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Biden, key European and Latin American leaders, urge Hamas to accept deal

Update Biden, key European and Latin American leaders, urge Hamas to accept deal
Palestinians check a UN-school housing displaced people that was hit during Israeli bombardment in Nuseirat, in the central Gaza Strip, on June 6, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas militant group. (AFP)
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Updated 06 June 2024
AFP
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Biden, key European and Latin American leaders, urge Hamas to accept deal

Biden, key European and Latin American leaders, urge Hamas to accept deal
  • Talks in Qatar were aimed at finding a formula that could reassure Hamas over its demand for guarantees
Updated 06 June 2024
AFP
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WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden and 16 other world leaders including key European and Latin American players on Thursday jointly urged Hamas to accept a ceasefire deal and for Israel to accept compromises.
“There is no time to lose. We call on Hamas to close this agreement,” said the statement issued by the White House.
The statement was signed by the leaders of key European powers Britain, France and Germany as well as by Spain, which has infuriated Israel by recognizing a Palestinian state.
More unusually, the statement brought together the ideologically divergent leaders of South America’s most populous nations — Brazil and Colombia, whose left-wing presidents have stridently denounced Israel, and Argentina, whose new libertarian leader backs Israel.
The United States has repeatedly said the onus is on Hamas to accept the deal, but the statement also called for flexibility from Israel.
“At this decisive moment, we call on the leaders of Israel as well as Hamas to make whatever final compromises are necessary to close this deal and bring relief to the families of our hostages, as well as those on both sides of this terrible conflict, including the civilian populations,” it said.
“It is time for the war to end and this deal is the necessary starting point.”
Biden last week publicly announced a new plan in which Israel would withdraw from Gaza population centers and Hamas would free hostages for an initial six weeks, with the ceasefire extended as negotiators seek a permanent end to hostilities.
He billed the plan as an Israeli offer, although it has drawn criticism from some right-wing Israeli politicians critical to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government.
Mediator Qatar has submitted the plan to Hamas for review. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has also been pushing the plan through phone calls with Arab foreign ministers.
Thursday’s statement was also signed by Thailand, which has a large force of workers in Israel and saw around 30 of its citizens taken hostage of around the 250 people seized by gunmen on October 7.
Other countries signing the statement were Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Serbia.
Israel’s military offensive has killed at least 36,654 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

Topics: War on Gaza Israel Gaza Hamas Biden

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2 children and a woman crushed to death outside Gaza bakery amid food shortage

2 children and a woman crushed to death outside Gaza bakery amid food shortage
Updated 5 sec ago
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2 children and a woman crushed to death outside Gaza bakery amid food shortage

2 children and a woman crushed to death outside Gaza bakery amid food shortage
Updated 5 sec ago
The bodies of two girls aged 13 and 17 and the 50-year-old woman were taken to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza
Osama Abu Laban, the father of one of the girls, wailed over the loss of her life outside the hospital

GAZA: Two children and a woman were crushed to death Friday as a crowd of Palestinians pushed to get bread at a bakery in the Gaza Strip amid a worsening food crisis in the war-ravaged territory, medical officials said.
The bodies of two girls aged 13 and 17 and the 50-year-old woman were taken to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza, where a doctor confirmed that they died from suffocation due to crowding at the Al-Banna bakery. Video from The Associated Press showed their bodies placed next to each other on the floor inside the hospital’s morgue.
The flow of food allowed into Gaza by Israel has fallen to nearly its lowest level of almost 14-month-old war for the past two months, according to Israeli official figures. UN and aid officials say hunger and desperation are growing among Gaza’s population, almost all of which relies on humanitarian aid to survive.
Osama Abu Laban, the father of one of the girls, wailed over the loss of her life outside the hospital.
“My wife fell when she heard that she (our daughter) was suffocating. She did not yet know that she was dead,” he told the AP.
Some bakeries in Gaza were closed for several days last week due to a shortage of flour. AP footage taken last week after they reopened showed large crowds of people cramming together, screaming and pushing, at one bakery in Deir Al-Balah.
Palestinians across the Gaza Strip are heavily relying on bakeries and charitable kitchens, with many able to only secure one meal a day for their families.
In Lebanon, thousands of displaced people began returning to their homes this week after a ceasefire was announced between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group.
Many found their homes reduced to rubble after intense Israeli airstrikes over the past two months leveled entire neighborhoods in eastern and southern Lebanon, as well as the southern suburbs of Beirut. Nearly 1.2 million people have been displaced.
The truce was the first major sign of progress in the region since war began more than a year ago, triggered by Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. But it does not address the devastating war in Gaza. For Palestinians in Gaza and families of hostages held in the territory, the ceasefire marked another missed opportunity to end fighting that has stretched on for nearly 14 months.
More than 44,000 people have been killed and more than 104,000 wounded, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Israel has destroyed large parts of Gaza and displaced nearly all of its 2.3 million people.

