• Erdogan says Biden is ‘complicit’ in war crimes, calls for sanctions against Tel Aviv
• Sullivan says still ‘miles to go’ before ceasefire deal

GAZA CITY: Residents of Gaza City were trapped in houses and bodies lay uncollected in the streets under an intense new Israeli assault on Thursday, even as Washington pushed for a peace deal at talks in Egypt and Qatar.

The civil defence agency in Gaza said that around 60 bodies have been found in Gaza City’s Shujaiya district, devastated by a two-week Israeli offensive.

“Once the Israeli occupation forces withdrew from the Shujaiya neighborhood, civil defence crews, with local residents, managed to recover about 60 martyrs up to now,” agency spokesman Mahmud Basal said.

Israel said on Wednesday it had ended its operation against Hamas in the district.

Hamas says a heavy Israeli assault on Gaza City this week could wreck efforts to finally end hostilities just as negotiations have entered the home stretch. In a statement, the Palestinian group said mediators had yet to provide it with updates on the state of the talks since it made concessions last week in response to a US-backed Israeli peace offer.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the head of Israel’s Shin Bet security agency was headed to Cairo for more ceasefire talks. US envoy Brett McGurk was in Israel, where he met Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Thursday that many details still need to be hammered out to secure a deal between Israel and Hamas for a ceasefire and the release of prisoners.

“There’s still miles to go before we close if we are able to close. So I don’t want to say that it’s immediately around the corner, but it does not have to be far out in the distance if everyone comes in this with the will to get it done,” Sullivan told reporters, adding that there has been no change in policy with regard to a US pause of shipment of 2,000 pound bombs to Israel.

Sullivan also said President Joe Biden will soon give an update on the status of ceasefire talks.

‘War crimes’

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said US President Joe Biden and his administration are complicit in Israeli war crimes and violations of international law in the Gaza conflict, and he called for sanctions against Israel.

In an interview with Newsweek during the Nato summit in Washington, Erdogan said Israel’s brutal murder of civilians, its strikes on hospitals, aid centres and elsewhere constituted war crimes.

“The US administration, however, disregards these violations and provides Israel with the most support. They do so at the expense of being complicit in these violations,” Erdogan was quoted as saying.

“At this juncture, who will impose what kind of sanction against Israel for violating international law? That is the real question and no one is answering that,” he said.

Residents of Gaza City say this week’s assault is comparable to the fiercest battle of the offensive, which destroyed the enclave’s oldest and biggest settlement in the first weeks of fighting last year.

Home to more than a quarter of Gaza’s residents before fighting erupted, Gaza City was largely razed to the ground in late 2023, but hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have returned to homes in the ruins. They have now once again been ordered out by the Israeli military. Many say they won’t go.

“We will die but not leave to the south. We have tolerated starvation and bombs for nine months and we are ready to die as martyrs here,” said Mohammad Ali, 30, reached by text message.

Ali, whose family has relocated several times within the city, said they had been running short of food, water and medicine. “The occupation (Israel) bombs Gaza City as if the war was restarting. We hope there will be a ceasefire soon, but if not then is God’s will.”

The Gaza health ministry said it had reports of people trapped and others killed inside their houses in the Tel Al Hawa and Sabra districts of Gaza City, and rescuers could not reach them.

The Civil Emergency Service said it estimated that at least 30 people had been killed in the Tel Al-Hawa and Rimal areas and it could not recover bodies from the streets there.

The Israeli army told Gaza City residents on Wednesday to use two “safe routes” to head south. Some posted a hashtag on social media: “We are not leaving”.

Just east of Gaza City in the Shejaia suburb, residents were returning on foot to a desolate moonscape of destroyed buildings after Israeli forces withdrew following a two-week offensive there.

Published in Dawn, July 12th, 2024