The Israeli Army has estimated that around 30 minors under the age of 16 are among the approximately 203 hostages held by Palestinian militias after their ground assault against southern Israel on October 7 and that “the majority” of Those captured are found alive although he recognizes that the militias have carried dead people on their backs to also negotiate for their corpses.

The military, who specify that among those kidnapped there are also between 10 and 20 people over 60 years of age, detail that the majority of them are alive, although they have also confirmed that the militias involved in the attack, both Hamas and of Islamic Jihad, have taken dead people with them.

The Army maintains between 100 and 200 people are missing, and has indicated that approximately 300 of the 1,400 deceased are still unidentified, as General Nitzan Alon reported to the 'Times of Israel' newspaper.

This assessment takes place on a day in which Hamas announced its intention to release, when it understands that the favorable conditions are being met, all the hostages from the nine foreign countries that have been held captive in the Gaza Strip since the incursion on December 7. October.

“Foreign prisoners are our guests and will be released when conditions permit.”. We urge all countries in the world to warn their compatriots not to participate in the enemy army,” said the spokesman for the Ezedin al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, Abu Obeida.

Abu Obeida has explained that the prisoner figures are not concrete because there are “practical and security difficulties” that prevent an exhaustive count, although there would be 200 under the control of Hamas and another 50 in the hands of other “factions of the resistance, in other places”.

The 203 empty chairs

The families of the hostages in Gaza have set up a huge table this Friday in Tel Aviv to celebrate the ritual dinner of the Jewish Shabbat in which, in addition to food and wine to honor the holiday, there are 203 empty chairs, one for each person kidnapped by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, author of the terrorist attacks on the 7th against Israel, and as an appeal to the government of this country not to ignore them.

The hostages' families have vowed to intensify their pressure campaign against the government after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza through Egypt without first securing the hostages' release.

For several nights, a vigil has been held in the central Dizengoff Square in Tel Aviv in which 1,400 candles are lit, one for each person killed in Israel due to Hamas attacks.

According to a survey published this Friday by the newspaper Maariv, 80% of Israelis believe that Netanyahu should publicly assume responsibility for the security failures that led to the terrorist attacks in southern Israel, something he has not yet done.

The bomb alerts that have been repeated for days in France led this Friday to the evacuation of the Palace of Versailles for the fifth consecutive time since Saturday, and to total or partial evacuations of fifteen airports throughout the country.

In its X account, the Palace of Versailles, one of the great tourist attractions in France with thousands of visitors every day, justified this new closure shortly after noon “for security reasons” and announced that it will reopen “since they have carry out the verifications”.

Since Saturday, the first day that its rooms were emptied due to a bomb alert, the same thing was repeated on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

On the other hand, a spokesperson for the General Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGAC) indicated that during this morning bomb warnings were also received at the airports of Nice, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Beauvais, Lille, Rennes, Tarbes, Nantes, Béziers, Pau, Brest, Lyon-Bron, Chambery and Carcassonne.

Not all of them were completely evacuated, said the spokesperson, who specified that no flights were canceled.. It is the third day in a row that a long list of airports were evacuated due to bomb alerts. On Wednesday, that affected 17, with evacuations in 15 and the suspension of 130 flights.

These threats continue to proliferate despite warning messages from the Government, which through the Minister of Justice, Éric Dupont-Moretti, promised to “punish” the “clowns” who are the authors.

The head of Transport, Clément Beaune, insisted that these false accusations are crimes that will be punished and that can lead to penalties of up to two years in prison and a fine of 30,000 euros.

These are dark days for the world since the conflict between Hamas and Israel intensified on October 7, with the surprise attack carried out by the Islamic Resistance Movement on the State of Israel and this, for its part, responded harshly in Loop.

Now, in addition, the conflict resonates from east to west and the world seems to be waiting for the next movements, while demonstrations in favor of the Palestinians and against the war do not stop happening.

In Iran, early Wednesday morning, a day after the bombing of the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza, the sacred shrine of Imam Reza dawned with a black flag with Arabic inscriptions raised on its dome. The images have gone around the world and many wonder what message there is behind that symbol.

A call to war and revenge

Panic has spread on social networks because, according to Islamic tradition, raising a black flag has connotations of war and revenge, which for many is a call to arms.