Israelis are wary of returning to the north because they don’t trust the ceasefire with Hezbollah

Israelis are wary of returning to the north because they don’t trust the ceasefire with Hezbollah
Updated 34 min 36 sec ago
AP
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Israelis are wary of returning to the north because they don’t trust the ceasefire with Hezbollah

Israelis are wary of returning to the north because they don’t trust the ceasefire with Hezbollah
  • “The ceasefire is rubbish,” said Sweetland, a gardener and member of the kibbutz’s civilian security squad
  • Across the border, Lebanese civilians have jammed roads in a rush to return to homes in the country’s south, but most residents of northern Israel have met the ceasefire with suspicion
Updated 34 min 36 sec ago
AP

KIBBUTZ MALKIYA, Israel: Dean Sweetland casts his gaze over a forlorn street in the Israeli community of Kibbutz Malkiya. Perched on a hill overlooking the border with Lebanon, the town stands mostly empty after being abandoned a year ago.
The daycare is closed. The homes are unkempt. Parts of the landscape are ashen from fires sparked by fallen Hezbollah rockets. Even after a tenuous Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire designed to let Israelis return to the north, the mood here is far from celebratory.
“The ceasefire is rubbish,” said Sweetland, a gardener and member of the kibbutz’s civilian security squad. “Do you expect me to ring around my friends and say, ‘All the families should come home?’ No.”
Across the border, Lebanese civilians have jammed roads in a rush to return to homes in the country’s south, but most residents of northern Israel have met the ceasefire with suspicion and apprehension.
“Hezbollah could still come back to the border, and who will protect us when they do?” Sweetland asked.
Israel’s government seeks to bring the northern reaches of the country back to life, particularly the line of communities directly abutting Lebanon that have played a major role in staking out Israel’s border.
But the fear of Hezbollah, a lack of trust in United Nations peacekeeping forces charged with upholding the ceasefire, deep anger at the government and some Israelis’ desire to keep rebuilding their lives elsewhere are keeping many from returning immediately.
When the truce took effect, about 45,000 Israelis had evacuated from the north. They fled their homes after Hezbollah began firing across the border on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with its ally Hamas in Gaza. That triggered more than a year of cross-border exchanges, with Lebanese villages in the south and Israeli communities facing the border taking the brunt of the pain.
During the truce’s initial 60-day phase, Hezbollah is supposed to remove its armed presence from a broad band of southern Lebanon where the military says the militant group had been digging in for years by gathering weapons and setting up rocket launch sites and other infrastructure. Under the ceasefire, a UN peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL and a beefed-up Lebanese army presence are supposed to ensure Hezbollah doesn’t return.
Many residents of northern Israel are skeptical that the peace will hold.
Sarah Gould, who evacuated Kibbutz Malkiya at the start of the war with her three kids, said Hezbollah fired on the community up to and just past the minute when the ceasefire took effect early Wednesday.
“So for the government to tell me that Hezbollah is neutralized,” she said, “it’s a perfect lie.”
Residents fear for their safety in the far north
In Gaza, where Israel is pushing forward with a war that has killed over 44,000 Palestinians, Israel’s goal is the eradication of Hamas. But in Lebanon, Israel’s aims were limited to pushing Hezbollah away from the border so northern residents could return home.
Israeli critics say the government should have kept fighting to outright cripple Hezbollah or to clear out the border area, which is home to hundreds of thousands of Lebanese.
“I won’t even begin to consider going home until I know there’s a dead zone for kilometers across the border,” the 46-year-old Gould said.
Some wary Israelis trickled back home Thursday and Friday to areas farther from the border. But communities like Kibbutz Manara, set on a tiny slice of land between Lebanon and Syria, remained ghost towns.
