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Tag: Hamas

  • New mass exodus hits central Gaza as Hamas says Israel stalls on ceasefire

    Thousands of Palestinians fled a community in the central Gaza Strip on Monday in the face of new Israeli evacuation orders, worsening the humanitarian plight in an area already inundated with displaced people fleeing an assault in the south.
    Islamist group Hamas accused Israel of blocking a ceasefire, saying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government had inserted new conditions into a longstanding truce proposal at the lastest talks, conducted through international mediators.
    Israeli forces, which have now captured nearly the entire Gaza Strip in nearly 10 months of war, have spent the last several weeks launching major operations in areas where they had previously claimed to have uprooted Hamas fighters.
    Hundreds of thousands of people have converged on Deir al-Balah, a small city in the centre of the enclave that is the only major area yet to be stormed, many forced there by fighting in the ruins of Khan Younis further south since last week.
    In its latest assault, Israel ordered residents on Sunday to flee Al-Bureij, just northeast of Deir.
    “What is left? Deir? Deir is full of people. Everyone is in Deir. All of Gaza. Where should people go?” Aya Mansour told Reuters in Deir after fleeing from Bureij.
    The Israeli military said fighter jets hit 35 targets across the Gaza Strip over the past day as troops battled fighters in Khan Younis and Rafah, close to the border with Egypt. The armed wings of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad said fierce gun battles have been ongoing in those two areas as well as in the suburb of Tel Al-Hawa in Gaza City further north.
    Palestinian medical officials said at least eight people were killed in an Israeli air strike earlier in Khan Younis.
    In the latest sign of a worsening public health emergency, the Gaza Health Ministry declared a polio epidemic, following the detection of the virus in sewage samples.
    On Sunday, the military issued new evacuation orders to some districts in Bureij, forcing thousands to leave before the army blew up several houses.
    Some families used donkey carts and rickshaws to carry whatever belongings remained. Many walked for several km on foot to reach Deir or al-Zawayda town to the west.
    Philippe Lazzarini, head of UNRWA, the United Nations relief agency for Palestinians, said only 14% of the Gaza Strip had not been placed under evacuation orders by the Israeli military. People have been forced to evacuate repeatedly, often with only a few hours notice.
    CEASEFIRE TALKS
    Although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has faced weekly demonstrations from Israelis demanding a ceasefire to bring back more than 100 hostages still held in Gaza, there has been little visible progress in talks brokered by Qatar and Egypt.
    Negotiations are set to continue after Israeli officials returned from the latest round in Rome on Sunday. Washington, which sponsors the talks, has repeatedly said a deal is close; the latest talks are over a proposal President Joe Biden unveiled back in May.
    But Hamas said the latest Israeli response included new conditions.
    “It is clear from what the mediators conveyed that Netanyahu has returned to his strategy of procrastination, evasion, and avoiding reaching an agreement by setting new conditions and demands,” Hamas said in a statement on Monday.
    Aya Mohammad, 30, a Gaza City resident sheltering in Deir, said Gazans were losing hope in a truce: “It is all lies. I think I will die here. No one knows who is going to die first here.”
    The Gaza Health Ministry said the detection of polio, long since eradicated in the enclave, “poses a health threat to the people of Gaza, to neighboring countries, and a setback to global efforts to end polio.”
    According to the World Health Organization, polio is endemic only in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but 35 countries are still listed as subject to outbreaks, including Gaza’s neighbour Egypt, and any country risks the return of the disease if an outbreak goes unchecked. Israel said last week it was offering polio vaccines to troops deployed in Gaza.
    The limited access to water has worsened health complications from poor sanitation. Many displaced people were suffering from skin diseases, and children are afflicted by fevers, continuous weeping, and declining to eat or be breastfed, said Hussam Abu Safiyah, the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza.
    The war began with an assault on southern Israel by Hamas-led fighters who killed 1,200 people and captured around 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
    Since then Israeli forces have killed more than 39,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to health authorities there who do not distinguish between combatants and civilians but say more than half of the dead are women or children. Israel, which has lost around 330 soldiers in Gaza, says a third of those it has killed are fighters.
    Hamas has demanded a path to an end to the war in Gaza as a condition for its agreement to a ceasefire. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said repeatedly the conflict will stop only once Hamas is defeated.
    By Agencies.

