France’s Foreign Minister, Catherine Colonna, has urged for an “immediate and durable” truce in the Israel-Hamas war.
This came as she arrived in Israel.
“Too many civilians are being killed,” Colonna was reported as saying during remarks in Tel Aviv with her Israeli counterpart Eli Cohen.
Colonna said that Paris is “deeply concerned” over the situation in the territory.
She also stressed that the victims of Hamas’s attacks must not be forgotten, including those subjected to sexual violence.
Also on Sunday, Pope Francis condemned the killing of civilians in Gaza.
He made reference to Israeli killings of two Christian women who were sheltering at a Gaza church, saying that Israel was using “terrorism” tactics across the strip.
“I continue to receive very grave and painful news from Gaza,” Francis said.
“Unarmed civilians are the objects of bombings and shootings. And this happened even inside the Holy Family parish complex, where there are no terrorists, but families, children, people who are sick or disabled, nuns.”
Pope Francis
‘Some would say “It is war. It is terrorism.” Yes, it is war. It is terrorism,’ he said.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army disclosed that it has uncovered the biggest Hamas tunnel in the Gaza Strip so far.
The army said that the underground passage formed part of a wider network that stretched for over 2.5 miles and came within 400 metres of the Erez border crossing.
It cost millions of dollars and took years to construct, Israeli forces said, with the passageways featuring drainage systems, electricity, ventilation, sewage and a communication network.
Chief military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari did not specify whether the said tunnel was used by Hamas for the October 7 attack.
Aid Enters Gaza Through Kerem Shalom Border Crossing For First Time
The Kerem Shalom border crossing between Israel and Gaza opened on Sunday for the first time for aid trucks since the outbreak of the war, a spokesperson from the Prime Minister’s office said.
The crossing – which Israel had agreed to reopen to aid trucks last week – had been closed to aid trucks since the Hamas October 7 attacks .
Aid was being delivered solely through Gaza’s Rafah crossing with Egypt, which Israel said could only accommodate the entry of 100 trucks a day.
The Kerem Shalom crossing was used to carry more than 60% of the truckloads going into Gaza before the current conflict.
A source in the Egyptian Red Crescent told a news agency that 79 aid trucks have entered the Kerem Shalom crossing on their way into Gaza
Col Elad Goren, the head of the civil department at Cogat, the Israeli defence ministry body responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs, has spoken with Reuters.
He said humanitarian agencies in Gaza had not increased their capacity to distribute aid to meet the demand from the influx of people in Gaza who had fled to the south of the territory on Israeli advice.
“If the UN won’t have the capacity to collect and to distribute, it doesn’t matter how many crossings we will open,” Goren said.
“They cannot rely upon the same mechanism they had before the war.”
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said that the aid that has been received in Gaza “doesn’t meet 10% of the needs”.
It added that since 21 October, 4,367 aid trucks have entered the strip through the Rafah crossing, 60% of which were for the PRCS.
It went on to call for “unconditional continued aid entry” into Gaza where more than 1.7 million Palestinians have been displaced as a result Israel’s attacks across the strip.
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