Hamas, Israel entrench Gaza truce positions as latest Cairo talks end

Update Hamas, Israel entrench Gaza truce positions as latest Cairo talks end
Israel’s devastating bombardment of the coastal enclave has killed more than 34,600 Palestinians, and injured thousands more. (Reuters)
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Updated 05 May 2024
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Hamas, Israel entrench Gaza truce positions as latest Cairo talks end

Hamas, Israel entrench Gaza truce positions as latest Cairo talks end
  • Israeli leader hardens his rejection of Hamas demands for an end to the Gaza war in exchange for the freeing of hostages

GAZA: A Hamas official said Sunday the group’s delegation for Gaza truce talks in Cairo was leaving for Qatar, after public disagreement with Israel intensified over demands to end their seven-month war.
Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “surrendering” to a demand to end the war would amount to defeat.
The Qatar-based political chief of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, countered by accusing Netanyahu of sabotaging the talks.
The Hamas official, who requested anonymity to discuss the negotiations, told AFP that “the meeting with the Egyptian intelligence minister has ended and the Hamas delegation is leaving for Doha for further consultations.”
The Hamas negotiators are due back in Cairo on Tuesday, said Al-Qahera News, a site linked to Egyptian intelligence services.
CIA director Bill Burns meanwhile was headed to Doha for “emergency” talks on mediation efforts with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, a source with knowledge of the discussions told AFP.
Netanyahu on Sunday also announced a government decision to close operations in Israel of Qatar-based news channel Al Jazeera, which has broadcast round-the-clock coverage of the conflict.
It went off-air a short time later.
The network condemned Israel’s decision as a “criminal act,” and said it would take legal action.
Gaza’s bloodiest-ever war began following Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,683 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
An AFP correspondent and witnesses reported shelling and gunfire in Gaza City Sunday, helicopter fire in central and southern Gaza, and a missile strike on a house in the Rafah area.
Israel’s military said air strikes over the past day killed several militants including three in central Gaza who took part in the October attack.
“We want a ceasefire and for Gaza to return to how it was, or even better,” said displaced woman Umm Jamil Al-Ghussein in the southern city of Rafah, where about 1.2 million Gazans have sought shelter.
Arwa Saqr, displaced from Khan Yunis, said she has “lost hope that the negotiations will succeed.”
The Palestinian civilian toll has strained ties between Israel and its main military supplier and ally the United States.
Nonetheless, Washington’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday that “the only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a ceasefire is Hamas.”
Negotiators met in Cairo Sunday without an Israeli delegation present.
Qatari, Egyptian and US mediators had proposed a 40-day pause in the fighting and an exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners, according to details released by Britain.
Any truce reached would be the first since a week-long November ceasefire saw a hostage-prisoner swap.
Netanyahu, whose coalition includes ultra-nationalist parties, faces regular protests at home, including thousands in Tel Aviv on Saturday night demanding a deal to bring home hostages still held in Gaza.
According to a statement from Netanyahu’s office, he told his cabinet Israel would not let Hamas “take control of Gaza again, rebuild their military infrastructure and return to threaten the citizens of Israel.”
“Israel will not agree to Hamas’s demands, which mean surrender, and will continue the fighting until all its goals are achieved,” he added.
Haniyeh said Netanyahu wanted to “invent constant justifications for the continuation of aggression, expanding the circle of conflict, and sabotaging efforts made through various mediators and parties.”
Previous negotiation efforts had stalled in part because of Hamas’s demand for a lasting ceasefire and Netanyahu’s vows to crush its remaining fighters in Rafah.
Hamas in a statement insisted it maintained a “positive and responsible approach” and said it was determined to reach an agreement.
The statement mentioned that Hamas’s key demands include “a complete end” to the fighting, Israeli withdrawal “from the entire Gaza Strip, the facilitation of the return of displaced people, the intensification of relief efforts,” reconstruction efforts and a prisoner-hostage exchange deal.
Netanyahu has vowed to invade Rafah regardless of any truce, and despite concerns from the United States, other countries and aid groups.
At the start of the war, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said his country would impose a “complete siege” blocking food, water and other supplies.
Continuous appeals for greater access have, according to the UN, led to some improvements recently.
Israel in December reopened the southern Kerem Shalom border crossing for aid, but on Sunday the army said it was targeted with projectiles and “closed to the passage of humanitarian aid trucks.”
Hamas’s armed wing later claimed the rocket fire, saying militants had targeted troops.
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, which has been central to humanitarian operations in Gaza during the war, said Sunday that Israeli authorities had barred him from entering Gaza for a second time since the war began.
“Just this week, they have denied — for the second time — my entry to Gaza where I planned to be with our UNRWA colleagues,” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini posted on X.
In their October attack on Israel the militants seized hostages, of whom 128 remain in Gaza including 35 who the military says are dead.
On Sunday the Hostages and Missing Families Forum appealed to Netanyahu, telling him in a statement to “disregard all political pressure.”
Some far-right members of the Israeli government have opposed the latest truce proposal and called for fighting to continue.
France’s President Emmanuel Macron urged Netanyahu in a phone call Sunday to reach a deal in negotiations with Hamas, the French presidency said.
A resolution adopted at a meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Gambia called on “member states to exercise diplomatic, political and legal pressure” to stop Israel’s “crimes” and war in besieged Gaza.


