US President Joe Biden has reportedly called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt fighting for three days. According to Axios, citing some sources, the White House request is aimed at giving space to negotiations on the release of Israeli hostages seized by Hamas. Biden would have made the suggestion during yesterday’s November 6th phone call with the Israeli Prime Minister. According to Axios, talks are currently underway between the United States, Israel and Hamas, mediated by Qatar, about the release of at least ten hostages. The three-day standoff would also serve to verify the identities of all hostages and obtain a complete list of names. The White House had also issued a warning the same day against Netanyahu, who had spoken of “ensuring the security of Gaza after the end of the war.” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Biden “believes Israel’s reoccupation of Gaza is not the right thing to do.”
The future of Gaza according to Netanyahu
A month after the fierce Hamas attack, to which the Jewish state responded with the most massive military operation ever launched against Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made clear in an interview with ABC News that “his country bears overall responsibility “for security” in the Gaza Strip “indefinitely” after the conflict. “We’ve seen what happens when we don’t have it. “If we do not bear this responsibility in security matters, we will see the explosion of Hamas terror on a scale that we cannot imagine,” underlines the Prime Minister, who once again rejects the hypothesis of a “ceasefire without the release of our hostages”. . “As far as the little breaks, an hour here, an hour there, we already had them,” the Prime Minister said. What the government will do instead will be to “control the circumstances to allow the entry of goods, humanitarian goods or the exit of our hostages, individual hostages,” Netanyahu concludes. His words were echoed throughout the day by former chief of staff and Netanyahu ally/opponent Benny Gantz: “Israel certainly has no intention of “wiping out Gaza,” Gantz said as he met some residents of southern Israel. “Gaza will not be abolished, it will remain there even the day after the war with Khan Yunes and Rafah. But we will ensure that no further threats come from there and therefore you can return to your homes,” the centrist leader said .
And according to Tajani
The international community’s postwar vision – including Western allies – appears to be significantly different from that outlined by Netanyahu. This was confirmed by the words of Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, who is currently attending the meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Tokyo. “Israel is a country at war, but I believe that we must continue to work for stability and de-escalation,” Tahani said, recalling the ultimate goals of “the two-people, two-state solution and peace.” For Gaza in particular, “there will have to be a transition phase: for example, there could be a presence like that of Unifil in Lebanon,” said government minister Meloni, after which “an agreement is possible from this point of view.” “We have talked about it and we will continue to talk about it.” A mission that could only be limited in time anyway. And then? “It certainly takes time, but we want to ensure that the Palestinian people get out of this war and Hamas gets out of Palestine.” “We firmly believe in the PNA, which can be an interlocutor for the future, as it is today,” Tajani testified again Tokyo.
Raid on the Strip and clashes in the West Bank
Meanwhile, 14 people were killed in an overnight raid by Israeli troops in Rafah, southern Gaza, according to the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry. Red Cross correspondent Red Crescent also reported an IDF airstrike near Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City. In addition, clashes between civilians and the Israeli army continue in the West Bank. A Palestinian was killed today – Tuesday, November 7 – in the village of Sair, near Hebron. This was announced by medical sources citing the Wafa agency. The clash occurred during the mapping operation of the house of a 16-year-old Palestinian accused by the army of killing an Israeli policewoman in the Old City of Jerusalem last month (the mapping of a house is carried out with the aim of destroying it). ).
Humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip
Meanwhile, humanitarian aid continues to flow into the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Crescent announced that “nearly 100 trucks” arrived in Gaza from the Rafah crossing yesterday. The organization said it had “received 93 shipments of food, water, medical equipment and medicines from the Egyptian Red Crescent.” Since Oct. 21, 569 vehicles have arrived on the Strip, an average of about 33 per day.
Israel’s advance
Israeli forces are at the gates of Gaza, the city home to about a third of the Gaza Strip’s population (2.3 million people), and are preparing to enter there in the most direct and risky attack on Hamas start, which has men, shelters, tunnels and weapons in the city. Today the IDF gave Palestinian civilians a four-hour deadline to leave the city before the battle begins. Images shared on The fight could start at any moment at this point. “For the first time in decades, we are fighting in the heart of Gaza City, in the heart of terror,” said Yaron Filkelman, commander of Israel’s Southern Front, adding, alluding to possible casualties among his soldiers: “This is a war. “complex and difficult and unfortunately costly.” According to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza, the death toll among Palestinians since the war began exactly a month ago is now over 10,000, of which over 4,000 are minors.
Cover photo: An Israeli army artillery unit near the southern border with the Gaza Strip – November 6, 2023 (Ansa – EPA/ABIR SULTAN)
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