GAZA: The war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza entered its 12 month Saturday with little sign of respite for the Palestinian territory or hope for Israeli hostages still held captive.
The chances of a truce that would also swap Palestinian prisoners jailed by Israel for hostages held by Hamas appear slim, with both sides sticking doggedly to their positions.
Hamas, whose October 7 attack on Israel sparked the war, is demanding a complete Israeli withdrawal, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists troops must remain along the Gaza-Egypt border.
The United States, Qatar and Egypt have all been mediating in an effort to bring about a ceasefire in the war that authorities in the Hamas-run Gaza say has killed at least 40,939 people.
According to the United Nations human rights office, most of the dead are women and children.
Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians including some hostages killed in captivity, according to official Israeli figures.
Of 251 hostages seized by Palestinian militants during the attack, 97 remain in Gaza including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.
Scores were released during a one-week truce in November.
Israel’s announcement last Sunday that the bodies of six hostages including a US-Israeli citizen had been recovered shortly after being killed sparked grief and anger in Israel.
Marking the anniversary, UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) chief Philippe Lazzarini posted on X on Saturday: “Eleven months. Enough. No one can take this any longer. Humanity must prevail. Ceasefire now.”
International pressure to end the war was further underlined by Friday’s shooting dead in the West Bank of a Turkish-American activist demonstrating against Israeli settlements in the occupied territory.
The family of 26-year-old Aysenur Ezgi Eygi has demanded an independent investigation into her death, saying on Saturday her life “was taken needlessly, unlawfully, and violently by the Israeli military.”
The UN rights office said Israeli forces killed Eygi with a “shot in the head.”
Turkiye said she was killed by “Israeli occupation soldiers,” and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the Israeli action as “barbaric.”
The United States called her death “tragic,” and has pressed its close ally Israel to investigate.
Israeli settlements in the West Bank — where about 490,000 people live — are illegal under international law.
Since Hamas’s October 7 attack, Israeli troops or settlers have killed more than 662 Palestinians in the West Bank which Israel occupied in 1967, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
At least 23 Israelis, including members of the security forces, have been killed in Palestinian attacks during the same period, Israeli officials say.
Eygi’s death came on the day Israeli forces withdrew from a deadly 10-day raid in the West Bank city of Jenin, where AFP journalists reported residents returning home to widespread destruction.
The Jenin pullout came with Israel at loggerheads with the United States over talks to forge a truce in the Gaza war.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday “90 percent is agreed” and urged Israel and Hamas to finalize a deal.
But Netanyahu denied this, telling Fox News: “It’s not close.”
Hamas is demanding Israel’s complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, saying it agreed months ago to a proposal outlined by US President Joe Biden.
AFP reporters said several air strikes and shelling rocked the territory overnight and early Saturday.
Gaza’s civil defense agency and the Palestinian Red Crescent said an Israeli air strike killed four people near the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.
The civil defense and a witness said an air strike that targeted a flat in Bureij camp killed another four.
And in Jabalia, an Israeli air strike killed four more Palestinians, civil defense officials said.
They added that a woman and a child were also killed in an air strike north of Gaza City.
Medics reported at least 33 Palestinians wounded in an air strike on a residential area in Beit Lahia and said they were being treated at Al-Awda, Kamal Adwan and Indonesian hospitals.
In the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City, the civil defense said an Israeli strike on a school-turned-shelter for displaced people killed at least three people and wounded more than 20.
Israel has also traded fire with Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement since the October 7 attack.
On Saturday Hezbollah said it targeted two Israeli bases with Katyusha rockets. Lebanon’s National News Agency said Israel carried out air strikes and shelling of several areas of the country’s south.
The Israeli military said it detected missiles crossing from Lebanon, intercepting some of them. It said it later struck a Hezbollah launch site in the Qabrikha area of southern Lebanon, as well as Aita Al-Shaab and Kfarshuba.
