Biden’s remarks on Gaza hostages ‘setback’ for negotiations: Hamas
Biden’s remarks on Gaza hostages ‘setback’ for negotiations: Hamas/node/2509086/middle-east
Biden’s remarks on Gaza hostages ‘setback’ for negotiations: Hamas
Displaced Palestinians flee Rafah on Sunday after Israeli forces launched a ground and air offensive in the eastern part of the southern Gaza city. (Reuters)
Biden’s remarks on Gaza hostages ‘setback’ for negotiations: Hamas
“We endured three days that can be considered hell,” said Mohammed Hamad, a 24-year-old resident of eastern Rafah who was among the 300,000 Palestinians that Israel says have fled the fighting
Israel has killed more than 34,700 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory
Updated 12 May 2024
AFP
GAZA: Remarks by US President Joe Biden that a ceasefire in Gaza would be possible if Hamas released its hostages are a “setback” to negotiations, the Palestinian goup said Sunday.
“We condemn this position by the US president, we consider it a setback from the outcomes of the latest round of negotiations, which led to the movement’s agreement to the proposal put forward by mediators,” Hamas said in a statement.
Biden said on Saturday that a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war would be possible “tomorrow” if Hamas gave up hostages seized in its Oct. 7 attack.
The US president raised the topic of the hostages during a speech in Seattle after warning Israel he would stop supplying artillery shells and other weapons if it sent ground troops into the city of Rafah.
Negotiations between Hamas and Israel for a truce and hostage exchange deal, mediated by Egypt, Qatar, and the US, appear to have stalled amid Israeli military action in the southern Gaza city.
Hamas said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had “rushed to overturn” the talks by launching an offensive in Rafah.
The militant group accused the Israeli government of “escalating their brutal massacres in various areas of the Gaza Strip” and “reaffirming their pursuit of continuing the genocidal war in Gaza.”
Israel defied international opposition this week and sent tanks and troops into eastern Rafah, effectively shutting a key aid crossing.
On Saturday, the Israeli military expanded an evacuation order for eastern Rafah and said 300,000 Palestinians had left the area.
War-weary Gazans flooded toward coastal areas of the Gaza Strip’s southern city of Rafah, fleeing heavy bombardment in eastern zones after Israel ordered them to evacuate.
“We endured three days that can be considered hell,” said Mohammed Hamad, a 24-year-old resident of eastern Rafah who was among the 300,000 Palestinians that Israel says have fled the fighting.
Eastern parts of the city have been heavily bombarded in recent days, according to witnesses, as Israel sent tanks and ground troops into the areas in “targeted raids.”
“They were among the worst nights for us since the beginning of the war,” Hamad said from Al-Mawasi, an area Israel has designated a “humanitarian zone” despite aid groups warning that it is unprepared for such an influx.
Rafah’s population had swelled to around 1.4 million after hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled fighting in other areas of the Gaza Strip and sought shelter there during more than seven months of war.
“They started by distributing flyers in the morning, and immediately began brutal artillery and aerial bombardment without giving people a chance to think or organize their belongings properly,” Hamad said.
AFP photographers saw dozens of families loading furniture and household items on trucks and fleeing from Rafah, many heading for Khan Yunis, the main city in the south of the Palestinian territory.
Many people, especially women and children, lingered on streets outside their homes before moving out.
Israel PM says killing of Hamas chief ‘beginning of the end’ of Gaza war
“While this is not the end of the war in Gaza, it’s the beginning of the end,” Netanyahu said
Iran's UN mission says Sinwar’s killing would lead to the strengthening of “resistance” in the region
Updated 13 sec ago
AFP
JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that the killing of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar in the Gaza Strip was the “beginning of the end” of the year-long war in the Palestinian territory.
The Israeli military said that after a lengthy hunt, troops had on Wednesday “eliminated Yahya Sinwar, the leader of the Hamas terrorist organization, in an operation in the southern Gaza Strip.”
Hamas has not confirmed his death.
Netanyahu, who vowed to crush Hamas at the start of the war, hailed Sinwar’s killing, saying: “While this is not the end of the war in Gaza, it’s the beginning of the end.”
He had earlier called Sinwar’s death an “important landmark in the decline of the evil rule of Hamas.”
The chief of Hamas in Gaza at the time of the October 7 attack that sparked the war, Sinwar became the militant group’s overall leader after the killing in July of its political chief, Ismail Haniyeh.
He is said to have masterminded the October 7 attack, the deadliest in Israeli history, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures that includes hostages killed in captivity.
