Main events on February 8th
- Israel and Hamas have successfully carried out their fifth exchange, with three Israeli captives freed for 183 Palestinian prisoners.
- Seven of the released Palestinian prisoners were transferred to hospital for immediate treatment following their release, with others describing horrific conditions, including isolation and torture, in Israeli jails.
- The Israeli military has begun withdrawing from the so-called Netzarim Corridor, which cuts off north Gaza from the south, in line with the ceasefire deal agreed upon with Hamas.
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the deployment of a negotiating team to the Qatari capital, Doha, to discuss “technical details” of the truce deal, and will hold a security cabinet meeting upon his return from the United States regarding negotiations about the second phase of the agreement, his office says.
- Senior Hamas official Basem Naim tells Al Jazeera that Israel’s continued violations of the ceasefire deal, including delays in the entry of food, medicine and tents into Gaza, are “threatening to collapse” the agreement.
- Israeli forces bombed eastern Lebanon, killing at least six people, in violation of the truce agreed on with Hezbollah, and attacked what it called a Hamas weapons cache in southern Syria.
Netanyahu’s crocodile tears over captives are ‘beyond absurd’
Speaking about the frail, disoriented appearance of today’s freed Israeli captives, Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst, said, “People are starving in Gaza. Children are dying of malnutrition. Because Netanyahu has weaponised hunger and famine.”
“Incidentally”, said Bishara, “that’s why Netanyahu is sought by the ICC”.
“Netanyahu is complaining that three individuals lost weight when the entire Gaza Strip was ‘put on a diet’, as the racists in the Israeli government said. It’s beyond absurd. It’s beyond racist. The real issue is that thousands of Palestinian prisoners have been tortured in Israel’s jails.”
Elsewhere, Bishara suggested that today’s “theatrical scenes of Hamas during the exchanges will rub Netanyahu the wrong way, by proving once again that Hamas is not defeated”.
On the other hand, Bishara said that Netanyahu “has succeeded” with the undeclared objective of the total destruction of Gaza.
“[But] I don’t think the Israeli establishment really cares about Gaza. It wishes to cut it off and push it into the sea. What it really cares about is the West Bank and the Golan Heights – they think that would secure the [Israeli] settlement for future generations.”
He added: “Zionism is responsible for turning Israelis into occupiers, the torturers, the racists.”
Palestinian Authority warns against Israel’s continued ‘ethnic cleansing’ in West Bank
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry has warned of Israel’s ongoing “ethnic cleansing” in the northern occupied West Bank and called for a “firm” international response to force Israel to stop its crimes in refugee camps.
The ministry issued a statement warning “against the continued Israeli occupation forces committing the crime of ethnic cleansing and enforcing forced deportation and displacement of our people from the camps in northern the West Bank, emptying them of their residents, as is the case in the Jenin, Tulkarem, and Far’a camps, in a blatant violation of international law, international humanitarian law, and the Geneva Conventions”.
The Israeli military offensive, which began on January 21 in the northern occupied West Bank, targeted Jenin city, its refugee camp, and surrounding towns, killing 25 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
Alongside the continuing operation in Jenin camp, the Israeli army has raided several neighbouring towns, including Qabatiya and Burqin.
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