Orna Weinberg, 58, who was born and raised in Manara, said it was too early to tell whether the ceasefire would protect the community.
Perched above all the other border villages, Manara was uniquely vulnerable to Hezbollah fire throughout the war. Three-quarters of its structures were damaged.
In the kibbutz’s communal kitchen and dining hall, ceiling beams have collapsed. The uprooted floorboards are covered with ash from fires that also claimed much of the kibbutz’s cropland.
Rocket fragments abound. The torso of a mannequin, a decoy dressed in army green, lies on the ground.
Weinberg tried to stay in Manara during the war, but after anti-tank shrapnel damaged her home, soldiers told her to leave. On Thursday, she walked along her street, which looks out directly over a UNIFIL position separating the kibbutz from a line of Lebanese villages that have been decimated by Israeli bombardment and demolitions.
Weinberg said UNIFIL hadn’t prevented Hezbollah’s build-up in the past, “so why would they be able to now?”
“A ceasefire here just gives Hezbollah a chance to rebuild their power and come back to places that they were driven out of,” she said.
The truce seemed fragile.
Associated Press reporters heard sporadic bursts of gunfire, likely Israeli troops firing at Lebanese attempting to enter the towns. Israel’s military says it is temporarily preventing Lebanese civilians from returning home to a line of towns closest to the border, until the Lebanese military can deploy there in force.
Even in less battered communities, no one returns home
Though the atmosphere along the border was tense, Malkiya showed signs of peace. With Hezbollah’s rockets stopped, some residents returned briefly to the kibbutz to peer around cautiously.
At a vista overlooking the border, where the hulking wreckage of Lebanese villages could made out, a group of around 30 soldiers gathered. Just days ago, they would have made easy targets for Hezbollah fire.
Malkiya has sustained less damage than Manara. Still, residents said they would not return immediately. During a year of displacement, many have restarted their lives elsewhere, and the idea of going back to a front-line town on the border is daunting.
In Lebanon, where Israeli bombardment and ground assaults drove some 1.2 million people from their homes, some of the displaced crowded into schools-turned-shelters or slept in the streets.
In Israel, the government paid for hotels for evacuees and helped accommodate children in new schools. Gould predicted residents would return to the kibbutz only when government subsidies for their lodging dried up — “not because they want to, but because they feel like they can’t afford an alternative.”
“It’s not just a security issue,” Gould said. “We’ve spent more than a year rebuilding our lives wherever we landed. It’s a question of having to gather that up and move back somewhere else, somewhere that’s technically our old house but not a home. Nothing feels the same.”
It’s unclear if schools in the border communities will have enough students to reopen, Gould said, and her children are already enrolled elsewhere. She’s enjoyed living farther from the border, away from an open war zone.
There’s also a deep feeling that the communities were abandoned by the government, Sweetland said.
Sweetland is one of roughly 25 civilian security volunteers who stayed throughout the war, braving continual rocket fire to keep the kibbutz afloat. They repaired damaged homes, put out blazes and helped replace the kibbutz generator when it was taken out by Hezbollah fire. They were on their own, with no firefighters or police willing to risk coming, he said.
“We didn’t have any help for months and months and months, and we pleaded, ‘Please help us.’”
Sweetland said he will keep watching over the hushed pathways of the once-vibrant community in hopes his neighbors will soon feel safe enough to return. But he predicted it would take months.
Weinberg hopes to move back to Manara as soon as possible. On Thursday, she spotted a former neighbor who was about to leave after checking the damage to her home.
Weinberg grasped her hand through the car window, asking how she was. The woman grimaced and began to cry. Their hands parted as the car slowly rolled out through the gates and drove away.

