Netanyahu dismisses Hamas ceasefire proposal, insists on total victory

Netanyahu dismisses Hamas ceasefire proposal, insists on total victory
A girl walks through rubble in an area that was hit by reported Israeli bombardment in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on February 7, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 08 February 2024
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Netanyahu dismisses Hamas ceasefire proposal, insists on total victory

Netanyahu dismisses Hamas ceasefire proposal, insists on total victory
  • Netanyahu renews pledge to destroy Palestinian movement, says no alternative for Israel but bringing about collapse of Hamas
  • Gaza’s health ministry says at least 27,585 Palestinians confirmed killed, with thousands more feared buried under rubble since Oct. 7

DOHA: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday total victory in Gaza was within reach, rejecting the latest offer from Hamas for a ceasefire to ensure the return of hostages still held in the besieged enclave.
Netanyahu renewed a pledge to destroy the Palestinian movement, saying there was no alternative for Israel but bringing about the collapse of Hamas.
“The day after is the day after Hamas. All of Hamas,” he told a press conference, insisting that total victory against Hamas was the only solution to the Gaza war.
“Only total victory will allow us to restore security in Israel, both in the north and in the south.”
A senior Hamas official, Sami Abu Zuhri, described Netanyahu’s remarks as “political bravado” that showed the Israeli leader’s intention to continue conflict in the region.
Another Hamas official, Osama Hamdan, said a Hamas delegation led by senior Hamas official Khalil Al-Hayya would travel on Thursday to Cairo to pursue ceasefire talks with mediators Egypt and Qatar.
Hamas had proposed a Gaza ceasefire of four-and-a-half months, during which all hostages would go free, Israel would withdraw its troops from the Gaza Strip and an agreement would be reached on an end to the war.
The Hamas offer, the contents of which were first reported by Reuters, was a response to an earlier proposal drawn up by US and Israeli spy chiefs and delivered to Hamas last week by Qatari and Egyptian mediators.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed the offer with Netanyahu after arriving in Israel following talks with the leaders of Qatar and Egypt. Blinken later met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah.
Israel began its military offensive after militants from Hamas-ruled Gaza killed 1,200 people and took 253 hostages in southern Israel on Oct. 7. Gaza’s health ministry says at least 27,585 Palestinians have been confirmed killed, with thousands more feared buried under rubble. There has been only one truce so far, lasting just a week at the end of November.

Hamas proposed three-phase truce
Israel had previously said it would not pull its troops out of Gaza or end the war until Hamas was wiped out.
But sources close to the negotiations described Hamas as taking a new approach to its longstanding demand to end the war, proposing this as an issue to be resolved in future talks rather than a condition for the truce.
According to the offer document seen by Reuters and confirmed by sources, during the first 45-day phase all Israeli women hostages, males under 19 and the old and sick would be freed, in exchange for Palestinian women and children held in Israeli jails. Israel would withdraw troops from Gaza’s populated areas.
Implementation of the second phase would not begin until the sides conclude “indirect talks over the requirements needed to end the mutual military operations and return to complete calm.”
The second phase would include the release of remaining male hostages and full Israeli withdrawal from all of Gaza. The remains of the dead would be exchanged during the third phase.

Blinken visit “makes things worse”
Washington has cast the hostage and truce deal as part of plans for a wider resolution of the Middle East conflict, ultimately leading to reconciliation between Israel and Arab neighbors and creation of a Palestinian state. Netanyahu has rejected a Palestinian state, which Saudi Arabia says is a requirement for any deal to normalize relations with Israel.
The diplomacy comes as Israel is trying to capture the main city in Gaza’s south, Khan Younis. Last week, Israel said it plans to storm Rafah, a move UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday would “exponentially increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare with untold regional consequences.”
The Israeli military said it had killed dozens of militants in fighting over the past 24 hours. It has made similar claims throughout the fighting in Khan Younis, which could not be independently verified.
In Rafah, on Gaza’s southern edge where half of the enclave’s 2.3 million people are penned against the border with Egypt, the bodies of 10 people killed by Israeli strikes overnight were laid out in a hospital morgue. At least two of the shrouded bundles were the size of small children. Relatives wept beside the dead.
Palestinian health officials say an Israeli air strike killed another three people in a house in Rafah on Wednesday. The officials added that a senior Palestinian police officer and Hamas member, Majdi Abdel-Al, was killed in an Israeli air strike on a car that was tasked to secure aid trucks in Rafah.
“Every visit from Blinken, instead of calming things down, it just makes things worse, we get more strikes, we get more bombing,” said mourner Mohammad Abundi.