  • Israel pounds central Gaza, sends tanks into north of Rafah

    Israeli forces pounded areas in the central Gaza Strip on Wednesday, killing at least nine Palestinians, according to health officials, while Israeli tanks carried out a limited advance further into Rafah in the south.
    In one Israeli air strike around midnight on a house in Al-Zawyda in the central Gaza Strip, eight people were killed, the health officials said. Another strike killed a man in Nuseirat camp, one of the enclave’s eight refugee camps, where 23 people were killed in an Israeli air strike on a school a day ago.
    Israeli tanks also shelled the eastern areas of Al-Bureij and Al-Maghazi camps in the centre of enclave, residents said. An air strike destroyed a mosque, residents said.
    Meanwhile in Rafah, tanks carried out a raid in the north of the city before retreating, a tactic Israeli forces have used in other areas before mounting deeper incursions. Tanks have operated in most parts of the city since May, although have not gone deep into the northern districts.
    Medics said an Israeli strike killed two people in Rafah on Wednesday, while residents said the forces had blown up dozens of homes.
    The Israeli military said troops were “continuing precise, intelligence-based operational activity in the Rafah area”. It said it they had eliminated what it called a terrorist cell and a launcher that had been used to fire at troops.
    It said airstrikes had struck 25 targets throughout the Gaza Strip during the past day and that troops were continuing to operate in the central area, including to dismantle structures used to observe the soldiers.
    Nine months into the war, Palestinian fighters led by the Islamist Hamas group are still able to attack Israeli forces with anti-tank rockets, and mortar bombs and from time to time fire barrages of rockets into Israel.
    Israel vowed to eradicate Hamas after its militants killed 1,200 people and took over 250 hostage in an attack on southern Israeli communities on Oct. 7, according to Israeli tallies.
    On Tuesday, the military said it had eliminated half of the leadership of Hamas’ military wing, with about 14,000 fighters killed or captured since the start of the war.
    At least 38,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory offensive since then, Gaza health authorities say. Israel says 326 of its soldiers have been killed in Gaza.
    HAMAS DENIES WARCRIMES
    Diplomatic efforts by Arab mediators to halt the hostilities, backed by the United States, seem to be on hold, but officials from all sides have said they are open to more talks, including Israel and Hamas, who have traded blame over the current impasse.
    A deal would aim to end the war and release Israeli hostages in Gaza in return for many Palestinians jailed by Israel.
    On Wednesday, Israel released 13 Palestinians detained during the military offensive in Gaza, the Palestinian Red Crescent said in a statement. The freed inmates were transferred to a hospital in the central Gaza Strip for treatment.
    Many of the hundreds of Palestinians Israel has released in the past months have accused Israeli forces of ill-treatment and torture. The Palestinian Prisoner Association said nearly 20 Palestinians had died in Israeli detention after being detained from Gaza. Israel denies allegations of torture.
    Meanwhile, in a report published on Wednesday, Human Rights Watch said Hamas’ military wing, the Qassam Brigades, and at least four other Palestinian armed groups “committed numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity against civilians during the Oct. 7, 2023, assault on southern Israel”.
    According to its findings, these included “deliberate and indiscriminate attacks against civilians and civilian objects; wilful killing of persons in custody; cruel and other inhumane treatment; sexual and gender-based violence; hostage taking; mutilation and despoiling of bodies; use of human shields; and pillage and looting”.
    In response, Hamas rejected “the lies and blatant bias” towards Israel and demanded Human Rights Watch withdraw its report and apologise.
    “The Human Rights Watch report adopted the entire Israeli narrative and moved away from the method of scientific research and the neutral legal position, and became more like an Israeli propaganda document,” Hamas said in a statement.
    By Agencies.

