In Gaza, tension persists. The truce appears to hold, but remains fragile, with tensions still unresolved between Israel and Hamas, which continue to exchange accusations and warnings. The issue of the , which were immediately claimed by Tel Aviv but are difficult to locate, according to the Islamist faction, remains pressing.
The situation is especially complicated on the humanitarian aid front, because the Rafah crossing with Egypt was expected to open on Wednesday, but was then delayed until yesterday and has finally been declared open on Sunday. And only people will be allowed to pass through, not trucks, so the situation, mired in an enormous crisis, increases. When that opening arrives, it will be in coordination with the (EU), but it did not specify how it will be used.
Aid trucks have been waiting at the Kissufim crossing between Gaza and Israel since early morning. This is one of the crossings where trucks enter Israel, load aid from the Israeli side and return to deliver the products they transport to the Palestinians (largely local products, by the way, which also drives the Israeli economy).
Vehicles wait for hours for the green light on the Israeli side to access the crossing. It is assumed that 600 aid trucks enter Gaza each day, but the real number is less than 300. Those 600 were those that, on average, entered the strip before the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023 and the subsequent retaliatory offensive by Tel Aviv, when the damage was much less in the territory, as the needs. So even 600 trucks are not enough, considering the demand on the ground.
There are also many restrictions on the quantity and content of certain products. “Sometimes, they go to the Israeli side and come back empty,” says the Qatari channel about the transports. Additionally, trucks that have been seen entering Gaza since the ceasefire was implemented a week ago are primarily transporting commercial goods, not humanitarian aid.
La has indicated in X that the Israeli destruction campaign, which has already been underway for two years, has left many families without income. “A kilo of tomatoes that used to cost 0.60¢ now costs $15, if you can get it,” the agency stated. “Families that used to live off their land now have no income.”
This prevents many families from accessing the fresh food they desperately need. “Until Gaza’s agricultural sector can be rebuilt, there must be an unrestricted flow of aid,” UNRWA states.
“Every day, or even every hour that we lose, is another life that is going to be lost,” says Jonathan Fowler, Head of Communications at UNRWA, about the urgent need to move towards a massive expansion of aid in Gaza. The agency has an unprecedented aid distribution network that can reverse the famine, “but Israeli authorities continue to prevent us from bringing supplies to Gaza,” he denounces.
Fight for compliance
“Hamas must release the last 19 dead hostages, not in weeks or months, but immediately,” demanded the Israeli Foreign Minister, Gideon Sa’ar, after the Palestinian faction handed over only nine bodies. “This is a violation of the agreement,” Sa’ar denounced, increasing the pressure. However, underground, the Israeli machinery has been put into motion, sharing intelligence information on the location of some bodies with mediators. And Türkiye has announced that it will participate in the search. “There is an established mechanism” to release as many bodies as possible, the United States confirmed.
“We continue to hear Hamas affirm that it intends to fulfill the agreement,” and so far it has done so by handing over the 20 hostages alive, Trump administration advisers explained to the press. This, to a certain extent, recalibrates the president’s inflammatory statements, which in the previous hours had given Israel the green light to attack if the faction breached the agreement.
Regarding the ceasefire, Hamas has denounced the death of 24 people at the hands of the Israel Defense Forces since last Friday, but government spokesman Netanyahu has assured that Israel is fulfilling its commitments. The truce remains fragile, in part because the Hostage Families Forum has called on the prime minister to “immediately suspend implementation of any subsequent phase of the agreement as long as Hamas continues to flagrantly violate its obligations” regarding the return of the hostages.
Meanwhile, Defense Minister Israel Katz has ordered the Joint Chiefs of Staff to “prepare a plan for the complete defeat of Hamas in Gaza.”
While waiting for the hostage situation to be resolved, the United States is already working to implement the second phase of Trump’s plan. One of the topics under discussion concerns the establishment of a multinational security force: Ankara has expressed its willingness to provide troops, and, according to US sources.
Regarding the future governance of the Strip, Washington reiterated that Hamas “will not control any area,” but the future of the Palestinian Authority (PNA) is uncertain. The prime minister,” but the White House plan calls for an internationally supervised transition authority led by a committee of experts, not politicians.
There is also the question of disarmament of Hamas. The United States and Israel continue to demand it, but the faction is evasive, meanwhile sending its militants to the field to immortalize the executions of alleged Israeli “collaborators” on social networks. Trump has warned: “If they keep killing, we’re going to have to go in and take them out.”
Palestinian children and adults wait next to the illegal Israeli wall to cross at the Qalandia checkpoint, with graffiti of prisoner Marwan Barghouti in the background, in 2015.
Allegations of abuse
In addition, Hamas denounced this Thursday that the bodies of Palestinians handed over by Israel show “marks of torture, abuse and executions” which shows “the criminal and fascist nature” of the Israeli Army.
“The horrible scenes visible on the bodies of the martyrs repatriated by the occupation, with marks of torture, abuse and executions in the countryside, clearly reveal the criminal and fascist nature of the occupation army and the moral and human decadence to which this entity has reached, which does not distinguish in its aggression between the living and the dead of our people,” the Palestinian group denounced in a statement.
He called for “an urgent and exhaustive investigation” to be opened into these “atrocious crimes” and for the Israeli perpetrators to be brought to international courts for being “responsible for committing crimes against humanity unprecedented in our modern history.”
The Ministry of Health of the Gaza Strip, controlled by Hamas, already denounced this morning, when it reported that it had received another thirty bodies of Palestinians from the Israeli authorities, that some showed “signs of abuse, beatings, handcuffs and bandages.”
In total, Israel has returned 120 bodies of Palestinians killed during the war offensive of the 360 that it promised to deliver as part of the ceasefire in exchange for the bodies of the 28 hostages who were in the hands of the Palestinian militias.
Also the family of Marwan Barghouti, the so-called has reported that he was beaten unconscious by Israeli prison guards on September 14. Hamas had asked that he be one of those released in the hostage exchange with Israel, but Benjamin Netanyahu’s government refused. The 66-year-old Fatah militant, who is serving a life sentence for planning deadly attacks against Israelis, was allegedly attacked by eight guards during a transfer between Ganot and Megiddo prisons, when there were no cameras. Several of those released this week have been the ones who have told their loved ones.
The guards allegedly handcuffed Barghouti, threw him to the ground, and punched and kicked him. “They focused on the head, chest and legs,” says his son in a video on social networks. “He was unconscious for hours, bleeding and could barely walk.”
Israel, , denies the major: “These claims are false. The Israel Prison Service acts in accordance with the law, while ensuring the safety and health of all inmates.”