Palestinian medics report 5 killed as Israel raids West Bank’s Tubas

Palestinian medics report 5 killed as Israel raids West Bank’s Tubas
Updated 05 September 2024
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Palestinian medics report 5 killed as Israel raids West Bank’s Tubas

Palestinian medics report 5 killed as Israel raids West Bank’s Tubas

JERUSALEM: Palestinian medics reported Thursday that five people were killed in a strike targeting a car in the occupied West Bank area of Tubas, as the Israeli military said it carried out raids.
“Five killed and (one) seriously wounded in a strike (on) a car in Tubas,” the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said in a statement.
The Israeli military said its aircraft “conducted three targeted strikes on armed terrorists” in the Tubas area.
A large number of Israeli troops stormed the Faraa refugee camp in Tubas governorate, where explosions were heard, eyewitnesses told AFP.
Israel launched a massive offensive across the northern West Bank on August 28, fighting Palestinian militants and leaving widespread destruction.
Israel has killed more than 30 Palestinians in the assault, the territory’s health ministry says, including children and militants.
One Israeli soldier was killed in Jenin, where the majority of the Palestinian fatalities have taken place.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and the military has ramped up its deadly raids in the territory since its war in Gaza against Hamas militants erupted on Oct. 7.


Amnesty urges war crimes probe over Israel levelling east Gaza

Amnesty urges war crimes probe over Israel levelling east Gaza
Updated 05 September 2024
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Amnesty urges war crimes probe over Israel levelling east Gaza

Amnesty urges war crimes probe over Israel levelling east Gaza
  • The London-based rights group said the levelling since the start of the war on October 7 “should be investigated as war crimes of wanton destruction and of collective punishment”