  • Senior Hamas leader says proposed amendments to Gaza ceasefire ‘not significant’

    The changes that Hamas has requested to a ceasefire proposal by the United States are “not significant” and include the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip, a senior leader in the group told Reuters on Thursday.
    U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday that Hamas had proposed numerous changes, some unworkable, to the U.S.-backed proposal, but that mediators were determined to close the gaps.
    The U.S. has said Israel has accepted its proposal, but Israel has not publicly stated that. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said Israel will not commit to ending its campaign before Hamas is eliminated.
    The senior Hamas leader said his organisation had demanded to choose a list of 100 Palestinians with long sentences to be released from Israeli jails.
    The Israeli document had excluded 100 prisoners with long sentences and restricted releases to only prisoners with sentences of less than 15 years remaining, the Hamas official said.
    “There are no significant amendments that, according to Hamas leadership, warrant objection,” said the Hamas leader.
    The group’s demands also include the reconstruction of Gaza; the lifting of the blockade, including opening border crossings; allowing the movement of people; and transporting goods without restrictions,” the senior Hamas leader said.
    Negotiators from the U.S., Egypt and Qatar have tried for months to mediate a ceasefire in the conflict – which has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and devastated the heavily populated enclave – and free the hostages, more than 100 of whom are believed to remain captive in Gaza.
    Major powers are intensifying efforts to defuse the conflict in part to prevent it spiralling into a wider Middle East war, with a dangerous flashpoint being the escalating hostilities along the Lebanese-Israeli border.
    The fighting in Gaza began on Oct. 7 when militants led by Hamas burst across the border and killed 1,200 Israelis and took more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
    Israel’s air and ground war since then has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry, displaced most of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million and devastated housing and infrastructure.
    By Agencies.

  • Israel, Hamas Accused of War Crimes in New UN Report

    Israel and Hamas have been accused of committing a litany of war crimes and human rights abuses since 7 October in a new independent report to the UN Human Rights Council.

    The damning accusations, compiled by investigators from the UN’s Commission of Inquiry, accused both sides of war crimes for mounting attacks against civilian populations and “murder or wilful killings”.

    The report, which covers the period up to the end of 2023, specifically accused Israel of crimes against humanity for torture, “extermination” and “gender persecution targeting Palestinian men and boys”.

    Israel rejected the report’s findings and accused the commission of pursuing “a narrow-led political agenda” against it.

    Investigators compiled the report, which will be submitted to the UN’s human rights council next week, through hours of interviews with victims and witnesses, medical reports and open source information.

    The panel, led by former UN human rights chief Navi Pillay, said Israel’s use of heavy weapons in populated areas constituted a war crime as it was a direct attack on civilian populations which intended to cause “maximum damage, disregarding the principles of distinction, proportionality and adequate precautions”.

    Israel was also accused of several other war crimes, including starvation, arbitrary detention, and the killing and maiming of “tens of thousands of children”. The report also said Israel had weaponised a “total siege” which limited power, food and water to civilians, which it said amounted to “collective punishment”.

    Other crimes against humanity committed by Israel, the authors said, included the “extermination, murder, gender persecution targeting Palestinian men and boys, forcible transfer of the population, torture, and inhuman and cruel treatment”.

    Hamas was also accused of a host of abuses during its 7 October attacks, which saw 1,200 people killed and 251 more kidnapped. The report said there was evidence of widespread sexual violence committed against Israeli women and a pattern of mass killings in public shelters.

    “Many abductions were carried out with significant physical, mental and sexual violence and degrading and humiliating treatment, including in some cases parading the abductees,” the report said. “Women and women’s bodies were used as victory trophies by male perpetrators.”

    Israeli forces were also accused of sexual violence for public stripping of Palestinians, which the investigators said was intended “to humiliate the community at large and accentuate the subordination of an occupied people”.

    Israel – which refused to co-operate with the investigation – was quick to reject the report, accusing it of “systematic anti-Israeli discrimination”.

    Meirav Eilon Shahar, its ambassador to the UN in Geneva, accused the commission of seeking to draw a false equivalence between Hamas and the Israeli military in relation to sexual violence.

    Hamas has yet to comment on the allegations.

    The report itself does not carry any penalties, but it could be used in a potential future prosecution of Israeli and Hamas leaders.

    Michael Becker, a professor of international human rights law at Trinity College Dublin, told the BBC that the International Criminal Court (ICC) – which has issued warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders – would likely rely on the report to find new lines of inquiry it can pursue in its investigation, but that it was unlikely to serve as “direct evidence” in the case.

