Category Archives: Benjamin Netanyahu

Biden warns Netanyahu against Rafah operation without ‘credible’ safety plan

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UN officials and Biden have said an offensive in city, where about 1.3 million Palestinians are sheltering, would lead to a ‘bloodbath’

In a call Sunday with Benjamin Netanyahu, Joe Biden told the Israeli prime minister that Israel should not launch a military operation in Rafah “without a credible and executable plan for ensuring the safety of and support for the more than one million people sheltering there”.

The call between the US president and Netanyahu was the first between the two leaders since Biden on Thursday used the phrase “over the top” to describe Israel’s military strikes in Gaza in response to the 7 October attack by Hamas.

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Netanyahu reiterates intent to press on with ground offensive on Rafah

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Israeli PM brushes aside warnings that assault on Gaza’s southernmost town would be a ‘human catastrophe’

Benjamin Netanyahu appears determined to push ahead with a ground offensive against Gaza’s southernmost town of Rafah but has claimed Israel will provide safe passage to the 1.3 million displaced Palestinians sheltering there.

Despite mounting warnings from aid agencies and the international community that an assault on Rafah would be a catastrophe, Netanyahu has reiterated his intention to extend Israel’s military operation against Hamas. Hamas stated that a new advance into Rafah would “blow up” ongoing negotiations to return hostages in return for a ceasefire.

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‘Bring them back’: freed Israeli hostages plead with Netanyahu for deal

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Families fear remaining hostages will pay price for prime minister’s pursuit of ‘absolute victory’ over Hamas

Moments after Benjamin Netanyahu publicly rejected the terms of a ceasefire in Gaza proposed by Hamas, five Israeli hostages who were freed in November pleaded with him to push for a deal.

“Everything is in your hands,” a tearful Adina Moshe, 72, said in a direct appeal to the Israeli prime minister at an emotional press conference in Tel Aviv. She said she feared the remaining hostages and their families would pay the price for Netanyahu’s pursuit of “absolute victory” over the militant group.

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Netanyahu rejects Gaza ceasefire deal and says victory is ‘within reach’

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Israeli PM rebuffs US-led mediation efforts as order is given to commence ground assault in southern city of Rafah

Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the terms of a ceasefire in Gaza proposed by Hamas and rebuffed US pressure to move more quickly towards a mediated settlement to the war, saying there could be no solution to Israel’s security issues except “absolute victory” over the militant group.

The Israeli prime minister also confirmed that the Israel Defense Forces had been instructed to commence operations in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where the population has been swelled by hundreds of thousands of displaced people.

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Overnight Israeli airstrikes kill scores in Gaza as fears grow of push into Rafah

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More than 127 reportedly killed in bombings, including in Rafah where more than a million people are sheltering

Israeli airstrikes across Gaza killed scores of people overnight, as fears grow of the military campaign intensifying in the southern city of Rafah, a tiny pocket of the territory where more than a million people are sheltering.

Amid intensifying divisions in Israel’s government over the war, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, was expected to arrive in the region on Sunday, his fifth trip since the militant group attacked Israel on 7 October, killing at least 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostage.

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Fresh strikes in southern Gaza as talks on two-month pause in fighting continue

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Hundreds killed and injured in central Gaza Strip while Palestinians crowd into camps and the city of Rafah
• Middle East crisis – live updates

Israeli forces struck densely populated areas across the middle and southern Gaza Strip in a midnight attack on Friday and early Saturday, killing at least 25 people amid fears of an impending push south by ground troops as pressure builds for a ceasefire deal.

Israeli fighter jets struck Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, as well as the city of Rafah in the south. The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said at least 107 people had been killed and 165 injured overnight.

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Israeli ministers reportedly considering limiting aid entering Gaza

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Two ministers said to have suggested move as part of efforts to free hostages and weaken Hamas, which they claim hijacks supplies

Ministers in Israel’s war cabinet are reportedly considering limiting the amount of aid reaching Gaza, as rightwing protesters disrupt the entry of trucks carrying desperately needed humanitarian supplies to the besieged Palestinian territory.

Benny Gantz, a retired general who joined the emergency wartime government formed by the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, after 7 October, and Gadi Eisenkot, a former army chief of staff and war cabinet observer, suggested temporarily limiting aid to weaken Hamas, Israel’s Channel 12 reported late on Wednesday.

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Netanyahu rules out ceasefire deal that would mean Gaza withdrawal

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Israeli PM also says he will not accept any truce that would require release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners

Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will not accept any ceasefire deal that requires the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners or the departure of Israeli troops from Gaza, as the Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, said he was willing to travel to Cairo to discuss the proposals.

Haniyeh said the group’s aim remained to end Israel’s military offensive in Gaza and secure a full pullout of Israeli forces from the territory.

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Far-right Israeli ministers call for resettlement of Gaza – as it happened

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The Israeli army on Sunday said special forces were continuing to engage in “intensive battles” in Gaza’s main southern city of Khan Younis, where it claimed troops eliminated “terrorists and located large quantities of weapons”.

Strikes were also carried out in central and northern Gaza, it added.

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Israeli officials accuse international court of justice of antisemitic bias

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Senior ministers including Yoav Gallant condemn ruling while Palestinians dismayed it did not go further

Israeli officials have accused the international court of justice of antisemitic bias and expressed dismay that a South African case alleging that the war in Gaza amounts to genocide was not thrown out altogether, after the court issued an emergency interim ruling.

