“We waited and waited for a long time, waiting for the UN, but the number of refugees has only increased; The only way is to use weapons and fight. “We want to establish our state, where Muslims, Christians and Jews can live in peace, harmony and justice.” Words by Yasir Arafat after being appointed president of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1969 in Cairo. The statement is captured in a black and white video that can be seen in the Yasir Arafat museum, next to the mausoleum of the emblematic Palestinian leader, a luminous white and glass cube, located next to the Muqata, the headquarters of the Palestinian National Authority ( ANP), in Ramallah.
More than half a century later, the Palestinians are still waiting for the UN despite the fact that the PLO laid down its arms after the Oslo agreements of 1993. However, a small ceiling in this modern museum also remembers the creation of the two armed organizations - considered terrorists by the US and the EU, among other countries – who are not members of the PLO and against whom Israel is fighting today in Gaza: Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), founded in 1986; and the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), created in 1987 with the underground support of Israel to weaken Fatah, the party of Arafat and his successor, Mahmoud Abbas, who turned 88 last week at his residence in Muqata.
After passing the Israeli checkpoint on the border with the West Bank, coming from Tel Aviv, the main road leading to Ramallah has been blocked by the army since the Gaza war began, forcing vehicles to detour along a winding road dotted with green flags. of Hamas and black women of the YIP, which passes through small towns where Israeli troops only enter occasionally to carry out an operation against suspected members of armed groups.
The presence of these two organizations and other small armed groups such as the Jenin Brigades in the West Bank – where three million Palestinians live – is anecdotal compared to Gaza, but even so Israel is exercising tight intelligence control over its sympathizers to prevent the conflict extends to these occupied territories.
Since the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, the army has preventively detained nearly 1,500 Palestinians in the West Bank, a thousand of whom belong to Hamas, according to military sources.
The Commission for Express Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners Club assured yesterday, coinciding with World Children's Day, that of these arrests, 145 correspond to minors and that, since the beginning of 2023, the total number of children and adolescents arrested in the West Bank it rises to 880. Furthermore, nearly 200 Palestinians have died since then, most killed by the army in targeted actions that include the use of drones, and some others at the hands of Jewish settlers, who have found in the Gaza war an excuse to increase their harassment of Palestinians, especially farmers, with the aim of expanding their lands.
Meanwhile, in Gaza, Israel's military offensive and bombing continues, which has already killed more than 13,300 people, including about 5,600 minors. 387 Israeli soldiers have also already died in war actions, adding to the 1,200 victims murdered by Hamas on October 7. In addition, the 240 hostages kidnapped in Gaza, of which 34 are children.
The bombs claimed more lives yesterday when they were dropped on the refugee camps of Burayi and Nuseirat, in the central area of the strip. In the north, Israel ordered the evacuation of the Jabaliya camp, where Israeli troops clashed with Hamas fighters.
Ground clashes also occurred in Gaza City, according to Doctors Without Borders, which reported that its clinic in the capital of the strip had been hit by gunfire in the midst of "intense fighting."
Not far from the Jabaliya camp, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA, Israeli artillery attacked the Indonesian hospital in the city of Beit Lahiya, very close to the northern border of the strip.
The Indonesian is the second largest health complex in northern Gaza, after the Al Shafi hospital, controlled by Israeli troops, which on Sunday authorized the evacuation of 31 premature babies, 28 of whom – the majority in critical condition – were transferred yesterday Egypt –12 to Cairo– through the Rafah crossing. The remaining three – who were even more serious – would remain in a center in the south of the strip, according to the director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, despite the fact that Egyptian media assured that they had already dead.
Ghebreyesus has described Al Shifa as a “death zone. After announcing on Sunday the discovery of an alleged tunnel used by Hamas in that hospital, the army released several videos that it claimed came from the center's security cameras with images recorded on October 7 where the forced entry of several people, described as like some of the hostages.
In Tel Aviv and in the central area of Israel, the alarms sounded again yesterday and on the northern border the Hizbullah attacks of recent days and the subsequent bombings by Israeli aircraft on Shiite guerrilla targets in southern Lebanon were repeated. .
And meanwhile, in the US, President Biden told reporters yesterday that he “believes” that an agreement is close – with the mediation of Qatar – for Hamas to release a group of hostages in exchange for Israel accepting a ceasefire. fire and release an unknown number of Palestinian prisoners. Yesterday Beniamin Netanyahu and the War Cabinet met in Tel Aviv with a large group of relatives of the kidnapped, who in recent days have redoubled their pressure on the Israeli prime minister.
