Israel war cabinet to discuss new push for Gaza hostage deal

Israel war cabinet to discuss new push for Gaza hostage deal
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (C) presides over a War Cabinet meeting at the Kirya in Tel Aviv in this file photo. (AFP/File)
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Updated 27 May 2024
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Israel war cabinet to discuss new push for Gaza hostage deal

Israel war cabinet to discuss new push for Gaza hostage deal
  • Hamas eader Izzat Al-Rishq jas accused Netanyahu earlier Sunday of “trying to buy more time to continue the aggression"

RAFAH, Palestinian Territories: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday he “strongly opposes” ending the war in Gaza, ahead of his war cabinet convening amid intense diplomacy to forge a truce and hostage release deal.

Meanwhile deadly fighting rocked the Gaza Strip and Hamas militants fired a salvo of rockets at Israel’s commercial hub Tel Aviv for the first time in months, sending people scrambling for shelter.
Netanyahu has long rejected Hamas’s demand in negotiations for a permanent end to the fighting, which was triggered by the Palestinian militant group’s October 7 attack and has left vast areas of besieged Gaza in ruins.
A senior Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, had earlier told AFP that “the war cabinet is expected to meet... tonight at 9 p.m. (1800 GMT) to discuss a hostage release deal.”
A statement issued by Netanyahu’s office before the meeting said Hamas chief in Gaza Yahya “Sinwar continues to demand the end of the war, the withdrawal of the IDF (army) from the Gaza Strip and leaving Hamas in place, so that it will be able to carry out the atrocities of October 7 again and again,” referring to the attack that triggered the war.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu strongly opposes this,” the statement said.
A member of Hamas’s political leadership, Izzat Al-Rishq, accused Netanyahu earlier Sunday of “trying to buy more time to continue the aggression.”
In Brussels, the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told journalists before meeting Palestinian premier Mohammed Mustafa that a strong Palestinian Authority (PA) was in Israel’s interest.
EU members Ireland and Spain, and also Norway, have said they will recognize the State of Palestine from Tuesday, drawing furious Israeli condemnation.
“A functional Palestinian Authority is in Israel’s interest too, because in order to make peace, we need a strong Palestinian Authority, not a weaker one,” Borrell said.
Mustafa, whose government is based in the occupied West Bank, said the “first priority” was to support people in Gaza, especially through a ceasefire, and then “rebuilding the institutions of the Palestinian Authority” there after Hamas seized it from the PA in 2007.
US President Joe Biden has pushed for renewed international efforts to halt the war, now in its eighth month.
The Israeli official had said Saturday that “there is an intention to renew these talks this week” after negotiations involving US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators stalled in early May.
However, Rishq said Sunday that so far, “we have not received anything from the mediators.”
He insisted on Hamas’s long-standing demand for a permanent cessation of hostilities as “the foundation and the starting point for anything.”


Netanyahu has repeatedly vowed to destroy Hamas following the October 7 attack, but has also faced growing domestic and international criticism.
The attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Militants also took 252 hostages, 121 of whom remain in Gaza, including 37 the army says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 35,984 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
The military on Sunday announced the death of a soldier in north Gaza, taking to 289 the number of troops killed since Israel began its ground offensive in late October.
As the war ground on, the families of hostages still held by Palestinians militants have piled pressure on Netanyahu to secure a deal to free them.
Washington has also taken a tougher line with its close ally as outrage over the war and US support for Israel has become a major issue for Biden, seeking re-election in a battle against Donald Trump.
With more strikes reported Sunday across Gaza, Israel’s military said that over the past 24 hours it had destroyed “over 50 terror targets.”
Fighting has centered on the far-southern city of Rafah, where Israel launched a ground operation in early May despite widespread opposition over concerns for civilians sheltering there.
Rafah resident Moaz Abu Taha, 29, told AFP of “constant bombardment from land and air, which has destroyed many houses.”
Gaza’s civil defense agency said it had retrieved six bodies after a house was targeted in eastern Rafah.

Hamas’s armed wing said it had targeted Tel Aviv “with a large rocket barrage in response to the Zionist (Israeli) massacres against civilians.”
Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told a televised briefing that “Hamas terrorists in Gaza fired eight rockets at central Israel from Rafah.”
“Hamas launched these rockets from near two mosques in Rafah,” Hagari said. “Hamas is holding our hostages in Rafah, which is why we have been conducting a precise operation” there.
Analyst Neomi Neumann said the militants were not trying to “cause damage to Israel, but to maintain continuity of fire.”
They “shoot relatively few rockets per barrage from their diminishing arsenal, and choose when to concentrate their efforts,” said Neumann, a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank.
The UN has warned of looming famine in the besieged territory, where most hospitals are no longer functioning.
Amid the bloodiest ever Gaza war, Israel has faced growing global outcry over the surging civilian death toll, and landmark moves last week at two international courts.
Last Monday, the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court announced he was seeking arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his defense minister as well as for three top Hamas figures.
And on Friday, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to halt its Rafah offensive or any other operation there that could bring about “the physical destruction” of the Palestinians.
 