    He added that there was “no question” that South Africa would direct the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to the report as part of its separate case which accuses Israel of genocide in Gaza.

    He noted that the ICJ “often refers to these kind of reports in its decision,” but warned that South Africa would have to convince judges that the report is “methodologically sound”.

    Speaking after the publication of the report, Ms Pillay said it was “imperative” that anyone accused of committing crimes in the conflict “be held accountable”.

    “The only way to stop the recurring cycles of violence, including aggression and retribution by both sides, is to ensure strict adherence to international law,” she added.

    Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri and Ismail Haniyeh are already subject to an arrest warrant issued by the ICC for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

    Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant are also subject to similar warrants. Wednesday’s report specifically attacked the rhetoric used by some unnamed Israeli officials, which it said could amount to “incitement” and may constitute “other serious international crimes”.

    More than 37,120 people have been killed in Gaza since the conflict began, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

    Meanwhile, the UN is set to add Israel’s military, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s armed wing to its list of offenders for violating children’s rights for the first time.

    The annual report – seen by the BBC and due to be released on Thursday – is meant to shame parties so that they commit to measures outlined by the UN to protect children.

    By BBC News

     

  • US sanctions Palestinian group under decree used to target Israeli settlers

    The United States has imposed sanctions on a Palestinian group in the occupied West Bank based on a White House executive order previously used to penalise violent Israeli settlers.

    The US on Thursday targeted the Lions’ Den, an armed group that emerged out of Nablus in 2022 and has claimed several attacks against Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank.

    “The United States condemns any and all acts of violence committed in the West Bank, whoever the perpetrators, and we will use the tools at our disposal to expose and hold accountable those who threaten peace and stability there,” the US Department of State said in a statement.

    It cited several attacks attributed to Lions’ Den fighters dating back to October 2022.

    The sanctions block the group’s assets in the US and largely prohibit American citizens from engaging in transitions with them.

    The penalties were issued under Executive Order (EO) 14115, which set up a legal framework for US sanctions against individuals and entities “undermining peace, security and stability” in the West Bank.

    When President Joe Biden issued the decree in February, it was largely seen as an effort to crack down on settler violence against Palestinians that had intensified since the outbreak of the war on Gaza.

    But only a few private Israeli citizens have been sanctioned under the directive, as the Biden administration has resisted calls to penalise Israeli officials responsible for abuses against Palestinians in the West Bank.

    Earlier this week, Democratic US Senator Chris Van Hollen called on the Biden administration to sanction far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich under the same executive order.

    “In my view, Smotrich should be subject to sanctions under this EO,” Van Hollen said.

    The finance minister has withheld taxes owed to the Palestinian Authority and in March, he also declared 800 hectares (1,977 acres) in the occupied West Bank to be Israeli state land.

    “You’ve got this person whose stated goal is for essentially Israel to take over the entire West Bank,” Van Hollen told the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.

    But Washington has been reluctant to take meaningful steps against Israel as Biden administration officials often pledge unwavering support to the US ally.

    Reporting from Washington, DC, Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna said the Lions’ Den is a relatively small group, but it has grown in prominence in the West Bank amid the war on Gaza.

    Hanna said the sanctions against the Palestinian group may be a “balancing act” against the penalties targeting settlers.

    “It’s a way perhaps for the US to show even-handedness in terms of its dealings with all the groups in the region,” he said.

    By Aljazeera.