Israel’s announcement of Sinwar’s death comes weeks after it assassinated Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in a strike in Lebanon, where the Israeli military has been at war since late September.
With Hamas already weakened more than a year into the Gaza war, Sinwar’s death deals an immense blow to the organization.
US President Joe Biden, whose government is Israel’s top arms provider, said: “This is a good day for Israel, for the United States, and for the world.”
“There is now the opportunity for a ‘day after’ in Gaza without Hamas in power, and for a political settlement that provides a better future for Israelis and Palestinians alike.”
Militants also seized 251 hostages during the October 7 attack and took them into Gaza. Ninety-seven remain there, including 34 who Israeli officials say are dead.
Following the attack, Netanyahu vowed to defeat Hamas and bring home all the hostages.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed 42,438 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to data from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, figures which the UN considers reliable.
Israeli military chief Herzi Halevi said: “We are settling the score with Sinwar, who is responsible for that very difficult day a year ago.”
He vowed the military would keep fighting “until we capture all the terrorists involved in the October 7 massacre and bring all the hostages home.”
Some Israelis hailed the news of Sinwar’s death as a sign of better things to come.
“I am celebrating the death of Sinwar, who has brought us nothing but harm, who has taken people hostage,” said one Israeli woman, Hemda, who only gave her first name.
Attending a Tel Aviv rally demanding the hostages’ release, 60-year-old El-Sisil, who also gave only her first name, said his killing presented a “once in a lifetime opportunity” for “a hostage deal to end the war.”
But whether the Hamas chief’s death will bring the end of the war any closer is unclear.
Warning that the hostages were in “grave danger,” Israeli military historian Guy Aviad said Sinwar’s killing was “a significant event... but it’s not the end of the war.”
Campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum urged the Israeli government and international mediators to leverage “this major achievement to secure hostages’ return.”
According to a statement from Netanyahu’s office, Biden called him to congratulate him on Sinwar’s killing, with the two leaders vowing to seize “an opportunity to promote the release of the hostages.”
Netanyahu said Palestinian militants should free the hostages if they want to live.
The Israeli military said Sinwar was killed in a firefight in southern Gaza’s Rafah, near the Egyptian border, while being tracked by a drone.
It released drone footage of what it said was Sinwar’s final moments, with the video showing a wounded militant throwing an object at the drone.
With the civilian toll in Gaza mounting, Israel has faced criticism over its conduct of the war, including from the United States.
In northern Gaza’s Jabalia, two hospitals said Israeli air strikes on a school sheltering displaced people killed at least 14 people, though the military reported that it had hit militants.
People gather outside a collapsed building as they attempt to extricate a man from underneath the rubble following Israeli bombardment in the Saftawi district in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on October 15, 2024. (AFP)
According to a UN-backed assessment, some 345,000 Gazans face “catastrophic” levels of hunger this winter.
Nearly 100 percent of Gaza’s population now lives in poverty, the UN’s International Labour Organization said, warning that the war’s impact on Gaza “will be felt for generations to come.”
Israel is also fighting a war in Lebanon, where Hamas ally Hezbollah opened a front by launching cross-border strikes that forced tens of thousands of Israelis to flee their homes.
Hezbollah said Thursday it was launching a new phase in its war against Israel, saying it had used precision-guided missiles against troops for the first time.
On the same day, Israel conducted strikes on the south Lebanese city of Tyre, where the militant group and its allies hold sway.
The Lebanese National News Agency reported strikes on the Bekaa Valley, after Israel had issued an evacuation warning for civilians there.
The Israeli military said five soldiers were killed in combat in southern Lebanon, taking to 19 the number of troop deaths announced since Israel began raids into Lebanon last month.
In Lebanon, the war since late September has left at least 1,418 people dead, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures, though the real toll is likely higher.
The war has also drawn in other Iran-aligned armed groups, including in Yemen, Iraq and Syria.
Iran on October 1 conducted a missile strike on Israel, for which Israel has vowed to retaliate.
Tehran’s mission to the United Nations said Thursday that Sinwar’s killing would lead to the strengthening of “resistance” in the region.
Lebanon crowdfunded ambulances under fire in Israel-Hezbollah war
Updated 17 October 2024
AFP
BEIRUT: Lebanese data scientist and volunteer rescue worker Bachir Nakhal started a crowdfunding effort to buy new ambulances for south Lebanon months ago, fearing Israel’s war in Gaza could spread to his country.
But weeks into Israel’s war with Hezbollah, his worst fears came true when an ambulance he had helped purchase was bombed.
“We were trying to get the number of ambulances up to the bare minimum level,” he told AFP.
