Fears are growing this Thursday over the fate of more than a million Palestinians stuck in Rafah, a town at the southern tip of Gaza where Israel is preparing to carry out an offensive. After a first phase of its deployment which was concentrated in the north of the Palestinian territory, the Israeli army progressed towards the center and south of Gaza, notably in the town of Khan Younes, the epicenter of fierce fighting and raids in recent weeks. continuous aerial flights. During the night from Wednesday to Thursday, witnesses and hospital sources reported deadly strikes in the south of the Gaza Strip, particularly in Rafah.
Information to remember
⇒ Eleven dead in Israeli strikes in Homs, Syria
⇒ Blinken believes there remains “room for an agreement” on hostages
⇒ Norway pays 24 million euros to Unrwa
Syria: eleven dead, including civilians, in Israeli strikes according to an NGO
Eleven people, including seven civilians, were killed in Israeli strikes on the city of Homs, in central Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH) announced on Wednesday. “Eleven people, including seven civilians” and two pro-Iran Hezbollah fighters, were killed “in Israeli strikes” carried out during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday against a building in the upscale residential district of Hamra, in the city of Homs, declared the OSDH, reporting a new assessment. The NGO based in the United Kingdom, but which has a vast network of sources in Syria, had previously mentioned a death toll of ten.
Four students who rented the basement of the building, a woman who was on the first floor and her son are among the dead, as well as an unidentified civilian, said the OSDH. A Syrian working with Hezbollah and a pro-Iran fighter, whose nationality and affiliation were not identified by the NGO, were also killed.
A source close to Hezbollah, which fights in Syria alongside the regime of Bashar al-Assad, confirmed to AFP the death of two fighters from the Lebanese Islamist group. The Syrian Defense Ministry, for its part, indicated that “the Israeli enemy carried out airstrikes […] targeting several targets in the city of Homs and its surroundings […]killing and injuring a number of civilians.
Blinken says there is “room for an agreement” on hostages
The head of American diplomacy estimated Wednesday in Tel Aviv that there remained “room for an agreement” on the hostages between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, after very harsh remarks from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “There are things that are clearly unacceptable in Hamas’ response” but “we believe that this opens up room for an agreement to be found and we will work tirelessly on it,” said Antony Blinken.
“Israel has an obligation to do everything possible to ensure that civilians are protected and get the assistance they need in the conduct of the conflict,” he added. “Any military campaign undertaken by Israel must first and foremost” protect civilians, he insisted, noting that there were “ways to do that”.
The Israeli Prime Minister on Wednesday ordered the army to “prepare” the offensive on the town of Rafah, where Palestinians displaced by the war against Hamas are massed, apparently rejecting any concession in the negotiations for a truce in the Gaza Strip. He dismissed the idea of a pause in fighting, assuring that victory over the Palestinian Islamist movement was “a matter of months” and that the hostages still held in Gaza would be released thanks to “continued military pressure”.
Antony Blinken concludes his tour of the Middle East this Thursday with an interview with Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid after separate discussions on Wednesday with Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. If the Secretary of State pleaded for a truce allowing the delivery of more humanitarian aid and the release of hostages, he also urged his Israeli ally to “protect” civilians in the continuation of its military operations.
Gaza: Hamas official says Netanyahu’s goal is to commit ‘genocide’
A senior Lebanese-based Hamas official said Wednesday that Benjamin Netanyahu’s continuation of the war in Gaza showed his goal was to commit “genocide” against the Palestinians.
“(Benyamin Netanyahu’s) insistence on continuing the aggression completely confirms that the objective of the aggression against Gaza is the genocide of the Palestinian people,” Osama Hamdane said at a press conference in Beirut. “We will do everything possible to protect our people, whether through resistance on the ground or through political efforts to end the aggression,” he added.
Failure in the US Senate of a vote on Israel
American senators stumbled on Wednesday over an agreement unlocking new funds for Ukraine and Israel and reforming the United States’ migration system, although it had been fiercely negotiated for months. Under pressure from Donald Trump, who still maintains enormous control over his troops in Congress, most Republicans ultimately voted against it, even those who initially supported it.
US President Joe Biden demands that any aid for Israel be coupled with an envelope for Ukraine. Republicans in the House refuse, but were unable to pass their own bill Tuesday to force his hand.
Norway pays 24 million euros to UNRWA
Norway, one of the few major donors to have maintained its aid to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), announced on Wednesday the payment of 275 million crowns (24 million euros) to the agency facing to the “catastrophic” situation of the Palestinians.
“UNRWA is much more than a humanitarian organization. It represents a commitment by the international community to meet the basic needs of Palestinian refugees until a political solution to the conflict is found,” said the head of Norwegian diplomacy Espen Barth Eide in a press release. “It is completely out of the question for Norway to abandon this commitment at a time when Gaza is essentially in ruins,” he added.
Several major donors such as the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom have suspended their funding to UNRWA at the center of a controversy after accusations by Israel against 12 of its 30,000 suspected regional employees. of being involved in the Hamas attack on October 7.