Please find our update on the situation yesterday.
The war between Israel and Hamas has left 40,939 people dead in the Gaza Strip, most of them civilians, according to a new report published on Saturday, September 7 by the Palestinian Islamist movement’s Ministry of Health. On the Israeli side, 1,205 people were killed – most of them civilians – during the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, according to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) count compiled from official Israeli sources. According to the Israeli army, 706 Israeli soldiers have also been killed since then.
In addition, of the 251 people kidnapped on 7 October 2023, 64 are still being held in Gaza, as are the bodies of 33 other hostages declared dead by the army.
The war enters its twelfthmy months without signs of relief
Almost twelve months of war in the Gaza Strip and no hope of a quick truce or release of the hostages. “Eleven months. Enough! No one can stand this anymore. Humanity must prevail. Ceasefire now!”wrote in X the director of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini.
Despite multiple attempts by international mediators (the United States, Qatar, Egypt), the belligerents remain inflexible and accuse each other of blocking any agreement.
Negotiations have broken down in recent weeks on several points: the Philadelphia corridor, a 15-kilometer-long zone on the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, over which Israel wants to maintain control; as well as the number and identity of Palestinian prisoners to be released by the Jewish state in exchange for the hostages.
Listen also Gaza: Why ceasefire negotiations are failing
The Gaza Strip bombed by the army
Several airstrikes and artillery shelling hit the Palestinian territory early on Saturday, according to AFP journalists present at the scene.
At least 16 Palestinians, including children, were killed in Jabalia and Gaza City (north), as well as in Nousseirat and Bureij, in the centre of the enclave, according to rescuers. In Jabaliya, a makeshift tent set up in a school housing displaced people was attacked. Traces of blood on a mattress or on the floor, belongings destroyed or scattered, the tent was set on fire, according to images taken by AFP.
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Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, which seized power in Gaza in 2007 and is considered a terrorist movement by the United States and the European Union.
Family of slain West Bank activist blames Israel
Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a 26-year-old Turkish-American activist, was killed on Friday in the West Bank during a demonstration in Beita against the expansion of Israeli settlements, considered illegal under international law. Washington deplored the death “tragic” and Ankara condemned a “Barbaric intervention by Israel”.
On Saturday, his family accused the Israeli army of shooting him and called for a “independent investigation”The army admitted to having opened fire in the area and said “to examine reports that a foreign national was killed”.
In the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, the army has withdrawn from Jenin after an operation marked by the destruction of infrastructure, which has left 36 Palestinians dead since August 28, according to the UN.
