THE United States must stop supporting Israeli aggression against the occupied territories, Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister Nabil Abu Rudeina said today.
His call came as Washington reportedly demanded reforms to the Palestinian Authority and as the brutal Israeli assaults on Gaza and the West Bank continued.
Mr Rudeina insisted that any changes to the authority would be decided in line with a Palestinian agenda, not a foreign one.
He urged the White House to turn its attention to pressing Israel to halt its aggression in the occupied territories, especially Gaza, where more that 23,000 people have been killed since the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel that sparked the current war.
Israeli military action in Gaza and the West Bank shows no sign of ending and has sparked tensions across the entire region, with strikes and counterstrikes from northern Iraq to the Red Sea and from southern Lebanon to Pakistan in recent days.
In Gaza, Palestinian fighters continue to put up fierce resistance to Israeli forces waging one of the deadliest military campaigns in recent history.
Some 85 per cent of the territory’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes and the United Nations says the entire population is starving.
Israel has vowed to dismantle Hamas’s military and governing abilities to ensure that it can never repeat the October 7 attack, which left 1,200 people dead and 250 taken captive.
Israel has also vowed to bring home the more than 100 hostages still held in Gaza after Hamas released most of the rest in November in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
Israel claims that only military pressure will bring about the release of more captives, but as the fighting grinds on, they are at increased risk of being killed in Israeli strikes or during rescue operations.
Hamas has said it will not release any more hostages until there is a permanent ceasefire, something that Israel and the US, its top ally, have ruled out.
Meanwhile, a shipment of medicines intended for dozens of hostages held by Hamas was en route to Gaza today after France and Qatar mediated the first agreement between Israel and the militant group since the November ceasefire.
The pharmaceutical goods will be shipped through Egypt and delivered to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which will then hand them over to Hamas.
Qatar said the deal also includes the delivery of further medicines and humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the besieged coastal enclave.
