Yehuda Cohen says Israeli prime minister is refusing permanent ceasefire because ‘he wants to stay in power’
The father of an Israeli hostage has said Benjamin Netanyahu is “stalling” the deal with Hamas that could lead to the return of his son from Gaza.
Speaking at the Israeli embassy in central London, Yehuda Cohen, father of 20-year-old Israeli hostage Nimrod Cohen, said: “There is a deal on the table.
Continue reading...Negotiations on next part of truce have begun in Egypt, but militant group has accused Israel of procrastination
The latest round of talks on the second phase of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has yet to make any progress and it was unclear whether they would resume on Saturday, a senior Hamas official has said.
The ceasefire took effect on 19 January after more than 15 months of war following Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, the deadliest in the country’s history.
Continue reading...Israeli team heads to Cairo as end of deal’s first phase approaches, but big differences remain between two sides
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has announced that he has instructed a delegation to depart for Egypt for talks on continuing the ceasefire in the war with Hamas in Gaza, two days before the first stage of the fragile agreement expires.
The Israeli team is scheduled to leave Cairo, Egypt’s capital, late on Thursday, a statement from the prime minister’s office said. The announcement was made a day after Hamas handed over the bodies of four Israeli hostages, the last due to be released under the terms of the six-week first phase of the deal agreed in January.
Continue reading...National outpouring of grief comes amid reports that deal reached to resume ceasefire with Hamas
Thousands of Israelis have lined the route of a funeral procession for two small children and their mother who were held hostage and died in captivity in Gaza.
The national outpouring of grief for Ariel, Kfir and Shiri Bibas came amid reports that a deal had been reached to resume the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, with the handover of more bodies of hostages in return for the release of Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
Continue reading...Israel ready to resume fighting if there is no progress in crucial talks this week, reports say
Israel is seeking to extend the first stage of the ceasefire agreement in the war with Hamas in Gaza and is prepared to resume fighting if there is no progress in crucial talks this week, according to reports.
Israel’s Kan Radio, along with Ma’ariv, a daily newspaper, reported on Tuesday that informal talks were under way aimed at extending the first 42-day stage of the ceasefire, which expires on Saturday. Official internationally mediated negotiations on how to implement the second stage – which would involve a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian territory – were supposed to begin weeks ago, but have been repeatedly postponed as the fragile truce has lurched from crisis to crisis.
Continue reading...Israeli tanks in West Bank for first time in more than two decades amid tensions over ceasefire agreement with Hamas
Hamas official Basem Naim has been talking to Al Jazeera about the precocious Gaza ceasefire deal which looks increasingly like it will collapse. As a reminder, Benjamin Netanyahu has delayed the handover of 620 Palestinians indefinitely as he is demanding Hamas stop what he called its “cynical use of hostages for propaganda”.
Naim – a member of Hamas’s political bureau - said the Israeli prime minister is “intentionally sabotaging” the truce agreement. He told Al Jazeera:
Before going to the next step, we have to be sure that the past step, which was releasing 620 prisoners, are already released.
Because Netanyahu is clearly sending strong messages that he is intentionally sabotaging the deal; he is preparing the atmosphere for returning back to the war.
Continue reading...Continued operation in Palestinian territory will leave 40,000 displaced people unable to return home
Israel has sent tanks to the West Bank city of Jenin, in the first deployment of its kind in the area in more than two decades, as troops intensify operations in the territory that officials said will last at least a year.
The Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, said on Sunday that the latest operation across the West Bank was expanding, and that troops would remain in the area’s urban hotspots “for the coming year”, meaning approximately 40,000 people displaced by the fighting will not be able to return to their homes.
Continue reading...Eliya Cohen spent more than 500 days in captivity fearing Ziv Abud had died in Hamas attacks in 2023
An Israeli hostage only discovered his fiancee had survived the 7 October attacks after his release on Saturday, Israeli media has reported.
Eliya Cohen had spent more than 500 days in captivity fearing his bride-to-be, Ziv Abud, was dead. The last time they had seen each other, they were hiding in a shelter with relatives and friends after attending the Nova festival.
Continue reading...Ceasefire in jeopardy as Israel says it will wait ‘until release of next hostages is guaranteed’
Hamas released six Israeli hostages on Saturday, but Israel delayed the handover of more than 600 Palestinians it was due to free from its prisons in exchange, putting the five-week-old ceasefire agreement once more in jeopardy.
The government said the release would be delayed “until the release of the next hostages is guaranteed, and without the degrading ceremonies” at handovers of Israeli captives in Gaza.
The statement by Benjamin Netanyahu’s office came as vehicles apparently carrying prisoners left the open gates of Ofer prison, only to turn around and go back in.
The release of 620 Palestinian prisoners had been delayed for several hours and was meant to occur just after six Israeli hostages were released on Saturday.
Home Office moved to cancel Menatalla Elwan’s leave to remain over posts on Hamas’s 7 October attack
An Egyptian NHS doctor who “glorified terrorist violence” by mocking Israeli civilians fleeing the Hamas attacks in October 2023 has won a legal challenge against deportation.
In one of three social media posts hours after the attacks began, Dr Menatalla Elwan, 34, who worked at an NHS trust in Liverpool, reposted footage of music festivalgoers running from Hamas terrorists and wrote “if it was your home, you would stay and fight”, accompanied by a smiling face emoji.