PARIS: Amnesty International Thursday urged a war crimes probe into Israel razing homes and farms in eastern Gaza to expand a so-called buffer zone between it and the Palestinian territory.
“Using bulldozers and manually laid explosives, the Israeli military has unlawfully destroyed agricultural land and civilian buildings, razing entire neighborhoods, including homes, schools and mosques,” it said.
The London-based rights group said the levelling since the start of the war on October 7 “should be investigated as war crimes of wanton destruction and of collective punishment.”
Israel has in several cases said it was destroying “terror” infrastructure to protect Israeli communities living on the other side of the fence. It did not reply to a request from Amnesty for comment.
An Amnesty investigation, which examined satellite imagery and videos posted by Israeli soldiers between October and May, showed “newly cleared land along Gaza’s eastern boundary, ranging from approximately 1 to 1.8 km (0.6 to 1.1 miles) wide,” the group said.
The expanded buffer zone covers around 58 square kilometers (22 square miles), or about 16 percent of the Gaza Strip, it said.
More than 90 percent of buildings within that zone appeared to have been destroyed or severely damaged, it said.
More than half of the agricultural land in the area showed “a decline in health and intensity of crops due to the ongoing conflict,” it added.
“Our analysis reveals a pattern along the eastern perimeter of Gaza that is consistent with the systematic destruction of the entire area,” said Amnesty’s Erika Guevara-Rosas.
“The homes were not destroyed as the result of intense fighting. Rather, the Israeli military deliberately razed the land after they had taken control of the area,” she added.
“Israeli measures to protect Israelis from attacks from Gaza must be carried out in conformity with its obligations under international law including the prohibition of wanton destruction and of collective punishment.”
Palestinian armed group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, resulting in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians and including hostages killed in captivity, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Of 251 hostages seized by Palestinian militants during the attack, 97 remain in Gaza including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign against Hamas has killed more than 40,800 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.


WHO hails success of polio 1st phase vaccination campaign in Gaza

WHO hails success of polio 1st phase vaccination campaign in Gaza
Updated 05 September 2024
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WHO hails success of polio 1st phase vaccination campaign in Gaza

WHO hails success of polio 1st phase vaccination campaign in Gaza
  • The campaign aims to fully vaccinate more than 640,000 children in the besieged territory, devastated by almost 11 months of war

GENEVA: The first phase of a large-scale polio vaccination campaign in Gaza has concluded successfully, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday, providing nearly 200,000 children in the center of the Palestinian territory with their initial dose.
With Gaza lying in ruins and the majority of its 2.4 million residents forced to flee their homes due to Israel’s military assault — often taking refuge in cramped and unsanitary conditions — disease has spread.
After the first confirmed polio case in 25 years, a massive vaccination effort began on Sunday, aided by localized “humanitarian pauses” in fighting.
The campaign aims to fully vaccinate more than 640,000 children in the besieged territory, devastated by almost 11 months of war.
During the first phase of the campaign, conducted between September 1 and 3 in central Gaza, more than 187,000 children under the age of 10 were reached, the WHO said in a statement.
“We are grateful for the dedication of all the families, health workers and vaccinators who made this part of the campaign a success despite the dire conditions in the Gaza Strip,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X, formerly Twitter.
“We ask for the humanitarian pauses to continue to be respected. We continue to call for a ceasefire.”
The WHO had estimated that vaccines would be needed for nearly 157,000 children below the age of 10 in central Gaza, but acknowledged that that was an underestimate.
This it said was “due to population movement toward central Gaza, and expanded coverage in areas outside the humanitarian pause zone.”
More than 500 teams, consisting of nearly 2,200 health and community outreach workers, took part in the campaign in central Gaza, with vaccinations provided at 143 fixed sites across the area.
In addition, mobile teams visited tents and hard-to-reach areas, including those outside the agreed humanitarian pause zone.
While the large-scale campaign in central Gaza is over, the WHO said that vaccinations would continue at four large health facilities there over the next few days “to ensure no child is missed in the area.”
The main focus is meanwhile set to move to southern Gaza, where an estimated 340,000 children over the next four days will receive their first dose.
And finally, the campaign will be concentrated in northern Gaza between September 9 and 11, targeting around 150,000 children, the WHO said.
A fresh campaign to provide a needed second dose is due to begin in about four weeks time.
The WHO has stressed that it is vital to reach at least 90 percent coverage to avoid the spread of the disease both within Gaza’s borders and beyond.
“We want to ensure... there will be no other Gaza children who actually will suffer from polio,” Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO’s representative for the Palestinian territories, told reporters on Wednesday.
“But we also want to make sure that we prevent the spread from polio to neighboring countries.”
The October 7 Hamas attack that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians and including hostages killed in captivity, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Israel’s campaign against Hamas since October 7 has killed at least 40,861 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.


