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More captives to be freed as Israel-Hamas truce extended

Qassam, left, and Nasrallah reunite with their father Iyad Al-Awar after both were released from an Israeli prison as part of a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas, at their home in East Jerusalem. (AFP)
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Updated 29 November 2023
AFP
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More captives to be freed as Israel-Hamas truce extended

  • US, Israeli spy chiefs in Doha to discuss ‘next phase’ of deal, fueling hopes for prolonged halt to violence
Updated 29 November 2023
AFP

GAZA STRIP: A new group of Israeli hostages are due to be freed in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, as Israel and Hamas accused each other of violating an extended truce in their devastating seven-week war.

The temporary cessation of hostilities and releases of captives have been hailed as a glimpse of hope in the conflict sparked by deadly Hamas attacks that prompted an Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

As a two-day extension to the pause in hostilities began, US and Israeli intelligence chiefs were in Doha, capital of truce mediator Qatar, to discuss the “next phase” of the deal, fueling hopes for a prolonged halt to the violence.

Israel and Hamas are under international pressure not to return to all-out fighting when the latest truce ends on Thursday, but instead to build on the prisoner swaps to find a solution to the conflict.

A source close to Hamas said that 10 hostages held in Gaza would be freed in return for 30 prisoners released from Israeli prisons on Tuesday.

In addition to those releases, “some foreign workers held in Gaza” will also be freed, the source said.

Israeli leaders, however, have so far insisted that their campaign to crush Hamas will resume once they have received as many hostages as possible in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

And on Tuesday, each side accused the other of breaking the truce agreement.

Palestinian movements denounced what they dubbed “truce violations by the occupier,” and a journalist saw an Israeli tank fire three times in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City as Palestinians attempted to make use of the lull to return to their homes.

The Israeli military described the shelling as “warning shots,” saying a tank fired as suspected militants approached army positions. At least one person was hurt, the reporter saw.

The Israeli military meanwhile alleged that three explosive devices were detonated near its forces in the northern Gaza strip, “violating the framework of the operational pause.”

The IDF said: “In one of the locations, terrorists also opened fire at the troops, who responded with fire. A number of soldiers were lightly injured during the incidents.

“In both incidents, the troops were located in positions as per the framework of the operational pause.”

Israel’s ground and air operation in the Gaza Strip has killed almost 15,000 people, mostly civilians, according to the territory’s Hamas government.

TV images show buildings several stories high flattened by the Israeli bombardments in the central Gaza Strip and residents walking through the rubble of ruined homes.

Israel has vowed to stick to its war aim of destroying Hamas and rescuing all 240 hostages.

Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed Al Ansari said that his government would use the extension to work for a “sustainable truce.”

The heads of the US and Israeli intelligence agencies were in Qatar to discuss the “next phase” of the Gaza deal, a source briefed on their visit said.

“The director of the CIA and the director of the Israeli National Intelligence Agency are in Doha to meet with the Qatari prime minister,” the source said, requesting anonymity.

The discussions, he said, aim “to build on the progress of the extended humanitarian pause agreement and to initiate further discussions about the next phase of a potential deal.”

The latest round of exchanges on Monday night brought the total number of people released under the truce to 50 Israeli hostages, and 150 Palestinian prisoners, all women and minors.

Another 19 hostages have been freed under separate deals, including Thai workers and a dual Russian-Israeli citizen.

Sharon Calderon, the aunt of 16-year-old Sahar and 12-year-old Erez who were released on Monday, called for their father Ofer to be freed also. Two other family members were killed on Oct. 7.

“We’ve got Erez and Sahar here and we’re very, very happy we got them home. We have to get Ofer and the rest of the kidnapped and bring them here ... to be again a big happy family.”

Shortly after the arrival of the hostages was confirmed, Israel’s prison authority said 33 Palestinian inmates had been released.

In annexed East Jerusalem, Palestinian prisoner Muhammad Abu Al-Humus called his release “an indescribable joy” and kissed his mother’s hand as he entered his home.

“I’m very happy. I hope that others will soon be released — my friends, my cousins.”

Israel views the truce as a temporary measure to secure hostage releases and says it plans to continue its military offensive.

The government has agreed a 30.3 billion shekel ($8.2 billion) war budget that will now go to parliament.

