Category Archives: Hamas

US calls new Hamas ceasefire proposal for Gaza a ‘breakthrough’

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White House says proposal is in line with deal outlined by Joe Biden in late May, but work is still to be done

The White House has described the latest Hamas ceasefire proposal for Gaza as a “breakthrough” establishing a framework for a possible hostage deal, but warned that difficult negotiations remained over the implementation of the agreement.

A senior US official said the Biden administration received the latest Hamas offer “a couple of days ago” and had been studying it ahead of a 30-minute telephone call between Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday.

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Israel-Gaza war: Israel studying new Hamas response to ceasefire proposal – as it happened

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Mediators including Egypt, Qatar and the United States have been trying for months to secure a ceasefire and the release of 120 remaining hostages

The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Thursday that the Palestinian death toll from nearly nine months of war has surged past 38,000.

The ministry said that in the last 24 hours, the bodies of 58 people had been brought to hospitals, bringing the overall death toll to 38,011.

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Fresh strikes on Khan Younis as UN secretary general says ‘no place safe in Gaza’ – as it happened

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Eight Palestinians have been killed and dozens more wounded after Israeli forces again bombarded several areas of Khan Younis and Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Reuters reports health officials in the territory have said.

Reuters have spoken via a chat app to a 55-year-old in Gaza, who told the news agency he had been displaced six times since 7 October by Israeli attacks and evacuation orders.

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Israel-Gaza war: al-Shifa hospital director release sparks row in Israel; army needs 10,000 soldiers, Israel defence minister says – as it happened

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Palestinian news agency Wafa has spoken to a detainee released by Israel, who told the agency those from Gaza being held by Israeli forces suffer from tragic and unbearable conditions and circumstances.

He said he had been detained on 16 November, had been held in a tent with 30 inmates, and that Israeli prisoners were subject to various types of torture, abuse, and assaults.

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Middle East crisis: Israeli and Palestinian forces fighting ‘above and below ground’ in northern Gaza – as it happened

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Israel’s military says ‘large number’ of militants dead in Shujaiya area near Gaza City amid reports of bodies in streets

In an update to the earlier news about Israeli forces advancing further into Shujaiya, residents said Israeli tanks, which moved back into Shujaiya four days ago, fired shells towards several houses, leaving families trapped inside and unable to leave.

Speaking at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated his position that there was no substitute for achieving victory in the war against Hamas.

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UN issues warning over disease in Gaza as sewage and rubbish problems grow – as it happened

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Unrwa director says ‘stench in Gaza is enough to make you kind of immediately nauseous’. This live blog is closed

A ship’s captain reported that five missiles had landed close to his vessel in the Red Sea, 150 nautical miles (172 miles) northwest of the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) monitor said on Friday.

After posting earlier that it had received the report and that authorities were investigating (9.32am BST), the UKMTO said the ship had reported no damage and was heading northward. It gave no information on the ship or its cargo, reports Reuters.

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Israel-Gaza war: Israel warns it could take Lebanon ‘back to the Stone Age’ – as it happened

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Yoav Gallant said Israel is preparing for war with Hezbollah but stressed that his government preferred a diplomatic solution

Here are some of the latest images from Israel, where an anti-government demonstration has again attempted to block highways while demanding that Benjamin Netanyahu strike a deal to return Israeli hostages held by Hamas, and to call elections in Israel.

Haaretz reporter Bar Peleg has posted this video, which shows protesters blocking a road by setting a fire.

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Intense phase of Israel’s war with Hamas nearing end, says Netanyahu

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Israeli PM says he hopes for diplomatic solution to conflict but will solve it in ‘a different way’ if necessary

Israel’s prime minister has said the most intense phase of the assault against Hamas in Gaza is coming to an end, freeing up forces to move to the Lebanese border, where escalating exchanges of fire with the militant group Hezbollah have increased fears of a wider war.

In his first public interview with a Hebrew-language network outlet in more than eight months of conflict, broadcast on Sunday, Benjamin Netanyahu also walked back on his commitment to a US-backed ceasefire proposal with Hamas, instead suggesting a more limited offer.

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US withholding arms shipments, says Netanyahu, days after Washington denies claim – as it happened

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Israeli prime minister told his Cabinet that there had been a ‘dramatic drop’ in US weapons deliveries

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said on Sunday that it had received a report of a distress call from a vessel 96 nautical miles southeast of Nishtun, Yemen, adding that authorities were investigating it.

A drone damaged a merchant ship 65 nautical miles (120km) west of Hodeidah, Yemen, on Saturday. The ship made its way to its next port of call and “all crew members are reported safe”, the UKMTO said in a statement.

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Israeli defence minister flies to US for ‘critical’ talks on Gaza and Lebanon

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Yoav Gallant to meet top officials as Benjamin Netanyahu repeats claim of ‘dramatic drop’ in US arms shipments

Israel’s defence minister has flown to meet senior Biden administration officials in Washington for what he has described as “critical” talks over the twin conflicts with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Yoav Gallant, accompanied by the Israel Defense Forces’ deputy chief of staff, will meet the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, as well as the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and Joe Biden’s special envoy, Amos Hochstein.

