An Israeli army statement announced this Friday that Gaza City becomes “dangerous combat zone”. For this reason, Israel suspends the “humanitarian pauses” that has supposedly carried out in the capital of the strip during the last month, adds the military note. Also this Friday, the office of Prime Minister Benjamín Netanyahu has announced that Israel has recovered the bodies of two of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas in October 2023. One is Ilan Weiss and the second has not yet been announced its identity.
Regarding the Dangerous Zone Declaration, this notice implies the latest warning message of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF, according to its acronym in English), which for weeks anticipate the arrival of an offensive that will devastate Gaza City in a comprehensive way. On Wednesday, the Army spokesman in Arabic, Avichay Adraee, warned in another state es “inevitable”and urged the population to move south.
The United Nations estimates that around 86.3% of the Gazatí territory is under orders of forced evacuation or in the so -called “combat areas.” The Israel Army places the territory of the strip occupied by its troops by 75%.
The high representative for EU’s foreign policy, Kaja Kallas, has condemned Israel’s decision. “Without a doubt, he is not doing the things easier or better,” he lamented in a press conference after an informal meeting of the European Defense Ministers held this Friday in Copenhagen.
At the end of July, Israel tried With the announcement of a series of measures To relieve hunger in the enclave. The plan included “humanitarian pauses” of 10 hours a day in three areas of the strip – city of Gaza in the north, to the Balah in the center and the Mawasi in the south – as well as safe routes so that the United Nations trucks could access the territory.
The program turned out to be a more propaganda operation than humanitarian. The UN agencies denounce that the trucks that have entered the enclave during these pauses remain a fraction of the necessary ones, and the Israeli army has not protected the convoys before the assaults of desperate crowds that distrust the supply of supplies.
However, these measures have not prevented the evolution of the crisis towards the famine, declared by the UN officially last week. Five people, including two children, have starved in the last 24 hours, as reported on Friday the Gaza Ministry of Health, controlled by Hamas, which elevates the total total deaths to 322 for this reason since the beginning of the war. The bombings of the last 24 hours have killed 48 more people, according to local health authorities.
For the Gazatis, the Israeli notice of this Friday is a point and followed with respect to the statement that spokesman Adraee issued on Wednesday, when he urged them to leave Gaza City and that they would move to territories of the south and the center of the enclave that, “vice versa of what some rumors say,” he said they are available. Adraee’s message was accompanied by a map of the strip in which the available territories referred to by IDF were confusing.
Israel recovers the bodies of two hostages
Criticisms for the nth offensive about Ciudad de Gaza are not the only ones, since Netanyahu and his government face a growing pressure both within your country as between the international community to reach an agreement with Hamas that guarantees the end of the armed offensive in the enclave and the release of hostages. The Palestinian militia already accepted weeks ago The last truce proposal that they put on the Egypt and Qatar table, main mediating countries in the Arab world.
Netanyahu, however, is silent. This Friday, his office has limited himself to disseminating the statement related to the recovery of the bodies of the two hostages, in a “complex” joint operation of the army and the shin beit (intelligence services), another statement of IDF has described. The authorities have not specified where or when the operation took place.
Ilan Weiss, 55 years old and resident In the Kibutz Beeriin the south of Israel, he was kidnapped at his home and killed during the attack perpetrated by Hamas on October 7, 2023, according to IDF. His wife, Shiri, and his daughter, Noga, were also kidnapped and subsequently released within the framework of an agreement to exchange hostages and prisoners in November 2023.
With the recovery of his body, Israel states that there are 49 hostages in Gaza, of which they believe that 20 are still alive.
The Prime Minister’s office has affirmed that the campaign to recover the captured continues. “We will not rest or shut up until we bring all our hostages back home, both the living and the deceased,” says their statement.
Around 1,200 people died and 251 were kidnapped during the attack led by Hamas in southern Israel. Since then, the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip has cost the lives of almost 63,000 people, most women and minors.
