“A mistake”: US President Joe Biden launched one of his most forceful criticisms of the military strategy in Gaza of the government of Israeli Prime Minister Beniamín Netanyahu, who must justify this Wednesday before the Supreme Court the level of humanitarian aid that allows this Palestinian territory threatened by famine and blocked by Israel.
Six months after the start of the war triggered by the attack perpetrated by the Islamist movement Hamas against Israel, Israeli military operations continue in the Gaza Strip with, during the night, deadly attacks in the north and center of the territory, according to witnesses, as Muslims around the world celebrate Eid el Fitr on Wednesday, the holiday that marks the end of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month.
In Cairo, the mediating countries – Qatar, Egypt and the United States – put on the table on Sunday a new proposal for a three-stage ceasefire. The first provides for a six-week truce, the release of 42 hostages held in Gaza in exchange for between 800 and 900 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, the entry of between 400 and 500 trucks with food aid per day and the return home of the inhabitants. from the northern strip displaced by the war, according to a Hamas source.
Hamas said it was “studying the proposal” before transmitting its response to mediators, adding that Israel “had not responded to any” of its requests. The White House on Tuesday considered these statements “not very encouraging.”
“What I’m asking is that the Israelis call for a ceasefire, that they allow for the next six or eight weeks full access to food and medicine coming into the country,” the US president said Tuesday afternoon in an interview with the Spanish-speaking channel Univision.
“I think what [Netanyahu] is doing is wrong. I don’t agree with his approach,” he added in response to a question about the conduct of the Israeli prime minister in the Gaza war, whose security cabinet met on Tuesday. the night to discuss the truce plan.
Despite warnings from several countries, including his American ally, Netanyahu assures that he is determined to launch a ground offensive in the city of Rafah, which he presents as the last major stronghold of Hamas, in power since 2007. In this border city According to the UN, around one and a half million people live with Egypt, most of them displaced, which raises fears of an increase in the number of victims in the event of a land offensive there.