But Israel faces increasing pressure for a more lasting ceasefire and the ramp-up of humanitarian aid to Gaza, where an estimated 1.7 million people have been displaced, according to the UN.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is scheduled to pay his third wartime visit to the Middle East this week, meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.

US officials said the United States was sending three military aircraft to Egypt from Tuesday to bring medicine, food and “winter items” for Gaza via northern Egypt.

In Gaza, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said no fuel had arrived for generators at hospitals in the territory’s north, despite the truce.

The World Food Programme said it had delivered food to 121,161 people in Gaza since Friday, when the truce began, but that a high risk of famine remained. “What we see is catastrophic,” said WFP’s director for the Middle East, Corinne Fleischer.

The UN children’s agency UNICEF said aid flows into northern Gaza had increased since the truce began, but spokesman James Elder warned that given the destruction “all this aid is triage (minimum emergency care) ... It’s not even enough for triage.”

Topics: War on Gaza

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Israel hits Beirut’s southern suburbs for first time in days, Reuters witnesses say

Updated 3 sec ago
Reuters
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Israel hits Beirut’s southern suburbs for first time in days, Reuters witnesses say

Updated 3 sec ago
Reuters
BEIRUT: Israel carried out air strikes early on Friday on Beirut’s southern suburbs, Reuters witnesses said, the first strikes there in nearly a week.

At least 46 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes, hospital hit, says Gaza ministry

Updated 01 November 2024
Reuters
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At least 46 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes, hospital hit, says Gaza ministry

  • Strike on hospital torches medical supplies, officials say
  • Israel says militants were hiding in hospital
Updated 01 November 2024
Reuters

CAIRO: At least 46 Palestinians were killed in Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, mostly in the north where one attack hit a hospital, torching medical supplies and disrupting operations, the enclave’s health officials said.
Israel’s military has accused the Palestinian militant group Hamas of using Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya for military purposes and said “dozens of terrorists” have been hiding there. Health officials and Hamas deny the charge.
Later on Thursday, an Israeli airstrike on two houses in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza killed at least 16 Palestinians, medics at Al-Awda Hospital in the camp told Reuters. The dead included a paramedic and two local journalists, they added.
Northern Gaza, where Israel said in January it had dismantled Hamas’ command structure, is currently the main focus of the military’s assault in the enclave. Earlier this month it sent tanks into Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya to flush out militants it said had regrouped.
Eid Sabbah, director of nursing at Kamal Adwan — which is in Beit Lahiya — told Reuters some staff suffered minor burns after the Israeli strike hit the third floor of the hospital.
There were no reports of any casualties at the hospital, which Israeli forces stormed and briefly occupied last week. Israel said it had captured around 100 suspected Hamas militants in that raid. Israeli tanks are still stationed nearby.
The health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip called for all international bodies “to protect hospitals and medical staff from the brutality of the (Israeli) occupation.”
The Israeli military has said its forces are operating in the hospital area based on intelligence about the presence of terrorists and terror infrastructure in the vicinity.
“During the operation, it was found that dozens of terrorists were hiding in the hospital, with some even posing as hospital staff,” said the military in a statement following Thursday’s strike.
Medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said on Thursday that one of its doctors at the hospital, Mohammed Obeid, had been detained last Saturday by Israeli forces. It called for the protection of him and all medical staff who “are facing horrific violence as they try to provide care.”
The Gaza war began after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent assault on Gaza has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians and reduced most of the enclave to rubble, Palestinian authorities say.

Topics: War on Gaza

Iraq tries to avoid regional fight as militias fire at Israel

Updated 01 November 2024
Reuters
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Iraq tries to avoid regional fight as militias fire at Israel

  • Kataib Hezbollah, the most powerful of the armed factions, said Israel and the US would have to pay a price for Israel’s strikes on Iran last week
Updated 01 November 2024
Reuters

