US pushes for Gaza truce deal

The United States said Tuesday it was “time to finalize” ;quot; a truce agreement Gaza, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to give in to pressure on the issue, in the 11th month of the war with Palestinian Hamas.

The American statement comes two days after the Israeli army announced the discovery in a Gaza tunnel of six hostages killed according to it at “point-blank range” by the Islamist movement.

The hostages were kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip in an unprecedented attack by Hamas on October 7 against Israel, which led to Israeli retaliation that left tens of thousands dead in the besieged Palestinian territory, which was the target of new deadly strikes on Tuesday.

The announcement of the discovery of the six bodies increased pressure on Mr. Netanyahu, leading to demonstrations by thousands of people in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, accompanied by a strike in several cities to demand a deal to release the hostages still held in Gaza.

“There are still dozens of hostages in Gaza, still waiting for a deal that will bring them home. It is time to finalize this deal,” US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said on Tuesday.

He said that “in the coming days, the United States will continue to engage with its partners in the region in order to obtain a final agreement”, referring to the negotiations under the aegis of the mediators – United States, Qatar, Egypt – with a view to a truce agreement associated with the release of hostages.

– “In coffins” –

US President Joe Biden, whose country is Israel's main ally, had himself criticized the Israeli Prime Minister for not doing enough to obtain an agreement on the hostages.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at a press conference in Jerusalem, September 2, 2024 © POOL – Ohad Zwigenberg

After publicly asking for “forgiveness for not bringing back alive” the six hostages, Mr. Netanyahu vowed to make the Islamist movement pay “a very high price.” “I will not give in to pressure,” he insisted.

He also reaffirmed the need for Israel to maintain control of a corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border, a sticking point in the negotiations.

Hamas is demanding an Israeli withdrawal from this corridor, taken by Israeli forces last May, and ultimately a total Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

On Monday evening, the spokesman for Hamas' armed wing, Abu Obeida, warned that the hostages still held in Gaza would be sent back “in coffins” if Israel continued its military pressure “instead of reaching an agreement”.

Flames rise from a building bombed by the Israeli army in Sheikh Radwan, a northern neighborhood of Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, on September 3, 2024, against the backdrop of the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas © AFP – Omar AL-QATTAA

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The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Tuesday called for an “independent” investigation into the “summary execution” of the six hostages.

– “Never agree” –

Mr Netanyahu “wants to occupy Gaza indefinitely (…) Israel will never give back territory that it needs for its security,” Mairav ​​Zonszein, an analyst at the International Crisis Group, told AFP on Tuesday. “He basically announced that there would never be an agreement on the hostages.”

The Israeli prime minister says he wants to continue the war until the destruction of Hamas, which seized power in Gaza in 2007 and is considered a terrorist movement by the United States and the European Union.

The attack carried out by Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza into southern Israel on October 7 resulted in the death of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.

Of the 251 people kidnapped that day, 97 are still being held in Gaza, including 33 declared dead by the army.

In response, Israel launched a major offensive in Gaza that has so far killed at least 40,819 people, according to the Hamas Health Ministry, causing a humanitarian and health disaster and the displacement of almost all of the 2.4 million inhabitants. The majority of the dead are women and minors according to the UN.

– Deadly strikes in Gaza –

A health worker administers the polio vaccine to a Palestinian child in Zawayda, central Gaza Strip, on September 1, 2024 © AFP – Eyad BABA

Taking advantage of three-day “humanitarian pauses” each, an anti-polio campaign was launched Sunday in central Gaza with the aim of vaccinating more than 640,000 children under the age of ten across the territory.

The campaign is going “well,” said Rik Peeperkorn, a World Health Organization official. The total number of children under the age of ten vaccinated so far stands at 161,000, he said.

The campaign is expected to move to the south of the territory on Thursday with the aim of vaccinating some 340,000 children and then to the north to vaccinate another 150,000.

Meanwhile, the Israeli offensive in Gaza is showing no respite.

Palestinians receive food rations at a displacement camp in al-Mawassi in the southern Gaza Strip, September 3, 2024 © AFP – Bashar TALEB

In the south, two Palestinians were killed when a shell hit a displaced persons' tent in Khan Younis, according to the civil defense. In the center, a strike targeted a house near Al-Bureij and artillery fire targeted Nousseirat.

In the north, two people were killed and around thirty injured, some seriously, in an Israeli bombing of a school in Gaza City, according to the civil defense. According to the Israeli army, the strike targeted a Hamas command center on a site that previously housed a school.

The army is also continuing its “anti-terrorist” operation in the north of the occupied West Bank for the seventh consecutive day, during which three people were killed on Tuesday, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, bringing the number of Palestinian deaths since August 28 to 30.

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