Five killed in Turkish drone strikes on PKK members in northern Iraq

Five killed in Turkish drone strikes on PKK members in northern Iraq
Updated 7 sec ago
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Five killed in Turkish drone strikes on PKK members in northern Iraq

Five killed in Turkish drone strikes on PKK members in northern Iraq
  • Turkiye regularly carries out airstrikes on PKK militants in northern Iraq and has dozens of outposts in the Iraqi territory

BAGHDAD: Turkish drone strikes killed five members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in northern Iraq, Iraqi Kurdistan’s counter-terrorism service and security sources said on Sunday.
The first Turkish strike targeted a vehicle in a mountain area near Iraq’s northern province Dohuk late on Saturday, killing three, including one person identified by the Iraqi Kurdistan’s counter-terrorism service statement as a “senior PKK official,” the statement added.
Another drone strike on Sunday targeted a vehicle, killing two fighters from the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS), a militia affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), two security sources and a local official in the district of Sinjar told Reuters.
Turkiye regularly carries out airstrikes on PKK militants in northern Iraq and has dozens of outposts in the Iraqi territory.
The PKK launched an insurgency against Ankara in 1984 with the initial aim of creating an independent Kurdish state. It subsequently moderated its goals to seeking greater Kurdish rights and limited autonomy in southeast Turkiye.

 


Egypt hosts 1.2 million Sudanese, with ‘hundreds’ arriving daily: UN

Sudanese who fled the war in their country cool off on the banks of the Nile river in the Egyptian city of Aswan. (File/AFP)
Sudanese who fled the war in their country cool off on the banks of the Nile river in the Egyptian city of Aswan. (File/AFP)
Updated 34 min 10 sec ago
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Egypt hosts 1.2 million Sudanese, with ‘hundreds’ arriving daily: UN

Sudanese who fled the war in their country cool off on the banks of the Nile river in the Egyptian city of Aswan. (File/AFP)
  • Egypt currently hosts 546,746 Sudanese refugees who are officially registered with the United Nations’ refugee agency UNHCR

CAIRO: Hundreds of people fleeing war-torn Sudan arrive in neighboring Egypt every day, a UN official said Sunday, adding to more than 1.2 million who have found refuge there, according to official figures.
The war between rival Sudanese generals since April 2023 has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 11 million, with 3.1 million of them seeking shelter beyond the country’s borders, according to the UN.
Egypt currently hosts 546,746 Sudanese refugees who are officially registered with the United Nations’ refugee agency UNHCR, as well as others who are awaiting registration, said Christine Bishay, associate external relations officer at UNHCR Egypt.
A UNHCR report issued on Friday said that “recent data from the government of Egypt indicates that more than 1.2 million Sudanese have sought international protection in Egypt.”
This has made the North African country the largest host of Sudanese refugees despite imposing stricter entry requirements during the war in Sudan, which shares a long border with Egypt.
Sudanese nationals “now make up two-thirds of the country’s total registered refugee population” of 827,644 people representing 95 nationalities, including Syria, South Sudan and Eritrea, she said.
“Initially, at the very beginning of the conflict, thousands of Sudanese arrived in Egypt on a daily basis, before stabilising to a few hundreds per day,” Bishay added.
Cairo had initially waived visa requirements for Sudanese women, children and men over 50 at the start of the war.
But a month after the conflict erupted, the Egyptian government introduced visa entry requirements for all Sudanese, leaving many to resort to irregular crossings.
In September this year, Egypt further tightened entry requirements, obliging people entering from Sudan to obtain “prior security clearance” alongside a consular visa, according to Egypt’s interior ministry.
Raga Ahmed Abdel Rahman, a 27-year-old Sudanese woman who crossed into Egypt illegally in August, told AFP she had paid about 500,000 Sudanese pounds ($830) to travel in a pick-up truck with 16 others.
The desert journey, which took a gruelling day and a half, was “exhausting and terrifying,” Abdel Rahman said.
“We were constantly afraid of being stopped by RSF forces,” she added, referring to the Sudanese paramilitary Rapid Support Forces who have been battling the regular army.
Hundreds of thousands of others who fled Sudan have sought refuge primarily in neighboring countries, including Chad, South Sudan and Libya.
In the report published on Friday, UNHCR Egypt warned that the humanitarian crisis caused by Sudan’s war has placed “immense pressure on Egypt’s resources and infrastructure.”
Hanan Hamdan, UNHCR representative to Egypt’s government and the Arab League, said that “the burden on Egypt is unsustainable and requires immediate and substantial international assistance to ensure the protection and well-being of those affected by the conflict.”
UNHCR also noted that so far, just over half of the funding needed for an aid scheme for Sudanese refugees has been secured.
The Sudan Humanitarian Response Plan 2024 “has received $1.52 billion in funding, which is 56.3 percent of the required $2.7 billion,” the UN agency said.
“Despite this significant contribution, the funding gap remains substantial.”


