Hamas rejects ‘new’ Gaza truce conditions as Biden says deal closer than ever

The minaret of a mosque is silhouetted in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza. (AFP)
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Updated 17 August 2024
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Hamas rejects ‘new’ Gaza truce conditions as Biden says deal closer than ever

  • Talks aiming to secure a rapid deal are set to resume in Cairo “before the end of next week”
  • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on mediators to “pressure” Hamas to accept Biden’s framework

DOHA: Hamas said Friday it rejected “new conditions” in a Gaza ceasefire proposal that US-led mediators presented during two days of talks in Qatar.
Diplomatic efforts have so far failed to alleviate the suffering endured over more than 10 months of war, but US President Joe Biden insisted after the latest round of talks that “we are closer than we have ever been.”
He is sending US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Israel this weekend to push the latest proposal, the State Department said.
Egyptian, Qatari and US mediators have been seeking to finalize details of a framework initially outlined by Biden in May, which he said Israel had proposed.
In a joint statement, the mediators said they had presented both sides with a proposal that “bridges remaining gaps” and will continue working in the coming days to hash out the specifics on humanitarian provisions and the hostage-prisoners swap.
Talks aiming to secure a rapid deal are set to resume in Cairo “before the end of next week.”
Hamas, which did not attend the Doha talks, swiftly announced its opposition to what it called “new conditions” from Israel in the latest plan.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on mediators to “pressure” Hamas to accept Biden’s framework.
Threats by Iran and its proxies to attack Israel have added renewed urgency to the efforts to hammer out a Gaza ceasefire, with mediators seeking a deal in the hopes of dousing a wider regional conflict.
“No one in the region should take actions to undermine this process,” Biden warned, later telling reporters, “There’s just a couple more issues, I think we’ve got a shot.”

International pressure
An informed source told AFP Hamas had objected to conditions about keeping Israeli troops on Gaza’s border with Egypt and terms related to the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Israeli hostages.
Western ally Jordan, however, put the blame squarely on Netanyahu for blocking a deal, with Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi urging pressure “by everyone who wishes to see this through to completion.”
British Foreign Secretary David Lammy and his French counterpart Stephane Sejourne held talks in Israel on Friday to press the deal.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz told his visiting counterparts he expects foreign support if Iran seeks to avenge the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
Sejourne replied that it would be “inappropriate” to discuss responding to any attack while diplomacy to stop it from happening is in high gear.
A senior US official, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity, said Iran would face “cataclysmic” consequences if it strikes Israel.
A deadly attack by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank late Thursday drew international condemnation and calls for sanctions, including against government ministers, over the surge in settler violence against Palestinians since the Gaza war began.
The Israeli military said “dozens of Israeli civilians, some of them masked,” entered the village of Jit and “set fire to vehicles and structures in the area, hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails.” A Palestinian man was shot dead.
The West Bank-based Palestinian foreign ministry described the attack as “organized state terrorism.”
The European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said he would propose sanctions against Israeli government “enablers” of Jewish settler violence.
Israeli far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a proponent of West Bank settlements, was quick to join other Israeli leaders in condemning Thursday’s attack by “criminals.”

Ongoing fighting
Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead. More than 100 were freed during a one-week truce in November.
On Thursday, the toll from Israel’s retaliatory military campaign topped 40,000, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, which does not provide a breakdown of civilian and militant casualties.
The war has devastated the besieged territory’s health care infrastructure, prompting repeated warnings from the World Health Organization about the risk of preventable diseases.
On Friday, the Palestinian health ministry reported an unvaccinated 10-month-old child in Gaza had been diagnosed with polio, the territory’s first case in 25 years, according to the WHO.
The announcement came hours after UN chief Antonio Guterres called for two seven-day breaks in the Gaza war to vaccinate more than 640,000 children against type 2 poliovirus, which was first detected in the territory’s wastewater in June.
As truce talks were underway, thousands of civilians were on the move again inside the Palestinian territory after the Israeli military issued fresh evacuation orders ahead of imminent military action.
The UN estimated the orders affect more than 170,000 people, forcing them to pack into the shrinking remnants of an area declared a humanitarian safe zone.
The area where people have been told to relocate to makes up just 11 percent of Gaza, according to the UN.
“During each round of negotiations, they exert pressure by forcing evacuations and committing massacres,” Issa Murad, a Palestinian displaced to Deir Al-Balah, said of the Israeli forces.