The ruling on Friday said Israel must take “all measures in its power” to prevent acts of genocide in the Gaza Strip but stopped short of calling for a full ceasefire. It ordered six so-called provisional measures to be implemented to protect Palestinians, including orders for Israel to prevent death and destruction and enable the provision of basic services and humanitarian aid to the strip’s trapped population.

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Qatar accuses Netanyahu of deliberately obstructing Gaza mediation efforts

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Doha ‘appalled’ at leaked remarks allegedly by Israeli PM in which he said Qatar’s role in talks was ‘problematic’

Qatar has harshly criticised Israel’s prime minister, accusing Benjamin Netanyahu of deliberately obstructing ceasefire and hostage-release negotiations with Hamas for personal political gain.

Doha’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Majed al-Ansari, said on Wednesday night that his government was “appalled” by leaked remarks allegedly made by Netanyahu in which he criticised the country’s mediation efforts over the war in Gaza, adding that the Israeli leader’s comments were “irresponsible and destructive” but “not surprising”.

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Twenty-four soldiers killed in deadliest day for Israeli forces of Gaza war

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Deaths come as talks of ceasefire increase and pressure rises on Netanyahu over leadership and handling of war effort

Twenty-four Israeli soldiers were killed in Gaza on Monday, by far the biggest single-day Israeli death toll in the three-month war against Hamas, as talks about a ceasefire intensified and Palestinian casualties continued to climb.

The deaths came amid fierce fighting around the southern city of Khan Younis, with dozens of Palestinians killed and wounded. The Israeli casualties are likely to increase domestic pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu over his leadership and handling of the war effort.

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Netanyahu faces hostages dilemma as Israeli political debate heats up

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Deal to free hostages could give boost to unpopular PM but concessions could cost him key allies’ support

As Israeli military casualties mount in Gaza, Benjamin Netanyahu finds himself on the horns of a dilemma. The Israeli prime minister’s popularity has plummeted and polls suggest that in an immediate election his rightwing Likud party would lose half its seats to a resurgent centrist opposition.

Voters have not forgotten the glaring failures that allowed Hamas to attack southern Israel from Gaza on 7 October, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting about 240. But the lack of tangible results from the Israeli offensive in Gaza that was supposed to bring “total victory” over Hamas is now important too.

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EU foreign policy chief says Israel failed to engage with Brussels peace summit

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Josep Borrell says minister came to meeting with plans for an artificial island off Gaza and a railway to India

One of the EU’s most senior diplomats has criticised the Israeli foreign minister for not properly engaging with a summit in Brussels designed to pave the way for a peace plan in the Middle East.

Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, told reporters Israel Katz had come to the meeting to present plans for an artificial island off the coast of Gaza and a railway to India, concepts that had nothing to do with the peace talks.

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Middle East crisis: US officials reject Houthi claim they attacked American ship in Gulf of Aden – as it happened

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The humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip “could not be worse”, the EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said on Monday.

“From now on I will not talk about the peace process, but I want a two-state-solution process”, Borell was quoted by Reuters as saying ahead of an EU foreign ministers’ meeting.

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Hamas official says ‘no chance’ hostages will return to Israel after Netanyahu rejects deal

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The prime minister said he rejected the terms of a deal which included Israel’s complete withdrawal from Gaza

The prospect of a deal to release the remaining hostages held by Hamas appeared to recede on Sunday after a Hamas official said Benjamin Netanyahu’s rejection of their conditions meant there was “no chance” of their return.

Netanyahu had earlier dismissed the militant group’s conditions to end the war, which he said included leaving Hamas in power and Israel’s complete withdrawal from the territory.

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UN chief condemns ‘utterly unacceptable’ killing of Palestinians as Gaza toll passes 25,100 – as it happened

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A total of 25,105 Palestinians have been killed and 62,681 have been injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

An estimated 178 Palestinians were killed and 293 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry added.

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UN chief decries ‘unacceptable’ scale of Gaza deaths as 25,000 reported killed

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Territory’s health ministry says most casualties are women and children, and that thousands more may lie under rubble

Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has killed 25,000 Palestinians, the health ministry in the territory has announced, as the UN chief described the scale of civilian killings as “heartbreaking and utterly unacceptable”.

Most of the casualties were women and children, the ministry said, and thousands more bodies were likely to remain uncounted under rubble across Gaza.

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Netanyahu defies Biden, insisting there’s ‘no space’ for Palestinian state

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The Israeli leader is under pressure over course of the Gaza war but is doubling down on opposition to a two-state solution

Defiant Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu doubled down on opposition to Palestinian statehood, deepening the divide with Israel’s closest international allies, as cracks in his wartime “unity” government became increasingly evident.

Anger with Netanyahu is also increasingly visible on the streets, even though there is broad public support for the war. On Saturday, protesters gathered in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Caesarea and Kfar Saba, some calling for bolder action to secure the release of hostages, and others demanding the prime minister step down.

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Strike on Syrian capital kills fifth Iran Revolutionary Guards member – as it happened

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The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has said the humanitarian situation in northern Gaza “remains dire”, with people returning to “primitive methods for food preparation and general hygiene”. It also said the situation had been “exacerbated by the continuous Israeli blockade hindering aid delivery”.

In a post on X, the PRCS quoted Mohammed Abu Msbeh, its director of ambulances and emergency centres in the Gaza Strip, as saying:

People have returned to primitive methods for food preparation and general hygiene, to make bread.

The daily struggle for water is a daily torment for Gaza residents to secure life-sustaining droplets, who stand in large crowds for hours with containers.

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