BAGHDAD: Nervously watching Israel’s destructive campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon, Iraq is working to avoid being drawn into the growing regional conflict as Iran-backed armed groups launch attacks on Israel from Iraqi soil, sources familiar with the matter say.
Two decades after the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, Iraq is experiencing relative stability with high revenue from oil sales funding a service-based agenda that has turned much of the country into a construction site.
Iraq does not have diplomatic relations with Israel and Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani’s government is wary of regional conflicts that could affect its delicate balancing act between Washington and Tehran, both states it is allied with.
Spillover from regional conflict resulted in months of tit-for-tat attacks between Iran-backed armed groups and US forces stationed in Iraq and the region that only subsided after Iran intervened in February.
But Sudani’s government has not been successful in a push to convince the Islamic Resistance in Iraq — a coalition of Iran-backed armed groups — to stop firing rockets and drones at Israel, according to four sources in Iran-backed armed groups and two government advisers.
Two visits to Iran by Iraq’s top security officials in the past two months, seeking Tehran’s help to rein in its allied Iraqi factions, failed, the sources said.
“The Iraqi delegation received a cold reception in Tehran ... The answer was: those groups have their own decision and it is their call to decide how to support their brothers in Lebanon and Gaza,” said a senior Iraqi security official briefed on the visits.
Baghdad turned to Washington, asking US officials to intervene with Israel to prevent retaliation for the attacks, including one that killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded more than 20 on Oct. 4, the sources said, the first time such an attack has been reported to cause fatalities.
“Washington was understanding of the repercussions of possible Israeli strikes in Iraq and pledged to help,” said an Iraqi foreign ministry official.
A spokesperson for the US embassy in Baghdad did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Four militia sources said the Kataib Hezbollah and Nujaba groups, which are leading the attacks on Israel, have warned the prime minister against pressuring them to halt their actions and vowed to continue their attacks as long as Israel continued its Gaza and Lebanon operations.
The issue has divided parties in Iraq’s ruling coalition, all of whom are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and view Israel as an enemy, though some differ over how involved Iraq should be in the regional confrontation.
Shiite leaders discussed the risk of repercussions from attacks on Israel and possible Israeli retaliation during two meetings in October, said Ahmed Kenani, a Shiite lawmaker from the ruling alliance.
Key players in the Shiite coalition view direct confrontation with Israel as counterproductive and potentially damaging to Iraq, according to four Shiite lawmakers.
“Those groups who have the rockets and drones should go to Gaza and Lebanon to fight Israel rather than pushing Iraq toward destruction,” said Iraqi PM adviser Abul Ameer Thuaiban.
Kataib Hezbollah, the most powerful of the armed factions, said Israel and the US would have to pay a price for Israel’s strikes on Iran last week.
Senior Iraqi security sources told Reuters ahead of that attack that any strike by Israel against Iran outside what the sources called the established rules of engagement could prompt pro-Iran armed groups to significantly expand their attacks on Israel and US assets in the region.

Topics: Battlefield Lebanon War on Gaza Israel Palestine Iraq Iran Gaza Hamas Hezbollah

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Blinken says ‘good progress’ made toward Lebanon ceasefire deal

Updated 31 October 2024
AFP
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Blinken says ‘good progress’ made toward Lebanon ceasefire deal

  • Said that Washington “working very hard” on concluding arrangements on a deal
  • US has stopped short of calling for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon
Updated 31 October 2024
AFP

WASHINGTON DC: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday that negotiators have made “good progress” toward a deal that would bring a ceasefire in Israel’s offensive in Lebanon.
The top US diplomat said that Washington was “working very hard” on concluding arrangements on a deal that would include the withdrawal of Hezbollah from the border region with Israel.
“Based on my recent trip to the region, and the work that’s ongoing right now, we have made good progress on those understandings,” Blinken told reporters.
“We still have more work to do,” he said, calling for a “diplomatic resolution, including through a ceasefire.”
Two senior US officials, Amos Hochstein and Brett McGurk, met Thursday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said that any deal on Lebanon must guarantee Israel’s security.
Unlike in the year-old war in Gaza, the US has stopped short of calling for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon and has largely backed Israeli strikes against Hezbollah, while voicing concern for the fate of civilians.
Blinken called again for implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, dating from 2006, which calls for the disarmament of non-state groups in Lebanon and a full Israeli withdrawal from the country.
“It’s important to make sure that we have clarity, both from Lebanon and from Israel, about what would be required under 1701 to get its effective implementation — the withdrawal of Hezbollah forces from the border, the deployment of the Lebanese Armed Forces, the authorities under which they’d be acting, an appropriate enforcement mechanism,” Blinken said.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, speaking alongside Blinken and their South Korean counterparts, said there was an “opportunity” in Lebanon.
“We’re hopeful that we will see things transition in Lebanon in a not too distant future,” Austin said.