  • Diminished Hamas switches to full insurgent mode in Gaza

     Hamas has seen about half its forces wiped out in eight months of war and is relying on hit-and-run insurgent tactics to frustrate Israel’s attempts to take control of Gaza, U.S. and Israeli officials told Reuters.
    The enclave’s ruling group has been reduced to between 9,000 and 12,000 fighters, according to three senior U.S. officials familiar with battlefield developments, down from American estimates, of 20,000-25,000 before the conflict. By contrast, Israel says it has lost almost 300 troops in the Gaza campaign.
    Hamas fighters are now largely avoiding sustained skirmishes with Israeli forces closing in on the southernmost city of Rafah, instead relying on ambushes and improvised bombs to hit targets often behind enemy lines, one of the officials said.
    Several Gaza residents, including Wissam Ibrahim, said they too had observed a shift in tactics.
    “In earlier months, Hamas fighters would intercept, engage and fire at Israeli troops as soon as they pushed into their territory,” Ibrahim told Reuters by phone. “But now, there is a notable shift in their mode of operations, they wait for them to deploy and then they start their ambushes and attacks.”
    The U.S. officials, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said such tactics could sustain a Hamas insurgency for months to come, aided by weapons smuggled into Gaza via tunnels and others repurposed from unexploded ordnance or captured from Israeli forces.
    This kind of protracted timeframe is echoed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s national security adviser who said last week the war could last until the end of 2024 at least.
    A Hamas spokesperson didn’t respond to requests for comment on its battlefield strategy.
    In a parallel propaganda drive, some of the group’s fighters are videotaping their ambushes of Israeli troops, before editing and posting them on Telegram and other social media apps.
    Peter Lerner, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), told Reuters they were still some way from destroying Hamas, which he also said had lost roughly half of its fighting force.
    Lerner said the military was adapting to the group’s shift in tactics and acknowledged Israel couldn’t eliminate every Hamas fighter or destroy every Hamas tunnel.
    “There is never a goal to kill each and every last terrorist on the ground. That’s not a realistic goal,” he added. “Destroying Hamas as a governing authority is an achievable and attainable military objective,” he added.
    HAMAS LEADERS SINWAR AND DEIF
    Netanyahu and his government are under pressure from Washington to agree to a ceasefire plan to end the war, which began on Oct. 7 when Hamas fighters stormed into southern Israel, killing more than 1,200 people and seizing over 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
    Israel’s subsequent ground-and-air campaign in Gaza has left the territory in ruins and killed more than 36,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities. The United Nations says over a million people face “catastrophic” levels of hunger.
    There are about between 7,000-8,000 Hamas fighters reportedly entrenched in Rafah, the last significant bastion of the group’s resistance, according to Israeli and U.S. officials. Top leaders Yahya Sinwar, his brother Mohammed, and Sinwar’s second-in-command Mohammed Deif are still alive and believed to be hiding in tunnels with Israeli hostages, they said.
    The Palestinian group has shown the ability to withdraw rapidly after attacks, take cover, regroup, and pop up again in areas that Israel had believed to be cleared of militants, a U.S. administration official said.
    Lerner, the IDF spokesperson, agreed Israel faced a protracted battle to overcome Hamas, which has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2006.
    “There is no quick fix after 17 years of them building their capabilities,” he added.
    Hamas has constructed a 500 km (310 miles) subterranean city of tunnels over the years. The labyrinth, dubbed the Gaza metro by the Israeli military, is roughly half the length of the New York subway system. Equipped with water, power and ventilation, it shelters Hamas leaders, command and control centers, and weapons and ammunition stores.
    The Israeli military said last week that it had taken control of the entire Gaza-Egypt land border to prevent weapons smuggling. About 20 tunnels used by Hamas to carry arms into Gaza were found within the zone, it added.
    Egypt’s State Information Service didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Israel’s claims of arms-smuggling from the country. Egyptian officials have previously denied any such clandestine trade is taking place, saying they destroyed the tunnel networks leading to Gaza years ago.
    ECHOES OF FALLUJA INSURGENCY?
    The Gaza incursion is Israel’s longest and fiercest conflict since it invaded Lebanon to oust the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1982.
    Netanyahu has defied domestic and international calls to outline a post-war plan for the territory. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has warned that the absence of such a roadmap could trigger lawlessness in the enclave.
    One Arab official told Reuters that criminal gangs had already emerged in Gaza amid the power vacuum, seizing food deliveries and conducting armed robberies.
    The official and two other Arab government sources, who all requested anonymity to speak freely, said the IDF could face similar threats to those encountered by America in the city of Falluja in 2004-2006 following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
    A broad insurgency in Falluja swelled the ranks first of al Qaeda and then Islamic State, miring Iraq in conflict and chaos from which it has yet to fully emerge two decades later.
    Washington and its Arab allies have said they are working on a post-conflict plan for Gaza which involves a time-bound, irreversible path to Palestinian statehood.
    When the plan, part of a “grand bargain” envisioned by the United States that aims to secure a normalizing of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, is complete, Washington aims to put it to Israel, the U.S. officials said.
    A United Arab Emirates official with direct knowledge of the discussions said a Palestinian invitation was needed for countries to assist Gaza in an emergency operation, as well as an end to hostilities, full Israeli disengagement, and clarity on Gaza’s legal status, including control of borders.
    The emergency process could last a year and be potentially renewable for another year, according to the UAE official who said the aim to be to stabilize the enclave rather than rebuild it.
    For reconstruction to begin, a more detailed roadmap towards a two-state solution was needed, he added, as well as serious and credible reform of the Palestinian Authority.
    How the United States aims to overcome Netanyahu’s repeated rejection of a two-state solution, which Riyadh says is a condition to normalizing ties, is unclear.
    David Schenker, a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, dismissed any suggestion of a clean IDF pullout from the Palestinian territory.
    “Israel says it’s going to maintain security control which means that it’s going to constantly fly drones over Gaza and they’re not going to be limited if they see Hamas re-emerging, they’re going to go back,” said Schenker, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute U.S.-based think-tank.
    Gadi Eisenkot, a former Israeli military chief serving in Netanyahu’s war cabinet, has proposed an Egyptian-led international coalition as an alternative to Hamas rule in Gaza.
    In a closed-door briefing last week to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, he emphasized the complex nature of anti-militancy warfare.
    “This is a religious, nationalistic, social, and military struggle with no knock-out blow but rather protracted warfare that will last many years,” he said.