Trump nominates hard-liner Mike Huckabee as US ambassador to Israel

Trump nominates hard-liner Mike Huckabee as US ambassador to Israel
Updated 18 sec ago
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Trump nominates hard-liner Mike Huckabee as US ambassador to Israel

Trump nominates hard-liner Mike Huckabee as US ambassador to Israel
WASHINGTON: President-elect Donald Trump announced on Tuesday he had nominated Mike Huckabee as US ambassador to Israel under his incoming administration, putting a stalwart supporter of that country’s government in a key role.
“Mike has been a great public servant, Governor, and Leader in Faith for many years,” Trump said in a statement, referring to the Christian pastor-turned-politician.
“He loves Israel, and the people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him.”
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar quickly offered his congratulations to Huckabee, who has in the past said there was “no such thing as an occupation” when it came to Palestinian territories.
“I look forward to working with you to strengthen the bond between our peoples,” Minister Saar posted to Huckabee on X. “As a longstanding friend of Israel and our eternal capital Jerusalem — I hope you will feel very much at home.”
Huckabee, 69, ran twice for the Republican Party presidential nomination, including in 2016 against eventual winner Trump, who Huckabee was quick to back after falling out of the race.
He has often spoken passionately about his Christian faith and his opposition to gay rights.
Huckabee, whose nomination requires confirmation by the US Senate, has traveled to Israel regularly since 1973, and has led numerous tours there.
In 2017, he was present in Maale Adumim for the expansion of one of Israel’s largest illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. In 2018, he also laid a brick at a new housing complex in Efrat settlement, strongly suggesting he was in support of Trump’s positions on Israel.
“There is no such thing as the West Bank — it’s Judea and Samaria,” Huckabee told CNN there at the time, using the Biblical terms for the area.
“There’s no such thing as a settlement; they’re communities, they’re neighborhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation,” he added.
In December 2023 he visited Kibbutz Kfar Aza, where dozens of Israelis were killed in the October 7 cross-border attack by Hamas militants.
Huckabee was born in Hope, Arkansas, the same town that gave rise to Democrat Bill Clinton, who served as the state’s governor before he became president.
His daughter Sarah Huckabee Sanders is the current governor of Arkansas. She also served as Trump’s White House press secretary from 2017 to 2019.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels launch drones and missiles at US warships near the Red Sea but do no damage

Yemen’s Houthi rebels launch drones and missiles at US warships near the Red Sea but do no damage
Updated 22 min 17 sec ago
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Yemen’s Houthi rebels launch drones and missiles at US warships near the Red Sea but do no damage

Yemen’s Houthi rebels launch drones and missiles at US warships near the Red Sea but do no damage
  • Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, said the Iranian-backed Houthis launched at least eight drones, five anti-ship ballistic missiles and three anti-ship cruise missiles
  • No one was wounded on board in the blasts, and the ship was continuing on its journey, the UKMTO added