Topics: Battlefield Lebanon Israel Lebanon Hezbollah US US Secretary of State Antony Blinken

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Israel says another rocket barrage from Lebanon kills 2 in Israel, hours after 5 were killed

Updated 31 October 2024
AP
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Israel says another rocket barrage from Lebanon kills 2 in Israel, hours after 5 were killed

  • The attack came as senior US diplomats were in the region to push for ceasefires in Lebanon and Gaza
Updated 31 October 2024
AP

TEL AVIV: Israel’s rescue service said projectiles fired from Lebanon on Thursday killed two more people in northern Israel, raising death toll there to seven in what’s been the deadliest rocket barrage since the Israeli military’s invasion of southern Lebanon.
Magen David Adom, Israel’s main emergency medical organization, said its medics confirmed the deaths of a 30-year-old man and 60-year-old woman in a suburb of the northern city of Haifa. They also treated two other people who suffered mild injuries and were hospitalized.
The Israeli military said that roughly 25 rockets crossed into Israel from Lebanon as part of the volley that struck an olive grove where people had gathered for the harvest.
The deadly attack came just hours after officials in Metula, in northern Israel, said that five people were killed, including four foreign workers, in a rocket barrage Thursday that struck an Israeli agricultural area.
The back-to-back attacks made Thursday one of the deadliest days for civilians in Israel since the Israeli military invaded southern Lebanon on Oct. 1 as part of a widening campaign against the Lebanon-based Hezbollah militant group.
The attack came as senior US diplomats were in the region to push for ceasefires in Lebanon and Gaza, hoping to wind down the wars in the Middle East in the Biden administration’s final months.
The Hezbollah militant group has been firing rockets, drones and missiles into Israel, and drawing retaliatory strikes, since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of the Gaza Strip triggered the war there. Hezbollah and Hamas are allies backed by Iran.
The conflict along the border escalated into a full-blown war last month, when Israel launched a wave of heavy airstrikes across Lebanon and killed Hezbollah’s top leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and most of his deputies. Israeli ground forces pushed into Lebanon at the start of October.
The Metula regional council reported Thursday’s attack, without detailing the number or type of projectiles used. The nationalities of the workers were also not immediately known.
Metula, Israel’s northernmost town which is surrounded by Lebanon on three sides, has suffered heavy damage from rockets. The town’s residents evacuated in October 2023, and only security officials and agricultural workers remain.
The Hotline for Refugees and Migrants, an organization that advocates for foreign workers, said authorities had put them in danger by allowing them to work along the border without proper protection.
Agricultural areas along Israel’s border, where much of the country’s orchards are located, are closed military areas that can only be entered with official permission.
Hezbollah’s newly named top leader, Sheikh Naim Kassem, said in a video statement Wednesday that the militant group will keep fighting Israel until it is offered ceasefire terms it deems acceptable. He said it has recovered from a series of setbacks in recent months, including attacks using explosive pagers and walkie-talkies that was widely blamed on Israel.
“Hezbollah’s capabilities are still available and compatible with a long war,” he said.
Earlier on Thursday, the Israeli military warned people to evacuate from more areas of southern Lebanon, as airstrikes in different parts of the country killed eight people, according to Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency.
Israel has warned people to evacuate from large areas of the country, including major cities in the south and east. Some 1.2 million people have been displaced since the escalation in September.
Thousands of people have fled from Baalbek, the main city in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley, and surrounding areas after Israeli evacuation warnings and aerial bombardment on Wednesday.
Jean Fakhry, a local official in the Deir Al-Ahmar region, some 17 kilometers (10 miles) to the southeast, said the main highway “turned into a parking lot.” He said around 12,000 displaced people are staying in the area, with most being hosted in private homes.
At one of the shelters, families with luggage were still arriving on Thursday.
“Our homes were destroyed,” said Zahraa Younis, from the village near Baalbek. “We came with nothing — no clothes or anything else — and took shelter here.”
More than 2,800 people have been killed and nearly 13,000 wounded in Lebanon since the conflict began last year, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.
In Israel, rockets, missiles, and drones launched by Hezbollah have killed at least 68 people, about half of them soldiers. More than 60,000 Israelis from towns and cities along the border have been evacuated from their homes for more than a year.

Topics: Battlefield Lebanon Israel Lebanon Hezbollah

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