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Israel’s Iron Dome risks being overwhelmed in all-out war with Hezbollah, says US

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Militants in Lebanon can fire 3,000 missiles a day, US officials warn as fears grow that the conflict will escalate

Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile batteries risk being overwhelmed in the opening strikes of any significantly escalated conflict with Hezbollah.

The assessment delivered by US officials late last week, echoing recent analysis by experts in Israel and the United States, comes amid fears that a war with Hezbollah could be a far more dangerous undertaking than the devastating 2006 second Lebanon war, when Israeli bombing caused huge destruction in Lebanon.

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At least 22 Palestinians killed in shelling near Gaza office of Red Cross, agency says

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Territory’s health ministry says Israeli attack targeted tents of displaced people; Israeli military says report ‘under review’

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says 22 people have been killed in a shelling attack that damaged its Gaza office, which is surrounded by hundreds of displaced Palestinians living in tents.

The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said there were 25 dead and 50 injured in the shelling, which it blamed on Israel. The ministry said Israeli shelling on Friday had “targeted the tents of the displaced in the al-Mawasi area”, which is around the ICRC base.

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‘All day you hear bombs’: on Israel’s northern border as war with Hezbollah looms

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Doctors prepare underground hospital units, people flee their homes and in rural kibbutz tension hangs in the air

Beneath the 800-bed Galilee medical centre in the northern Israeli city of Nahariya, treatment is being conducted in an underground complex beneath the hospital.

About 7km from the border with Lebanon, a frontier visible from the hospital’s car park and already under threat from Hezbollah’s missiles and explosive drones, the doctors are aware that in the event of an escalating war their facility will be on the frontline.

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Israel-Gaza war: Netanyahu rebukes IDF after army spokesperson warns that Hamas cannot be eliminated – now closed

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Prime minister’s office says the IDF is committed to the defeat of Hamas, after Daniel Hagari said Hamas is an ‘ideology’

French authorities have detained an Iranian citizen after he posted remarks about Israel-Gaza war posted on social media, a police source said on Thursday, in a case his lawyer has denounced as “political” amid tensions between Paris and Tehran.

Bashir Biazar has been described by London-based Iran International television channel as a former official for the Iranian state broadcaster IRIB. Iranian state media call him a “cultural figure”.

There is nothing, in terms of law, that justifies this measure. Bashir Biazar expressed himself on his Instagram account, as anyone could do freely in a state governed by the rule of law.

I think this procedure is political, and politics has no place in law.

The arrest of an Iranian citizen by the French police for having defended the oppressed Palestinian people (is) another scandal for France in the domain of human rights.

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Israeli talk of war with Hezbollah almost certainly fresh attempt at deterrence

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Risk is that miscalculation leads to sudden conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which is far more powerful than Hamas

A warning from Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, that a decision on “all-out war” with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon is coming soon is almost certainly a fresh attempt at deterrence on his part – not least because both sides well understand how devastating full hostilities would be.

The reality is that Hezbollah, an ally of Iran, is a more powerful adversary than Hamas in Gaza. It is estimated to have between 30,000 and 50,000 fighters available and a similar number in reserve – plus between 120,000 and 200,000 unguided missiles and rockets, plus attack and reconnaissance drones.

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Israel-Gaza war: Hezbollah fires more projectiles at Israel despite warning – as it happened

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Iran-backed militant group fired more than a dozen projectiles into northern Israel, says Israeli army, day after Israel warned of ‘total war’ with group

Agence France-Presse (AFP) report that there have been Israeli airstrikes and clashes between troops and Palestinian militants in Gaza on Wednesday.

Witnesses and the civil defence agency in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip reported Israeli bombardment in western Rafah, where medics said drone strikes and shelling killed at least seven people.

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Benjamin Netanyahu dissolves Israel’s war cabinet – as it happened

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Hostilities continue in Rafah and southern Gaza despite the Israeli military’s announcement on Sunday of tactical pauses in operations to allow humanitarian aid to enter, Reuters reports Unrwa chief Philippe Lazzarini, told the media in Oslo on Monday.

In its latest operational update, Israel’s military has claimed it is still operating in the Rafah area of Gaza, where it says “IDF troops located numerous weapons and struck a number of structures rigged with explosives that posed a threat to the forces.”

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Benjamin Netanyahu dissolves Israeli war cabinet

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Move is apparent rebuff to far right and attempt to tighten grip on decision-making over Hamas and Hezbollah

Benjamin Netanyahu has dissolved the Israeli war cabinet that had been overseeing the conflict in Gaza, rebuffing his far-right allies who had been seeking seats, and apparently moving to solidify his grasp on decision-making over the fighting with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah across the Lebanese border.

The prime minister announced the move to ministers, saying the war cabinet had been established as part of an agreement in which the moderate politician Benny Gantz and his National Unity party joined an emergency coalition last year.

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Netanyahu reportedly criticises military tactical pause in Gaza amid divisions with IDF

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Israel’s prime minister is said to have called the decision ‘unacceptable’ after Itamar Ben-Gvir said whoever decided it was a ‘fool’

Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly criticised plans announced by the military to hold daily tactical pauses in fighting along one of the main roads into Gaza to facilitate the delivery of aid

On Sunday the military announced a daily pause that would begin in the Rafah area at 8am and remain in effect until 7pm along the main Salah al-Din road, to allow aid trucks to transit between the Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel, adding that the pause would take place every day until further notice.

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