On the carpets of the offices, political leaders try to find a way to a new truce while in Gaza the bombs do not stop falling. So many fell on the Maghazi camp in the central Gaza Strip early this morning that 106 people were killed in one of the biggest massacres of this war. Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the two groups holding Israeli hostages in captivity, have rejected a new truce proposal by Egypt, which proposed, in addition to the exchange of hostages and prisoners, a technocratic government in the West Bank and Gaza that would rebuild the Strip and prepare new elections throughout Palestine. They did not even give time for the Israeli government to make an official statement, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continued with his warmongering rhetoric: "We are not going to stop. We will intensify our struggle in the coming days. The fighting is nowhere near over," he told a meeting of lawmakers from his Likud party.
The Egyptian proposal, one of the most elaborate and longest-running to date, called for a "Palestinian national dialogue" to end the divide between political factions — Fatah rules the West Bank, while Hamas rules Gaza — and form a single technocratic government to oversee the reconstruction of the Strip and prepare elections for the two territories. Previously, Hamas was due to release another 40 Israeli hostages in exchange for Israel's release of 120 Palestinian prisoners during a temporary ceasefire that, like the one in the last week of November, would serve to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into the Strip. At a later stage, a final armistice with a more extensive exchange of hostages and prisoners would be proposed. Only after that time would Israel withdraw from Gaza's cities so that the displaced could return to them.
However, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which also has some hostages in its possession, rejected the proposal without even giving time for an official Israeli pronouncement. Neither faction is budging from its demand for a definitive ceasefire and the distribution of aid throughout the territory. "Only after the end of the aggression and the increase in aid in the north and south of Gaza will we discuss the exchange of prisoners," a senior Hamas official told Reuters.
The Israeli government, which has not made an official statement, welcomed the initiative on Sunday with some optimism. "There are things we cannot accept, but the proposal can be a starting point for talks," the Ma'ariv newspaper quoted government sources as saying. Israel Hayom, considered one of the media closest to Netanyahu, reflected "the satisfaction" that another space for negotiation was opened from Egypt in addition to the one led by Qatar and which already gave rise to the previous truce. Today, Netanyahu has returned to the harsh tone of "nothing will stop us", but, in reality, he is under strong pressure from the relatives of the hostages, who are demanding a new exchange now, which gives Hamas one more trump card in the hypothetical negotiations.
This afternoon, they plan to gather in front of the National Security Council with 129 hourglasses, the same as those still held in captivity, at least until Sunday, when the army confirmed the discovery of the bodies of five of those hostages in a tunnel in northern Gaza. The rally has as its slogan a defiant message to Netanyahu and his ministers: "Look us in the eye." Hours earlier, they interrupted the prime minister's speech in parliament during a special session dedicated to the abductees. "There's no time left, now!" they shouted. "What if it was your brother or your father?" Netanyahu promised them that the army would search "behind every stone to bring them back," but the truth is that, so far, the soldiers have only managed to rescue one. Opposition leader Yair Lapid, for his part, called for the release of hostages to be prioritized over victory in the war.
Unfulfilled objectives
Netanyahu's threats to escalate the war further have already been fulfilled. Israeli bombers attacked the Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip early this morning, just two days after the army asked residents of the area to move south. The air force fire killed 106 people, according to Palestinian health officials, many of them women and children, in what is already one of the bloodiest episodes of the war. Maghazi is one of the smallest and most densely populated camps. More than 0,6 people are crammed into just 33.000 square kilometers, according to the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA). Fighting also took place in neighbouring Al Bureij and Nuseirat. In Khan Younis, in the south, another 23 people were killed in another airstrike.
A man tries to pull the body of a family member from the rubble after the bombing of the Maghazi camp. STRINGER (REUTERS)
Killing Yayha Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, and its military commander, Mohamed Deif, is another of Israel's unachieved goals in the two-and-a-half-month war. The former on Sunday delivered his first public message since the war began, calling it "a fierce, violent and unprecedented battle" against Israel. "The Al Qassam Brigades [the organization's armed wing] will destroy the occupation army," Sinwar said, adding that Israeli troops "are suffering heavy losses in lives and equipment." He put the number of Israeli soldiers attacked at 5,000, "a third of whom were killed, another third seriously wounded and the last permanently disabled," according to the senior Hamas official. Israel acknowledges only 156 deaths in its army since hostilities began following the Hamas attacks on October 7, in which 1,200 people were killed and 240 were kidnapped.
We will no longer remain silent in the face of the UN's hypocrisy!
I instructed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs not to extend the visa of one of the organization's employees in Israel, and to deny the visa request of another employee.
The conduct of the UN since October 7th is...
— אלי כהן | Eli Cohen (@elicoh1) December 25, 2023
On the diplomatic front, Israel also stepped up its tone against the United Nations by fulfilling a threat it had been issuing for weeks. Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said on X that his ministry will refuse to extend the visas of the international organization's staff and will deny those of future employees. "We will not remain silent in the face of the hypocrisy of the UN," he said on his personal account. "His conduct is an embarrassment to the organization and the international community." The post accuses its secretary general, António Guterres, of "legitimizing war crimes and crimes against humanity" by Hamas; the High Commissioner for Human Rights for "spreading baseless blood libels", and UN Women for "ignoring the acts of rape committed against Israeli women", during the attacks of 7 October.
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