The Israeli occupation army committed a massacre against the Nuseirat refugee camp on Saturday, as the aggression against Gaza entered its 246th day before it later announced the liberation of four Israeli hostages from two separate sites in the camp, and the killing of an officer in the “Al-Yamam” unit.
The Israeli attack resulted in the death of 210 Palestinians and the wounding of more than 400, and the death toll is likely to rise as casualty recovery operations continue, according to the government media office in Gaza.
The government media office in Gaza refuted the Israeli allegations that they killed 17 Palestinian resistance fighters in the operation against a school that was housing displaced people in the camp, stressing that the occupation’s list of Palestinian resistance fighters allegedly killed in the operation included three people who are still alive and another who has been living outside Palestine for years.
The operation carried out by the Israeli occupation forces, after they bombed a school belonging to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Refugees (UNRWA) housing 6,000 displaced people, received great international condemnation.
For its part, the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) said that what the occupation army announced about the liberation of a number of its prisoners after more than 8 months of aggression would not change its strategic failure. It added that the occupation army committed a horrific massacre against innocent civilians in the Nuseirat camp in the middle of the Gaza Strip, noting that the resistance still maintains the largest number of prisoners and can increase its yield.
Hamas added that resistance fighters clashed with occupation army soldiers for long hours in the Nuseirat camp and inflicted losses on them. It stressed that the United States’ participation in the operation carried out by the occupation in Nuseirat proves its complicity in the war crimes committed in the Gaza Strip, and its lack of interest in the lives of civilians.
On Friday, US Central Command announced that a key part of Gaza’s floating port built by the US military, designed to transport much-needed aid to the Strip by boat, has been reconnected to the Gaza coast after repairing storm damage, and aid will begin flowing soon.
A US official told Axios that the US hostage cell residing in Israel supported the recovery of the four Israeli detainees.
Moreover, CNN reported on Saturday that an American cell in Israel contributed to the return of four Israeli detainees to the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip. CNN quoted an unnamed US official as saying that “an American cell in Israel contributed to the operation to free 4 hostages,” adding that the cell “supported efforts to rescue 4 hostages, and worked with the Israeli forces in the process of liberating them.”
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the occupation would return all detainees “in this way or in any other way.”
During a press conference in Paris, US President Joe Biden welcomed the return of the four Israeli detainees, noting that he would continue to work for the return of all detainees and a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
For its part, Egypt condemned in the strongest terms the Israeli attacks on the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip, describing them as “a blatant violation of all provisions of international law and international humanitarian law, and all values of humanity and human rights.”
On the political level, efforts are continuing to resume ceasefire negotiations, as US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is scheduled to visit Israel, Egypt, Qatar and Jordan between June 10 and 12, to advance a ceasefire proposal between Israel and Hamas, according to what the US State Department announced.
Despite the intensity of the Israeli bombing, the resistance is still carrying out operations against the invading occupation forces, as the Al-Qassam Brigades announced the targeting of a house in Deir al-Balah in which an Israeli force was holed up, confirming that they were killed and wounded while monitoring the landing of warplanes to evacuate them from the place.
The Al-Qassam Brigades announced that they, in conjunction with the Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, targeted an Apache helicopter with a “SAM 7” missile in the sky of the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip. It added that it targeted an Israeli Merkava tank with an “Al-Yassin 105” missile and clashed with an infantry force around it near Al-Awda Roundabout in Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip.
Al-Qassam also announced that its members detonated a pre-prepared minefield in “a zionist engineering force”, causing one dead or wounded, near the fleeting line with the occupied territories, east of the city of Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip.
For its part, the Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad Movement, announced that an Israeli vehicle was targeted with an RPG shell and set on fire in the Saudi neighbourhood west of the city of Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, amid continuing clashes in the city’s front lines.
