Abbas urges Hamas to free Gaza hostages as Israeli strikes kill 25

GAZA CITY – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on April 23 urged Hamas to free all hostages, saying that keeping them provided Israel with “excuses” to attack Gaza, as rescuers recovered charred bodies from an Israeli strike.

The latest Israeli attacks killed at least 25 people across the besieged territory, while Germany, France and Britain urged Israel to end its aid blockade.

Israel’s military offensive in Gaza resumed on March 18, ending a ceasefire that had largely paused hostilities and saw 33 hostages freed in exchange for around 1,800 Palestinian prisoners.

Talks on a new ceasefire have so far failed, and a Hamas delegation is in Cairo for renewed negotiations with Egyptian and Qatari mediators.

“Hamas has given the criminal occupation excuses to commit its crimes in the Gaza Strip, the most prominent being the holding of hostages,” Mr Abbas said in Ramallah, seat of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

“I’m the one paying the price, our people are paying the price, not Israel. My brother, just hand them over,” said Mr Abbas, adding that there are deaths every day.

“You sons of dogs, hand over what you have and get us out of this” ordeal, he added, levelling a harsh Arabic epithet at Hamas.

Senior Hamas official Bassem Naim called his remarks “insulting”, adding: “Abbas repeatedly and suspiciously lays the blame for the crimes of the occupation and its ongoing aggression on our people.”

There have been deep political and ideological divisions between Mr Abbas’ Fatah party and Hamas for nearly two decades.

Mr Abbas and the PA have often accused Hamas of undermining Palestinian unity, and Hamas has criticised the former for collaborating with Israel and cracking down on West Bank dissent.

Charred bodies

On the evening of April 23, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu compared Hamas with “Nazis, like Hitler”.

“They want to kill, to destroy all the Jews. They openly declare their intent to destroy the Jewish state, and that will not happen!” he said as Israel marked Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Hamas’ armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, had earlier released footage it said was of an Israeli hostage alive in Gaza. He identified himself as 48-year-old Omri Miran.

His family in a statement said this was “a moral failure for the state of Israel... We will continue to fight until Omri returns to us”.

Israel has continued to pound Gaza, with rescuers reporting at least 25 people killed on April 23, including 11 in a strike on a school-turned-shelter.

“The school was housing displaced people. The bombing sparked a massive blaze, and several charred bodies have since been recovered,” civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said of the attack on Yaffa school in Gaza City’s Al-Tuffah neighbourhood.

Israel’s military said it had “struck a gathering of terrorists operating within a Hamas and Islamic Jihad command and control centre” at the school.

An AFP journalist reported seeing several bodies in white shrouds at Al-Shifa hospital’s morgue, where women wept over the body of a child.

“We want nothing more than for the war to end, so we can live like people in the rest of the world,” said Khan Yunis resident Walid al-Najjar.

No tools to retrieve bodies

Since the war began following Hamas’ Oct 7, 2023 attack on Israel, tens of thousands of displaced Gazans have sought refuge in schools.

Aid agencies estimate that the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.4 million residents have been displaced at least once.

“We lack the necessary tools and equipment to carry out effective rescue operations or recover the bodies of martyrs,” Mr Bassal said.

On April 22, Israel’s military said it had targeted approximately 40 “engineering vehicles”, alleging they were used for “terror purposes”.

Elsewhere in Gaza, further fatalities were reported on April 23, including four in Israeli shelling of homes in eastern Gaza City, Mr Bassal said.

Since Israel’s campaign resumed, at least 1,928 people have been killed in Gaza, bringing the total death toll since the war erupted to at least 51,305, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

The attack by Hamas on Israel that ignited the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Germany, France, and Britain on April 23 called on Israel to stop blocking humanitarian aid into Gaza, warning of “an acute risk of starvation, epidemic disease and death”.

“We urge Israel to immediately restart a rapid and unimpeded flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza in order to meet the needs of all civilians,” their foreign ministers said in a joint statement. AFP