    By Agencies.

  • Israel steps up military offensive in Gaza amid renewed truce efforts

     Israel announced a new military campaign against Hamas in central Gaza on Wednesday where Palestinian medics said dozens of people had been killed in airstrikes, complicating expected talks between mediators to try to finalise a ceasefire deal.
    At least 44 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli military strikes in central Gaza Strip areas since Tuesday, health officials in the enclave said.
    “The sounds of bombardment didn’t stop all night,” said Aya, 30, a displaced woman in Deir Al-Balah.
    The Israeli military said jets were hitting Hamas militant targets in central Gaza while ground forces were operating “in a focused manner with guidance from intelligence” in the area of Al-Bureij – one of Gaza’s long established refugee settlements.
    “The forces of the 98th Division began a precise campaign in the areas of East Bureij and East Deir al-Balah, above and below ground at the same time,” an Israeli military statement said.
    Residents said Israeli forces had sent tanks into Bureij and planes and tanks pounded the nearby settlements of Al-Maghazi and Al-Nuseirat as well as Deir Al-Balah city, where tanks have not invaded.
    “Every time they speak about new truce talks, the occupation uses one town or refugee camp as a pressuring card. Why should civilians, people safe inside their homes or tents, pay the price? Why can’t Arabs and the world stop the war?” Aya told Reuters via a chat app.
    CEASEFIRE TALKS IN DOHA AND CAIRO
    Aya, like many in the Gaza Strip, said people were hopeful about reports in Egyptian state media that officials from the United States, Qatar, and Egypt would meet in Doha on Wednesday to try to advance a ceasefire deal that would also free some Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
    “We are waiting for a response from Hamas” through the Qatari mediators, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Tuesday, referring to a ceasefire proposal that U.S. President Joe Biden revealed on Friday.
    Qatar said on Tuesday that the proposal was now much closer to the positions of both sides.
    Hamas has said it views the contents of the plan positively and has criticised Washington for what it described as attempts to blame the Palestinian militant group for hampering it.
    But a spokesman for Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, reiterated on Tuesday it could not agree to any deal unless Israel makes a “clear” commitment to a permanent truce and complete withdrawal from Gaza. Israel says it cannot do that until Hamas is wiped out.
    U.S. officials say that since it is an Israeli plan, Israel is likely to accept it. Qatar has said Israel needs to give a clear position on the plan that represents the whole government, parts of which have opposed any kind of truce.
    Also on Wednesday, a delegation of the Hamas-allied Islamic Jihad group arrived in Cairo for ceasefire talks, the group said in a statement. It said the delegation led by Islamic Jihad chief Ziad al-Nakhala would discuss with Egyptian mediators ways to “end the Zionist aggression on Gaza Strip and efforts to send aid.”
    The new Israeli military campaign in central Gaza forced some families to leave their homes in Al-Maghazi and Al-Burej and head towards Deir Al-Balah, which is already sheltering hundreds of thousands of Gazans displaced by violence elsewhere.
    The Israeli military also gave an update on Rafah, into which Israeli forces swept last month in what the military calls a limited operation to root out Hamas’ last intact combat units after almost eight months of war in the Gaza Strip.
    “The forces found combat means and eliminated armed saboteurs who operated nearby and posed a threat,” the military said.
    The small city fringing Gaza’s southern border with Egypt had been sheltering about one million Palestinians who fled Israeli assaults in other parts of the enclave, but most have fled again in the face of Israel’s tank-led advance.
    Residents in Rafah said Israeli tanks mounted raids into the centre and deeper into the west before retreating east and south again.
    The United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) issued a new plea for a ceasefire on Wednesday on X.
    “The war in #Gaza has upended millions of Palestinian lives & caused catastrophic damage to the natural environment that they depend upon for water, clean air, food & livelihoods. Restoring environmental services will take decades – & cannot even start until a #ceasefire,” it said.
    Israel vowed to destroy Hamas as it launched an air and ground offensive in Gaza last October after militants stormed across the border into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people and taking more than 250 people hostage, according to Israeli tallies. About 120 hostages remain in Gaza.
    The Israeli military campaign has killed more than 36,000 people in densely populated Gaza, according to its health authorities, who say thousands more bodies are buried under rubble.