However, it could be a misunderstanding, since the flag that the Iranian State has hung is not the same as the jihadist flag, which has been used by Islamist and fundamentalist movements as a symbol of jihad and consists of the Black Banner with a text white Shahada (Islamic declaration of faith) stamped in calligraphic style letters.

A symbol of mourning

Despite the debate that has been generated on social networks and the growing fear that the flag hanging in the sanctuary of Iran is producing, some people defend that this is not a call to war, but rather a symbol of mourning in the Shia Islam.

What's more, they allege that it has been raised as a symbol of solidarity with the Palestinian people after the bombing of the hospital, which has killed more than 500 people.

At least 21 Palestinians have died and 79 have been injured after a series of bombings carried out early this Friday by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) against six residential buildings in the city of Khan Younis, located in the south of the Gaza Strip.

Among the fatalities, the vast majority of whom are women and children, there are eight members of the same family, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.

Previously, a group of United Nations special rapporteurs has lamented the “inaction of the international community” in the face of the war crimes committed by Israel, both in the Gaza Strip and in the West Bank, where operations by the Israeli Army have increased in the last weeks.

“A hundred operational objectives”

For their part, Israeli troops have confirmed that during the early hours of this Friday they have bombed “a hundred operational targets of terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip”, including “tunnels”, “munitions warehouses” and “operational headquarters”.

“During the attacks, a terrorist who was part of the naval force of the Hamas terrorist organization was eliminated by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Shin Bet,” he said in a message on his website. social

Likewise, he highlighted that “terrorist infrastructure” and “weapons” located “in a mosque in Jabalia” have also been destroyed, before arguing that the religious building was used “as an observation post and meeting point for terrorists associated with Hamas.” . According to information collected by the Palestinian Maan news agency, the mosque hit is that of Al Omari, in the north of the Strip, which would have been completely destroyed.

This attack follows another carried out on Thursday against the Greek Orthodox church of Saint Porphyry, the oldest in the Strip, which left at least eight people dead.. The building, which served as a shelter for hundreds of displaced people, has suffered serious material damage.

The Spanish wine sector has expressed its “total” rejection of the attacks that Spanish truck drivers suffered this Thursday in France by winegrowers and winemakers from that country, who were trying to prevent the passage of Spanish wine across the border.

This is “an attack on Spanish free trade and that also comes in a complicated situation for the entire primary sector as a whole,” said the president of the Spanish Wine Interprofessional (OIVE) Fernando Ezquerro, after the meeting. directive that this association held on Thursday in Toledo.

The event has had the participation of Agro-Food Cooperatives of Spain, the agricultural organizations Asaja, COAG and UPA, the Spanish Wine Federation (FEV) and the Spanish Wine Business Association (AEVE), which have also shown their “resounding condemnation to any act of violence against Spanish wine companies”, as reported by the OIVE.

The rejection of these attacks is “greater if possible”, the OIVE has emphasized, when they are carried out by other winegrowers, “who are absolutely aware” of the “difficult situation” of the market, in which “high production costs, rising prices of raw materials and the situation of uncertainty and instability”.

The OIVE and its organizations have thanked the “quick action” of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAPA) of Spain itself.

Likewise, they have requested that “work continue to prevent these situations from reproducing and the necessary measures be adopted to avoid new attacks that unjustifiably attack companies in particular and the Spanish wine sector in general.”

Around 500 French winegrowers from the departments of Aude and the Pyrénées-Orientales blocked the Le Perthus border crossing with Spain on Thursday morning to demand an end to imports of Spanish products.

The protesters, who burned tires at the motorway tollbooth in Le Boulou, proceeded to filter the vehicles entering from Spain and looted a truck with tomatoes, whose load they emptied on the asphalt.

A part of the protesters had begun their action in Narbonne, where the president of the Aude Winegrowers' Union, Frédéric Rouanet, announced that they were going to “stop Spanish imports”, which they accuse of causing the collapse of many farms in the south of France with prices much lower than theirs.

Their complaints are directed in particular against the bulk wine that arrives from Spain and which in most cases is bottled in France for marketing.

France is the main buyer of Spanish bulk wine and 32% of the total volume exported by Spain and 30% of the turnover from these shipments are directed there, according to data from the Spanish Observatory of the Wine Market (OEMV) on the twelve months between July 2022 and 2023.

