Concern remains high on Wednesday for more than 2 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, despite hopes of a truce between Israel and Hamas that the United States and Qatar are trying to achieve. The devastated Palestinian territory is plunged into a major humanitarian crisis and 2.2 million people, according to the UN, the vast majority of the population, are threatened with famine.
Information to remember
⇒ Lula denies talking about Holocaust in Gaza
⇒ The UN warns of an “almost inevitable” famine in Gaza
⇒ Israel confident in its trade relations with Arab states
Biden sanctioned on Gaza in Michigan
Joe Biden won Michigan’s Democratic primary on Tuesday, but was harshly sanctioned for his support for Israel in the state with a large Muslim and Arab population, a result that could bode ill for his chances of re-election. According to initial estimates, more than 50,000 “uncommitted” votes, the equivalent of a blank vote, were cast in the ballot boxes in this state, responding to a call to put pressure on the American president for a cease-fire. -immediate fire in Gaza.
Activists in this key Midwestern region launched the “Listen to Michigan” campaign, to deliver a “powerful and unequivocal message” that financing and supporting the war in Gaza is “contradictory to the values of the Democratic Party.
Lula denies talking about Holocaust
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, at the center of a diplomatic crisis with Israel, denied on Tuesday that he had called the Israeli offensive in Gaza a “Holocaust”, saying it was an “interpretation” of his remarks by Benyamin Netanyahu. “I didn’t use the word Holocaust.” “Holocaust was (an) interpretation of the Israeli Prime Minister, it was not mine,” Lula said in an interview with the RedeTV channel, according to a broadcast extract.
On February 18, Lula accused Israel of engaging in “genocide” in the Gaza Strip, triggering a diplomatic storm. “What is happening in the Gaza Strip is not a war, it is a genocide,” Lula declared on the sidelines of an African Union summit.
The UN warns of an “almost inevitable” famine in Gaza and “imminent” in the North
“If nothing changes, famine is imminent in northern Gaza,” Carl Skau, deputy executive director of the World Food Program (WFP), told the UN Security Council. No convoy has been able to reach northern Gaza since January 23, according to the UN, which denounces the obstructions of the Israeli authorities.
“If nothing is done, we fear that widespread famine in Gaza is almost inevitable,” added Ramesh Rajasingham, on behalf of the head of the UN humanitarian office (OCHA) Martin Griffiths. “We are at the end of February, with at least 576,000 people in Gaza – a quarter of the population – one step away from famine”, and practically all of the 2.2 million inhabitants “dependent on terribly humanitarian aid inadequate to survive,” he added.
Israel confident in its trade relations with Arab states
Israel’s economy minister said Tuesday that trade relations between Israel and Arab states have not been affected by the war in the Gaza Strip, which nevertheless risks costing his country up to $55 billion. . The so-called Abraham Accords, negotiated by the United States and signed in 2020, allowed Israel to establish official ties with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco.
Israel is also linked to Jordan and Egypt by peace treaties. “There is no change” in trade relations, Nir Barkat told reporters on the sidelines of the 13th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Abu Dhabi.
Asked about Israel’s economic losses caused by the war in Gaza, Nir Barkat estimated that they “could be between 150 and 200 billion shekels”, or between 42 and 55 billion dollars.
Hamas salutes the memory of the American soldier who set himself on fire
Hamas on Tuesday saluted the “immortal” memory of the American soldier who set himself on fire on Sunday in front of the Israeli embassy in the United States, Israel’s primary supporter, to protest against the war in Gaza.
The immolation, the video of which circulated widely on social networks, is an “expression of the anger that is growing within the American people” about the Israeli war in Gaza, declared the Palestinian Islamist movement in a press release published in English. This act comes at a time when demonstrations are increasing in the United States against Israel’s devastating military offensive in the Gaza Strip.