The families of hostages held in Gaza hope for their own ceasefire after truce in Israel-Iran war

Updated 10 sec ago
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The families of hostages held in Gaza hope for their own ceasefire after truce in Israel-Iran war

“Now it’s the time to pressure them and tell them, look, you are on your own. No one is coming to your help. This is it,” Berman said
“The achievements in Iran are important and welcome, enabling us to end the war from a position of strength with Israel holding the upper hand,” said the Hostages Families Forum

OR AKIVA, Israel: Liran Berman hasn’t had much to keep hopeful over the 629 days of his twin brothers’ captivity in Gaza. Ceasefire deals have collapsed, the war has dragged on, and his siblings remain hostages in the Palestinian enclave.

But the war between Israel and Iran, and the US-brokered ceasefire that halted 12 days of fighting, have sparked fresh hope that his brothers, Gali and Ziv, may finally return home.

With Iran dealt a serious blow over nearly two weeks of fierce Israeli strikes, Berman believes Hamas, armed and financed by Iran, is at its most isolated since the war in Gaza began, and that might prompt the militant group to soften its negotiating positions.

“Now it’s the time to pressure them and tell them, look, you are on your own. No one is coming to your help. This is it,” Berman said. “I think the dominoes fell into place, and it’s time for diplomacy to reign now.”

A long nightmare for the families of hostages

During their Oct. 7, 2023, attack, Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages. Most have been freed in ceasefire deals, but 50 remain captive, less than half of them believed to still be alive.

The war has killed over 56,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were civilians or combatants. It says more than half of the dead were women and children.

The families of hostages have faced a 20-month-long nightmare, trying to advocate for their loved ones’ fates while confronted with the whims of Israeli and Hamas leaders and the other crises that have engulfed the Middle East.

Israel’s war with Iran, the first between the two countries, pushed the hostage crisis and the plight of Palestinian civilians in Gaza to the sidelines. Hostage families again found themselves forced to fight for the spotlight with another regional conflagration.

But as the conflict eases, the families are hoping mediators seize the momentum to push for a new ceasefire deal.

“The achievements in Iran are important and welcome, enabling us to end the war from a position of strength with Israel holding the upper hand,” said the Hostages Families Forum, a grassroots organization representing many of the hostage families.

“To conclude this decisive operation against Iran without leveraging our success to bring home all the hostages would be a grave failure.”

Netanyahu may have more room to maneuver

It’s not just a diminished Iran and its impact on Hamas that gives hostage families hope. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, riding a wave of public support for the Iran war and its achievements, could feel he has more space to move toward ending the war in Gaza, something his far-right governing partners oppose.

Hamas has repeatedly said it is prepared to free all the hostages in exchange for an end to the war in Gaza. Netanyahu says he will only end the war once Hamas is disarmed and exiled, something the group has rejected.

Berman said the ceasefire between Israel and Iran has left him the most optimistic since a truce between Israel and Hamas freed 33 Israeli hostages earlier this year. Israel shattered that ceasefire after eight weeks, and little progress has been made toward a new deal.

The Israeli government team coordinating hostage negotiations has told the families it now sees a window of opportunity that could force Hamas to be “more flexible in their demands,” Berman said.

Iran’s ‘Axis of Resistance’ is in disarray

Over the past four decades, Iran built up a network of militant proxy groups it called the ” Axis of Resistance ” that wielded significant power across the region, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, and militias in Iraq and Syria.

Hamas may have envisioned the Oct. 7, 2023, attack as a catalyst that would see other Iranian-sponsored militants attack Israel. While Hezbollah and the Houthis launched projectiles toward Israel, the support Hamas had counted on never fully materialized. In the past two years, many of those Iranian proxies have been decimated, changing the face of the Middle East.