    By Agencies.

  • Israel Says it Controls Corridor on Gaza-Egypt Border

    Israel’s military said it has taken control over a strategic zone along the border between Gaza and Egypt, known as the Philadelphi Corridor.

    A spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that about 20 tunnels used by Hamas to smuggle weapons into Gaza had been found there.

    Egyptian TV quoted sources denying this, and said Israel was trying to justify its military operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

    The announcement comes during a period of heightened tensions with Egypt.

    “In recent days, IDF troops established operational control on the Philadelphi Corridor, on the border between Egypt and Rafah,” IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said on Wednesday.

    He described the corridor as a “lifeline” for Hamas, through which the group “regularly smuggled weapons into the Gaza Strip”.

    He said troops were “investigating.. and neutralizing” tunnels found in the area.

    Mr Hagari later said in a briefing with reporters that he could not be sure that all of the tunnels crossed into Egypt, the New York Times reported.

    The Philadelphi Corridor is a buffer zone, only about 100m (330ft) wide in parts, which runs along the Gaza side of the 13km (8-mile) border with Egypt.

    Egypt has previously said it had destroyed cross-border tunnels, making any weapons smuggling impossible.

    And a “high-level” Egyptian source, quoted by Al-Qahera News, accused Israel of “using these allegations to justify continuing the operation on the Palestinian city of Rafah and prolonging the war for political purposes”.

    Israel has insisted that it must take Rafah to achieve victory in the war triggered by Hamas’s unprecedented attack on the country on 7 October, during which about 1,200 people were killed and 252 others were taken hostage.

    At least 36,170 people have been killed across Gaza since the start of the conflict, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

    Tensions between Egypt and Israel have heightened since Israeli forces took control of the Gazan side of the Rafah crossing point three weeks ago as part of their offensive against Hamas.

    Earlier this week, an Egyptian soldier was killed in an incident involving Egyptian and Israeli troops in the border area near Rafah.

    Egypt is a strong supporter of the Palestinians and has condemned Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and the killing of thousands of civilians by Israel in the war.

    Like Israel, Egypt has maintained a blockade on its border with Gaza since Hamas came to power in 2006. Hamas is an off-shoot of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood organisation, which is banned as a terrorist group in Egypt.

    Egypt has, however, kept channels open with Hamas and has been acting as a mediator in on-off indirect talks between Israel and the group to try to reach a ceasefire deal and release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.

    By BBC News

  • Three More Israeli Hostages’ Bodies Found in Gaza

    The bodies of three more Israeli hostages have been recovered from Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have said.

    They are those of Hanan Yablonka, Michel Nisenbaum and Orion Hernandez, it said in a statement.

    The IDF said the men’s bodies were recovered from the northern town of Jabalia overnight in a joint operation with Israel’s domestic intelligence agency.

