Arab mediators work on truce as airstrikes burn people alive
Deir al-Balah: An overnight Israeli strike on a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City killed 23 people, as Arab mediators worked on a proposal to end the war with Hamas that would include a five to seven year truce and the release of all remaining hostages, officials said Wednesday.
There was no immediate Israeli comment on the strike, which set several tents ablaze, burning people alive.
France, Germany and Britain meanwhile said Israel’s seven-week-old blockade on all imports to Gaza, including food, was “intolerable,” in unusually strong criticism from three of the country’s closest allies.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on Hamas to release the hostages in order to “block Israel’s pretexts” for continuing the war. He reiterated his demands that Hamas give up their arms, referring to them as “sons of dogs” in unusually strong language during a speech in the West Bank.
Abbas, who heads the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, has no influence over Hamas but is seeking a role in postwar Gaza.In the Dnipropetrovsk region, Russian drones sparked a fire at an “outbuilding” and a “food enterprise”, regional administration head Serhii Lysak said.
Egypt and Qatar are still developing the proposal, which would include the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from the entire strip and the release of Palestinian prisoners, according to an Egyptian official and a Hamas official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to brief media.
Israel says the military operations and the tightened blockade are tactics to pressure Hamas to release hostages. Aid groups say thousands of children are malnourished and most people are surviving on one meal a day or less.
“The Israeli decision to block aid from entering Gaza is intolerable,” France, Germany and Britain said in their joint statement. “Humanitarian aid must never be used as a political tool and Palestinian territory must not be reduced nor subjected to any demographic change. Israel is bound under international law to allow the unhindered passage of humanitarian aid,”they added.
