DAVID Baruch, the spokesman for IDF, said that the daily humanitarian pauses do not constitute a ceasefire.
“We are continuing with our activities in the north of Gaza primarily. We are discovering tunnels, the shafts that are going into the tunnel system, we are dealing with that. It’s a slow process and we are doing it surely. Not, absolutely not. Right now there is no ceasefire. We are opening up humanitarian windows,” according to David Baruch, Spokesman, Israel Defense Forces.
A Hamas spokesperson responded, saying that they are willing to accept a ceasefire only if Israel stops its attacks on Gaza, otherwise, the fighting will continue.
Meanwhile, an armed wing of the Palestinian group Islamic Jihad in Gaza announced that two hostages — an elderly woman and a young boy — will be released for humanitarian reasons once safety conditions are met.
However, the statement did not specify the nationalities of the two hostages.
Israel revised Hamas attack death toll from 1,400 to 1,200
The devastating Gaza conflict has claimed over 12,400 lives on both the Palestinian and Israeli sides
The Gaza Strip’s health department on Friday revealed a staggering death toll of 11,078 people since the outbreak of the current round of the Hamas-Israeli conflict starting on Oct 7.
In addition, the West Bank has reported 183 fatalities.
On the other hand, Israel has revised downwards the death toll from the attack by Hamas on Oct 7 to about 1,200 from a previous government estimate of 1,400.
According to a spokesman of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, the revision was made because there were a lot of unidentified bodies, and Israel believed some of the dead were Hamas fighters rather than Israelis.
