorities, whom he considers responsible for blocking humanitarian aid in Gaza and “accounting for” “unjustifiable” situations. in an interview given in the world published this Saturday March 2. “The responsibilities for blocking aid are clearly Israeli,” underlines Stéphane Séjourné. The minister notes that the catastrophic humanitarian situation “creates indefensible and unjustifiable situations for which Israelis are accountable.”
France has redoubled its efforts with the Israeli authorities to increase the number of crossing points and humanitarian trucks. But they “were not satisfied” and “the famine adds to the horror”, deplores the head of French diplomacy, who visited the region a month ago.
Stéphane Séjourné believes that we are “at an impasse on Rafah” in the far south of the territory, where nearly a million and a half Palestinians are massed, according to the UN, trapped against the closed border with Egypt. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a ground offensive soon on Rafah to defeat the Islamist movement in its “last bastion”. It would be “a new humanitarian disaster; we are doing everything to avoid it”, once again assured Stéphane Séjourné, recalling that France has been urging a lasting ceasefire for months.
African Union chief ‘strongly condemns massacre of Palestinians’ seeking aid
The head of the African Union, Moussa Faki Mahamat, accused Israel of a “mass massacre of Palestinians”. The Chairperson of the African Union Commission, HE Moussa Faki Mahamat, strongly condemns the attack by Israeli forces, which killed and injured more than 100 Palestinians seeking vital humanitarian assistance,” the AU said in a statement. a press release published this Saturday on. It “calls for an international investigation into the incident so that the perpetrators are held accountable for their actions,” the statement said, calling for “an immediate and unconditional ceasefire.”
Gaza: Biden says he ‘hopes’ for ceasefire by Ramadan
Joe Biden said Friday that he “hopes” that a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza could happen by Ramadan, the Muslim holy month that begins on the evening of March 10 or 11. by journalists on the possibility of an agreement on a truce in the Palestinian territory by this date, the American president replied: “I hope so, we are still working a lot on the subject. We are not there yet .” “We’re going to get there, but we’re not there yet, and we might not get there,” he said.
The Democratic president said at the start of the week that he hoped by the following Monday, March 4, an agreement for a six-week truce in the fighting between Israel and Hamas, but he returned to this agenda. Israeli shooting and the stampede during a distribution of humanitarian aid could have complicated the negotiations, Joe Biden admitted earlier.
US to start dropping humanitarian aid on Gaza
The United States will participate “in the coming days” in humanitarian aid drops in the Gaza Strip besieged by the Israeli army, Joe Biden also announced on Friday. “In the coming days, we will join our friends in Jordan and others in airdrops of food and other goods” on Gaza, said the American president, receiving the head of the Italian government Giorgia Meloni at the White House. Making another slip of the tongue, Joe Biden spoke of aid drops on Ukraine, in conflict with Russia, and not on Gaza.
Until now, the United States has not carried out such aid drops, judging their effectiveness to be limited. But while the Gaza Strip is, according to the UN, threatened with famine and awaiting a ceasefire agreement which would allow more aid to arrive, the United States has visibly evolved on the subject.
Jordan has carried out several operations to drop humanitarian and medical aid since the start of the war on October 7 between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, intended in particular for a Jordanian field hospital in the north of the Palestinian territory. France also carried out operations to drop humanitarian and medical aid.