12 Syrian soldiers killed in suicide attacks: war monitor

12 Syrian soldiers killed in suicide attacks: war monitor
Updated 05 September 2024
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12 Syrian soldiers killed in suicide attacks: war monitor

12 Syrian soldiers killed in suicide attacks: war monitor
  • The death toll is the “highest among the regime forces in the region since last September,” according to the observatory

BEIRUT, Lebanon: Twelve Syrian soldiers were killed on Wednesday by an Al-Qaeda linked group in northwest Syria, according to a war monitoring organization, the highest such death toll in the region this year.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said “12 members of the regime forces, including an officer, were killed following suicide attacks carried out by special forces from the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham group (HTS), targeting regime forces positions in the north of Latakia province” adjacent to Idlib, the last major rebel stronghold in the northwest.
The death toll is the “highest among the regime forces in the region since last September,” according to the observatory.
Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Observatory, told AFP that the attack was part of “an escalation by HTS since Monday, which included attacks on regime forces on several fronts.”
The Idlib region is subject to a ceasefire brokered by Russia and Turkiye after a regime offensive in March 2020. Despite being repeatedly violated, the ceasefire is still largely holding.
HTS controls swathes of Idlib province and parts of neighboring Aleppo, Hama and Latakia.
More than five million people, most of them displaced, live in areas outside government control in the Idlib region.
HTS, considered a terrorist organization by Damascus, the United States and the European Union, regularly clashes with Syrian and allied Russian forces.
It is the main rebel organization active in northwest Syria, but there are other groups, some backed by Turkiye.
Syria’s war broke out after President Bashar Assad repressed anti-government protests in 2011, and has killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions and battered the country’s infrastructure and industry.


Israel exploiting Oct. 7 to cement control of ‘entire land,’ says leading Israeli human rights defender

Israel exploiting Oct. 7 to cement control of ‘entire land,’ says leading Israeli human rights defender
Updated 05 September 2024
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Israel exploiting Oct. 7 to cement control of ‘entire land,’ says leading Israeli human rights defender

Israel exploiting Oct. 7 to cement control of ‘entire land,’ says leading Israeli human rights defender
  • Yuli Novak, the director of B’Tselem, urges UN Security Council members to compel Israeli authorities and Hamas leadership to end the war
  • Emergency meeting called to discuss 6 Israeli hostages killed this week, escalating violence in West Bank, and continuing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza

NEW YORK CITY: The director of B’Tselem, Israel’s most prominent human rights organization, told the UN Security Council on Wednesday that the Israeli government is “cynically” exploiting the collective trauma inflicted on the country’s citizens by the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7 last year to “violently” advance its project to cement its control over the entire land.

To that end, Yuli Novak added, Israeli authorities have been committing war crimes almost on a daily basis in Gaza as they wage war on the entire Palestinian people.

“This has taken the form of expulsion, starvation, killing and destruction on an unprecedented scale,” she said. “This goes beyond revenge.”

Novak was speaking during an emergency meeting of the council, called for by Israel to discuss the killings this week of six Israeli hostages in Gaza, and by Algeria in response to an escalation of violence in the West Bank and the ongoing humanitarian crisis in war-ravaged Gaza.

She accused Israeli authorities of pursuing an ideological agenda designed to render Gaza uninhabitable for Palestinians.

“By driving Palestinians out of entire areas and displacing millions, Israel is laying the groundwork for long-term control of Gaza that could lead to reestablishing Israeli settlements there, and in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem,” said Novak.

The Israeli government is already exploiting the circumstances to create irreversible changes in the West Bank, she added.

“Since October, Israeli forces have killed 640 Palestinians there, including at least 140 minors,” Novak said. “Settlers are attacking Palestinians and carrying out pogroms in broad daylight, with support from the government.

“They have so far managed to drive 19 Palestinian communities out of their homes, and recently the military launched a huge operation to damage infrastructure that serves hundreds of thousands of people in the northern West Bank.”

