“This is life”. Beniamin Netanyahu not only minimizes the death of civilians in Gaza, but also that of the Israelis themselves. At the press conference he held late Saturday, the Israeli prime minister said something that offended many of his fellow citizens and especially the family of Yuval Doron Kestelman. During the attack last Thursday in which two Palestinian brothers shot dead three people and wounded six others at a bus stop in Jerusalem, Kestelman was also killed, a citizen who, with his legalized weapon – thousands of Israelis carry rifles and pistols the street – was the first to shoot at the terrorists. But then, a soldier who also responded to the attack shot him, mistaking him for one of the attackers, even though Kestelman knelt and raised his hands. The father of the deceased described the death of his son as an “execution.”
“We know that in the waves of terrorism of the last decade, the presence of armed citizens saved the situation,” Netanyahu said Saturday. “We may pay a price for it, that’s life,” he added. After the controversy, the premier called Kestelman’s father yesterday and told him that an investigation would be opened.
At the same press conference, the conservative leader indicated that the offense in Gaza would intensify even further, taking into account that, since the start of the war, Israeli aviation has already launched some 10,000 airstrikes on the strip. Yesterday was no exception and it continued to drop bombs, which have already left 15,523 dead and 41,316 injured, according to Gaza authorities.
The images of injured children in Gaza hospitals go around the world and do not leave Israel’s main ally, the United States, indifferent. Her vice president, Kamala Harris, did not use the adjective “unbearable” used by Pedro Sánchez, but she came to say the same thing although without any diplomatic consequences, as in the case of Spain. “Frankly, the magnitude of civilian suffering and the images and videos coming from Gaza are devastating,” Harris said Saturday. For his part, the US Secretary of Defense said that Israel has a “moral responsibility” to the civilians of the strip. .
Faced with criticism from his ally, Netanyahu’s reaction was to order a broader evacuation of Palestinians living in the Khan Younis area with the intention of moving them to safe areas, as Washington demands.
On the other hand, the spokesman for the White House National Security Council, John Kirby, yesterday denied information from The New York Times that claimed that the United States knew of the plans for the Hamas terrorist attack, carried out on September 7. October, after having access to a confidential document.
Another rectification that Netanyahu had to make yesterday was to recognize that Israel continues negotiating with Hamas on the release of the approximately 132 that it still holds captive, despite the fact that on Saturday, after the end of the truce, it ordered Mossad to leave Qatar, where the contacts took place. Israel continues “talking to the enemy about continuing to release hostages, we talked in the middle of fire,” Netanyahu said. A statement that came after the relatives of the kidnapped people raised their tone and demanded a meeting with the War Cabinet to demand that the government not stop working for the release of their loved ones.
In this sense, the Qatari government, which until now had contained criticism of Israel while Mossad, the CIA and the Egyptian secret services negotiated in Doha with Hamas, also raised its tone. Qatari Prime Minister Mohamed bin Abderraman al Thani yesterday called for an “immediate, thorough and impartial international investigation” into Israel’s crimes in Gaza.
On the other hand, the Pentagon reported that a US warship, the destroyer Carney, and several merchant ships were attacked yesterday in the Red Sea with several drones launched from positions of the Houthi rebels in Yemen. The Carney was able to shoot down several of the aircraft.
As its troops conquer positions in the strip, the Israeli army issues statements accompanied by images of alleged findings that would confirm Israel’s complaint that Hamas uses “schools, daycare centers, mosques and playgrounds” for military purposes. In this sense, the armed forces assured yesterday that since the beginning of the invasion of Gaza they have already found “more than 800 Hamas underground tunnel mouths”, of which about 500 were destroyed. “The mouths of the tunnels were located in civilian areas,” the statement insisted.
Meanwhile, tension does not ease in the West Bank – with daily Israeli incursions and Palestinian deaths – nor on the border with Lebanon, where Hizbullah yesterday launched a missile against a tank that injured several soldiers and the Israeli army responded with artillery fire. .
With this panorama, after finishing a four-day visit to Israel and the West Bank, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, warned the Israeli Government and Hamas that they must “comply with international humanitarian law” and that “if they do not “Don’t complain when my office has to act.” Khan also said that he will “further intensify his efforts to advance his investigations” into possible war crimes committed by both Hamas and Israel.