In detail, French purchases of Spanish bulk wine fell by a slight 0.1% in volume year-on-year to July of this year, to 368.7 million liters, and increased by 6.2% in value, to 153.8 million euros, increasing its average price by 6%, to 42 cents per liter.

In the first seven months of this year, France has purchased almost 218 million liters of bulk wine worth more than 93.6 million euros.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has issued an alert through notifications from national health agencies regarding the existence of falsified batches of Ozempic, a diabetes medicine that is administered through an injectable solution.

As reported by the agency in a press release, health authorities have detected the distribution of pre-filled pens, the administration mechanism of this medication, with inactive serial numbers, which is why they alerted operators of possible counterfeiting.. These pens came from wholesalers in Austria and Germany, although, for the moment, their sale in legal pharmacies and no reports of patients affected by counterfeiting have been detected.

Counterfeiting is being investigated

As reported by the EMA, Ozempic pre-filled pens have batch numbers, 2D barcodes and unique serial numbers that can be traced throughout the EU, so when the inactive codes were scanned, alerts were triggered for the alleged fakes.

The event is being investigated by national and European health authorities in collaboration with the police, while establishments and distributors in the affected countries have been warned.. The EMA has also reported the differences between the counterfeit pens and the original ones, which can be observed in their appearance, as published in some images by the German medicines agency.

The authorities recommend, in any case, to consult the leaflet to make sure that it is not a counterfeit, not to use Ozempic pre-filled pens suspected of being fake and to return it in case it may be fake, although its sale has not been detected in pharmacies at the moment. Finally, the EMA recommends that patients buy medicines online only through legal establishments.

Gaza is still waiting for humanitarian aid. A day after the United States announced the approval of Israel and Egypt to open the Rafah crossing, the trucks continue to be parked waiting to cross the border. The conditions of the road after the Israeli bombings mean that Egypt has to fix the road before allowing the long-awaited aid to pass through.

The four bombings that hit the Palestinian side of the border during the Israeli offensive have made it impossible for trucks to cross this Thursday. An Egyptian security source assured the EFE agency that there are workers “paving and repairing the roads towards the Rafah crossing and within the crossing itself.”. The exact moment when it will open and trucks will begin to travel is still unknown, as well as the number of vehicles that will be able to do so.

Biden assured on Wednesday that 20 trucks would cross, although it was later specified that the amount of aid to be delivered had not yet been set and that it would depend on the speed of crossing and the availability of aid.. This Thursday the European Commission warned that placing conditions to allow the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza by reducing supplies or restricting permitted items violates International Humanitarian Law.

The British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, who met this Thursday in Jerusalem with his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, has also spoken about the entry of humanitarian aid.. During the meeting, which comes a day after Joe Biden's, the British president assured that he “absolutely supports Israel's right to defend itself in line with international law” and expressed his desire for the Israeli Army to “win” this conflict. .

Israel continues bombing

Meanwhile, in the rest of the Strip, Israeli airstrikes continue to hit the enclave and, according to the Jewish State, have killed several Hamas leaders.

This Thursday the Al Andalus tower, a 14-story building, was reduced to rubble, causing dozens of deaths, according to sources from Hamas, which governs Gaza.. The Islamist group has also stated that four hospitals have stopped functioning due to “continuous bombings.”. Israel also attacked the vicinity of several bakeries and a house in the center of the southern city of Khan Younis, leaving 13 dead and several wounded, according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa. The Gazan militias responded to the attacks by launching rockets towards Israel, forcing alarms to be activated in the regions near the Strip and in Tel Aviv; although no personal injuries have been reported as a result of these attacks.

For its part, the Israeli Army confirmed this Thursday that its bombings have hit Hamas military posts and facilities and have killed senior officials of the Islamist group and the Palestinian militias.. One of the dead soldiers is Rafat Harb Hussein Abu Bilal, head of the military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees organization, the third largest militia in Gaza.. According to the media office of the Gazan Government, another person killed in the Israeli attacks this Thursday was Jihad Muheisen, commander of the National Security Forces, a military security body in the enclave.. In addition, the first woman to occupy a position in the political office of Hamas, Jamila al Shanti, also died as a result of a bombing.

