The editorial staff of Libération summarizes the main news of the day on the conflict in the Middle East. The previous point is to be read here.
American emissary Steve Witkoff made a visit to the Gaza Strip on Friday Devastated by war, promising to increase humanitarian aid there, when pressure increases on Israel in the face of human losses in the hungry Palestinian territory. “I spent more than five hours in Gaza to assess the situation on the ground. The objective of this visit was to allow [au Président Trump] to understand the humanitarian situation and to develop a plan to send food and medical aid to the Gaza population ”wrote on the social network x the former real estate developer and “Presidential Special Envoy for Peace Missions”according to its official title. This is the second visit to Gaza of the man of the delicate missions of the American president, who was accompanied this Friday of the American ambassador to Jerusalem, Mike Huckabee, former republican governor, former evangelist pastor-and pro-Israeli falcon of the Trump administration.
It is noon and a half this Friday, August 1, and the Gaza Strip seen from the sky is dead. By the porthole of the French plane which runs along the Coast from north to south, we see only desolation. First of all an immensity of vacant lots, in the middle of which stand a few rare buildings still standing. Then Gaza City. Wonderful neighborhoods are shaved, missing. This Friday, the French army has just succeeded in its first aerial delivery of food aid on Gaza in 2025. Exactly four rectangular wooden boxes of 932 kilos, canvases and straps included – the size of the landing area being too small to be able to drop more. Read our report.
The UN has nearly 6,000 trucks loaded with food, currently blocked outside Gaza, and ready to enter the hungry Palestinian territory, UNRWA boss Philippe Lazzarini said on Friday. “The UNRWA has 6,000 trucks loaded with aid blocked outside Gaza, waiting for the green light to enter”, He said on X, pleading for help conveyed by road rather than for air drops. The latter “Cost at least 100 times more expensive than trucks” et “Transport twice as much aid as planes.” “If there is a political will to allow air drops – extremely expensive, insufficient and ineffective – there should be a similar political will to open road passages”he added, without explicitly designating Israel, who controls access to Gaza.
The Civil Defense in Gaza said that 11 people were killed this Friday by air strikes and Israeli fire in the Palestinian territory, two of which were waiting for a help distribution site. According to civil defense spokesperson Mahmud Bassal, five people were killed in an air strike near the city of Khan Younès, in southern Gaza, and four others in a separate strike targeting a vehicle in Deir El-Balah, in the center of Gaza.
Two other people were killed and more than 70 injured by Israeli fire while they expected aid near a food distribution center managed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF, supported by Israel and the United States), between the cities of Khan Younès and Rafah, MAHMUD BASSAL told AFP. The Israeli army did not comment immediately.
The armed branch of Hamas broadcast this Friday an Israeli hostage video this Friday, kidnapped on October 7, 2023 in Israel. The video, of just over a minute, shows the hostage, weightless and visibly weakened, held in a tunnel. AFP could not determine the authenticity of the video, nor the date of its recording. The Israeli media identified hostage as Evyatar David, 24. On this new video, the young man alternately appears to the screen with children with malnutrition, a clear reference to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, threatened with a “widespread famine” according to the UN.
On Thursday, the Islamic jihad, an Allied movement of Hamas, published another video showing Roma Braslavski, 21, an Israeli-German citizen, also removed on October 7, 2023. Of the 251 people kidnapped that day, 49 are still retained in Gaza, 27 of which died according to the Israeli army.
France will no longer accept on its territory of Gazaouis evacuated before the conclusions of an investigation into the faults which allowed the reception of a student accused of anti -Semitic remarks, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs said on Friday, August 1. “No operation of this type, no evacuation of any kind will be held as long as we have not drawn the consequences of this investigation”said Jean-Noël Barrot on France Info. Moreover, “All the profiles that have entered France will be the subject of a new verification”added the minister. The Quai d’Orsay, requested by AFP to find out how many people will be affected by this decision, replied that the figure was not communicable for reasons of confidentiality.
After what he read in the newspapers, after the images he scrolled before his eyes, and after exchanging with people who were there, the term is essential. “Genocide.” In an interview with the Italian daily La Repubblicathe famous Israeli writer David Grossman – whose works have been translated into many languages, including French, English or Italian – affirms that “If he has refused for years to use this term”, He cannot today “Not help but use it” To qualify the situation in the Gaza Strip.
Sirens resounded in several Israeli cities on Friday after the firing of a «projectile» From Yemen to Israel, the army said. AFP journalists have also heard detonations above Jerusalem. Air defense systems have been activated “To intercept the threat”, added the army in a statement.