US President Donald Trump’s involvement in securing a ceasefire between Israel and Iran has also given many hostage families hope that he might exert more pressure for a deal in Gaza.

“We probably need Trump to tell us to end the war in Gaza,” Berman said.

Inseparable twins who remain in captivity

Gali and Ziv Berman, 27, were taken from their homes in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, on the border with Gaza, during the Oct. 7 attack. Seventeen others were also abducted there; of those, only the Berman twins remain captive.

The family has heard from hostages who returned in the previous deal that, as of February, the brothers were alive but being held separately.

Liran Berman said that’s the longest the two have ever spent apart. Until their abduction, they were inseparable, though they are very different, the 38-year-old said.

In Kfar Aza, the twins lived in apartments across from each other. Gali is more outgoing, while Ziv is more reserved and shy with a sharp sense of humor, their brother said. Gali is the handyman who would drive four hours to help a friend hang a shelf, while Ziv would go along and point to where the shelf needed to go.

The war with Iran, during which Iranian missiles pounded Israeli cities for 12 days, gave Liran Berman a sense of what his brothers have endured as bombs rained down on Gaza, he said.

“The uncertainty and the fear for your life for any moment, they are feeling it for 20 months,” he said. “Every moment can be your last.”

Netanyahu asks court to postpone corruption trial summons: lawyer

Updated 18 min 26 sec ago
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Netanyahu asks court to postpone corruption trial summons: lawyer

  • US President Donald Trump called for the case against the Israeli prime minister to be canceled altogether
  • Israel’s opposition leader warned Trump against interfering in Israel’s internal affairs

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked a court on Thursday to postpone his testimony in his long-running corruption trial, after US President Donald Trump called for the case to be canceled altogether.
In a filing to the tribunal, Netanyahu’s lawyer Amit Hadad said the premier’s testimony should be delayed in light of “regional and global developments.”
“The court is respectfully requested to order the cancelation of the hearings in which the prime minister was scheduled to testify in the coming two weeks,” the filing said.
It said Netanyahu was “compelled to devote all his time and energy to managing national, diplomatic and security issues of the utmost importance” following a brief conflict with Iran and during ongoing fighting in Gaza where Israeli hostages are held.
Trump on Wednesday described the case against Netanyahu as a “witch hunt.”
In a message on his Truth Social platform, Trump said the Netanyahu trial “should be CANCELLED, IMMEDIATELY, or a Pardon given to a Great Hero,” after the end of a 12-day war with Iran.
Netanyahu on Thursday thanked Trump for his “heartfelt support for me and your incredible support for Israel and the Jewish people.”
“I look forward to continue working with you to defeat our common enemies, liberate our hostages and quickly expand the circle of peace,” Netanyahu wrote on X, sharing a copy of Trump’s Truth Social post.
Israel’s opposition leader warned Trump against interfering in Israel’s internal affairs.
“We are thankful to President Trump, but... the president should not interfere in a judicial trial in an independent country,” Yair Lapid said in an interview with news website Ynet.
Netanyahu is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister.
In the trial that has been delayed many times since it began in May 2020, Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing.
In a first case, Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, are accused of accepting more than $260,000 worth of luxury goods such as cigars, jewelry and champagne from billionaires in exchange for political favors.
In two other cases, Netanyahu is accused of attempting to negotiate more favorable coverage in two Israeli media outlets.


Jordan condemns Israeli settlers’ ‘terror attacks’ on Palestinian villages in West Bank

Updated 26 June 2025
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Jordan condemns Israeli settlers’ ‘terror attacks’ on Palestinian villages in West Bank

  • Foreign ministry spokesman says Jordan ‘rejects these attacks and the escalation of settler terrorism against the Palestinian people’

LONDON: Jordan on Thursday condemned “terror attacks” by Israeli settlers that resulted in the killing of four Palestinians in two towns in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday.

 The Ministry of Foreign and Expatriates Affairs blamed the Israeli forces for the settlers’ “terrorist attacks” in the village of Kafr Malik, where three Palestinians were killed by soldiers and several others injured during clashes between residents and settlers.

