Gaza death toll nears 30,000 as famine looms
PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES: The number of Palestinians reported killed in the war in Gaza approached 30,000 on Wednesday as fiGHTING RAGED IN THE HAMAS-RUN TERRITORY, DESPITE MEDIATORS INSISTING THAT A TRUCE WITH ISRAEL COULD be just days away.
Another 91 people were killed in overnight Israeli bombardment, Gaza’s Health Ministry said, as mediators from Eygpt, Qatar and the United States keep trying to find a path to a ceasefire amid the bitter fighting, with negotiators seeking a six-week pause in the nearly five-month war.
After a flurry of diplomacy, mediators said a deal could finally be within reach, which reportedly includes releasing some Israeli hostages held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7 attacks in exchange for several hundred Palestinian detainees held by Israel.
“My hope is by next Monday we’ll have a ceasefire” but “we’re not done yet,” US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday.
Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said Doha was “hopeful, [but] not necessarily optimistic, that we can announce something” before Thursday, but cautioned that “the situation is still fluid on the ground.”
Doha has suggested the pause in fighting would come before the beginning of Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month, which starts on March 10 or 11, depending on the lunar calendar.
Hamas has been pushing for the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected outright.
But a Hamas source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the deal might see the Israeli military leave “cities and populated areas,” allowing the return of some displaced Palestinians and humanitarian relief.
Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 29,954 people, mostly women and children, the territory’s Health Ministry said.
Hamas’ unprecedented attacks on southern Israel on October 7 resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, an Agence France-Presse (AFP) tally of official figures showed.
The Palestinian militants also took about 250 hostages, 130 of whom remain in Gaza, including 31 presumed dead, the Israeli government said.
Since the war began, hundreds of thousands of Gazans have been displaced, with nearly 1.5 million people now packed into the farsouthern city of Rafah, where Israel has warned it plans to launch a ground offensive.
Increasingly desperate
Those who remain in northern Gaza have been facing an increasingly desperate situation, aid groups warn.
“If nothing changes, a famine is imminent in northern Gaza,” the World Food Program’s (WFP) Deputy Executive Director Carl Skau told the UN Security Council on Tuesday.
His colleague from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Ramesh
Rajasingham, warned of “almost inevitable” widespread starvation.
The WFP said no humanitarian group had been able to deliver aid to the north for more than a month, with aid blocked from entering by Israeli forces.
“I have not eaten for two days,” said Mahmud Khodr, a resident of the Jabalia refugee camp in the north, where children roamed with empty pots. “There is nothing to eat or drink.”
Most aid trucks have been halted, but foreign militaries have airdropped supplies, including on Tuesday, over Rafah and Gaza’s main southern city of Khan Younis.
What aid does enter Gaza passes through the Rafah border crossing from Egypt, fueling a warning from United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that any assault on the city would “put the final nail in the coffin” of relief operations in the territory.
Israel has insisted it would move civilians to safety before sending troops into Rafah, but it has not released any details.
Egypt has warned that an assault on the city would have “catastrophic repercussions across the region,” with Cairo concerned about an influx of refugees.
Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said on Tuesday that Israel would “listen to the Egyptians and their interests,” adding that Israel “cannot conduct an operation” with the current large population in Rafah.