Topics: Battlefield Lebanon Israel Hezbollah Kibbutz Malkiya Ceasefire

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France urges ceasefire in Sudan war, pledges aid to Chad

France urges ceasefire in Sudan war, pledges aid to Chad
Updated 29 November 2024
AFP
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France urges ceasefire in Sudan war, pledges aid to Chad

France urges ceasefire in Sudan war, pledges aid to Chad
  • French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot denounced the attitude of Russia, which vetoed a UN resolution last week that urged a ceasefire and the protection of civilians in Sudan
  • Russia has “abandoned the Sudanese” and “unveiled its relationship with Africa, a relationship based on greed, cynicism and hyprocrisy“
Updated 29 November 2024
AFP

ADRE, Chad: France’s foreign minister on Thursday called on foreign nations to stop helping the warring sides in famine-stricken Sudan’s civil war as he visited refugee camps in neighboring Chad.
Sudan has been mired since April 2023 in conflict between the army, led by General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by his former deputy, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
Both sides face accusations of war crimes, including targeting civilians, shelling residential areas, and blocking or looting aid.
The conflict has killed tens of thousands and forced over 11 million people out of their homes, with 2.1 million fleeing the country. The United Nations estimates that more than 25 million people — over half the population — facing acute hunger.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot denounced the attitude of Russia, which vetoed a UN resolution last week that urged a ceasefire and the protection of civilians in Sudan.
Russia has “abandoned the Sudanese” and “unveiled its relationship with Africa, a relationship based on greed, cynicism and hyprocrisy,” the minister said.
Around 1.5 million Sudanese refugees have fled to Chad, a country of 20 million people.
Barrot urged the Sudanese armed forces to “keep the Adre crossing open and lift all bureaucratic impediments to the delivery of humanitarian aid.”
Adre, leading into Chad, is the only access point to famine-stricken Darfur in western Sudan.
He urged the RSF to “cease looting, racketeering and the diversion of humanitarian convoys to allow them to arrive at their destination.”
Chad’s Foreign Minister Abderaman Koulamallah, who was with Barrot said that Chad “remains strictly neutral in the conflict.”
“We have an interest in bringing peace back to Sudan and remaining as neutral as possible in this war,” he added.
Barrot pledged an additional seven million euros ($7.4 million) in aid to support efforts to fight cholera and help women and children in Chad.
Paris had already vowed to donate $110 million in April.
Several nations have promised more than $2 billion for Sudan, but voiced concern about getting the aid to the population.

Topics: Sudan Unrest French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot Sudan's army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo

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The diplomatic push that took Lebanon from Armageddon to ceasefire

The diplomatic push that took Lebanon from Armageddon to ceasefire
Updated 29 November 2024
Reuters
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The diplomatic push that took Lebanon from Armageddon to ceasefire

The diplomatic push that took Lebanon from Armageddon to ceasefire
  • Lebanese officials had made it clear to the US that Lebanon had little trust in either Washington or Netanyahu, two European diplomats said
  • France had been increasingly critical of Israel’s military campaigns, and Lebanese officials regarded it as a counterweight in talks to the US, the Western diplomat said
Updated 29 November 2024
Reuters

