CAIRO: Israeli and Egyptian ceasefire negotiators are in talks about an electronic surveillance system along the border between Gaza and Egypt that could allow Israel to pull back its troops from the area if a ceasefire is agreed, according to two Egyptian sources and a third source familiar with the matter.
The question of whether Israeli forces stay on the border is one of the issues blocking a potential ceasefire deal because both Palestinian militant group Hamas and Egypt, a mediator in the talks, are opposed to Israel keeping its forces there.
Israel is worried that if its troops leave the border zone, referred to by Israel as the Philadelphi corridor, Hamas’ armed wing could smuggle in weapons and supplies from Egypt into Gaza via tunnels that would allow it to re-arm and again threaten Israel.
A surveillance system, if the parties to the negotiations agree on the details, could therefore smooth the path to agreeing a ceasefire — though numerous other stumbling blocks remain.
Discussions around a surveillance system on the border have been reported before, but Reuters is reporting for the first time that Israel is engaging in the discussions as part of the current round of talks, with a view to pulling back forces from the border area.
The source familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the discussions are about “basically sensors that would be built on the Egyptian side of the Philadelphi (corridor).”
“The idea is obviously to detect tunnels, to detect any other ways that they’d be trying to smuggle weapons or people into Gaza. Obviously this would be a significant element in a hostage agreement.”
Asked if this would be significant for a ceasefire deal because it would mean Israeli soldiers would not have to be on the Philadelphi corridor, the source said: “Correct.”
The two Egyptian security sources, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said Israeli negotiators had spoken about a high-tech surveillance system.
Egypt was not opposed to that, if it was supported and paid for by the United States, according to the two Egyptian sources. They said though Egypt would not agree to anything that would change border arrangements between Israel and Egypt set out in a prior peace treaty.
At a military event on Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he could only agree to a deal that preserved Israeli control of the Gaza-Egypt border, but he did not spell out if that meant having troops physically present there.
Talks are underway in Qatar and Egypt on a deal, backed by Washington, that would allow a pause in the fighting in Gaza, now in its 10th month, and the release of hostages held by Hamas.
Israel started its assault on the Gaza Strip last October after Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and capturing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Since then, its forces have killed more than 38,000 Palestinians, according to medical authorities in Gaza.
Israeli officials have said during the war that Hamas used tunnels running under the border into Egypt’s Sinai region to smuggle arms. Egypt says it destroyed tunnel networks leading to Gaza years ago and created a buffer zone and border fortifications that prevent smuggling.
Israel’s advance into southern Gaza’s Rafah area in early May led to the closure of the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza and a sharp reduction in the amount of international aid entering the Palestinian territory. Egypt says it wants aid deliveries to Gaza to resume, but that a Palestinian presence should be restored at the Rafah crossing for it to reopen.
Gaza talks explore alternative to Israeli troops on Gaza-Egypt border: sources
https://arab.news/yfuqc
Gaza talks explore alternative to Israeli troops on Gaza-Egypt border: sources
- Israel, Egypt discussing hi-tech surveillance on border
- Surveillance system is part of Gaza ceasefire talks, System addresses Israeli worries about Hamas smuggling
Iran says Hamas leader Haniyeh was killed by ‘short-range projectile’
- Tehran blames Israel, vows ‘severe revenge at the appropriate time, place, and manner’
TEHRN: Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Saturday that Israel killed Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh using a “short-range projectile” launched from outside of his accommodation in Tehran.
“This terrorist operation was carried out by firing a short-range projectile with a warhead of about 7 kilograms — causing a strong explosion — from outside the accommodation area,” the Guards said in a statement.
It added that Israel was “supported by the United States” in the attack.
Haniyeh was killed early Wednesday in the Iranian capital where he was attending the swearing-in of the new president, Masoud Pezeshkian.
Iran and Hamas have vowed to retaliate.
The Guards repeated their insistence that Haniyeh would be avenged and that Israel would receive “a severe punishment at the appropriate time, place and manner.”
