Israel kills more than 200 Palestinians as it frees four of its citizens held in Gaza

Palestinian Territories – JUNE 8, 2024 19:25:19 GMT – AFP

Israeli attacks on Nuseirat refugee camp on Saturday killed 210 Palestinians and left hundreds wounded as its forces claimed to have freed four Israelis kept by Hamas since October 7 last year.

Gaza media office said “the number of victims from the Israeli occupation’s massacre in the Nuseirat camp has risen to 210 martyrs and more than 400 wounded”.

Noa Argamani, 26, Almog Meir Jan, 22, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 41, were in two separate buildings, the military said.

Israeli police said an officer was mortally wounded during the rescue operation.

Israel continues its attacks on Gaza despite growing international pressure after a deadly strike on a UN-run school in Nuseirat where displaced Gazans were sheltering.

“We are determined to bring back home all the hostages,” said military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari.

Hamas’s Qatar-based leader Ismail Haniyeh vowed to keep fighting. “Our people will not surrender, and the resistance will continue to defend our rights,” Haniyeh said in a statement.

– Biden says cease-fire is ‘essential’ –

US President Joe Biden, speaking in Paris alongside French President Emmanuel Macron, said: “We won’t stop working until all the hostages are home and a ceasefire is reached. That’s essential to happen.”

Macron said: “We rejoice at the release of the four Israeli hostages.”

Near Nuseirat on Saturday, an AFP photographer saw scores of Palestinians fleeing the Bureij camp on foot, fearing further Israeli strikes.

The operation came days after the Israeli strike on the Nuseirat school run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, which a Gaza hospital said had killed 37 people and the military said targeted “terrorists”.

UNRWA condemned Israel for striking a facility it said had been housing 6,000 displaced people.

The Israeli war has brought widespread devastation to Gaza, with one in 20 people dead or wounded, according to the local health ministry. Most of Gaza’s 2.4 million inhabitants are displaced.

Gaza City resident Yussef al-Dalu said his neighbour’s house had been reduced to rubble in an overnight air strike. Emergency services reported five dead.

“Only defenceless civilians live in this house who are not part of any resistance (group),” Dalu told AFP.

Israel faces growing diplomatic isolation, with international court cases accusing it of war crimes and several European countries recognising a Palestinian state.

Thousands of people marched through central London to the British parliament on Saturday calling for a ceasefire, and demonstrators gathered outside the White House to protest Washington’s support for Israel amid Gaza’s deadliest-ever war.

Netanyahu also faces pressure from within his government.

The premier in a social media post on Saturday called on war cabinet minister Benny Gantz to “not leave the emergency government” after threats last month to quit unless Netanyahu approves a post-war plan for Gaza by June 8.

Gantz had earlier cancelled a news conference scheduled for Saturday where Israeli media had speculated he would announce his resignation.

But in brief remarks on Israeli television, Gantz on Saturday evening urged his colleagues in government to “look responsibly” into “how we can continue from here”.

“Alongside the justified joy over this achievement, it should not be forgotten that all the challenges Israel is facing… have remained as they were,” he said.

Efforts to mediate the first ceasefire in the conflict since a week-long pause in November appear to have stalled after Biden offered the latest plan for a multi-phase truce and hostage release.

Major sticking points include Hamas insisting on a permanent truce and full Israeli withdrawal from all parts of Gaza — demands Israel has rejected.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to visit Israel and key regional partners Egypt, Jordan and Qatar from Monday.