Location at a glance: Netanyahu: “Hunger campaign” of Hamas does not stop us

Even after the explanation of a famine in the city of the city of Gaza, Israel’s head of government Benjamin Netanyahu steadily stated by international experts at his war goals. The hunger campaign staged by the Islamist terrorist organization Hamas will not prevent us from freeing our hostages and eliminating Hamas, “he said in response to a sensational report by the IPC initiative recognized worldwide as an authority for nutritional security.

Netanyahu had previously approved plans for taking the city of Gaza in the north of the sealed -off Gaza Strip. Israel’s military is preparing to convert around one million residents to tent camps in the south. According to the IPC initiative, the life of 132,000 children under the age of five is threatened due to malnutrition. 41,000 of them would be regarded as particularly threatening cases, twice as many as in the previous assessment in May. It is about the Gaza district where the city is also located.

“On some days I can only find a small bread and a tomato to share them between three children,” complains Mariam al-Scheikh. Getting something to her children is a daily fight, reports the 34-year-old from the city of Gaza to the German Press Agency. She is often looking for bread or food pans for hours. At night she hears the youngest of her children cry with hunger. “More than half a million people in the Gaza Strip are faced with catastrophic conditions, characterized by hunger, poverty and death,” says the report of the IPC initiative.

Netanyahu: Hunger deliberately exposed to only the hostages

Netanyahu described the report as a “smooth lie”. According to Israeli representation, the IPC initiative’s assessment is based on the false information of Hamas. “The report deliberately ignores data that the authors were presented to in a meeting before its publication and overlooks the efforts to stabilize the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip in recent weeks,” said the responsible Israeli authority of Cogat. Which data it is, but remained open.

UN General Secretary António Guterres spoke of intent in connection with the famine. What happens now is the “intentional breakdown of the systems that are necessary for human survival”. As a occupying power, Israel has clear obligations. Israel always rejects such statements and allegations. The country, in turn, accuses the UN of not distributing aid deliveries available in the Gaza Strip. Israel is not pursuing the policy of starving, but hunger prevention, Netanyahu emphasized. “The only ones who are deliberately exposed to hunger in Gaza are the Israeli hostages,” he said.

Israel is increasingly under pressure

Israel is under considerable international pressure to relieve the suffering of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Reports about malnourished children triggered outrage worldwide and contributed to the fact that countries such as France, Canada and Australia announced plans to recognize a Palestinian state. Germany stopped part of weapon exports to Israel after Israel had declared that the Gaza War would expand.

One day before the IPC report was published, the Israeli leadership had approved the military mission plans for taking the city of Gaza. Defense Minister Israel Katz announced intensive attacks. “The gates of hell will soon open over the murderers and rapists of Hamas in Gaza – until they agree to Israel’s conditions to terminate the war”. Otherwise the city will be destroyed. In Israel it was speculated that this could be a negotiation tactic to put Hamas under pressure.

Israel: termination of the war only on our conditions

Israel’s demands for the termination of the war are the disarmament of Hamas, the return of all hostages, the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip, the security control over the coastal area by Israel, as well as civil administration, which is neither exerted by Hamas nor the Palestinian autonomy authority in West Bank. Netanyahu now promised new negotiations on the release of the hostages and an end to the war on conditions “which are acceptable for Israel”.

A few days earlier, Hamas said that the intermediary had agreed to a ceasefire. According to media reports, this is an adapted version of a previously negotiated proposal by the US specialist Steve Witkoff. He provides for a 60-day break, while the ten living hostages are released in return for Palestinian prisoners. A total of 50 hostages are still located in the Gaza Strip, at least 20 of which are said to be alive.

According to media reports, Netanyahu had recently only agreed to be an agreement if all hostages are released at once and the war on Israel’s conditions is ended. So far, indirect negotiations on new ceasefire have been unsuccessful and recently interrupted. The intermediaries – the USA, Qatar and Egypt – strive to resume contacts.