Israel, which has declined to comment on Haniyeh’s killing, had earlier struck a Hezbollah stronghold in south Beirut.
That strike killed a senior commander of the Lebanese militant group it blamed for a deadly weekend rocket strike on the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.
The killings are the latest of several major incidents that have inflamed regional tensions during the Gaza war, which has drawn in Iran-backed militant groups in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.
In Iran, the voices clamouring for revenge have intensified since Haniyeh’s killing.
On Saturday, the ultraconservative Kayhan daily said retaliatory operations were expected to be “more diverse, more dispersed and impossible to intercept.”
“This time, areas such as Tel Aviv and Haifa and the strategic centers and especially residences of some officials involved in the recent crimes are among the targets,” the newspaper said in an opinion piece.
Iran says it expects Hezbollah to hit deeper inside Israel
- Strike claimed by Israel in an overcrowded residential area of South Beirut changed the calculus
- Iran expects Hezbollah will not limit its response to military targets
TEHRAN: Iran said on Saturday it expects Lebanon’s Tehran-backed Hezbollah group to hit deeper inside Israel and no longer be confined to military targets after Israel killed the Hezbollah military commander.
Hezbollah has been exchanging near-daily fire with Israeli forces, saying it is targeting military positions over the border, since its Palestinian ally Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, sparking war in Gaza.
But a strike claimed by Israel in an overcrowded residential area of South Beirut changed the calculus, Iran’s mission to the United Nations said.
“We expect... Hezbollah to choose more targets and (strike) deeper in its response,” said the mission quoted by the official IRNA news agency.
“Secondly, that it will not limit its response to military targets.”
The strike on Tuesday killed Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr. According to Lebanon’s health ministry, five civilians — three women and two children — also died.
Israel said Shukr was responsible for rocket fire that killed 12 youths in the annexed Golan Heights, and had directed Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel since the Gaza war began.
“Hezbollah and the (Israeli) regime had observed certain lines,” including limiting strikes to border areas and military targets, Iran’s mission said.
The Beirut strike crossed that line, it added.
Hours after Shukr’s killing, the political leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in a pre-dawn “hit” on his accommodation in Tehran, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said.
Israel has declined to comment.
On Thursday, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said Israel and “those who are behind it must await our inevitable response” to the killings of both Shukr and Haniyeh.
Iran and Hamas have also vowed to retaliate.
UAE uncovers ‘terror-linked’ organization formed by fugitives abroad
ABU DHABI: The UAE said that prosecutors had uncovered a new secret organization formed by fugitives from a terrorist group operating against the state from abroad, a statement on WAM said.
Investigations conducted by the Public Prosecution have revealed that the fugitives from the organization called the “Reform Call,” previously classified as a terrorist organization within the country, have formed a new secret group abroad.
The Reform Call was slated for dissolution in 2013, but the new organization aimed to revive the previous group and pursue similar objectives, WAM reported.
The confessions of an arrested member of the organization detailed the group’s structure and activities, and the roles of its members in threatening stability in the UAE, the statement said.
The UAE State Security Department has been monitoring fugitives from various emirates who were sentenced in absentia in 2013.
It said that the surveillance found two groups of the organization’s members who convened abroad and recruited others to form a new organization.
The investigations further revealed that some of these members received funding from sources within the UAE and from “other terrorist groups and organizations outside the country.”
Authorities said that the organization had established alliances with other terrorist groups to strengthen ties, secure funding, maintain the organization’s presence, enhance protection mechanisms abroad, and achieve its objectives, the WAM statement said.
In one country, the group is reportedly associated with several fronts posing as charitable or intellectual organizations and television channels, the most notable being the Cordoba Foundation, or TCF, which has also been classified as a terrorist organization in the country since 2014.
TCF presents itself as a Middle Eastern “think tank” institution and is led by Anas Altikriti, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood living abroad, who played a significant role in organizing demonstrations in front of UAE embassies and international organizations.
