More IDF troops exit Gaza
THE Israeli military has withdrawn more ground troops from the southern Gaza Strip, leaving just one brigade there six months after the start of its offensive, a spokesperson for the force said yesterday.
The military has been reducing numbers in Gaza since the start of the year to relieve reservists and under growing pressure from its ally Washington to improve the humanitarian situation. It did not give details on its reasons for withdrawing soldiers or the numbers involved.
Meanwhile, Egypt is preparing to host a new round of talks aimed at reaching a ceasefire and hostage release deal, which both Israel and Hamas said they would attend.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would not bend to international pressure and give in to “extreme demands” by Hamas, the Islamist movement that controls Gaza.
It was unclear whether the withdrawal would delay a long-threatened incursion into the southern Gaza city of Rafah, which Netanyahu says is needed to eliminate Hamas.
Palestinian residents of the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, which has come under Israeli bombardment in recent months, said they had seen Israeli forces leaving the centre of the city and retreating to the eastern districts.
Israel’s offensive, launched after the shock attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7, has focused in the past months on the south of the Gaza Strip.
More than 250 hostages were seized and some 1 200 people killed during the October 7 attack, according to Israeli tallies. More than 33 100 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive, according to the health ministry in Gaza.
Rafah has become the last refuge for more than a million Palestinians sheltering in the territory near the border with Egypt.
Six months of combat in Gaza has strained the Israeli military and the country’s economy. Many Israeli security experts say they now see a greater threat from Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel is also on alert for a possible retaliatory attack from Iran in reaction to the killing of Iranian generals on April 1.
Israel is under increased pressure from the US, where President Joe Biden has demanded that it improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza and work towards a ceasefire, saying that US support could depend on that.
That was the first time Biden, a staunch supporter of Israel, has sought to leverage US aid as a way to influence Israeli military behaviour. The US is a major supplier of arms to Israel’s military.
Biden has also urged the leaders of Egypt and Qatar to pressure Hamas to agree to a ceasefire and hostage deal ahead of a fresh round of talks in Cairo.
Netanyahu, at the start of his weekly cabinet meeting, said any deal must include the release of 133 hostages still being held in Gaza, and that Hamas’ “extreme demands” were the obstacle. “Giving in to Hamas’ demands will allow it to repeat the crimes of October 7 again and again, as it has promised to do,” he said.
There was no immediate comment from Hamas.
Thousands of Israelis took to the streets in demonstrations against Netanyahu’s far-right government at the weekend, demanding fresh elections and for the government to negotiate the immediate release of hostages remaining in Gaza, as the war reaches its six-month mark. Demonstrators carried torches and posters denouncing Netanyahu.
On Saturday, the Israeli military said it recovered the body of an Israeli hostage, Elad Katzir, from Khan Younis in Gaza. Katzir, who was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz in Israel on October 7, was killed in captivity, the Israel Defense Forces said. Katzir had been filmed alive twice in captivity, and his mother was released in November during a pause in fighting. Responding to the news of his death, his sister, Karmit Palti Katzir, accused the Israeli leadership of “abandoning” him and the remaining hostages in Gaza.
Ceasefire negotiations resumed yesterday in Cairo, with Hamas confirming its participation in a Telegram statement. The director of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, David Barnea, the head of the Israeli security agency Shin Bet, Ronen Bar, and CIA chief William J. Burns are expected to join the talks. Negotiators have been pushing for a cease-fire of at least six weeks to free the remaining hostages from
Gaza, in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jail and increased aid deliveries to Gaza. However, Hamas has been holding out for a permanent ceasefire and withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
Britain will send a Royal Navy ship to boost aid to Gaza through an international maritime corridor and an upcoming US-led temporary pier, the Foreign Office said in a statement.
Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza is “an empty shell with human graves” and “completely nonfunctional,” the World Health Organization said at the weekend, after its team visited the facility following a weeks-long siege by Israeli forces. Inside the compound, “many dead bodies were partially buried with their limbs visible,” the WHO said, adding that patients were held in “abysmal conditions during the siege.”
World Central Kitchen has demanded that an independent commission investigate the killing of seven of its aid workers in IDF airstrikes in Gaza. Earlier, the Israeli military dismissed two officers, reprimanded three commanders and apologised for the incident, after which WCK suspended its operations in Gaza.
At least 33 137 people have been killed and 75 815 injured in Gaza since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Israel estimates that about 1 200 people were killed in Hamas’s October 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers, and says 260 soldiers have been killed since the start of its military operation in Gaza.