The Israeli air offensive has already left 3,800 dead, according to information provided by Hamas. The Ministry of Health of the enclave has assured that among the dead there are 1,524 children and 12,500 people have been injured (4,000 of them minors).. This new episode of the conflict began on October 7 when Hamas launched an attack against Israeli territory that caused at least 1,400 deaths, many of them civilians, and kidnapped nearly 200 people who remain in the hands of the Islamist group.

Is the conflict moving to the West Bank?

Miles from Gaza, the conflict in the West Bank is also worsening. An Israeli Army operation in the Nur Shams refugee camp has left 12 dead, according to the Wafa agency. The offensive lasted for hours and included a drone attack. In addition, more than 130 Palestinians have been detained in recent hours in various parts of the occupied West Bank.

The Israeli Army has assured that the objective is to neutralize “terrorist squads” and has stated that at least 63 of those detained were part of Hamas and were being sought and captured.. In recent years, the West Bank has experienced a resurgence of armed groups that openly propose direct confrontation with Israel as the only way to advance in a conflict that has been entrenched for decades.. Since the new episode of the war in Gaza began, raids and clashes in the West Bank have intensified and there is a risk that the conflict could also be transferred to this area.

The United States Government has issued a global travel alert this Thursday to ask American citizens to exercise extreme caution in the face of the risk of terrorist attacks after in recent days it has limited its warnings to the Middle East due to the open conflict. between Israel and Hamas.

The State Department has warned of increasing “tensions” in several locations and the risk of some type of violent action against US citizens or interests.

For this reason, it calls for special vigilance in places “frequented by tourists” and to remain aware of any alerts that may be issued.

Support for Israel

This same Thursday, the North American authorities had also recommended leaving Lebanon, a country bordering Israel, “as long as possible”, days after advising against travel.

The United States has underscored its support for the Israeli response to Hamas attacks, as President Joe Biden made clear Wednesday during an official visit where he met with Israel's top leaders.

The European Union is trying to react to the war between Israel and Hamas and the Member States have agreed to activate, under the Spanish presidency of the Council, the Integrated Political Crisis Response (IPCR) mechanism, which will allow periodically monitor how the conflict may end up influencing the community group, in aspects such as security, migration or the fight against terrorism. And among the 27 there is significant concern about a possible increase “in radicalization and polarization.”

This route serves to bring together a group of experts to carry out the surveillance commissioned, and who will hold their first meeting this Friday, as community sources have confirmed to 20 minutes. Beyond this, there have been no conclusions from the Council of Interior Ministers held this Thursday in Brussels.. Likewise, more than ten countries have already included controls at their borders as a prevention measure.

When a crisis or disaster occurs, whether natural or man-made, the EU can use various sectoral crisis response mechanisms to provide help and resolve the situation.. Integrated Political Crisis Response (IPCR) mechanisms support rapid and coordinated decision-making at EU political level in the event of serious and complex crises, including acts of terrorism. Through this mechanism, the Presidency of the Council – which in this case is in the hands of Spain until next December – coordinates the political response to the crisis by bringing together the EU institutions, the affected Member States (which in this case are all) and other key actors, such as the bloc's partners in the Middle East.

“We are concerned about radicalization, polarization, in a context of violence in the Middle East,” said the acting Spanish Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande Marlaska, upon his arrival at the summit of ministers of the sector in the community capital.. Marlaksa, in fact, has regretted that this “polarization” could lead to an increase in hate crimes in Europe, and calls for working intensively to prevent it.

Right now the numbers of fatalities exceed 3,000 in Gaza and 1,400 in Israel, and the Minister of the Interior asks to “condemn all attacks and show solidarity with all of them”. Furthermore, the analysis that the Member States want to make refers not only to a possible increase in jihadist attacks, such as the one that occurred this past Monday in Brussels with two deaths, but also to a reaction by radical far-right forces.

The EU already tried this Wednesday to close ranks from the plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg. There, the acting Spanish Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, reiterated that Israel has every right to defend itself from Hamas terrorist attacks.. But it has to do so in accordance with International and Humanitarian Law with the objective of protecting the civilian population.. “Europe must fight terrorism and support the civilian population: barbarism cannot triumph,” he said.. The European Parliament in fact approved this Thursday a resolution in which it calls for a pause in the conflict so that the evacuation of civilians can be carried out.