PARIS/WASHINGTON/BEIRUT: The ceasefire deal that ended a relentless barrage of Israeli airstrikes and led Lebanon into a shaky peace took shape over weeks of talks and was uncertain until the final hours.
US envoy Amos Hochstein shuttled repeatedly to Beirut and Jerusalem despite the ructions of an election at home to secure a deal that required help from France — and that was nearly derailed by international arrest warrants for Israel’s leaders.
Israel had signalled last month that it had achieved its main war goals in Lebanon by dealing Iran-backed Hezbollah a series of stunning blows, but an agreed truce remained some way off.
A football match, intense shuttle diplomacy and pressure from the United States all helped get it over the line on Tuesday night, officials and diplomats said.
Longstanding enemies, Israel and Hezbollah have been fighting for 14 months since the Lebanese group began firing rockets at Israeli military targets in support of the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Escalations over the summer drew in Hezbollah’s main patron Iran and threatened a regional conflagration, as Israel refocused its military from the urban ruins of Gaza to the rugged border hills of Lebanon.
Israel stepped up its campaign suddenly in September with its pager attack and targeted airstrikes that killed Hezbollah’s leader and many in its command structure. Tanks crossed the border late on Sept. 30.
With swathes of southern Lebanon in ruins, more than a million Lebanese driven from their homes and Hezbollah under pressure, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated in October there was “a window” for a deal, a senior US administration official said.
Although some in Israel sought a more comprehensive victory and an uninhabited buffer zone in Lebanon, the country was strained by a two-front war that had required many people to leave their jobs to fight as reservists.

DIPLOMACY
“You sometimes get a sense when things get into the final lane, where the parties are not only close, but that the will is there and the desire is there and the stars are aligned,” the senior US administration official said in a briefing.
Officials of the governments of Israel, Lebanon, France and the US who described to Reuters how the agreement came together declined to be identified for this story, citing the sensitivity of the matter.
Hezbollah did not immediately respond to a request for comment about how the deal was negotiated.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah was still fighting but under intense pressure, and newly open to a ceasefire that was not dependent on a truce in Gaza — in effect dropping a demand it had made early in the war.
The Shiite group had in early October endorsed Lebanon’s veteran Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, its longtime ally, to lead negotiations.
With Hochstein shuttling between the countries, meeting Israeli negotiators under Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and reporting back daily to US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, France was also in the picture.
Paris had been working with Hochstein on a failed attempt for a truce in September and was still working in parallel to the US
Lebanese officials had made it clear to the US that Lebanon had little trust in either Washington or Netanyahu, two European diplomats said.
France had been increasingly critical of Israel’s military campaigns, and Lebanese officials regarded it as a counterweight in talks to the US, the Western diplomat said.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot visited the region in early November at Israel’s request despite tensions between the countries.
He held long talks with Dermer on the mechanics of a ceasefire with a phased approach to redeployments, with the two delegations poring over maps, two sources aware of the matter said.
As things worsened for Lebanon, there was frustration at the pace of talks. “(Hochstein) told us he needed 10 days to get to a ceasefire but the Israelis dragged it out to a month to finish up military operations,” a Lebanese official said.

VIOLATIONS
The deal was to be based on better implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. Both sides complained of repeated violations of that deal and wanted reassurances.
The main sticking point was Israel’s insistence on a free hand to strike if Hezbollah violated 1701. That was not acceptable to Lebanon.
Eventually Israel and the US agreed a side-deal — verbal assurances according to a Western diplomat — that Israel would be able to respond to threats.
“The two sides keep their right to defend themselves, but we want to do everything to avoid them exercising that right,” a European diplomat said.
Israel was also worried about Hezbollah weapons supplies through Syria. It sent messages to Syrian President Bashar Assad via intermediaries to prevent this, three diplomatic sources said.
It reinforced the message by ramping up air strikes in Syria, including near Russian forces in Latakia province where there is a major port, the three sources said.
“Israel can almost dictate the terms. Hezbollah is massively weakened. Hezbollah wants and needs a ceasefire more than Israel does. This is finishing not due to American diplomacy but because Israel feels it has done what it needs to do,” said a senior Western diplomat.

