Trump's Bloody Truce in Gaza: There's No More Room to Bury Bodies in the Strip

A few days after meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington on Monday to “celebrate the victory over Iran,” Donald Trump announced that Israel had accepted the conditions for a ceasefire in Gaza and, more importantly, warned Hamas that if it did not give its approval, the situation would worsen. In its first official statement on the 60-day truce, Hamas said: “Brother mediators are making intensive efforts to bridge the differences between the parties and reach a framework agreement that would allow for the opening of a serious round of negotiations. We are approaching the situation with great responsibility, conducting national consultations and discussing the proposals that have been presented to us, with the aim of reaching an agreement that would ensure the end of the aggression, the withdrawal of forces and emergency humanitarian assistance to our people in the Gaza Strip.”

Hamas added that it was willing to release the remaining 50 hostages, less than half of whom are believed to be alive, in exchange for Israel ’s complete withdrawal from Gaza and an end to the war. In essence, Arab sources close to Hamas confirmed to the Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat , the main issues in the negotiations no longer revolve around the number of hostages or the stages, but rather the conditions for a permanent status agreement, or an end to the war. “I tell you clearly: Hamas will no longer exist. There will be no Hamastan. There is no going back. It is over now. We will free all our hostages. How can I say this? These are two opposing objectives: nonsense. It all works together. We will eliminate them completely,” Netanyahu said, according to his office. “ The opportunities before us are enormous. We will not waste them. We have a huge opportunity: to defeat our enemies and secure our future…we will connect Asia and the Middle East, including the Arabian Peninsula, its immense energy resources, to the West. It will happen ,” he added.

Meanwhile, deaths continue in Gaza . Marwan Sultan, director of the Indonesian hospital in Gaza, was killed in an Israeli attack west of Gaza City. Al-Jazeera reported, citing a source at Al-Shifa hospital. The attack took place in a residential building southwest of Gaza City . Sultan was a key source of information from Gaza, reporting on the conditions of Palestinians in the north of the besieged enclave. He had repeatedly called on the international community to press for the safety of medical teams, even when the Israeli army besieged or attacked the hospital. In the early hours of the morning, 40 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, the Gaza Health Ministry reported. According to hospital sources, the dead included 4 children and 7 women. A few hours later, another massacre. At least 17 people, most of them women and children, were killed in an Israeli raid on a building in the Zeitoun neighborhood, in the southern part of Gaza City. Al-Jazeera reported, specifying that the building hit was occupied by "displaced persons". According to the Qatari broadcaster, over 600 Palestinians were killed in five weeks while waiting to receive food parcels at Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) sites.

In an investigation by the Israeli daily Haaretz on Friday , IDF soldiers operating in Gaza said that the army has been deliberately shooting at Palestinians near aid distribution sites for the past month. According to the newspaper, commanders ordered troops to shoot at crowds to drive them away or disperse them, even though it was clear they posed no threat. One of the soldiers quoted by Haaretz described the situation as a “ total collapse of the IDF’s ethical codes in Gaza.” Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis , southern Gaza, announced that it could no longer bury the dead on its grounds because it had run out of space. “The cemeteries are no longer able to contain the number of dead,” Nasser said in a statement, informing residents of the Strip. Sources in the enclave told Ynet that while the main cemeteries in Khan Yunis are full, in Rafah the near-total curfew due to fighting between the IDF and Hamas is preventing burials in cemeteries in the southern region of Gaza. The Waqf Ministry, the headquarters of the media and the Islamic University in Gaza City, has warned of a “serious burial crisis”: there are 60 cemeteries in the Strip, but 22 have been completely destroyed and 18 have been severely damaged.

“Residents are forced to bury their dead in mass graves in hospitals, schools, public parks and on the streets. The ban on the entry of construction materials has led Gazans to use dumpsters for burials. We are looking for alternative plots that allow for temporary and safe burials,” the ministry said. Gazans are trying to improvise and some are taking advantage of the situation, people from the enclave say, with some selling graves for around 700 shekels (176 euros), a sum that the population is unable to pay. In this disastrous scenario, Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin said that the time has come to annex the West Bank during a meeting with settler leader Yossi Dagan.

“I think this is a time of historic opportunity that we must not miss,” he said, referring to the annexation of the disputed territory. “ The time has come for sovereignty, the time to apply sovereignty. My position on this issue is firm, it is clear, ” Levin told Dagan, according to Dagan’s office and a video released by Levin. The minister said the issue must be “at the top of the list of priorities.” Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, according to Tel Aviv media, has contacted Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to form a united bloc within the government against the US-led truce agreement in the Gaza Strip. Here’s who governs Israel today.

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Umberto DeGiovanniangeli