By Emma Emeozor with Agency Reports
Hamas has refused to release hostages it kidnapped from Israel during its attacks as Israel continue to hammer Gaza with fierce air strikes.
Hamas wants Israel to halt its bombing of the Gaza Strip before there could be negotiation for the release of any hostages.
Meanwhile, Israel’s government, yesterday, denied reports that it had agreed to a ceasefire in at least part of the Gaza Strip to allow humanitarian aid in and people with international passports to escape into Egypt.
The clarification came as the Israeli military continues hammering the Hamas-controlled enclave with missiles. “There is currently no ceasefire,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement, dismissing reports that a deal had been brokered to enable foreign nationals massing near Gaza’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt along with thousands of Palestinian civilians to flee.
Early yesterday, two Egyptian security sources had told Reuters a temporary ceasefire in southern Gaza to last several hours had been agreed to facilitate aid and evacuations at Rafah. However, Egyptian state TV later quoted an unnamed, high-level source as saying no truce had been agreed.
Hamas official Izzat El-Reshiq told Reuters that reports of a deal to open the crossing were untrue, and Israel also denied them. Diplomatic efforts have been intensifying to get aid into Gaza as Israel prepares a ground invasion to destroy Hamas.
More than a week after Hamas launched its bloody terror rampage in southern Israel, killing some 1,400 people and capturing almost 200 hostages, Israel was still preparing yesterday for a widely expected ground offensive in Gaza.
Gaza officials said Israel’s bombardment has killed, at least, 2,802 people and wounded more than 10,000 others, with a majority of the casualties being women and children. As Israel’s bombardment and siege of Gaza has intensified, the territory’s 2.3 million residents have been left without power, pushing health and water services to the brink of collapse, with fuel for hospital generators running low.
Netanyahu’s government has vowed to destroy the Palestinian group, and United States President, Joe Biden, told CBS News’ 60 Minutes that Israel can and must “go after Hamas,” but Biden warned, however, that an Israeli occupation of Gaza would be a “big mistake” and said there should be a “path to a Palestinian state.’ Biden is also said to be weighing a trip to Israel in the coming days.
At press time, reports said Israel’s military was evacuating 28 communities near the northern border with Lebanon because of escalating hostilities with Hezbollah militants. Egypt said, yesterday, that Israel was not cooperating with delivery of aid into Gaza and evacuations of foreign passport holders via the only entry it does not wholly control, leaving hundreds of tonnes of supplies stuck.
Cairo said the Rafah crossing, a potentially vital opening for desperately-needed supplies into the Israeli-besieged Palestinian enclave, is not officially closed but is inoperable due to Israeli air strikes on the Gaza side.
“There is an urgent need to alleviate the suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza,” Egypt’s Foreign Minister, Sameh Shoukry, told reporters, adding that talks with Israel had not been fruitful.
“Until now, the Israeli government has not taken a position on opening the Rafah crossing from the Gaza side to allow the entrance of assistance and exit of citizens of third countries,” he said.
Like others, Egypt has spoken out against any mass exodus of Gaza residents, reflecting deep Arab fears that the latest war could spark a new wave of permanent displacement for Palestinians from lands where they have sought to build a state.
Yesterday, US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, held talks in Israel with Netanyahu over the escalating conflict with Hamas. It’s the top US diplomat’s second trip to Israel in just a week. During the meeting, Blinken received an update on the situation on the ground, the state department said.
He reaffirmed his support for Israel to defend itself from Hamas and the willingness of the US to aid the country, the department added.
They also discussed US coordination with the UN and regional partners to help provide humanitarian aid to civilians.
Israel’s minister of defence told Blinken yesterday that the Jewish state’s military effort to destroy the Hamas militant group in the Gaza Strip, “will be a long war. The price will be high, but we are going to win,” Israeli Defence Chief, Yoav Gallant, told Blinken in Tel Aviv.
He said Israel would fulfil its commitment to eradicate Hamas which both Israel and the US have long designated a terrorist group “for the Jewish people and for the values that both countries believe in.”
During his tour of Arab countries, Blinken pledged his support for the Israeli government, while arguing that Israel must affirm “shared values for human life and human dignity.
“Israel is going after a group of people who have engaged in barbarism that is as consequential as the Holocaust. And so, I think Israel has to respond,” he said, while also promising to supply aid to Israel.
At least, 30 Americans are among the dead while 13 are still unaccounted for, according to the latest numbers from the US state department. The missing are thought to have been abducted by Hamas and Blinken discussed with Israeli President, Isaac Herzog, how they might secure the release of nearly 200 people taken.
The US has chartered a ship and several flights to evacuate Americans out of Israel to safe nearby locations this week, according to US officials.
Last week, Blinken held meetings in Tel Aviv before making several other stops in the region, including to Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
