Protesters in Gaza call for Hamas ceasefire
PALESTINIANS in Gaza’s central city have staged a rare protest, demanding Hamas agrees to a ceasefire and for them to be allowed to return to their homes.
One of the signs held up by a girl at the rally in Deir Al Balah read: “Yes to handing over the prisoners”, a reference to the Israeli hostages captured by Hamas on Oct 7 last year.
Hamas has tried to avoid using the word “hostage”, often calling the Israelis “guests” or “captives”.
A video from yesterday’s protest showed women and children chanting “people want to end the war” and “we want to go back to the north (of Gaza)”.
Families of more than 130 Israelis captured by Hamas have been putting pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to negotiate a deal to bring them home over two months after the first and only deal secured the return of over 100 hostages.
Local media yesterday cited unnamed Israeli officials saying that the country had offered Hamas a twomonth cease-fire in exchange for the release of all hostages but that the terrorist group “absolutely” rejected the offer which also suggested top Hamas officials in Gaza agree to go into exile.
It came as Israel was accused of shelling a UN facility holding refugees in Gaza as it closed in on the strip’s second city.
Thomas White, director of the UN’S agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza, said yesterday that two tank rounds hit the building previously used as its training centre in Khan Younis that now shelters 800 people and thousands of Palestinians displaced by fighting.
The shelling killed nine and injured 75 more people, he said, as rescue teams trying to reach the facility have been “blocked” by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). The IDF said in a statement responding to reports of the fire at the UN facility that operations in Khan Younis are essential to decimating Hamas.
“Dismantling Hamas’s military framework in western Khan Younis is the heart of the logic behind the operation,” it said.
Staff of Doctors without Borders (MSF) have been trapped at Khan Younis’s Nasser Hospital for two days along with 850 patients and thousands of Palestianians who fled fighting in the north. MSF said the roads were too dangerous to use. Dr Ahmed Moghrabi, head of the plastic surgery department at Nasser Hospital, said that they received a notification from the IDF on Tuesday to evacuate the block number 107 that includes the site and residential building, but many were trapped by the heavy shelling.
“People actually were trying to evacuate this block but they couldn’t because this block is totally besieged… now while I’m speaking to you, there are all around explosions, gunshot sounds everywhere over our heads,” he said in a voice note to Middle East Eye.
“There’s no way to escape and no way to evacuate.”
Dr Moghrabi added that they have received “dozens” of injured patients caused by the hostilities in Khan Younis. He said they are urgently lacking medical personnel, with shelling preventing staff from reaching the hospital.
‘People were trying to evacuate this block but they couldn’t because it is totally besieged’