The spokesperson for the Israeli army announced Tuesday the death of 21 "reservists", killed the day before in the Gaza Strip, the heaviest daily death toll on the Israeli side since the launch of the ground offensive against this Palestinian territory on October 27.
General Daniel Hagari indicated during a televised press briefing that most of these reservists had been killed by the explosion of “an RPG” (shoulder-fired rocket) which targeted a tank and a building mined by the army with a view to its demolition, in the south of the Gaza Strip.
Earlier, the army had published on its website the identities of ten of these reservists.
“We worked to locate the victims until the last hours,” said General Hagari, mentioning the difficulty of extracting the bodies buried under the rubble.
“War has a heavy, even very heavy, price.
Our reservists sacrificed what was most dear to them so that we could all live here safely,” added General Hagari.
The Israeli Prime Minister announced Tuesday the opening of a military investigation after what he describes as a “disaster”.
Israeli forces “have opened an investigation into the disaster.
We must learn all the lessons and do everything to preserve the lives of our fighters,” Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement, referring to “one of the hardest days” since the outbreak of the war.
A “pause” in the war
Fierce fighting continues on Tuesday between the Israeli army and Palestinian Hamas in Khan Younes, in the south of Gaza, against a backdrop of negotiations to put the war on “pause” for a few weeks, in the absence of a longer-term solution.
According to the UN humanitarian aid coordination office (Ocha), “hostilities are intensifying” in this city where the Israeli army claimed on Monday to have taken control of Hamas command posts.
Israel offered Hamas, via the mediation of Egypt and Qatar, a two-month pause in fighting and raids in Gaza in exchange for the release of all hostages, the American site Axios reported Monday evening.
This proposal does not imply the end of the war in Gaza, but a second truce, after that of a week which allowed the release of a hundred hostages in exchange for at least 240 Palestinian prisoners imprisoned in Israel.
Israel's proposal provides for the return to Israel of living hostages and remains in several phases, the first of which would include women and men aged over 60, according to Axios.
This would be followed by female soldiers, men aged under 60 but not in the military, male Israeli soldiers, then the remains of hostages.
As part of the plan, Israel and Hamas would have to agree in advance on the number of Palestinian prisoners released in exchange for each hostage according to their category, Axios continues.
Refusal of the two-state solution
If the Netanyahu government discusses a truce, it refuses to consider in the longer term the “two-state solution”, an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, European foreign ministers lamented on Monday.
Meeting in Brussels, the latter met in turn, and separately, their Israeli counterparts Israel Katz and Palestinian Riyad al-Maliki.
“The (Israeli) minister could have made better use of his time and been concerned about the security of his country and the high number of deaths in Gaza,” reacted the head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell, irritated by the Israeli refusal to discuss the two-state solution.
Beyond the Palestinian Territories, the conflict is exacerbating tensions between Israel and Hamas's pro-Iran allies, such as Lebanese Hezbollah and the Yemeni Houthis.
In support of Gaza, the latter are increasing attacks on international traffic in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, which is giving headaches to large shipowners and increasing the cost of maritime transport.
On the night of Monday to Tuesday, the United States and the United Kingdom again bombed Houthi sites in Yemen in the hope, according to them, of “weakening” the military arsenal of these rebels to promote the recovery traffic in the Red Sea.
But for Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a senior Houthi official, these strikes “only increase the determination of the Yemeni people to assume their moral and humanitarian responsibilities towards the oppressed of Gaza”.