Hopes dim for Gaza truce
Kuwait condemns Zionist settlements • Zionists return 47 defiled bodies
Hopes dimmed on Thursday for a truce before Ramadan in the Zionist-Hamas war that entered its sixth month with dozens more killed in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the territory. The ministry said 83 more people had been killed over the previous day, adding to a toll that reached 30,800, mostly women and children, in a war that China called “a disgrace to civilization”.
Kuwait’s foreign ministry condemned the Zionist occupation’s decision to build 3,500 new illegal settlement units in the West Bank, in addition to the continued attempts to Judaize large parts of the West Bank, including Jerusalem. In a statement on Thursday, a ministry statement renewed demands to the international community and the UN Security Council to stand firmly to stop these violations, calling on the world not to recognize the Zionist illegal decision, which eliminates any chance for peace in the region. It reaffirmed Kuwait’s support to the Palestinian people to restore their legitimate rights clearly stipulated in international resolutions, stressing that all Palestinians have the right to enjoy a safe and stable life.
In the wasteland of Jabalia, northern Gaza, Palestinians gathered to receive meals at a distribution point. “There is no gas to cook our food on. There is no flour or rice,” said Bassam Al-Hou, standing beside large, blackened cooking pots among the dusty rubble. He said children “are dying and fainting in the streets from hunger. What can we do?” In Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, the bodies of about 14 people lay in front of a hospital. The bare feet of some protruded from under colored cloths that covered them.
Gaza’s government media office said on Thursday the Zionist entity had returned dozens of bodies that had been exhumed from graves in the besieged territory in recent weeks. The bodies were reburied on Thursday afternoon in the beach area near the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah. Men in white hazmat suits aligned the bodies wrapped in blue plastic sheeting at the bottom of a trench, before a bulldozer covered them in sand as dozens of mourners looked on, an AFP correspondent reported.
“The bodies arrived through the Kerem Shalom crossing and were received by the ministry of health,” Ihsan Al-Natour from the ministry of
endowments told AFP at the funeral. “We do not know the names or any other information about them,” he added. The 47 bodies sent back by the Zionist entity on Thursday were first “transferred to Al-Najjar Hospital” in Rafah in southern Gaza, the besieged territory’s crossings and borders authority said in a separate statement.
“The bodies were seized and transferred to (the Zionist entity) under the pretext of examination and verification” to ensure they were not those of captives held in Gaza, the government statement said. Since the start of the war, Zionist officials have exhumed “hundreds” of bodies from graves at hospitals in the Palestinian territory, it said.
US President Joe Biden had urged Hamas to accept a ceasefire plan with the Zionist entity before the holy fasting month of Ramadan begins, as early as Sunday depending on the lunar calendar. The proposed deal would pause fighting for “at least six weeks”, see the “release of sick, wounded, elderly and women hostages” and allow for “a surge of humanitarian assistance”, the White House said.
But on Thursday, Hamas’ delegation voiced dissatisfaction with Zionist responses so far and left Cairo for consultations with the movement’s leadership in Qatar. Egypt’s Al-Qahera News channel said the talks will now resume “next week”. US Ambassador to the Zionist entity Jack Lew denied the talks had “broken down”. “The differences are being narrowed. It’s not yet an agreement. Everyone’s looking towards Ramadan, which is coming close. I can’t tell you that it will be successful, but it is not yet the case that it is broken down,” Lew said.
Zionist war cabinet member Gadi Eisenkot said Hamas was under “very serious pressure” from mediators to make a “counter-offer”. “Then it will be possible to advance it and take a position,” he said. As talks drag on, the United Nations has warned repeatedly that famine looms for Palestinians struggling to survive in the territory. “It is a tragedy for humankind and a disgrace for civilization that today, in the 21st century, this humanitarian disaster cannot be stopped,” said Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
By late January the war had damaged around half of all buildings in Gaza and rendered the territory “uninhabitable” for its 2.4 million people, a UN agency said, warning the impact would only worsen if the war continued. The health ministry on Wednesday said 20 people had died of malnutrition and dehydration, at least half of them children. Only limited aid has reached Gaza’s north.
James McGoldrick, interim UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian Territories, said aid convoys would continue to be looted or ransacked unless assistance can “really flood” the north. He said Zionist authorities had “given the green light” for use of a military road on the eastern side of Gaza to reach the north. In a joint operation with Jordan, US C-130 cargo planes airdropped aid into Gaza on Thursday for a third time in less than week, the US military said. Jordan’s military said aircraft from Belgium, Egypt, France and the Netherlands had also taken part in the operation.
But the UN’s World Food Program warned that the volume of aid that could be dropped from the air would do nothing to avert famine in Gaza. It appealed to the Zionist entity to allow aid to be delivered by sea through the Zionist port of Ashdod, less than 50 kilometers from Gaza City. “In order to avert a famine, we need huge volumes of assistance. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of people. Airdrops are not an option for averting famine,” said WFP Deputy Executive Director Carl Skau.
In the grey ruins of Khan Yunis, southern Gaza’s largest city, dozens of people went to inspect their homes and take what belongings they could recover after Zionist forces pulled out of the city center, an AFP correspondent said. Gaza’s Civil Defense agency said Zionist forces “destroyed all water, sewage, electricity, communications, and road networks” in central Khan Yunis.