Category Archives: Hamas

Ceasefire elusive as Blinken leaves Middle East, with future Israeli presence in Gaza key sticking point

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The US secretary of state’s ninth visit to the region since the start of the conflict has ended without truce agreement

US secretary of state Antony Blinken said that “time is of the essence” to secure a Gaza ceasefire, as he wrapped up a Middle East tour with an agreement between Israel and Hamas still elusive.

The deal “needs to get done, and it needs to get done in the days ahead,” Blinken told reporters in Doha before departing for Washington, as he reiterated his call for Hamas to accept a “bridging proposal” for a deal, which he said Israel had accepted, and asked both parties to work towards finalising it.

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Israel-Gaza war: at least 12 Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrike on school, say Gaza defence authorities – as it happened

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Israeli military says it struck Hamas militant base inside the school but civil defence agency spokesperson says bodies of men and children recovered

Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi warned on Tuesday of the risk of the Gaza war expanding regionally in a way “difficult to imagine” during a meeting with U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken, the Egyptian presidency said.

He added:“The ceasefire in Gaza must be the beginning of broader international recognition of the Palestinian state and the implementation of the two-state solution, as this is the basic guarantor of stability in the region.”

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Israel says bodies of six hostages have been recovered from Gaza

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IDF says the dead men were all civilians abducted from kibbutzim during 7 October Hamas attack

Israel has recovered the bodies of six hostages who were seized during Hamas’s 7 October attack and taken to Gaza, its military has announced.

An overnight operation in Khan Younis in southern Gaza found the bodies of Yagev Buchshtab, Alexander Dancyg, Avraham Munder, Yoram Metzger, Nadav Popplewell and Chaim Peri, all civilians abducted from their homes in kibbutzim adjacent to Israel’s barrier wall with the Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Tuesday.

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Blinken says Gaza ceasefire talks ‘may be last opportunity’ for hostage deal

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US secretary of state says Netanhayu supports US ceasefire proposal, after meeting with Israeli PM

The US secretary of state has said during a visit to Israel that the current round of ceasefire talks is “maybe the last opportunity” to broker a truce and a hostage and prisoner swap in the 10-month-old war in Gaza.

Antony Blinken met Israeli officials, including in a three-hour one-on-one with the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Monday during a 24-hour trip to Tel Aviv before he travels on to Egypt.

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Middle East crisis: Netanyahu’s office says meeting with Blinken was ‘positive’ – as it happened

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Israeli prime minister says meeting with US secretary of state was ‘conducted in good spirit’ as Blinken says latest push for ceasefire is last opportunity

My life in Gaza was constantly at risk, and I could have been targeted and killed at any moment. Had I stayed, there is every chance that I would’ve been one of the 40,000 Palestinians killed by Israel, of which as many as 17,000 are children, over 11,000 women and 113 journalists like me. A Lancet study even suggests that the Gaza death toll could exceed 186,000.

I had less than 24 hours notice that I was leaving Gaza, but it wasn’t one of those times where I was excited to pack to go on a vacation. It felt like I was living everything my grandpa once lived through during the Nakba in 1948. I left Gaza with a heavy heart, a fake Dolce & Gabbana top, a black jacket and lipstick.

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Will the latest talks between Hamas and Israel lead to a ceasefire in Gaza?

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Negotiators are hopeful but the US believes it may be the last opportunity to secure release of hostages

Mediators said they were hopeful about brokering a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war after two days of talks in the Qatari capital, Doha, last week, announcing that a “bridging proposal” had been agreed.

However, previous optimism that a deal was close at hand proved to be misplaced. Joe Biden said in February that he believed a ceasefire agreement was “imminent”, while the beginning of Ramadan in March, and intense diplomatic efforts before Israel’s invasion of Rafah in May, were also touted as “last chances”.

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Blinken arrives in Israel for 11th-hour talks on Gaza ceasefire deal

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US secretary of state flies into Tel Aviv amid signals that a breakthrough may not be as close as had been suggested

The US secretary of state has arrived in Israel for 11th-hour talks aimed at shoring up a deal for a lasting ceasefire in the war in Gaza, amid signals from Israeli and Hamas officials that a breakthrough may not be as close as international mediators had suggested.

Antony Blinken flew into Tel Aviv on Sunday as part of Washington’s renewed efforts to broker a ceasefire in the 10-month-old conflict, negotiations seen as even more urgent after last month’s back-to-back assassinations of a top Hezbollah commander and the Hamas political chief, Ismail Haniyeh.

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David Lammy warns of rising risk of full-scale regional war in Middle East

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The UK foreign secretary and his French counterpart write in the Observer about their fears over Israel’s escalating tensions with Iran

• It’s never too late for peace in the Middle East – we must break the cycle of violence

There is a rising risk of “full-scale regional war” in the Middle East, the foreign secretary, David Lammy, has warned, amid frantic international efforts to calm tensions with Iran and reach a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.

With the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, flying into Israel this weekend to push for a deal, Lammy has joined forces with his French counterpart, Stéphane Séjourné, to warn that now is a “perilous moment” for the region in the midst of widespread fears of escalation involving Tehran and allied militias in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

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Israel-Gaza war: new evacuation orders in Gaza as 15 reported killed in Israeli strike – as it happens

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This live blog is now closed, you can read more about the Israel-Gaza war here

The uncle of three of the people killed in the strike in southern Lebanon early Saturday said they were factory workers who were in their housing accomodation when they were hit. He denied that there were weapons at the facility.

“There was nothing at all like that,” Hussein Shahoud told AP. “There was metal for construction, for building, for all kinds of purposes.”

