In the midst of a deadly war in the Palestinian Gaza Strip, European countries are preparing to announce on Wednesday an initiative aimed at recognizing a State of Palestine, a project already castigated in advance by Israel. For the Hebrew State, the plans to recognize a Palestinian state without a negotiated solution constitute a “reward” for Hamas, a Palestinian Islamist movement supported by Iran, for its attack on October 7 from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory .
Information to remember
⇒ Ireland and Spain want to recognize a State of Palestine
⇒ UNRWA suspends food distributions in Rafah
⇒ Aid via temporary American port still not distributed
An initiative to recognize a State of Palestine
Ireland will announce its decision to recognize a Palestinian state on Wednesday, Irish media said overnight, specifying that a press conference on the subject with Prime Minister Simon Harris is scheduled for 8:00 a.m. local time. At the same time, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is due to speak to the Congress of Deputies. However, Pedro Sánchez had already indicated last week that he would announce on Wednesday the date of Madrid’s recognition of a Palestinian state.
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs already published a video message to Dublin on Tuesday evening on the social network of Hamas.
Israeli raid in Jenin, eight dead according to the Palestinian Authority
The Palestinian Authority announced the death of eight Palestinians in an Israeli military raid in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, where the army said it was carrying out an operation against armed cells of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. During the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, the Palestinian Red Crescent indicated that one of its ambulances had been the target of Israeli fire in Jenin while trying to help a wounded man.
In the evening, the Israeli raid was still underway with exchanges of fire between Israeli soldiers and masked and armed men, AFP correspondents noted. Plumes of black smoke rose inside the Jenin refugee camp, adjacent to the town. The Israeli army announced in a press release that it was carrying out an operation, based on intelligence “concerning terrorist activities carried out by armed men belonging to the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist organizations in the Jenin region”.
Aid via US temporary port still not distributed
Humanitarian aid arriving at the temporary port built by the United States in Gaza has still not been distributed to the population, threatened with famine in the territory devastated by the war between Israel and Hamas, the American Department of Defense announced on Tuesday. defense. Loaded in Cyprus, this aid was to be distributed “rapidly”, the American authorities promised last week, while the delivery of food has almost come to a standstill since Israel took control of the Palestinian side of the country on May 7. essential Rafah border crossing with Egypt. “I don’t believe” that any of the roughly 569 tons of aid has been distributed, Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder said.
“We know that land routes are the best way to deliver aid,” added Pat Ryder. “It’s also important to remember that this is a combat zone and this is a complex operation.” Earlier Tuesday, Cypriot authorities announced that four American and French ships were traveling a distance of approximately 360 kilometers between the port of Larnaca, Cyprus, and the Gaza Strip.
Blinken not sure Netanyahu is ready for normalization with Saudi Arabia
American Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday that he was not sure that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was ready to compromise with a view to a normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia. “I can’t tell you whether Israel, whether it’s the prime minister or the country as a whole, is prepared to do at this moment what would be necessary to achieve normalization” with Saudi Arabia, he said. declared Antony Blinken, questioned during a parliamentary hearing in Washington.
“Because that requires ending the (war in the) Gaza Strip. And that requires a credible path to a Palestinian state. Are they able and willing to do that right now? I don’t know “, he said. Antony Blinken’s comments come as discussions progress between the United States and Saudi Arabia on a bilateral security pact, which he says is “within reach”.
UNRWA suspends food distributions in Rafah city
The UN agency responsible for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, announced on Tuesday that it was suspending its food distributions in Rafah, a town in the south of the Gaza Strip, the scene of fighting between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.
“As a result of the ongoing (Israeli) military operation in eastern Rafah”, since May 7, “the UNRWA distribution center and the WFP warehouse”, the world food program, ” both located in Rafah, are now inaccessible,” says the agency on X, and “food distributions are currently suspended due to lack of supplies and insecurity” in the city.
Israel bans a live broadcast from the AP news agency, then backpedals
Under pressure from the White House, Israel reversed Tuesday evening its decision to interrupt the retransmission by the American agency Associated Press of its live video from the Gaza Strip ravaged by more than seven months of war between Israel and Hamas. “Given that the Ministry of Defense wishes to examine the issue of the broadcasts and the risk to our forces, I have ordered to cancel the operation and return the equipment to the AP agency” until the Ministry of Defense is speaking out, said Israeli Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi. This decision was announced after the American government indicated that it was “in direct contact” with the Israeli government and asked it to restore live broadcasts.
The Associated Press announced earlier in the day that its live video on the Palestinian territory had been cut by Israel, which accuses the news agency of violating a law which allowed the Israeli authorities to ban the Qatari channel Al-Jazeera on their territory . AP attributed the cut to “abuse use by the government” of Benjamin Netanyahu of the law passed in early April which allows the broadcasting in Israel of foreign media “undermining the security” of the State.