    It comes one week after three other hostages’ bodies were retrieved from Gaza.

    The dead hostages were among 252 people who were taken captive when Hamas gunmen attacked Israel on 7 October, killing about 1,200 people.

    There are about 130 still held in Gaza, Israel says.

    Hanan Yablonka, 42, and Orion Hernandez, 32, were killed after fleeing from the site of the Nova music festival which was ambushed by the gunmen. More than 360 mainly young people were killed at the festival.

    Michel Nisenbaum, 59, was last heard of on his way to get his four-year-old granddaughter who was with her father at an army base on the Gaza border.

    Orion Hernandez was the boyfriend of Shani Louk, whose body was among the three recovered last week.

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted on X: “We have a national and moral duty to do everything we can to return our hostages – the living and the deceased – and that is what we are doing.”

    Israel relaunched an offensive on Jabalia two weeks ago, months after pulling out, saying Hamas forces had regrouped there.

    The attack on 7 October triggered an Israeli military campaign throughout the Gaza Strip with the declared aim of destroying the group and freeing the hostages.

    At least 35,800 Palestinians have been killed in the war, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.

    By BBC News

  • Netanyahu denounces bid to arrest him over Gaza war

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has angrily condemned the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor for seeking arrest warrants for him alongside Hamas’s leaders over alleged war crimes in the Gaza conflict.

    Mr Netanyahu said he rejected with disgust that “democratic Israel” had been compared with what he called “mass murderers”.

    Mr Netanyahu’s comments have been echoed by US President Joe Biden, who said there was no equivalence between Israel and Hamas.

    The chief ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan, said there were reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Netanyahu and his Defence Minister Yoav Gallant bore criminal responsibility for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

    The ICC is also seeking a warrant for Hamas’s leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, for war crimes.

    Israel and the US, its key ally, are not members of the ICC, which was set up in 2002.

    The accusations against the Israeli and Hamas leaders stem from the events of 7 October, when waves of Hamas gunmen attacked Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 252 others back to Gaza as hostages. The attack triggered the current war, in which at least 35,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

    On Monday, Mr Biden said there was “no equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas”.

    US Secretary of State Antony Blinken echoed the president’s condemnation, saying Washington “fundamentally rejects” the move. “It is shameful,” he said. “[The] ICC has no jurisdiction over this matter.”

    Mr Blinken also suggested the request for arrest warrants would jeopardise ongoing efforts to reach a ceasefire deal.

    Mr Khan also applied for arrest warrants for Mr Gallant and Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh, along with the group’s military chief Mohammed Deif.

    He said Israel’s prime minister and defence minister were suspected of crimes including starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, murder, intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population, and extermination.

    The prosecutor said the alleged crimes began “from at least 7 October 2023” in the Hamas leaders’ case, when the group launched its attack on Israel, and “from at least 8 October 2023” for the Israeli leaders.

    The ICC defended its stance on Monday, saying that despite “significant efforts” it had not received “any information that has demonstrated genuine action at the domestic level [in Israel] to address the crimes alleged or the individuals under investigation”.

    A panel of judges at the ICC must now consider whether to issue the warrants and, if they do, countries signed up to the ICC statute are obliged to arrest the men if they have such an opportunity.

    Mr Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, condemned the application to seek his arrest as “an absurd and false order”.

    In a public statement in Hebrew, he asked “with what audacity” the ICC would “dare to compare” Hamas and Israel.

    The comparison was a “distortion of reality”, Mr Netanyahu said.

    He accused the prosecutor of “callously pouring gasoline on the fires of antisemitism that are raging across the world”.

    Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz called the move by Mr Khan an “unrestrained frontal assault” on the victims of the 7 October attacks and a “historical disgrace that will be remembered forever”.

    Hamas earlier made its own demand for “the cancellation of all arrest warrants issued against leaders of the Palestinian resistance”.

    “Hamas strongly denounces the attempts of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to equate the victim with the executioner,” the group said.

    The group also complained that the application for warrants against Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant had come “seven months late”, and that other Israeli political and military leaders had not been named alongside them.

    Mr Khan accused the Hamas leaders of having committed crimes including extermination, murder, hostage taking, rape and sexual violence, and torture.

    By BBC