Five Iranian security forces killed in attack in Sistan-Baluchistan province

Five Iranian security forces killed in attack in Sistan-Baluchistan province
Updated 10 November 2024
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Five Iranian security forces killed in attack in Sistan-Baluchistan province

Five Iranian security forces killed in attack in Sistan-Baluchistan province
  • Iranian forces launched a major operation in the area after an attack on October 26 killed 10 police officers

TEHRAN: At least five members of Iran’s security forces were killed Sunday in a “terror attack” in the restive southeast, where authorities have been conducting operations against rebels, local media reported.
The Fars news agency reported that in a “terror attack in Saravan county, in the south of the Sistan-Baluchistan province, five members of the security forces were killed.”
Sistan-Baluchistan borders both Afghanistan and Pakistan, and is one of Iran’s most impoverished provinces. It is one of the few mainly Sunni Muslim provinces in Shiite-dominated Iran.
For years it has faced unrest involving drug-smuggling gangs, rebels from the Baluchi minority and extremists.
Fars said that after the attack in Saravan, “units stationed in the region were quickly deployed to pursue the criminals.”
Iranian forces launched a major operation in the area after an attack on October 26 killed 10 police officers.
That attack was later claimed by the Pakistan-based Sunni jihadist group Jaish Al-Adl (Arabic for Army of Justice).
Local media reported that those behind the October attack have been killed in the current security operation.
Some 15 militants have been reported killed in Sistan-Baluchistan province since the October attack, including three on Sunday, state television said.
It also said more than 30 suspects have been arrested.
Formed in 2012 by Baluch separatists, Jaish Al-Adl is designated a terrorist organization by both Iran and the United States.


Israel PM says okayed Lebanon pager attacks

Israel PM says okayed Lebanon pager attacks
Updated 10 November 2024
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Israel PM says okayed Lebanon pager attacks

Israel PM says okayed Lebanon pager attacks
  • Hand-held devices used by Hezbollah operatives detonated in supermarkets, on streets and at funerals in mid-Sept.
  • They killed nearly 40 people and wounded nearly 3,000, and preceded Israel’s ongoing military operation in Lebanon

JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he okayed a deadly September attack on Hezbollah communications devices which exploded in Lebanon, the first time Israel has admitted involvement.
Hezbollah had previously blamed its arch-foe for the blasts that dealt a major blow to the Iran-backed militant group, and vowed revenge.
“Netanyahu confirmed Sunday that he greenlighted the pager operation in Lebanon,” his spokesman Omer Dostri told AFP of the attacks.
Hand-held devices used by Hezbollah operatives detonated two days in a row in supermarkets, on streets and at funerals in mid-September.
They killed nearly 40 people and wounded nearly 3,000, and preceded Israel’s ongoing military operation in Lebanon.
Hezbollah began low intensity strikes on Israel in support of Hamas following its ally’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which triggered the Gaza war.
Strikes have intensified since war broke out in Lebanon in late September, when Israel escalated its air campaign against Hezbollah and later sent ground troops into south Lebanon.


Israel PM says okayed Lebanon pager attacks

A photo taken on September 18, 2024, in Beirut’s southern suburbs shows the remains of exploded pagers on display.
A photo taken on September 18, 2024, in Beirut’s southern suburbs shows the remains of exploded pagers on display.
Updated 10 November 2024
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Israel PM says okayed Lebanon pager attacks

A photo taken on September 18, 2024, in Beirut’s southern suburbs shows the remains of exploded pagers on display.
  • Hand-held devices used by Hezbollah operatives detonated two days in a row in supermarkets, on streets and at funerals in mid-September
  • They killed nearly 40 people and wounded nearly 3,000

JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he okayed a deadly September attack on Hezbollah communications devices which exploded in Lebanon, the first time Israel has admitted involvement.
Hezbollah had previously blamed its arch-foe for the blasts that dealt a major blow to the Iran-backed militant group, and vowed revenge.
“Netanyahu confirmed Sunday that he greenlighted the pager operation in Lebanon,” his spokesman Omer Dostri told AFP of the attacks.
Hand-held devices used by Hezbollah operatives detonated two days in a row in supermarkets, on streets and at funerals in mid-September.
They killed nearly 40 people and wounded nearly 3,000, and preceded Israel’s ongoing military operation in Lebanon.
Hezbollah began low intensity strikes on Israel in support of Hamas following its ally’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which triggered the Gaza war.
Strikes have intensified since war broke out in Lebanon in late September, when Israel escalated its air campaign against Hezbollah and later sent ground troops into south Lebanon.