Andrea Riccardi January 26, 2024
Israeli tanks opened fire on crowds of Palestinians lining up in Gaza City's Kuwait Square waiting for humanitarian aid. At least 20 people were killed and 150 injured, but the toll could worsen given the critical condition of many victims admitted to Al-Shifa Hospital, where there is a lack of medical care and doctors. This was announced by the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip, according to which “the Israeli occupation has carried out a new massacre of thousands of hungry mouths waiting for help.”
The Tel Aviv army said it was verifying the incident, while the National and Islamic Forces, a coalition of the main Palestinian factions, accused it of “war crimes” and “the continuation of ethnic cleansing and genocide in the Gaza Strip.” The International Criminal Court in The Hague will today decide on the accusation of genocide in the South African case. Hamas has stated that it will accept the Gaza ceasefire if the court decides so and if Israel also respects it, and that it will release all prisoners if Tel Aviv releases the Palestinians currently imprisoned.
While the Arab media revealed a new ceasefire proposal that Qatar is working on, the Washington Post reported that US President Joe Biden will send CIA Director William Burns to Europe in the next few days to negotiate an agreement between Israel and Hamas Qatar's release requires all hostages still in Gaza and a ceasefire. Burns is expected to meet with Israeli and Egyptian intelligence chiefs David Barnea and Abbas Kamel, as well as Qatari Prime Minister Al Thani. After the stopover in Lebanon, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani instead traveled to Israel, where he met President Isaac Herzog and his counterpart Israel Katz. He then visited his counterpart Riyad al-Maliki and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah in the West Bank and underlined Italy's commitment against anti-Semitism at Yad Vashem, the Shoah Museum in Jerusalem, before holding a personal conversation. Personal meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netnayahu. At every bilateral meeting, Tajani made sure to promote the solution of two peoples, two states.