Continue reading...Gaza ceasefire deal still on track amid uproar over fate of two Israeli boys and initial false return of their mother’s body
The body of the Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas has been identified, Israel’s army radio reported early on Saturday, adding that Bibas was likely killed in captivity with her children.
The confirmation came as Israelis and Palestinians braced for another tense exchange of hostages, prisoners and detainees on Saturday after uproar in Israel over allegations that two child hostages were “brutally murdered” by Hamas, and the group’s initial failure to deliver the body of their mother, instead returning the corpse of an unidentified woman.
Continue reading...Show removed from iPlayer as ‘further due diligence’ carried out and critics ask if any Hamas members were paid for filming
A BBC documentary about Gaza has been pulled from its iPlayer service while the broadcaster deals with intensifying accusations that the film was biased because it failed to make clear the father of its child narrator was a Hamas deputy minister.
BBC sources indicated the intention was to make the documentary available to watch again once a “due diligence” exercise had taken place, but the decision reflects a frustration that the filmmakers did not inform the broadcaster of the situation before transmission.
Continue reading...Remains of two young children, an elderly man and an unidentified fourth person arrive in Tel Aviv after ‘cruel’ handover in Gaza
The remains of two young children and an elderly man who were taken hostage by Hamas, as well as a fourth person who remains unidentified, have been handed over to Israel in what onlookers described as one of the “hardest days” for Israelis since the Palestinian militant group attack that ignited the war in Gaza.
A convoy carrying what was thought to be the bodies of Shiri Bibas, 32, her sons Ariel and Kfir, four years and nine months old respectively, and 85-year-old Oded Lifshitz, all from the Nir Oz kibbutz, arrived at a forensics centre in Tel Aviv yesterday for DNA checks and autopsy procedures.
Continue reading...Eli Sharabi learned his wife and daughters had been killed after his release from captivity in Gaza but is ‘mentally strong’, says British brother-in-law
“Don’t worry, I will be back. Whatever they do to me, I will be back,” was one of the last things Eli Sharabi told his wife and daughters before he was abducted by Hamas. And when the 52-year-old was freed after 16 months in captivity in Gaza, he was desperate to know if his family were waiting for him.
It was only then that he was told that his British wife, Lianne Sharabi, 48, and daughters Noiya, 16, and Yahel, 13, had been murdered at their home in the Be’eri kibbutz in Israel on 7 October 2023.
Continue reading...Benjamin Netanyahu signals readiness for talks on second phase by appointing adviser Ron Dermer to lead delegation
Hamas has said it is ready to release all its remaining hostages in a single exchange if the ceasefire agreement with Israel moves forward to a second phase next month.
The offer came as the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, signalled his readiness to talk about a second phase of the Gaza ceasefire after an extended delay, by appointing one of his closest advisers, Ron Dermer, a US-born cabinet minister and former ambassador to Washington, to lead the Israeli delegation to the talks.
Continue reading...Remains of Shiri Bibas and young sons Kfir and Ariel, whose deaths had not been confirmed, to be returned on Thursday
Hamas has said it will release six hostages from Gaza this week and hand over the bodies of four others, including the remains of two young children from the same family whose deaths had not previously been confirmed.
Khalil al-Hayya, a Hamas negotiator, said the four bodies to be handed over on Thursday would include those of 32-year-old Shiri Bibas and her sons, Kfir and Ariel, who were nine months old and four years old when Hamas abducted them from the Nir Oz kibbutz during the 7 October 2023 attack that ignited the Gaza war.
Continue reading...Comments suggest Israeli PM will reject Hamas pledge to hand over control of territory to the PA
Benjamin Netanyahu has reiterated that he is “committed” to Donald Trump’s plan to take over and develop the Gaza Strip, amid uncertainty over whether Israel will send a delegation to Qatar to discuss the second stage of the fragile ceasefire in the war with Hamas.
In a statement on Monday, the Israeli prime minister said: “Just as I have committed to, on the day after the war in Gaza, there will be neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority. I am committed to US president Trump’s plan for the creation of a different Gaza.”
Continue reading...Alternative to Trump plan would involve committee of technocrats but future military status of Hamas unresolved
An alternative to Donald Trump’s plan to turn the Gaza Strip into a US-owned “Riviera of the Middle East” is being prepared by Egypt in conjunction with the World Bank, under which Hamas would be formally excluded from governance and control of the territory’s reconstruction.
The process would be handed over on an interim basis to the control of a social or community support committee. No member of Hamas would sit on the committee. But the future military status of Hamas within Gaza is unresolved, which is likely to be a barrier to Israeli endorsement of the plan.
Continue reading...US secretary of state is making his first trip to region and is expected to advocate Trump’s plan to create ‘Riviera of the Middle East’
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, will discuss the Gaza ceasefire with Israel’s prime minister in Jerusalem, launching a Middle East tour a day after the latest hostage-prisoner exchange.
On his first visit to the region as Washington’s top diplomat, Rubio is expected to push the US president Donald Trump’s widely condemned proposal to take control of the Gaza Strip and relocate its more than 2 million residents – which experts say would amount to ethnic cleansing.
Continue reading...Iair Horn, Alexander Sasha Troufanov and Sagui Dekel Chen handed to the Red Cross in Gaza
Several media are quoting a statement released by Hamas this morning, in which it says Israel will only be able to repatriate the remaining hostages if it implements in full all terms of the ceasefire and hostage release agreement.
Hamas added that the release of hostages is being carried out after it received guarantees from mediating countries that Israel will uphold the agreements, Haaretz reported.
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