On Saturday the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) announced that they had rescued four of their hostages, including a Russian national, who had been kidnapped from the Nova music festival on October 7. While news of the rescue was welcomed by the US - who helped aid the mission - many condemned Israel’s actions after the Gaza Health Ministry said that at least 274 Palestinians had been killed as a result.
Esteban Carrillo, a Beirut-based Ecuadorian journalist and crime editor for The Cradle, joined Sputnik’s Fault Lines on Monday. Carrillo commented that the Nuseirat refugee camp is one of the “last few remaining places in Gaza” where Palestinians have managed to find a “modicum of shelter”.
“On Saturday morning, as there were crowds of hundreds of Palestinians in the camp, at a marketplace waiting for the delivery of humanitarian aid, Israeli ground troops infiltrated the camp, hiding in the back of what Israeli media describes as a furniture delivery truck. Right. Because in the middle of a genocide, is it common practice to get furniture deliveries?” Carrillo commented.
“The reality is: this is one of the many civilian vehicles being used in Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid. Because any working vehicle in Gaza at this point has to be used for the delivery of humanitarian aid,” he continued. “According to eyewitness reports, this force came from the US-built Gaza pier and, essentially, all hell broke loose. As these forces are trying to infiltrate, [there was] heavy artillery fire, heavy tank fire, swarms of drones. The eyewitnesses say upwards of 150 missiles landed on the camp within 10 minutes.”
“This massacre that happened on Saturday [occurred] in the span of about an hour,” he added. “Almost 300 Palestinians [were] killed. The Gaza Health Ministry [said] the death toll [on Saturday was] at 274 killed and almost 700 injured, and it was just complete devastation. And, yes, the rescue of four Israeli captives being held in that camp, according to Hamas, ...the Israeli raid killed three other Israeli hostages, although Tel Aviv has denied this.”
Carrillo added that the West expressed “jubilation” on Saturday following Israel’s rescue efforts, which included praise from French President Emmanuel Macron and US President Joe Biden. However, Macron has criticized the humanitarian crisis in the southern city of Rafah, and said the number of those killed following nine months of war is unacceptable.
“Benny Gantz, who is often described as a moderate - never mind the fact that he was behind some of the most bloody operations in the Gaza Strip between 2012 and 2021 - he [has pulled] from the coalition,” Carrillo reported. “He had already warned that he was going to withdraw from Netanyahu's war cabinet. And in his speech, he apologized to the families of the captives who remain in Gaza, of which there are more than 100, not all of them alive. I believe a small number of them remain alive and he apologized to them, saying ‘we have failed’, and says that Netanyahu is standing in the way of total victory.
Sputnik’s Melik Abdul then asked Carrillo what Gantz’s resignation will mean for Israel’s war strategy in Gaza, and if it will affect Netanyahu’s policy and strategy.
“I will say that in the short term it's undoubtedly going to be business as usual. Now, this is not really going to hurt the way the war has been fought or the lack of a plan, right? There's not even a plan currently, much less for after the war. So in that sense, I think we're just going to continue to see more of the same,” said Carrillo of the situation in Gaza.
“I would not advise anyone to really expect a ceasefire, because the resistance themselves said it yesterday that the massacre of these 300 Palestinians at the Nuseirat camp was also an attempt by Israel to implode any attempt at a deal, because how can [they] sign a deal with a government, with an army, with an administration that is so willing to go in and just massacre people in such a horrible way,” the journalist added.
“If you were in Hamas's shoes, why would you trust the Israelis? Why would you trust the US who allowed their pier to be used in this way? Because there's videos of the captives being taken out of Gaza via the US-built pier and, like I said, eyewitness accounts that say that these trucks that were carrying the Israeli commandos came from the US pier," he said. "CENTCOM has denied this, but as we know from history, the US loves to deny the things that they're actually plotting.”
Last week, US President Joe Biden announced that Israel had accepted a ceasefire deal that would lead to the release of all hostages. But even as the president announced the new ceasefire deal, he acknowledged that Israel had not fully agreed to the plan. Since then, Israeli officials have said that US description of the ceasefire proposal was “not accurate” and claimed that Biden had only announced a partial version of the plan in his speech.
The UN Security Council announced on Monday their plans to adopt the US-drafted resolution and called on Hamas to accept the deal.
“Hamas welcomes what was included in the Security Council resolution regarding a permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, a complete withdrawal [of military forces] from the Gaza Strip, prisoner exchange, reconstruction, the return of displaced persons to their places of residence, the rejection of any demographic change in the Gaza Strip or reduction of its territory, and the provision of the necessary assistance to our people in the strip,” the movement said in a statement.
“The US, what they want is a PR victory. They need something ahead of the elections,” Carrillo said. “Joe Biden needs to settle this conflict before November so he has something to point at, right? Because before this broke out, his big victory in the Middle East was going to be Saudi-Israel normalization and that completely fell apart. [He has] this genocide hanging over [his] head. [He has] the poll numbers not going [his] way and global outrage.”
“Israel has been very clear. They are saying, ‘we cannot allow a stop to the war’. And this is something that even the Israeli opposition is not looking for, they're not looking to actually stop the war,” Carrillo explained. “They are completely on board with this idea of eradicating Hamas, despite the fact that this is impossible. You cannot eradicate the idea of resistance. And, as far as Hamas goes, they have been willing to play ball for months now as long as any deal calls for the immediate cessation of hostilities, for the withdrawal of the Israeli army and for the entry of humanitarian aid, for the reconstruction of the Strip, etc.”
“When it comes to the Israeli government, it's about the continuation of the war, just like the eradication of Hamas. When they say Hamas, they generally - and I think by their actions they have proven this - that they generally just mean Palestinians, right? Palestinians, no matter [if] they're women, if they are children, they just need to get rid of them,” the journalist suggested.
Describing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Carrillo reported that there is a famine spreading across the Gaza Strip. He added that just yesterday, the UN World Food Programme said they would stop the delivery of aid via the US-built pier due to security reasons following the pier’s use for the IDF's military operation on Saturday. The program’s announcement is tragically ironic, as the US-built pier was first announced by the Biden administration as a use for humanitarian aid.
On Saturday, the Gaza Health Ministry reported that the total death toll in Gaza is now at 37,084 people.
“Come Sunday, there were already many think pieces in Israeli media wondering was this even a victory, right? And not many with much concern for the Palestinian death toll but more to do with the fact that it's been eight months that they've killed 40,000 people or, you know, almost 40,000 people - more if you count those under the rubble - and they have only managed to rescue six captives - four this weekend, two a few months ago. And then, you know, the biggest amount of captives that they got back was in November when there was a two-week ceasefire deal that worked, right. But since then, they haven't wanted to stop.”
"It's just on an endless cycle of brutality, of violence, of bloodbath that is being sponsored by the US government, that is being sponsored by NATO and the West."