The fugitive members communicated in secret meetings via Internet applications and through mutual visits between the two groups.
These activities included “leading smear campaigns, promoting hate speech, questioning the state’s achievements, spreading discord among the populace, financing terrorism, engaging in money laundering, and cooperating with foreign intelligence services to destabilize state security.”
They also “incited actions against official institutions, targeted the UAE on human rights issues, sought to weaken confidence in the government, and stirred public opinion through fake online pages and accounts.”
Some members engaged directly with international human rights organizations, providing false information about state authorities in the UAE, WAM said.
The Public Prosecution is expected to release details of the terrorist organization and its crimes after the completion of the investigations.
Israeli army says airstrikes in northern West Bank kill 9 Palestinian militants
- The Palestinian Health Ministry said the dead men’s corpses were taken to a nearby hospital in Tulkarem
- “I was going to work in the morning and I heard an explosion here next to the house,” said Taiser Abdullah, a Zeita resident
ZEITA, West Bank: Two Israeli airstrikes in the northern West Bank Satruday killed nine Palestinian militants, according to Israel’s army, as violence flares in the Israeli-occupied territory.
The Israeli army said its forces first struck a vehicle in a rural area northwest of the city of Tulkarem in the northern West Bank early Saturday morning, killing the five occupants. The army said they were on their way to carry out an attack.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said the dead men’s corpses were taken to a nearby hospital in Tulkarem. All five men were later identified by Hamas as militants belonging to the group, including one who was a local commander.
According to an Associated Press journalist and witnesses, the blast took place along a road connecting the Palestinian villages of Zeita and Qaffin.
“I was going to work in the morning and I heard an explosion here next to the house,” said Taiser Abdullah, a Zeita resident.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said four of the bodies were “burned and charred beyond recognition” from the blast.
Later Saturday, Israel’s military said it had killed four more Palestinian militants in the Tulkarem area shortly after they opened fire on Israeli troops operating in the area. No further information about this second blast was immediately available.
Over 590 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since the Israel-Hamas war erupted in Gaza in October, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, which tracks the deaths. Most have been killed during Israeli raids and violent protests, but the dead also include bystanders and Palestinians killed in attacks by Jewish settlers.
The northern West Bank has seen some of the territory’s worst violence over the past 10 months. Tulkarem, and its two refugee camps, has become one of the territory’s main flashpoints, and is regularly raided by Israeli forces. Palestinian militant groups, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, are active in the city.
The strike came just days after the consecutive assassinations of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran early Wednesday, and top Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut the evening before, escalations that threaten to plunge the region into a full-fledged regional war. Iran and its proxies, including Hezbollah, vowed to retaliate. Major airlines canceled flights to Tel Aviv, Israel, and Beirut, Lebanon.
While Israel has said it is responsible for the killing of Shukr, it has not confirmed or denied a role in the targeted killing of Haniyeh.
The Pentagon announced late Friday that the US military will move a fighter jet squadron to the Middle East and maintain an aircraft carrier in the region. The previous day, President Joe Biden said he had urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to seize the chance for a ceasefire with Hamas, adding that Haniyeh’s killing in Iran had “not helped” efforts to negotiate an end to the war.
At least 39,480 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in the nearly 10 months since Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 attack on Israel triggered the latest Israel-Hamas war. The Palestinian health authorities that provide the casualty tolls do not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
UAE provides 70 tons of aid to displaced families in Gaza
DUBAI: UAE’s ‘Chivalrous Knight 3’ aid mission in Gaza provided 70 tons of aid to families in Gaza, reported state news agency WAM on Friday.
The aid included dozens of shelter tents to house families who have been displaced by the ongoing fighting.
The volunteers also distributed food boxes to displaced Palestinian families in shelter camps to help them cope with food shortages.
Operation ‘Chivalrous Knight 3’ aims to provide food and essential aid for families and children in Gaza amid the fierce fighting that killed over 39,000 Palestinians.
