An 85-year-old Israeli woman freed after more than two weeks in Hamas captivity spoke Tuesday about the “hell” of her abduction, as fighting between Israel and Gaza militants raged for an 18th day.
Israel was left stunned after militants from the Palestinian Islamist movement stormed across the Gaza border on October 7 and went on a rampage that Israeli officials say killed more than 1,400 people.
They also snatched more than 220 hostages in the worst-ever attack in Israel’s history, which has prompted a ferocious Israeli bombardment of the coastal Palestinian territory which Gaza’s Hamas rulers say has killed 5,791 people.
With the hostages’ families facing an agonising wait, international pressure has built to secure their release. Visiting French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday it must be “the first objective” of Israel’s military campaign.
He also called for the international coalition fighting the Islamic State group to be expanded to “also fight against Hamas”.
He then headed to the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah to meet with Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, in the first such visit by a Western leader since the latest bloodshed began.
“Nothing can justify the suffering” of civilians in the Gaza Strip, Macron said as the Palestinian president pleaded for international help to “stop this aggression” by Israel.
Israel has been massing tens of thousands of troops around Gaza ahead of an expected ground offensive, heightening the risk for hostages, another two of whom were released late on Monday.
Yocheved Lifshitz, one of two elderly Israeli women released Monday, recalled how gunmen raided her kibbutz home, throwing her over the back of a motorbike and beating her on the way to Gaza.
“They didn’t break my ribs, but they hurt me very much,” she told reporters after being freed with 79-year-old Nurit Cooper on what Hamas said was “compelling humanitarian” grounds following mediation by Qatar and Egypt.
Both of their octogenarian husbands are still in Gaza. Hamas has now freed four women following the release of an American mother and daughter at the weekend.
After the violence of her abduction, Lifshitz said their captors had “treated us well”, describing them as courteous and explaining how a doctor visited every few days.
‘Epic suffering’
Meanwhile on the ground in Gaza, the Hamas-run health ministry said on Tuesday evening that “about 50” people had been killed across the Strip in one hour as Israel “expands” its air raids.
In the southern city of Rafah a man in a wheelchair could be seen being transported by a donkey-drawn cart to safety inside a UN school in Rafah while elsewhere in the southern city, people dug through the rubble to try and reach people trapped underneath.
“In Rafah, there’s one machine while around five houses get bombarded per day,” said Jamal Abu Ahmed, pleading for more machinery to help “retrieve children from under collapsed houses”.
UN figures show more than 1.4 million people — out of a total population of 2.4 million — have been displaced within Gaza since the war began, with nearly 590,000 people taking shelter in its schools.
The ongoing bloodshed and humanitarian crisis in Gaza sparked stormy exchanges at a UN Security Council meeting on Tuesday with the UN chief saying there had been “clear violations” of international law, prompting an angry exchange with Israel’s top diplomat.
While there was no excuse for the “appalling” Hamas violence on October 7, Antonio Guterres also spoke about “epic suffering” in Gaza, saying he was “deeply concerned about the clear violations of international humanitarian law” there.
But Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen hit back, citing the graphic ways in which some civilians had been killed, asking: “Mr secretary-general, in what world do you live?”
Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Maliki also had harsh words for the Council, denounced its “failure” to stop the “ongoing massacres” and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan also lashed out, saying the UN body had “deepened the crisis with its one-sided attitude” which he said favoured Israel.
Amid fears that the Israel-Hamas conflict could spread in the region, Macron called on Iran, a powerful supporter of Hamas, and its regional allies, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, “not to take the risk of opening up new fronts”.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday warned Iran that the United States would respond “decisively” to any attack by its proxies.
“The United States does not seek conflict with Iran. We do not want this war to widen. But if Iran or its proxies attack US personnel anywhere, make no mistake. We will defend our people, we will defend our security — swiftly and decisively,” Blinken told a UN Security Council session.
Fuel shortage to end UN work
Russia’s Vladimir Putin expressed “deep concern” over the “catastrophic deterioration” of the humanitarian situation in Gaza in a joint phone call with Erdogan, the Kremlin said.
The UN says Gaza is facing a “catastrophic” humanitarian crisis after Israel cut off almost all water supplies as well as food, fuel and electricity, with its Palestinian refugee arm UNRWA saying its crucial aid operations were poised to grind to a halt without fuel.
“If we do not get fuel urgently, we will be forced to halt our operations in the Gaza Strip as of tomorrow night,” UNRWA said Tuesday on social media.
Although dozens of trucks carrying desperately-needed aid began entering Gaza at the weekend following a US-brokered deal, there were no deliveries Tuesday, an AFP correspondent at the Rafah border crossing said.
The World Health Organization said fuel supplies were critically low.
Warning sirens wailed across central Israel on Tuesday afternoon with its Iron Dom e system seen intercepting missiles over Jaffa, a historically Arab port area now part of Tel Aviv, AFP correspondents said.
The Israeli military also said it had “targeted a cell of (Hamas) divers” that tried to infiltrate Israeli territory by sea in the area of kibbutz Zikim” just north of Gaza, with its fighter jets hitting the area they departed from.
(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed - AFP)