DUBAI: Yemen’s Houthi militants targeted two US Navy warships with multiple drones and missiles as they were traveling through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, but the attacks were not successful, the Defense Department said Tuesday.
Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, said the Iranian-backed Houthis launched at least eight drones, five anti-ship ballistic missiles and three anti-ship cruise missiles at the USS Stockdale and the USS Spruance, both Navy destroyers, on Monday. He said there was no damage and no one was injured.
The strait is a narrow waterway between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, which typically sees $1 trillion in goods pass through it a year. The militants have been targeting shipping through the strait for months over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and Israel’s ground offensive in Lebanon.
The Houthis have insisted that the attacks will continue as long as the wars go on, and the assaults already have halved shipping through the region. Meanwhile, a UN panel of experts now allege that the Houthis may be shaking down some shippers for about $180 million a month for safe passage through the area.
Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree in a prerecorded statement earlier Tuesday had claimed the militants attacked two American destroyers in the Red Sea with ballistic missiles and drones.
There were also reports of a commercial ship being attacked. A vessel in the southern reaches of the Red Sea, about 130 kilometers (80 miles) southwest of the Houthi-held port city of Hodeida, reported the attack, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said.
No one was wounded on board in the blasts, and the ship was continuing on its journey, the UKMTO added.
It wasn’t immediately clear if the UKMTO report was directly linked to the attacks on the US destroyers, but similar incidents of Houthi fire coming near other ships have happened before.
The Houthis have targeted more than 90 merchant vessels with missiles and drones since the war in Gaza started in October 2023. They seized one vessel and sank two in the campaign, which also killed four sailors. Other missiles and drones have either been intercepted by a US-led coalition in the Red Sea or failed to reach their targets, which have included Western military vessels as well.
The militants maintain that they target ships linked to Israel, the US or the UK to force an end to Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza. However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the conflict, including some bound for Iran.
The Houthis have shot down multiple American MQ-9 Reaper drones as well.
The last Houthi maritime attack came Oct. 28 and targeted the Liberian-flagged bulk tanker Motaro. Before that, an Oct. 10 attack targeted the Liberian-flagged chemical tanker Olympic Spirit.
It’s unclear why the Houthis’ attacks have dropped, though they have launched multiple missiles toward Israel as well. On Oct. 17, the US military unleashed B-2 stealth bombers to target underground bunkers used by the militants. US airstrikes also have been targeting Houthi positions in recent days as well.
Meanwhile, a report by UN experts from October says “the Houthis allegedly collected illegal fees from a few shipping agencies to allow their ships to sail through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden without being attacked.” It put the money generated a month at around $180 million, though it stressed it hadn’t been able to corroborate the information provided by sources to the panel.
The Houthis haven’t directly responded to the allegation. However, the report did include two threatening emails the Houthis sent to shippers, with one of those vessels later coming under attack by the militants.


Jordan completes latest airdrop of aid to Gaza

Jordan completes latest airdrop of aid to Gaza
Updated 52 min 19 sec ago
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Jordan completes latest airdrop of aid to Gaza

Jordan completes latest airdrop of aid to Gaza
  • UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees warns that the amount of emergency humanitarian supplies entering the territory ‘is at its lowest level in months’
  • Jordanian Armed Forces have carried out 123 airdrops of emergency aid to Gaza since war began, and a further 266 in joint efforts with other countries

LONDON: Jordan’s air force carried out its latest delivery of humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday.

It came as the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees said the amount of emergency supplies entering the enclave is lower than it has been for months.

Royal Jordanian Air Force C130 Hercules aircraft dropped crates of food, drinking water and medical supplies, the Jordan News Agency reported. Since the war began in October last year, the Jordanian Armed Forces have completed 123 airdrops of emergency aid to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and a further 266 as part of joint efforts with countries including France and the UK.

Humanitarian officials consider land convoys to be the most effective way of delivering emergency supplies to help ease the humanitarian crisis, but Jordan has resorted to airdrops because of Israeli army restrictions on access to the Gaza Strip that have been in place since last year.

Also on Tuesday, Louise Wateridge, an emergencies officer with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, warned that “aid entering the Gaza Strip is at its lowest level in months.”

