UN calls for investigation into ‘summary execution’ of six Israeli hostages

As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remained adamant on Monday about a possible deal on the release of the hostages, the war between the Israeli army and the Islamist Hamas movement continued in the Palestinian enclave on Tuesday, September 3.

The Hamas attack in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killed 1,205 people, most of them civilians, according to an Agence France-Presse count based on official Israeli data. Of the 251 people kidnapped that day, 97 are still being held hostage in Gaza, of whom 33 were declared dead by the army.

In response, Israel launched a major offensive in the Gaza Strip that has so far left at least 40,819 dead, according to the latest report released Tuesday by the Hamas-run Gaza Strip’s Ministry of Health. The territory’s 2.4 million inhabitants are facing a humanitarian and health catastrophe.

• Hostage release deal: Benjamin Netanyahu says he “will not give in to pressure”

After asking publicly “Sorry for not bringing you back alive” The six hostages found dead on Sunday in the Gaza Strip, Benjamin Netanyahu promised to make them pay. “a very strong price” to the Islamist movement and insisted that “I will not give in to pressure.” “No one is more committed than I to the release of the hostages. (…) “Now we must exert maximum pressure on Hamas.”WHO “Concessions must be made” he added.

Thousands of people have been protesting in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in recent days, accompanied by a strike in several cities to demand an agreement that would allow the release of dozens of hostages still held in Gaza.

But Netanyahu says he wants to continue the war until Hamas is destroyed. He reaffirmed the need for Israel to maintain control of a corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border, the Philadelphia Corridor. Hamas demands Israeli withdrawal from this corridor, seized by Israel last May, and ultimately Israel’s complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

• UN calls for investigation into “summary execution” of six Israeli hostages

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Tuesday called for an investigation “independent, impartial and transparent” in it“summary execution” of six Israeli hostages. “We are horrified by reports that Palestinian armed groups summarily executed six Israeli hostages, which would constitute a war crime”wrote Volker Türk in X.

The Israeli army announced on Sunday the discovery in a tunnel in the Gaza Strip of the bodies of six hostages killed, it said, in “point blank” by Hamas, based in particular on the autopsy. Hamas’s chief negotiator, Khalil Al-Hayya, said on Al-Jazeera on Sunday that “bombing” Israel was responsible for their deaths.

The movement, considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union, published two videos on Monday showing the six Israeli hostages alive revealing their identity on camera. The Hostage Families Forum denounced these videos, calling them “psychological terror”.

These images were very little reported in Israeli media and on social media, with many people expressing anger and sadness at what are often presented as elements of “propaganda” of the Islamist movement.

• More than 160,000 children vaccinated against polio in Gaza, campaign continues

Thanks to “humanitarian pauses” lasting three days each, a campaign against polio was launched on Sunday in central Gaza with the aim of vaccinating more than 640,000 children under 10 years of age throughout the territory, ravaged by eleven months of war.

The vaccination campaign is underway ” GOOD “Rik Peeperkorn, the World Health Organization (WHO) representative in the Palestinian territories, said on Tuesday. The total number of children under the age of ten vaccinated so far stands at 161,000, he said. “surpassing the estimated target of 156,500 children” that had been set for this operation. There are still “at least ten days” for this first vaccination cycle, Peeperkorn said.

For the moment, the campaign has been limited to the centre of the narrow Palestinian territory. The campaign is expected to move on Thursday to the south of the territory with the aim of vaccinating some 340,000 children, and then to the north to vaccinate another 150,000. A second phase of vaccination is planned. “in four weeks”He added that the WHO hopes to vaccinate 640,000 children in total. The vaccine is administered in health centres or by mobile teams.

• Deadly strikes continue in the enclave

Meanwhile, the Israeli offensive has not let up in Gaza. In the south, two Palestinians were killed when a shell hit a tent for displaced people in Khan Younes, according to the civil defense. In the center, an attack targeted a house near Al-Boureij. and artillery fire targeted Nousseirat, while in the north, troops blew up residential buildings in Gaza City, AFP reports, citing witnesses on the ground.

In the past 24 hours, Israeli military strikes have killed 33 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian emergency services. Four women were killed in particular in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, by an Israeli strike, while eight others were killed near a hospital in the same town. Others were killed in separate airstrikes in the territory, Reuters reports.

The Israeli military, for its part, announced that it had killed eight Palestinian gunmen, including a senior official in Hamas’s armed wing, Ahmed Fawzi Nasser Mohammed Wadiyya, who took part in the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. It said the attack took place at a command post located near Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City.