Fears of famine loom on Gaza as aid stalled
Cease-fire negotiations resume as global worries increase over heavy casualties
GAZA/JERUSALEM — Heavy fighting rocked besieged Gaza on Wednesday as aid agencies warned of looming famine and new talks were held in Cairo for an Israel-Hamas cease-fire and hostage release deal.
Renewed talks involving mediators and Hamas continued and the talks raised the “possibility of progress”.
Global concern has spiraled over the high civilian death toll and dire humanitarian crisis in the conflict sparked by Hamas’ Oct 7 attack against Israel.
Combat and chaos again stalled aid deliveries for desperate civilians in Gaza, where the UN has warned the population of 2.3 million is on the brink of famine.
The UN World Food Programme said it was forced to halt aid deliveries in northern Gaza because of “complete chaos and violence” — a move Hamas called a “death sentence”.
More Israeli strikes continued to pound Gaza, with 118 people killed in the last 24 hours, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which put the overall death toll at 29,313.
Abdel Rahman Mohamed Jumaa said he lost his family in strikes on Gaza’s far-southern Rafah.
“I found my wife lying in the street,” he told Agence FrancePresse. “Then I saw a man carrying a girl and I ran toward him and … picked her up, realizing she was really my daughter.”
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez became the latest to call for Israel’s restraint in Rafah, telling reporters on a trip to Morocco that a ground offensive would be a “catastrophe”.
Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz said the operation in Rafah would begin “after the evacuation of the population”, although Israel has not yet given details.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted the army will keep fighting until it has destroyed Hamas and freed the remaining 130 hostages.
The conflict started when Hamas launched its surprise attack on Oct 7, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,200 people in Israel, according to Israeli figures.
Hamas took about 250 hostages, many of whom were released during a weeklong truce in late November.
US veto denounced
The White House sent Middle East envoy Brett McGurk for the truce talks, a day after a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for a cease-fire was blocked by the US, a move criticized by many countries.
In a statement released by Palestine’s official news agency WAFA, the Palestinian presidency expressed its “surprise at the continued refusal of the US to stop the war” that Israel is waging against the Palestinian people.
Hamas said in a statement that the US administration bears responsibility for obstructing efforts to end Israeli “aggression” in Gaza.
Hamas said its chief Ismail Haniyeh was already in Cairo for talks.
Israel’s Gantz said there were efforts to “promote a new plan for the return of the hostages and we are seeing the first signs that indicate the possibility of progress in this direction”.
Haniyeh has said Hamas would not accept anything less than a complete cessation of hostilities, Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and “lifting of the unjust siege” as well as a release of Palestinian prisoners serving long sentences in Israeli jails.
Foreign ministers of G20 are gathering this week to discuss poverty, climate change and heightened global tensions, setting a road map for work to accomplish ahead of a Nov 18-19 summit in Rio de Janeiro.
Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira said Brazil was “deeply worried” by the proliferation of conflicts around the world — not just in Ukraine and Gaza, but in over 170 locations, according to some studies.
The conflict has set off clashes elsewhere in the Middle East, with fears growing of heightening regional tensions.
In Syria, state television said an Israeli missile strike killed at least two people in Damascus, a claim Israel declined to comment on.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement fired rockets into Israel Wednesday, after an earlier deadly Israeli airstrike on south Lebanon.