“We weren’t expecting the ambulances ... to get directly targeted or bombed,” said Nakhal, who says the vehicle he had raised money for was destroyed in an Israeli strike just four days after the volunteers had received it.
The October 9 strike, which took place in the southern village of Derdghaiya, killed five rescue workers, including the head of the local team and his son, according to the civil defense.
The incident was among what the United Nations says is a growing number of attacks on healthcare in Lebanon, with paramedics, first responders and ambulances increasingly in the firing line.
“More attacks continue to be reported where ambulances and relief centers are targeted or hit in Lebanon,” UN humanitarian agency OCHA said after the Derdghaiya strike.
The Israeli army has accused Hezbollah of using ambulances to transport weapons and fighters, though it has yet to produce any evidence.
“Necessary measures will be taken against any vehicle transporting gunmen, regardless of its type,” Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee wrote in Arabic on social media platform X.
Nakhal said a second crowdfunded ambulance, dispatched to the southern city of Nabatiyeh on Monday, was barely on the road for a day when it had a close call with heavy strikes.
Israel had earlier in the war issued an evacuation warning for Nabatiyeh, where Hezbollah and its ally Amal hold sway.
No US role in Israel operation that killed Hamas leader, Pentagon says
“This was an Israeli operation. There (were) no US forces directly involved,” said a Pentagon spokesperson
Updated 17 October 2024
Reuters
WASHINGTON: The US military said on Thursday its forces had no role in the Israeli operation that killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, even if US intelligence has contributed to Israel’s understanding of Hamas leaders who took hostages last year.
“This was an Israeli operation. There (were) no US forces directly involved,” said Air Force Major General Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesperson.
“The United States has helped contribute information and intelligence as it relates to hostage recovery and the tracking and locating of Hamas leaders who have been responsible for holding hostages. And so certainly that contributes in general to the picture.”
“But again, this was an Israeli operation. And I would refer you to them to talk about the details of how the operation went down.”
US announces ‘immigration reprieve’ due to Lebanon conflict
So-called Temporary Protected Status designation will provide an “immigration reprieve” to eligible Lebanese due to the “ongoing armed conflict”
Updated 17 October 2024
AFP
WASHINGTON: Washington will allow some Lebanese nationals to temporarily remain in the United States and apply for work authorization due to unsafe conditions in their home country, the Department of Homeland Security announced Thursday.
The so-called Temporary Protected Status designation will provide an “immigration reprieve” to eligible Lebanese due to the “ongoing armed conflict and extraordinary and temporary conditions in Lebanon,” the department said in a statement.
Those who are approved “will be able to remain in the country while the United States is in discussions to achieve a diplomatic resolution for lasting stability and security across the Israel-Lebanon border,” it added.
Hezbollah began low-intensity attacks on Israeli troops a day after its Palestinian ally Hamas staged an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which triggered war in the Gaza Strip.
The Lebanon conflict has rapidly escalated in recent weeks, with Israel carrying out extensive strikes at both the border and further inside the country and launching ground operations inside its neighbor to the north.
The United Nations recently said one quarter of Lebanese territory was under Israeli military displacement orders, while the International Organization for Migration has said at least 690,000 people have been displaced by the conflict.
Biden says Sinwar’s death is ‘good day’ for world, ‘opportunity’ for hostage deal, end to Gaza war
Biden, in a statement, compared it to the feeling in the US after the killing of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden
Biden said with Sinwar’s death “there is now the opportunity for a ‘day after’ in Gaza without Hamas in power”
Updated 17 October 2024
AP
ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE: President Joe Biden said Thursday that the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar by Israeli troops is a “good day for Israel, for the United States, and for the world,” and called it an “opportunity” to free Israeli hostages held by Hamas and end the yearlong war in Gaza.
Biden, in a statement, compared it to the feeling in the US after the killing of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who was responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, saying the killing of the mastermind of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel “proves once again that no terrorists anywhere in the world can escape justice, no matter how long it takes.”
Biden said he would speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders to congratulate them “and to discuss the pathway for bringing the hostages home to their families, and for ending this war once and for all.”
Biden said with Sinwar’s death “there is now the opportunity for a ‘day after’ in Gaza without Hamas in power, and for a political settlement that provides a better future for Israelis and Palestinians alike.”
He praised US special operations forces and intelligence operatives who helped advise Israeli allies on tracking and locating Sinwar and other Hamas leaders over the last year — though the US said the operation that killed Sinwar was an Israeli one.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan called Sinwar a “massive obstacle” to peace. He added, “his removal from the battlefield does present an opportunity to find a way forward that gets the hostages home.”
