Hamas says new cease-fire negotiations not satisfactory
"There is no point in engaging in negotiations or examining new ceasefire proposals as long as the hunger war and extermination war continue in the Gaza Strip," said Bassem Naïm, a member of the political bureau of the Palestinian Islamist movement, to AFP. "The world must put pressure on the government (of Benjamin) Netanyahu to end the crimes of hunger, thirst, and killings" in Gaza, he added.
These statements come after the Israeli government announced a new military campaign on Monday that plans for the "conquest" of the Gaza Strip and a massive displacement of its population within the territory. "The operation includes a large-scale attack" and "the displacement of most of the Gaza Strip's population" out of combat zones, said Brigadier General Effi Defrin, an army spokesperson, on Monday.
France "firmly" condemned this plan on Tuesday. Its foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, asserted that the Israeli government was "in violation of humanitarian law."
China "opposes the continuation of Israeli military operations in Gaza," reacted a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry. The day before, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was "alarmed" by the Israeli plan.
"Strong explosion"
The Gaza Strip, where nearly all of the 2.4 million inhabitants have already been displaced, often multiple times since the start of the war, has been under a tight blockade by Israel since March 2 and is facing a severe humanitarian crisis.
The civil defense spokesperson in Gaza, Mahmoud Bassal, stated Tuesday that at least three Palestinians, including a young girl, were killed following Israeli bombings at dawn in different areas of the Gaza Strip. "We were awakened at a quarter past one in the morning by a very strong explosion. Everything was covered in dust (...), we couldn't see anything. We couldn't help the injured," said Moaz Hamdan to AFP, who lost family members in a strike in Nusseirat (center).
The Israeli army resumed its offensive on the territory on March 18, ending a two-month truce with Hamas. The declared objective of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government remains to "defeat" the Islamist movement, which triggered the war with its unprecedented attack on October 7, 2023, against Israel, and to "bring back the hostages" taken that day.
"End the war"
In Israel, the army has called up tens of thousands of reservists, but a senior security official said Monday there remained a "window" for negotiations to release the hostages until the end of U.S. President Donald Trump's visit to the Middle East.
This visit is scheduled for May 13 to 16. Israeli President Isaac Herzog said Tuesday that "all parties should make additional efforts (...) to see our hostages return immediately," according to a statement from his office.
Hundreds of Israelis protested Monday in front of the Knesset in Jerusalem during the opening of a parliamentary session to express their opposition to the government's new plan. "If we want to free the hostages, we must end the war now, ensure their release, and then Hamas will give us a thousand reasons to fight again," Yaya Fink, one of the protest organizers, told AFP.
The attack on October 7, 2023, resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official data. Of the 251 abducted, 58 are still held in Gaza, of whom 34 have been declared dead by the Israeli army. Hamas is also holding the remains of an Israeli soldier killed in a previous war in Gaza in 2014. The Israeli retaliation campaign has resulted in at least 52,567 deaths in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to data from the Hamas government's health ministry, deemed reliable by the U.N.
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