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Gaza ceasefire talks to resume next week after no breakthrough in Doha

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US, Qatar and Egypt issue optimistic statement that may also be aimed at stalling Iranian retaliation against Israel

The latest round of Gaza ceasefire talks have ended in Doha without a breakthrough, but a new date next week has been set for further negotiations to attempt to end the 10-month-old war.

A White House statement signed by the co-mediators Qatar and Egypt described a fresh proposal that built “on areas of agreement” and bridged remaining gaps in a manner that allowed for “a swift implementation of the deal”.

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Israel-Gaza war: UN calls Israeli settler attack in West Bank ‘horrific’ – as it happened

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The attack, which has been widely condemned, left a Palestinian man dead and about a dozen injured

To Australia now and a row between an independent MP and the leader of the opposition.

Liberal party leader Peter Dutton has insisted he is not racist after Zali Steggall, the independent MP, defended calling Dutton so in parliament and accused him of fuelling division with his political attacks over visa-holders from Gaza.

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New round of Gaza ceasefire negotiations begin without Hamas

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US, Qatar, Egypt and Israel meet in Doha in effort to prevent fighting spiralling into region-wide Middle East conflict

A new round of negotiations aimed at brokering a ceasefire in the war in Gaza and preventing the fighting from escalating into a region-wide conflict got under way in Doha, as the death toll in the Palestinian territory reached a grim milestone of 40,000 people, according to local health authorities.

Mediators from the US, Qatar and Egypt met an Israeli delegation in the Qatari capital on Thursday afternoon, with talks expected to continue into the next day. Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, is not directly participating in the talks, meaning expectations of a breakthrough are low.

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Hamas unlikely to take part in new round of Gaza ceasefire talks

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Islamist group says it won’t ‘negotiate just to negotiate’, raising fears of Iranian attacks on Israel if no deal is agreed

Hamas appears unlikely to participate in a new round of talks on a Gaza ceasefire deal on Thursday, further eroding hopes of an agreement that might stave off expected retaliatory strikes by Iran against Israel for the killing of a Hamas leader in Tehran last month.

Most observers already had low expectations of the ceasefire talks, with Israel hardening its position in recent weeks and fears that Hamas, now led by its most hardline faction, would offer few concessions.

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Iran rejects western plea not to launch retaliatory attack against Israel

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Tehran blames the country for killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iranian capital

Iran has rejected western calls not to retaliate against Israel for the killing in Tehran of Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, late last month.

“Such demands lack political logic, are entirely contrary to the principles and rules of international law, and represent an excessive request,” Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Nasser Kanani, said.

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Hamas says one Israeli hostage killed and two more injured in Gaza

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Shootings take place in ‘two separate incidents’, according to armed wing of group, which did not identify victims

The armed wing of the Palestinian group Hamas has said its militants shot and killed an Israeli hostage and wounded two others, both women, “in two separate incidents” in Gaza.

Palestinian militants seized 251 hostages during their 7 October attack on Israel that triggered the ongoing war, 111 of whom are still being held in Gaza, although the Israeli military says 39 are dead.

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Israel prepares for likely retaliatory attack by Iran as tensions mount

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US says it has prepared for significant attacks by Iran or proxies as Tehran stresses right to respond to assassinations

Iran has insisted on its right to an “appropriate and deterrent response” against Israel as the White House said it had prepared for what could be significant attacks by Iran or its proxies as soon as this week.

The comments come as the US announced it had ordered the deployment of the USS Georgia, a nuclear-powered guided-missile submarine, to the Middle East, amid mounting concern over the determination by Iran and its proxies to retaliate for Israel’s assassination of Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran. Iran’s acting foreign minister, Ali Bagheri Kani, made the comments to his Chinese counterpart on Monday, according to state media.

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Middle East crisis: US accelerates military deployment to region amid reports Iran may attack within days – as it happened

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US defence secretary Lloyd Austin orders USS Abraham Lincoln strike group to quicken transit to Middle East and deploys guided missile submarine, says Pentagon

A hospital in southern Gaza has received the bodies of 13 people, including a child, who were killed in Israeli strikes on Khan Younis, the Associated Press reports.

The strikes came as Israel has ordered mass evacuations from Gaza’s second-largest city in recent days, claiming Palestinian militants are firing rockets from the area. Khan Younis suffered heavy destruction earlier this year during a major Israeli air and ground offensive.

An AP journalist counted the bodies at the nearby Nasser hospital and saw funeral prayers being held Monday morning.

The dead include a medic who was killed along with two others in a strike on his house, according to the hospital records.

This footage from Gaza City shows the moment an Israeli airstrike hit a house in the suburb of Sheikh Radwan on Sunday. One person was killed and several others were wounded, according to Palestinian medics. According to Reuters, the cameraman who filmed the video said the Israeli army had notified people of a possible strike in the area.

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US orders strike group to accelerate deployment to Middle East amid fears of Iran attack on Israel

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Secretary of defence also announces deployment of guided missile submarine, as Hamas appears to push back against resuming ceasefire negotiations

The US has ordered a strike group of fighter jets and navy warships to accelerate its deployment to the Middle East, as the region braces for possible attacks by Iran and its allies after the killing of senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah.

The US secretary of defence, Lloyd Austin, ordered the Abraham Lincoln strike group to accelerate its deployment to the region, while at the same time announcing the deployment of a guided missile submarine, after speaking with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant.

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Thousands flee Khan Younis after Israel warns of new offensive

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Displaced residents uncertain where to flee to as IDF prepares to fight Hamas in city in southern Gaza Strip

Thousands of people have fled the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis after the Israeli military warned of a new operation to flush out Hamas militants that it says have regrouped there.

In al-Jala, a neighbourhood in the south of the city that the Israel Defense Forces had previously designated a humanitarian zone, residents on Sunday packed their belongings, uncertain where to seek refuge. Israel said rockets had been fired from the area.

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