Netanyahu says next step is demilitarising Gaza, not reconstruction
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the next stage will be disarming Hamas and demilitarising the Gaza Strip, not reconstruction.
Speaking to Israel’s parliament or Knesset following the announcement of the retrieval of Ran Gvilli’s remains earlier today, Netanyahu said: “We have an interest in advancing this stage, not delaying it”.
Demilitarizing in Israel's eyes is leveling the rest of Gaza to get all the 'terror' tunnels. That means having to (re)move all the rubble to get to the supposed tunnels underneath, which is estimated to take 7 to 15 years....
Netanyahu will never allow reconstruction while there are still Palestinians in the area.
Israeli army kills one in north Gaza
A source in Gaza’s emergency services tells Al Jazeera that a Palestinian was killed by Israeli forces in Jabalia, northern Gaza Strip.
The killing took place outside of the Israeli army’s deployment area, the source said.
Israeli army fires on Gaza City
Al Jazeera’s correspondent reports that the Israeli army is shelling al-Tuffah, a neighbourhood in Gaza City.
The attacks are being carried out within the army’s areas of deployment.
Gaza residents urge mediators to pressure Israel for more aid, travel for medical care
Some Palestinians in Gaza have expressed optimism that the recovery of the remains of the last captive, Ran Gvili, could lead to the reopening of the Rafah crossing with Egypt, allowing travel to and from Gaza and the evacuation of people in need of medical care.
“We hope this will close off Israel’s pretexts and open the crossing,” Abdel-Rahman Radwan, a Gaza City resident whose mother is a cancer patient and requires treatment outside Gaza, told The Associated Press.
Ahmed Ruqab, a father who lives with his family of six in a tent in the Nuseirat refugee camp, called for mediators and the US to pressure Israel to allow more aid and caravans into Gaza.
“We need to turn this page and restart,” he told the news agency over the phone.
‘Lack of respect to Palestinians as equal human beings astonishing’
Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, has questioned international priorities after Israel announced the recovery of the last body of an Israeli captive from Gaza.
“The big question now that Israel got the last body … is who’s going to pressure Israel to release the 10,000 Palestinian captives in Israeli jails, who are subjected to torture, subjected to starvation, and of whom 122 already died because of bad treatment and Israeli presence,” he told Al Jazeera.
“So much attention was paid to one body, and I’m happy that this body went back to the to his family,” Barghouti added. However, he asked who would care for “maybe thousands of people who are still under the rubble”.
“The lack of equal treatment, the lack of respect to Palestinians as equal human beings, is really astonishing indeed,” he noted.