For his part, the High Representative, Josep Borrell, emphasized that the Union must base the response on four pillars: “Firmness, humanity, political coherence and a proactive attitude to resolve the conflict.”. Furthermore, he wanted to make it clear that it is “compatible” to condemn “terrorist attacks” and at the same time “condemn attacks against the civilian population.”

Cutting off water to a population is not compatible with the law of war

Borrell repeated where the limits of war are, because this, he said, “has some rules” and it is necessary to take them into account.. “They are coined in International Law and we have said it referring to other conflicts. Cutting off water to a population is not compatible with the law of war,” he explained.. In this sense, he recalled the importance of the Oslo Accords and, defending the traditional position of the EU, stood on the side of the two-state solution.. “If we do not stop the cycle of violence, it will repeat itself in a few years,” he warned.

However, the head of European diplomacy considers that it is key to explore the necessary avenues for peace.. “It will not come alone, it must be built and the international community has not done everything it should have done to put the Oslo agreements into practice,” he said, while again asking “not to hold all Gazans responsible for the atrocities it commits.” and Hamas has committed.”

“How does lamenting a tragedy take away my moral strength to lament another?” Borrell asked himself in his turn to respond, before finishing his speech.. “I have the moral strength to condemn something if I condemn another similar thing when it has been done somewhere else, by other people perhaps closer to me.”. And if we do not understand this we cannot be useful in trying to resolve the conflict,” he concluded.. Regarding this, he also assured that the EU “would lack moral authority” if it only denounced massacres of civilians in Ukraine, following the Russian invasion of the country.

Also the Member States, which have the external competence of the EU, have finished closing ranks with a joint statement in which they “firmly” condemn the terrorist attacks by Hamas and call for the release of the hostages, urging Israel to defend itself in accordance with international standards, seek to ensure the arrival of humanitarian aid and commit to working “for a lasting peace” with the Union's partners in the Middle East.

In this scenario, the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, recalled the need for Gaza to have basic needs covered while calling, again, for the release of the Hamas kidnapped people – among whom is the Spaniard Iván Illarramendi – “no conditions” of any kind. The Member States, at the same time, discussed ways for European citizens to leave the affected areas.. “Civilians have to be protected,” he concluded.

Theories about what impacted the Gazan Al Ahli hospital, where almost 500 people lost their lives on Tuesday night, persist more than 24 hours later. This Thursday, former CNI agent, Jorge Gómez, considered that “the most reasonable thing” is that the hospital was hit by a piece of rocket launched from Palestinian territory and heading towards the south of Israel.

Interviewed on the program La Mirada Crítica on Tele 5, presented by Ana Terradillos, he stated that “something less powerful than a missile” fell in the parking lot of the medical center.

“Probably not even a rocket, but part of it that contained part of the fuel and this would have caused the explosion.”

The expert understands that there are “reasonable doubts in view of the images” and believes that “Hamas could resolve them by providing a fragment of the alleged missile, but this is not done.”

Gómez explained that “the impact has not been on the structure of the hospital but “it has been in the outdoor parking area, where many citizens would be sheltering from the bombings.”

According to his story, the impact of a missile, because it has more destructive power than that of a rocket, would have produced in the area “a crater of very large dimensions, which cannot be observed.” In the event of a missile impact, “the vehicles in that area would fly or disintegrate and others would be left in a mess,” he explained.

The former CNI agent observes that it is damage caused by fire: “They (the vehicles) are burned, and not scattered by the impact.”

It is also striking that the hospital structure only suffered minor damage from broken glass, “and we even see air conditioning systems in perfect condition,” Gómez points out.

Given all this, he added that “the most reasonable thing is that something less powerful than a missile fell in the parking lot.”. “Probably not even a rocket, but the part of it that contained some of the fuel.”

A failed rocket heading towards Israel

According to his theory, what hit the hospital “is a rocket that would go to the south of Israel if it is a rocket launched by Hamas, which may have had a breakdown, a failure in flight.”

For Gómez “that is the most logical explanation”, although he has been quick to assure that “we are not certain that this would have happened like that”, to insist that “with a sample of a missile fragment we would have complete certainty.”

Ultimately, for the former CNI agent “the important thing is not who launched the projectile, the important thing is the deaths,” he said before regretting that it was used “for the war of disinformation” that he immediately blamed on Israel and provoked ” a world revolt.”