ハマス、停戦交渉を離脱と警告 民間人「虐殺」受け

【パレスチナ自治区ＡＦＰ＝時事】イスラム組織ハマスの当局者は１４日、パレスチナ自治区ガザでの戦闘をめぐるイスラエルとの停戦交渉を離脱すると警告した。ハマスの軍事部門トップを標的にした空爆で多数が死亡したり、学校が繰り返し攻撃されたりしていることなどを理由に挙げた。（写真は、パレスチナ自治区ガザ南部のマワシ避難民キャンプで、イスラエル軍の空爆を受けたテントの残骸を見る住民）
　イスラエル軍は１３日、ハマスの軍事部門トップ、モハメド・デイフ氏を標的に南部マワシ地区を空爆。ハマスの保健当局によると、少なくとも９２人が死亡した。
　デイフ氏は無事で、職務を続けているとされる。
　イスラエル軍は翌１４日には中部ヌイセラト難民キャンプにある国連（ＵＮ）運営の学校を攻撃。イスラエルは、戦闘員らが「隠れ家」として学校を利用していたと主張した。
　ガザの民間防衛当局によれば、この攻撃で１５人が死亡。避難民が身を寄せる学校が攻撃されるのは、１週間余りで５度目となった。
　ハマス当局者は、カタールを拠点とする最高指導者イスマイル・ハニヤ氏の話として、「イスラエルの真剣さの欠如、継続的な引き延ばしと妨害の方針、非武装の民間人に対する継続的な虐殺」が交渉離脱を決めた理由だと述べた。
　一方でハニヤ氏は仲介国に、イスラエル政府が「停戦合意と捕虜交換合意の締結に向け本気になる」なら、「交渉再開の用意はある」と話したという。
　停戦に向けた協議はカタールとエジプトが仲介役を務め、米国の支援も受けながら数か月にわたり続けられている。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2024/07/16-17:16）

A Hamas official said Sunday that the Palestinian group was withdrawing from Gaza truce talks, as Israeli bombardments hit a school a day after a deadly strike targeting the militant commander Mohammed Deif.
Speaking after the strike on southern Gaza's Al-Mawasi, which the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said killed at least 92 people, a senior official from Iran-backed Hamas cited Israeli massacres as a reason for suspending negotiations.
A second Hamas official said Deif, commander of the Islamist group's military wing, was well and directly overseeing operations despite the Israeli bombing raid that the military said was an attempt to kill him.
On Sunday, Israeli forces struck a UN-run school in the central Nuseirat refugee camp that the military said served as a hideout for militants.
The civil defence agency in Gaza said 15 people were killed in the strike, the fifth attack in just over a week to hit a school used as shelter by displaced Palestinians.
The first Hamas official, quoting the group's Qatar-based political chief Ismail Haniyeh, said Israel's lack of seriousness, continued policy of procrastination and obstruction, and the ongoing massacres against unarmed civilians were behind the decision to halt negotiations.
But according to the official, Haniyeh told international mediators Hamas was ready to resume negotiations when Israel's government demonstrates seriousness in reaching a ceasefire agreement and a prisoner exchange deal.
Talks mediated by Qatar and Egypt, with United States support, have for months tried but failed to bring a halt to the war.
Israeli demonstrators, sometimes in the tens of thousands, have stepped up their actions demanding the government reach a deal to free the captives taken by Hamas militants on October 7.
The military's chief of staff Herzi Halevi said in a video message that continuous... military pressure could help create the conditions for an agreement to return the hostages.
- Schools turned shelters -
Hamas's October 7 attack that sparked the war, now in its 10th month, resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
The militants seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom are still in Gaza including 42 the military says are dead.
Israel responded with a military offensive that has killed at least 38,584 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to data provided by the Gaza health ministry.
In Nuseirat, an AFP photographer saw part of the bombarded school complex damaged. Crowds of Palestinians, some visibly shaken and in tears, gathered in the courtyard.
At the nearby Al-Awda hospital, the wounds of several children were bandaged.
With most of Gaza's 2.4 million people displaced at least once during the war, many have sought refuge in school buildings.
Four previous strikes on schools turned shelters since July 6 killed a total of at least 49 people, according to officials, medics and rescuers.
Israel says Hamas uses schools, hospitals and other public infrastructure for military purposes. Hamas denies the accusation.
Separately on Sunday, rescuers said at least 10 people were killed in strikes on different parts of Gaza City, where the Israeli military said its operations were ongoing in the territory's north.
An AFP journalist at the site of a strike in the city's Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood saw buildings reduced to rubble. The civil defence agency said rescuers had extracted the bodies of two martyrs.
At the site of Saturday's strike in Al-Mawasi, on the Mediterranean coast, an AFP photographer saw the charred remains of tents as Palestinians searched through the wreckage for salvageable items.
- 'Right to live' -
Al-Mawasi, near the cities of Khan Yunis and Rafah, had in May been declared a safe humanitarian zone by the Israeli military, which told civilians to evacuate to it. However, there have been multiple deadly incidents there blamed on Israeli strikes.
Israel's military on Sunday said one of Deif's associates, Rafa Salama, had been killed by the strike a day earlier in the area of Khan Yunis.
Israel accused both Salama, commander of Hamas's Khan Yunis brigade, and Deif of helping to mastermind the October 7 attack.
Halevi, Israel's army chief, said that Deif was at the site targeted along with other terrorists and accomplices, but that it was too early to conclude the results of the strike.
Very few civilians were harmed, he added.
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said on social media that the Al-Mawasi attack and the mass casualties are a stark reminder that no one is safe in Gaza, wherever they are.
The people of Gaza are children, women and men who... have the right to live and hope for a better future.
The deaths drew condemnation from governments across the region.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Israel did not intend to end the war and committed new massacres each time there is a positive atmosphere towards a truce.