[ad_1] Welcome back to our coverage of the war between Israel and Hamas.Progress has reportedly been made towards a deal that would see some hostage
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Welcome back to our coverage of the war between Israel and Hamas.
Progress has reportedly been made towards a deal that would see some hostages released by Hamas, in return for a days-long pause in the fighting.
Publicly, however, the Israeli government maintains there will be no ceasefire unless every single hostage is let go. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the war “is advancing with full force” and with only one goal, “to win”.
“Grave fears” remain for patients in Gaza’s largest hospital, which ran out of power on Saturday. Israel says it will help facilitate the evacuation of 45 babies whose lives are at risk, though the Hamas-run Gazan health ministry maintains it has heard details of no such plan.
And an Israeli minister has caused renewed outrage by referring to the operations in Gaza as a “Nakba” – a term which refers to the expulsion of Palestinian Arabs from what is now Israel in the late 1940s.
“We are now actually rolling out the Nakba of Gaza. In the forefront, this is the Nakba of Gaza,” Avi Dichter told a national TV station.
“So this is the Nakba of Gaza, Avi Dichter?” asked the channel’s host.
“The Nakba of Gaza, 2023,” Mr Dichter affirmed.
Read on for the latest news.
Progress made towards hostage deal
Israel’s major news channels report some progress is being made towards a hostage deal, which would see Hamas release a group of female, elderly and young hostages in return for a temporary pause in the fighting.
Hamas abducted hundreds of Israelis and foreign nationals during its attack on southern Israel last month. A very small number have since been released, while the rest are reportedly being held inside the terrorist group’s vast network of underground tunnels.
The reports in Israeli media suggest a deal would involve 50-100 hostages being released in stages during a pause in hostilities lasting three, or perhaps five days.
Israel has previously been reluctant to allow a pause, believing it would allow Hamas to regroup. In his most recent public remarks, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested a ceasefire would only be possible if all 239 hostages were released.
“The war is advancing with full force, and it has one goal: to win,” he said.
“There is no alternative to victory.”
Aid agencies ‘complicit in Hamas’s strategy’
A spokesman for the Israeli government, Eylon Levy, has accused international aid agencies of being “complicit” in Hamas’s startegy of hiding behind Gaza’s civilian population.
“International agencies in Gaza – the International Committee of the Red Cross, the World Health Organisation, the United Nations – have actively put Palestinian civilians’ lives at risk,” Mr Levy said.
“For a month, they’ve refused to support an evacuation from the north. Now they’re endangering everyone by requiring a hasty evacuation in the middle of ground urban warfare.
“We hold Hamas responsible for all tragic civilian deaths in Gaza – those killed by its misfired rockets and those it prevented from evacuating – but UN agencies also need to take a long, hard look in the mirror about their complicity with Hamas’s human shield strategy.”
The agencies in question have argued that, with something like 1.5 million Palestinians displaced from their homes already and aid shelters well above their intended capacity, there is nowhere for them to escape to.
They have also argued that, while urging civilians to evacuate from the north, Israel has continued to launch air strikes in the south of the Gaza Strip as well, meaning “nowhere” is entirely safe.
‘The Nakba of Gaza’: Minister’s stunning answer
Avi Dichter is currently Israel’s Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development, having previously served as Minister for Internal Security and Home Front Defence. Appearing on the Israeli news channel N12, he described the current operations in Gaza a “Nakba”.
The Nakba was the forced expulsion of Palestinian Arabs from what is now Israel in the late 1940s, which left much of the population – about 700,000 people – displaced. Some historians, though not all, consider it an example of “ethnic cleansing”.
“When we see the pictures of a million residents of Gaza walking south with white flags, is this one of the goals, a psychological objective of the operation? Is this a strategic event, (or) is it temporary?” one of the network’s hosts asked Mr Dichter.
“First and foremost, it is an operational event. We must understand, we have many of our fighters there, who need to operate in a densely populated area,” he responded.
“To operate in a dense area, like there, filled with population, you want to reduce the number of people at the time.”
“Is this a Nakba, or is it something temporary? Will they have somewhere to return to?” the host followed up.
“We are now actually rolling out the Nakba of Gaza. In the forefront, this is the Nakba of Gaza,” Mr Dichter said.
“So this is the Nakba of Gaza, Avi Dichter?” asked the host.
“The Nakba of Gaza, 2023,” he affirmed.
“Wait, does this mean they are not returning to Gaza City?” said the host.
“Look, I don’t know how it will ultimately end. Because remember that Gaza City sits on a third of the Strip,” said Mr Dichter.
“There are two more thirds of Gaza.”
Mr Dichter has used the term before, in 2007, when he was Minister for Internal Security.
“Whoever cries of the Nakba year after year shouldn’t be surprised if they actually have a Nakba eventually,” he said at the time.
Biggest Gazan hospital at risk of ‘becoming a morgue’
“Grave concerns” remain for the al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza, where the World Health Organisation says it has lost contact with its representatives, and the power has reportedly run out, putting patients’ lives at risk.
The hospital, which is the largest in Gaza, has been surrounded by close-quarter fighting in recent days, as well as air strikes, complicating efforts to keep it running – and to evacuate young patients.
“As horrifying reports of the hospital facing repeated attacks continue to emerge, we assume our contacts joined tens of thousands of displaced people and are fleeing the area,” the WHO said late on Saturday, local time.
“If we do not stop this bloodshed immediately with a ceasefire, or at the bare minimum a medical evacuation of patients, these hospitals will become a morgue,” added the aid group Medicins Sans Frontieres on Sunday.
Gaza’s health ministry, which is run by Hamas, says there are 1500 patients at al-Shifa hospital, 1500 medical personnel, and up to 20,000 people seeking shelter.
One of those personnel, surgeon Ahmed al-Mokhallalati, told Al-Jazeera his colleagues “can hardly treat the patients” as they’re “in the middle of a war zone”.
“There are continuous air strikes and the drones are hovering within the hospital area,” Dr al-Mokhallalati said.
“The day before yesterday at about 2am, the electricity stopped because of some issues. The engineer who went to try to fix that was shot by a drone and injured in his neck. Four of his limbs are paralysed.
“I saw a family of five in front of my eyes who tried to move east yesterday and they were shot. So they came back injured.
“The Israelis also called the hospital director the day before yesterday ordering us to evacuate. He asked them to help arrange a way to evacuate the patients. They didn’t have a plan.”
The Gazan health ministry claims two infants who were on incubators in the hospital have already died, and there are another 45 babies at risk. The Israeli military has said publicly that it will help evacuate the infants.
However the ministry maintains it has “not been informed about any mechanism to get the babies out to a safer hospital”.
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