Gaza Strip | Talks are accelerating on Tuesday over the release of hostages in the hands of Hamas in return for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, where the Palestinian Islamist movement accuses Israel of a deadly attack on a besieged hospital.
“The movement (Hamas, editor’s note) sent its response to the brothers of Qatar and the mediators. “We are getting closer to concluding a ceasefire agreement,” Hamas leader Ismaïl Haniyeh said on Tuesday in a short message in Arabic that his office sent to AFP.
According to sources within Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the second-largest Palestinian armed Islamist group, the two movements have accepted an agreement, details of which must be announced by Qatar and mediators. The Israeli government did not immediately respond to these statements.
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) President Mirjana Spoljaric met on Monday evening with Qatari leaders as well as Mr. Haniyeh, who is based in the Gulf emirate, to “move forward on humanitarian issues related to the Red Cross.” armed conflict in Israel and Gaza”.
Qatar, Egypt and the United States are working on an agreement to try to release hostages kidnapped by Hamas in Israel in return for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
Although the ICRC assured that it would not take part in these talks, it insisted that “its teams will be given permission to visit the hostages to ensure their well-being and administer medication, and thus the hostages with them “can communicate with their families,” says a press release.
“We have never been so close, we are confident. But there is still a lot to do. “Nothing gets done until everything is done,” said John Kirby, spokesman for the White House National Security Council.
To a journalist who asked him the following question: “Is an agreement to release the hostages close?” US President Joe Biden replied in Washington: “I think so”.
Any final details?
Two sources familiar with the matter told AFP on Tuesday that talks focused on an agreement to release “50 to 100” hostages in exchange for the release of 300 Palestinian prisoners in Israel, including children and women.
The transfer would be carried out gradually at a rate of ten Israeli hostages to thirty Palestinian prisoners per day and would include the delivery of food, medical aid and fuel, and, most importantly, a “renewable five-day humanitarian ceasefire.”
But Israel insists on “family reunification” – that is, if a civilian were released, his partner would also be released, even if he were a soldier – which Hamas, which opposes the release of soldiers, is rejecting for now, according to these two sources.
Relatives of the hostages met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his “war cabinet” on Monday evening amid pressure to return the approximately 240 hostages to Israel.
“Rescuing our hostages is a sacred and supreme task to which I feel committed,” Benjamin Netanyahu said on the “Families” social network.
“We will not stop the fighting until we bring our hostages home, destroy Hamas and ensure there are no further threats from Gaza,” he added.
The rescue of the hostages is one of the objectives of the ongoing Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip, which was launched after the bloody attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement on October 7.
In Israel, authorities said 1,200 people, the vast majority civilians, were killed in this attack of unprecedented scale and violence in the country’s history.
In retaliation, Israel has vowed to “destroy” Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel, and has relentlessly shelled the Palestinian territory, where its army has also been conducting a ground offensive since October 27. .
According to the Hamas government, Israeli bombings in the Gaza Strip killed more than 13,300 people, including more than 5,600 children.
According to the United Nations, nearly 1.7 million of its 2.4 million residents have been displaced by the war in Gaza, which has been under a “complete siege” by Israel since October 9, blocking the delivery of food, water, electricity and medicine blocked.
Indonesian hospital
The army said overnight that its soldiers “continued to fight” in northern Gaza, while Palestinian sources reported tensions at the Indonesian hospital, which was attacked the day before Israeli strikes that killed 12 patients and their relatives and “dozens According to Hamas, injuries were caused.
The Islamist movement repeatedly repeats that Israel is waging “a war on hospitals” in Gaza, almost all of which are no longer functioning in the north of the territory.
Israel, in turn, accuses Hamas of using hospitals for military purposes and using the civilians there as “human shields,” which the Palestinian movement denies.
The head of Indonesia’s diplomacy, Retno Marsudi, condemned this “Israeli attack (…), which killed many civilians and constitutes a clear violation of international humanitarian law.”
According to local hospital sources, more than a hundred injured people were transferred from this hospital to the Nasser complex in Khan Younes, southern Gaza, in the evening and night.
“We escaped like a miracle. A strike hit the school (where the displaced people sought refuge, editor’s note),” a young, displaced man told AFP. “We were at Zeitoune School in Gaza City and from school we went to the Indonesian hospital. I just can’t (speak).”
During the night, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported an Israeli attack with dead and injured people on a residence in the Nuseirat camp in the center of the Gaza Strip.
On Monday, 28 premature babies who were evacuated over the weekend from Al-Chifa Hospital, the largest in Gaza, and stormed by the Israeli army on November 15, were brought to Egypt “in complete safety,” the World Health Organization (WHO) said ) with.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will attend a virtual meeting of emerging BRICS countries on the Gaza war on Tuesday, while his diplomatic chief Sergei Lavrov will host his counterparts from the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