Sufian Qudah, the foreign ministry spokesman, said Jordan “rejects these attacks and the escalation of settler terrorism against the Palestinian people.”

He said that Israeli government policies incite violence against Palestinians and give settlers “the impunity” to carry out “more crimes against the Palestinian people.”

He reaffirmed Jordan’s call for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and an end to the ongoing Israeli attacks on the coastal enclave since late 2023.

On Wednesday, four Palestinians were killed in two separate incidents in the occupied West Bank, including three in the village of Kafr Malik and a 15-year-old boy, Rayan Tamer Houshiyeh, who was shot by Israeli troops in Al-Yamoun, northwest of Jenin.

In a separate incident, 13-year-old Ammar Mutaz Hamayel succumbed to his injuries on Monday after being shot by Israeli forces. Hamayel was from Kafr Malik, which has a population of about 2,500 Palestinians. The village is 17 kilometers northeast of Ramallah and is surrounded by the Israeli settlement of Kokhav HaShahar.


No known intelligence that Iran moved uranium, US defense chief says

Updated 42 min 51 sec ago
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No known intelligence that Iran moved uranium, US defense chief says

  • Several experts cautioned that Iran likely moved a stockpile of highly enriched uranium out of the Fordow plant before US strikes

WASHINGTON: US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday said he was unaware of any intelligence suggesting Iran had moved any of its highly enriched uranium to shield it from US strikes on Iran’s nuclear program over the weekend.
“I’m not aware of any intelligence that I’ve reviewed that says things were not where they were supposed to be, moved or otherwise,” Hegseth said.
After the strikes, several experts also cautioned that Iran likely moved a stockpile of near weapons-grade highly enriched uranium out of Fordow before the strike early Sunday morning and could be hiding it and other nuclear components in locations unknown to Israel, the US and UN nuclear inspectors.
They noted satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies showing “unusual activity” at Fordow on Thursday and Friday, with a long line of vehicles waiting outside an entrance to the facility. A senior Iranian source told Reuters on Sunday most of the near weapons-grade 60 percent highly enriched uranium had been moved to an undisclosed location before the US attack. Hegseth’s comments denying those claims came at a news briefing where he accused the media of downplaying the success of US strikes on Iran’s nuclear program following a leaked, preliminary assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency suggesting they may have only set back Iran by months.
Hegseth said the assessment was low confidence, and, citing comments from CIA Director John Ratcliffe, said it had been overtaken by intelligence showing Iran’s nuclear program was severely damaged by recent US strikes, and that it would take years to rebuild.


Russia says against Iran suspending IAEA cooperation

Updated 26 June 2025
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Russia says against Iran suspending IAEA cooperation

  • Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow wanted continuing cooperation between Iran and the IAEA(Reuters)

MOSCOW: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday spoke out against Moscow’s key ally Iran suspending cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), after Iranian lawmakers voted in favor of halting work with the UN nuclear agency.
“We are interested in continuing cooperation between Iran and the IAEA, so that everybody respects Iran’s repeated statements that Iran does not have and will not have plans to develop a nuclear weapon,” Lavrov said at a press conference in Moscow.
The decision by Iranian lawmakers, taken after a 12-day war that saw Israeli and US strikes on nuclear sites, still requires the approval of Iran’s Guardian Council, a body empowered to vet legislation.
Lavrov said the decision was of “an advisory nature” to Iran’s executive branch.
Moscow provides crucial backing for Tehran but did not swing forcefully behind its partner even as the United States launched strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities over the weekend.
Russia and Iran signed a milestone strategic agreement earlier this year, but it does provide for mutual assistance in the case of aggression.
Iran is Russia’s second close ally to come under pressure in the Middle East in recent months, after Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria was toppled last December.
It could be a sign that Russia’s influence in the region is waning, as Moscow has to relocate resources and divert attention to its Ukraine offensive, according to Nikita Smagin, an independent expert on Russia-Iran relations.
Russia “is potentially losing its status as a superpower, at least as it perceived in the Middle East,” he told AFP, adding that “its allies are being simply knocked out of the game, one after another.”