A group of Israelis blocked a highway for about half an hour in the morning rush hour in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, again demanding an agreement between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Hamas movement to release hostages held by Palestinian militants for seven months. The head of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) William Burns should discuss the ceasefire agreement in Israel today, The Times of Israel (ToI) website reported. On Tuesday, an Israeli delegation went to Cairo for talks on a temporary ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
Relatives of people kidnapped by Hamas during the attack on Israel last October 7, when it also killed 1,200 people, also took part in the Wednesday morning demonstration. Of the approximately 250 abductees, Hamas released approximately half, the vast majority of them at the end of November, when the only truce so far in this war was negotiated and Israel released approximately 250 Palestinian prisoners, mostly women and juveniles, in exchange.
Neither Hamas nor our government wants a two-state solution
Read an interview with an Israeli whose 79-year-old uncle is still a prisoner of the terrorist movement Hamas for more than half a year:
Protests for the ceasefire agreement have been taking place in Israel since last year, almost every day this year. On Wednesday, demonstrators carried a huge banner reading “Save those who can still be saved” on a highway in Tel Aviv. According to Israeli media, several dozen hostages have apparently already died in captivity.
The conclusion of a cease-fire agreement brokered by the United States, Egypt and Qatar is failing mainly because Hamas insists on guarantees of a permanent cease-fire and demands the withdrawal of the Israeli army from the Gaza Strip. However, the Israeli government reiterates that its goal is the destruction of Hamas, which many consider impossible.
United States and Israel
According to the US State Department, Israeli soldiers committed human rights violations even before October 7. However, they will use exceptions in the laws so that military aid to the country continues.
The Israeli army has already killed at least 13,000 Hamas fighters in the Gaza Strip since last October. According to the Hamas-controlled authorities there, at least 34,700 Palestinians, mostly civilians, died during its offensive and massive bombing.
From Monday to Tuesday, Israel launched a ground operation in the Rafah section, an area where more than a million people have fled from other parts of the Gaza Strip before fighting since October. Not even a day before, on Monday morning, the Israeli army began calling on civilians in the eastern part of Rafah to evacuate to the coast to the Mavasi area, which is already overcrowded and completely built with refugee tents, or to the nearby town of Khan Yunis, which is completely destroyed by earlier Israeli bombing.
On Tuesday, the Israeli army also seized the Rafah crossing from the Palestinian side and closed it temporarily for humanitarian aid. At the same time, this crossing from Egypt was the main entry point for food supplies and other aid to Gaza, while several dozen wounded people crossed it daily in the opposite direction. The Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel to the Gaza Strip has also been closed since Sunday, due to a Hamas attack on it over the weekend, during which four Israeli soldiers died.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres, among others, called for the opening of the crossings on Tuesday. Reuters reported that the Kerem Shalom crossing was already opening and that Israel was checking aid trucks at it.
Is it genocide?
In connection with the situation of civilians in the Gaza Strip, high-ranking representatives of some countries or organizations have been accusing Israel of genocide for a long time. Is it appropriate?
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, told List News some time ago that “the UN is not in a position to judge this”. “It is a very complex matter… Cases are individual and the court has to decide… It can be said that there are serious violations of international humanitarian law. However, we cannot yet show exactly who is responsible. But I’m worried about what’s happening to civilians,” he said. Read the full interview here.
South Africa sued Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on charges of genocide. We covered the topic in an article here. ICJ at the end of January called on Israel to immediately stop its soldiers from killing and causing serious physical and mental harm to Palestinian civilians.
However, according to lawyer and international law expert Petra Ditrichová, the investigation of possible genocidal behavior by Israel will take a long time. “Genocide is considered the ‘crime of all crimes’. In order for the state to be recognized for its commission, the ICJ would have to prove that the definition required by the Convention has been met,” she said in an interview with SZ.