OBSTACLES The talks intensified as the Nov. 5 US presidential election loomed and reached a turning point after Donald Trump won the vote.
US mediators briefed the Trump team, telling them the deal was good for Israel, good for Lebanon and good for US national security, the senior US administration official said.
A potential new flashpoint endangering the critical role of Paris in the negotiations emerged as an Israeli soccer team traveled to France after violence had engulfed Israeli fans in Amsterdam.
However, with French authorities averting trouble, French President Emmanuel Macron sat next to the Israeli ambassador in the stadium. “The match was so boring that the two spent an hour talking about how to calm tensions between the two allies and move forward,” the source aware of the matter said.
At this key moment the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant.
Netanyahu threatened to cut France out of any deal if Paris abided by its Rome Statute obligation to arrest him if he went there, three sources said. That could in turn torpedo Lebanese agreement to the truce.
US President Joe Biden phoned Macron, who in turn phoned Netanyahu before Biden and Macron spoke again, the US official said. The Elysee eventually settled on a statement accepting the ICC’s authority but shying away from threats of an arrest.
Over the weekend US officials then ramped up pressure on Israel, with Hochstein warning that if a deal was not agreed within days, he would pull the plug on mediation, two Israeli officials said.
By Tuesday it all came together and on Wednesday the bombs stopped falling.

Topics: Battlefield Lebanon Israel Lebanon Hezbollah Ceasefire

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Israel building military corridor splitting northern Gaza: BBC

Palestinians walk next to damaged buildings after Israeli forces withdrew from a part of Nuseirat in central Gaza on November 29
Palestinians walk next to damaged buildings after Israeli forces withdrew from a part of Nuseirat in central Gaza on November 29
Updated 29 November 2024
Arab News
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Israel building military corridor splitting northern Gaza: BBC

Palestinians walk next to damaged buildings after Israeli forces withdrew from a part of Nuseirat in central Gaza on November 29
  • Satellite photos, video footage show buildings demolished, troop positions established
  • Expert: ‘I think they’re going to settle Jewish settlers in the north, probably in the next 18 months’
Updated 29 November 2024
Arab News

LONDON: Israel is building military infrastructure separating the north of the Gaza Strip from the rest of the Palestinian enclave, the BBC has reported.

The broadcaster’s Verify team said it has seen satellite images showing that buildings have been demolished along a line from the Israeli border with Gaza to the Mediterranean through a series of controlled explosions.

BBC Verify added that the images show Israeli military vehicles and soldiers stationed along the line, which reaches almost 9 km across the enclave, cutting off Gaza City from the towns of Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia.

Footage has also emerged online of Israeli soldiers destroying buildings in the area since October, and of personnel driving Humvee vehicles through the zone.

Footage has also been released by Hamas fighters still in the area engaging with Israeli ground forces and tanks around the new dividing line.

Dr. H. A. Hellyer, a Middle East expert at the Royal United Services Institute, told the BBC that the images suggest Israel will block thousands of Palestinians from returning to their homes in northern Gaza.

This new partition is not the first to be built in Gaza since the start of the war in October 2023.

The Netzarim Corridor to the south separates Gaza City into two areas, whilst the Philadelphi Corridor separates the south of the enclave from its border with Egypt.

“They’re digging in for the long term,” Hellyer said. “I would absolutely expect the north partition to develop exactly like the Netzarim Corridor.”

He added: “I think they’re going to settle Jewish settlers in the north, probably in the next 18 months. They won’t call them settlements.

“To begin with they’ll call them outposts or whatever, but that’s what they’ll be and they’ll grow from there.”

The developments have raised fears that Israel is implementing a plan devised by former Gen. Giora Elland to force civilians out of northern Gaza by limiting supplies, and informing those who remain that they will be treated as enemy combatants, in a bid to pressure Hamas into releasing Israeli hostages.

The BBC reported that around 90 percent of Gaza has been subject to evacuation orders at various points since the start of the conflict, with millions of people repeatedly displaced.

The UN estimates, with the assistance of aid agencies working in Gaza, that around 65,000 people could still be trapped north of the new line, where they face the prospect of starving. 

A UN spokesperson on Tuesday said “virtually no aid” is entering the area, and locals are “facing critical shortages of supplies and services, as well as severe overcrowding and poor hygiene conditions.”

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said Israel should occupy Gaza and “encourage” Palestinians to leave.

Topics: Gaza War in Gaza Israel

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