The veteran activist lamented the fact that the international community has failed to halt “Israel's criminal policy of massive harm to civilians in Gaza. Now, this cruel policy is spilling over into the West Bank.”

She added that “the war on Palestinians is also happening inside prisons,” noting that since last October, Israel has arrested thousands of Palestinians and is holding them in “inhumane conditions.”

Last month, B’Tselem published a report titled “Welcome to Hell” in which it said the “shocking” pattern of abuse against Palestinians in Israeli detention centers amounted to torture. It accused the government of using the war in Gaza as an excuse to turn Israeli prisons into a network of torture camps.

Such “violence is possible because Israel has enjoyed impunity for decades,” Novak said. “As long as this impunity continues, the killing and destruction will continue and expand, and fear will continue to rule the land.”

The international community has failed in its duty to protect civilians, she added, with four UN Security Council resolutions relating to the war in Gaza failing to bring about a lasting ceasefire or free the hostages.

“The council must acknowledge this failure and take effective action to compel Israel and Hamas to immediately and permanently cease all hostilities,” Novak said.

Edem Wosornu, director of advocacy and operations at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told council members that there is “almost no limit to the inhumanity unfolding before our eyes” in Gaza.

She expressed alarm about the treatment of the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza and the conditions under which they are being held, and the refusal to allow humanitarian visits or assistance from the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Wosornu also voiced grave concern about the numbers of Palestinians killed or injured in Gaza; more than 40,000 people have reportedly lost their lives to the conflict and 93,000 have been wounded, more than half of them women and children. The UN believes these figures are an underestimate, as thousands of bodies are thought to be buried under rubble.

“Much of this death and devastation is the result of the use of heavy weapons in densely populated areas, including in camps, shelters and areas where civilians have been told to evacuate,” said Wosornu. “The brutality of this conflict seems to know no limits.”

Amid the carnage, healthcare systems in Gaza have been decimated, she added, as a result of which the population, including young children and pregnant and breastfeeding women, is unable to access critical care.

Nineteen of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are out of service, Wosornu said, and those that remain open are barely functioning, overwhelmed as they are by patients amid shortages of fuel and medical supplies.

Meanwhile water infrastructure in Gaza has been severely damaged, reducing supplies to a quarter of what they were before October 2023, she added.

“Food sources and production facilities have been destroyed. Food delivery remains severely hampered by ongoing fighting, damaged roads and barriers to the entry and movement of humanitarian supplies,” Wosornu said.

“Around 96 per cent of the population continues to face high levels of acute food insecurity, with nearly half a million people facing catastrophic hunger.

“It does not have to be this way,” she added as she reiterated the fact that the hostages must be released, civilians must be protected, and essential needs must be met.

Wosornu called on the Security Council to use its influence to ensure compliance with an immediate cessation of hostilities in Gaza and the introduction of a sustainable ceasefire, and to deescalate the situation in the West Bank. 

Samuel Zbogar, the permanent representative to the Security Council from Slovenia, which holds the presidency of the council this month, said people in his country are outraged by what he described as “parallel realities” for Israelis and Palestinians, as he criticized the reality of ongoing political debates that fail to offer solutions.

“Let me be clear that parallel realities exist: a reality of decades-long suffering and human-rights violations of the Palestinian people; a reality of security challenges for the Israeli people,” he said.

“But also, a reality of regional instability which is a threat to international peace and security.”

Repeating the calls for an immediate, lasting end to hostilities, he added: “Only a ceasefire will alleviate the suffering of hostages and their family members and friends. Only a ceasefire will alleviate the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza.”

Zbogar also reiterated the concerns about the rapidly deteriorating situation in the West Bank, calling for an immediate end to operations that are “further fueling violence, tensions and human-rights violations” there.

He called on Hamas and the Israeli government to “recalibrate their interests and place the interest of peace and protection of all civilians, Palestinians and Israelis alike, first.”