On Monday, during the Extraordinary Arab-Islamic Summit in Riyadh, Jordan’s King Abdullah called for “a humanitarian bridge to break the siege imposed on the people in the Gaza Strip and deliver emergency aid to the sector that is suffering a humanitarian disaster.”

He said that finding “a real political horizon to resolve the Palestinian issue on the basis of the two-state solution” remains the “only way to achieve peace, stability and security in the region.”


Iran, Russia link bank card systems

Iran, Russia link bank card systems
Updated 12 November 2024
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Iran, Russia link bank card systems

Iran, Russia link bank card systems

TEHRAN: Iranian bank cards can now be used in Russia, state television reported, as the two countries linked their banking systems in the latest bid to counteract sanctions.

Iranian banks have been excluded since 2018 from the SWIFT international financial messaging service, which governs the vast majority of trans-actions worldwide.

The move is part of a raft of sanctions that were re-imposed on Iran after the US withdrew from a landmark 2015 nuclear deal.

Iranian bank cards can now be used in Russia, state television channel IRINN said on Monday, showing the withdrawal of money using an Iranian bank card from an ATM in Russia.

The operation was made possible by connecting Iran’s interbank network Shetab to its Russian equivalent Mir, the channel said.

Iranians can currently withdraw money in Russia, and will in the future be able to use their cards to pay for in-store purchases, it added.

“The plan is also going to be implemented in other countries that have a wide range of financial and social interactions with Iran, for example Iraq, Afghanistan and Turkiye,” it said.

Both Iran and Russia have sought to counteract the effects of sanctions on their economies.


Lebanese artists struggle to keep creativity alive in a nation at war

Lebanese artists struggle to keep creativity alive in a nation at war
Updated 12 November 2024
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Lebanese artists struggle to keep creativity alive in a nation at war

Lebanese artists struggle to keep creativity alive in a nation at war
  • Artists use their work as an outlet for the frustration and despair they feel

BEIRUT: As Israel presses a deadly offensive against armed group Hezbollah in his home country, Lebanese artist Charbel Samuel Aoun wrestles with the role of art in a country engulfed in conflict.

“Does art still have a place in such a crisis?” said Aoun, a 45-year-old mixed media painter and sculptor.

Lebanon has historically played a central role in the Arab world’s artistic scene, serving as a vibrant hub for visual arts, music and theater, blending traditional and contemporary influences.

Now, Lebanese artists are using their work as an outlet for the frustration and despair they feel after a year-long Israeli offensive that has killed more than 3,200 people, the vast majority of them since September.

Aoun’s pieces are a direct reflection of Lebanon’s back-to- back crises. In 2013, he began gathering dust from Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon to create a series of layered paintings, before moving on to explore other mediums.

Now, he says the darkness and hopelessness of the war — and the debris left behind by Israel’s intense bombing campaign across Lebanon’s south, east and Beirut’s southern suburbs — has revived his desire to work with dust.

“You either stop everything or keep going with the little that still has meaning,” he said.

Two of his exhibitions have been canceled due to the war. While he once lived on the income from his art, he now also relies on selling honey from his beehives, which he first set up as a project to create art from beeswax.

“I can no longer rely on the art market,” he said.

Galleries across Beirut have shut down in recent months, with owners saying there was no demand to buy art at this time. Lebanon’s famed modern art museum, the Sursock Museum, has moved its collections to underground storage.

Lebanese singer and musician Joy Fayad has grappled with the emotional toll of the conflict — which made it difficult for her to perform for months.

“It limited my creativity, it was like I shut down. I couldn’t give to others, nor to myself,” Fayad, 36, said.

Instead, she threw her energy into songwriting. One line in a new song reads: “You are from the downtrodden people, whose word has been silenced, and by their weapons, you are paying the price with your blood.”

She recently began performing again, singing for displaced and refugee children in Lebanon at a charity event north of Beirut.

“They’re changing the atmosphere, having fun after such a difficult period,” she said, especially for those who became accustomed to the sound of bombs instead of beats.