JERUSALEM: Relatives of Israeli hostages in Gaza accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Tuesday of sacrificing their loved ones by carrying out a wave of deadly strikes that threatened a fragile truce.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said it had received no response to its request to meet with Netanyahu and other officials to hear how the remaining hostages would be “protected from the military pressure.”
“Now it becomes clear — the public officials did not meet with them because they were planning the explosion of the ceasefire, which could sacrifice their family members,” the campaign group said.
Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s unprecedented October 2023 attack which sparked the war, 58 are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
The overngith air strikes were by far the deadliest since a January ceasefire that largely halted the fighting and saw the handover of 33 hostages, both alive and dead, in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
The health ministry in the Hamas-controlled territory said at least 413 people were killed in the strikes.
The forum called on supporters of the hostages to cemonstrate outside Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem, warning that “military pressure could further endanger their lives and complicate efforts to bring them back safe and sound.”
“The families of the hostages will demand: Stop the killing and disappearance of the hostages now! First, return them — then everything else.”
The return of the hostages is a priority for the majority of Israelis.
“This morning, the moment we realized that we were going back to war, the first thing I thought about was: what about the hostages? This is a death sentence for the hostages, and it’s simply terrible,” said Muriel Aranov, a 62-year-old pensioner living in Tel Aviv.
As protesters headed to Jerusalem, Netanyahu took part in a security assessment with defense officials in Tel Aviv, including Defense Minister Israel Katz, his office said.
An earlier statement from Netanyahu’s office said the strikes were ordered after “Hamas’s repeated refusal to release our hostages, as well as its rejection of all of the proposals it has received from US Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff and from the mediators.”
“We are at an impasse, we have said ‘yes’ more than once to concrete proposals from the US special envoy to extend the ceasefire, and Hamas has said ‘no’,” foreign ministry spokesperson Oren Marmorstein said in a briefing.
“From now on, Israel will act against Hamas with increased military intensity,” he added.
Families urge Israel PM to ‘stop the killing’ of Gaza hostages
https://arab.news/9h6s4
Families urge Israel PM to ‘stop the killing’ of Gaza hostages
- The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said it had received no response to its request to meet with Netanyahu
- “Now it becomes clear — the public officials did not meet with them because they were planning the explosion of the ceasefire”
UN rights chief Shocked by ‘unbearable’ Darfur atrocities
- Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur
PORT SUDAN: Nearly three years of war have put the Sudanese people through “hell,” the UN’s rights chief said on Sunday, blasting the vast sums spent on advanced weaponry at the expense of humanitarian aid and the recruitment of child soldiers.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been gripped by a conflict between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that has left tens of thousands of people dead and around 11 million displaced.
Speaking in Port Sudan during his first wartime visit, UN Human Rights commissioner Volker Turk said the population had endured “horror and hell,” calling it “despicable” that funds that “should be used to alleviate the suffering of the population” are instead spent on advanced weapons, particularly drones.
More than 21 million people are facing acute food insecurity, and two-thirds of Sudan’s population is in urgent need of humanitarian aid, according to the UN.
In addition to the world’s largest hunger and displacement crisis, Sudan is also facing “the increasing militarization of society by all parties to the conflict, including through the arming of civilians and recruitment and use of children,” Turk added.
He said he had heard testimony of “unbearable” atrocities from survivors of attacks in Darfur, and warned of similar crimes unfolding in the Kordofan region — the current epicenter of the fighting.
Testimony of these atrocities must be heard by “the commanders of this conflict and those who are arming, funding and profiting from this war,” he said.
Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur.
“We must ensure that the perpetrators of these horrific violations face justice regardless of the affiliation,” Turk said on Sunday, adding that repeated attacks on civilian infrastructure could constitute “war crimes.”
He called on both sides to “cease intolerable attacks against civilian objects that are indispensable to the civilian population, including markets, health facilities, schools and shelters.”
Turk again warned on Sunday that crimes similar to those seen in El-Fasher could recur in volatile Kordofan, where the RSF has advanced, besieging and attacking several key cities.
Hundreds of thousands face starvation across the region, where more than 65,000 people have been displaced since October, according to the latest UN figures.
