Gaza, Erdogan: “Netanyahu will answer for genocide in court”

The EU is also against Israel's behavior. Borrell: "Immediately end his military operation in Rafah"

ROME – “Netanyahu and those who participated in the genocide in Gaza will answer to the law”: this is what the President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared in a speech given to the representatives of his match. After the start of the Israeli military operation on the Gaza Strip last October, Turkey immediately took a position against Tel Aviv, reiterating its closeness to the Palestinian population. In his speech, Erdogan added: “We will continue to stand alongside Hamas, which fights for the independence of its lands and defends Turkey”.

Erdogan’s intervention comes as the Israeli army announces on its Telegram channel that it has withdrawn troops from the north of the Strip, in particular from Zeitoun, but that it has also intensified attacks on the Jabalya refugee camp< /strong>, still to the north, and to be conducting “targeted operations in specific areas in the eastern part of Rafah”, the last city south of the Strip on the border with Egypt, where in these seven months of war the majority of the displaced population. There were also five deaths in the Bureij refugee camp, in the center of the Strip.

In a post on , which is leading to further internal displacement, exposure to famine and human suffering.” Borrell then added: “We condemn the Hamas attack on Kerem Shalom” last week, where four Israeli soldiers were killed. “We ask the parties – concluded Borrell – to redouble their efforts for a ceasefire”.

In the last few hours, however, in the United States Congress, President Joe Biden announced his intention to allocate a new military aid package for Israel, worth one billion dollars in weapons and ammunition . In anticipation of an offensive on Rafah, in recent days Biden had said that he would stop sending weapons, limiting himself to those for defense. Although Israel has not officially proclaimed the offensive, in fact various areas of Rafah have been subjected to bombing for days, while Israel has taken control of the border crossing with Egypt. Since May 6, according to the United Nations, 450 thousand people have been forced to flee. The UN informs that at least another 100 thousand, again since May 6, have had to leave northern Gaza, out of a total population of 2.3 million.

Meanwhile, the closure of the Rafah crossing has “completely reversed the situation” of humanitarian aid, as Sam Rose, one of the project managers of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), told Al Jazeera. In fact, if previously the population living in the north suffered from the closure of nearby crossings, and therefore the impossibility of receiving humanitarian convoys arriving from the south, now from the south “it is almost impossible” to bring in food, water, medicines and other goods , while in the northern part aid arrives from the Erez crossing, reopened two weeks ago by Israel.

TENSIONS BETWEEN ISRAEL AND EGYPT

Precisely the issue of the Rafah crossing has made relations between Egypt and Israel tense: Cairo accuses the Israeli army of having occupied the Palestinian side of the border point, continuing military operations that would make It is impossible for trucks carrying aid from all over the world to access Gaza. Israel instead accuses Egypt of having closed the passage and has urged Germany and the United Kingdom to “persuade” Cairo to reopen it. Tensions are also recorded in Lebanon, where Israel claims to have killed a senior Hezbollah commander, Hussain Ibrahim Mekky, in a raid last night. In response, the armed group claimed responsibility for launching 60 missiles towards northern Israel, which the Israeli army said caused no damage. A rocket fired from Gaza instead reached the southern city of Sderot, but there were no casualties.

Finally, in the West Bank, the sirens rang out for 76 seconds to celebrate the “Nakba day”, or “catastrophe”, as the Palestinians call the day on which the State of Israel was founded in 1948. In a note Amnesty International recalls that “over 800 thousand Palestinians were displaced” and takes the opportunity to launch an appeal to Israel to put an end to “the current forced displacement of nearly two million Palestinians” and the “massive destruction of property and civilian infrastructure” in Gaza. According to the NGO, “in the last few days alone, over 150 thousand Palestinians have been forced to evacuate from Rafah following the intensification of Israel’s land and air operations”. After the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel, where 1,200 people died and around 240 were taken hostage by Hamas-affiliated fighters, the Israeli government launched an operation in Gaza in which many lost their lives over 35 thousand people, while 85% of the population had to leave their homes, even several times.