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.


Several areas south of Sudan capital at risk of famine, says World Food Programme

Updated 10 June 2025
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Several areas south of Sudan capital at risk of famine, says World Food Programme

  • Several areas south of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, are at risk of famine, the World Food Programme

GENEVA, June 10 : Several areas south of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, are at risk of famine, the World Food Programme said on Tuesday, with need on the ground outstripping resources amidst a funding shortfall.
“The level of hunger and destitution and desperation that was found (is) severe and confirmed the risk of famine in those areas,” Laurent Bukera, WFP Country Director in Sudan, told reporters in Geneva via video link from Port Sudan. 


Abbas tells Macron he supports demilitarization of Hamas

Updated 10 June 2025
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Abbas tells Macron he supports demilitarization of Hamas

PARIS: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has said that Hamas “must hand over its weapons” and called for the deployment of international forces to protect “the Palestinian people,” France announced on Tuesday.
In a letter addressed on Monday to French President Emmanuel Macron and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who this month will co-chair a conference on a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians, Abbas outlined the main steps that he thinks must be taken to end the war in Gaza and achieve peace in the Middle East.
“Hamas will no longer rule Gaza and must hand over its weapons and military capabilities to the Palestinian Security Forces,” wrote Abbas.
He said he was “ready to invite Arab and international forces to be deployed as part of a stabilization/protection mission with a (UN) Security Council mandate.”
The conference at UN headquarters later this month will aim to resurrect the idea of a two-state solution — Israel currently controls large parts of the Palestinian territories.
“We are ready to conclude within a clear and binding timeline, and with international support, supervision and guarantees, a peace agreement that ends the Israeli occupation and resolves all outstanding and final status issues,” Abbas wrote.
“Hamas has to immediately release all hostages and captives,” Abbas added.
In a statement, the Elysee Palace welcomed “concrete and unprecedented commitments, demonstrating a real willingness to move toward the implementation of the two-state solution.”
Macron has said he is “determined” to recognize a Palestinian state, but also set out several conditions, including the “demilitarization” of Hamas.
In his letter, Abbas reaffirmed his commitment to reform the Palestinian Authority and confirmed his intention to hold presidential and general elections “within a year” under international auspices.
“The Palestinian State should be the sole provider of security on its territory, but has no intention to be a militarised State.”
France has long championed a two-state solution, including after the October 7, 2023 attack by Palestinian militants Hamas on Israel.
But formal recognition by Paris of a Palestinian state would mark a major policy shift and risk antagonizing Israel, which insists that such moves by foreign states are premature.


Lebanon says two dead in Israel strike

Updated 10 June 2025
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Lebanon says two dead in Israel strike

BEIRUT: An Israeli strike killed a Lebanese father and son Tuesday in a southern village, the Lebanese health ministry and state media said, the latest deaths despite a November ceasefire.
A second son was also wounded in the strike in Shebaa, the state-run National News Agency reported. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
“An Israeli enemy drone carried out a strike in the village of Shebaa, killing two people and wounding one,” a health ministry statement said.
Israel had warned on Friday that it would keep up its strikes on Hezbollah targets across Lebanon despite the condemnation expressed by the Lebanese government after a massive strike on south Beirut the previous night on the eve of the Eid Al-Adha holiday.
Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah said the strikes levelled nine residential blocks. The Israeli military said they targeted underground drone factories.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned the strikes as a “a flagrant violation” of the November 27 ceasefire agreement, which was supposed to end more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah that culminated in two months of full-blown war.


Israel commits ‘extermination’ in Gaza by killing in schools, UN experts say

Updated 10 June 2025
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Israel commits ‘extermination’ in Gaza by killing in schools, UN experts say

  • In its latest report, the commission said Israel had destroyed more than 90 percent of the school and university buildings and more than half of all religious and cultural sites in Gaza

VIENNA: UN experts said in a report on Tuesday that Israel committed the crime against humanity of “extermination” by killing civilians sheltering in schools and religious sites in Gaza, part of a “concerted campaign to obliterate Palestinian life.”

The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel was due to present the report to Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council on June 17.

“We are seeing more and more indications that Israel is carrying out a concerted campaign to obliterate Palestinian life in Gaza,” former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, who chairs the commission, said in a statement.

“Israel’s targeting of the educational, cultural and religious life of the Palestinian people will harm the present generations and generations to come, hindering their right to self-determination,” she added.

The commission examined attacks on educational facilities and religious and cultural sites to assess if international law was breached.

Israel disengaged from the Human Rights Council in February, alleging it was biased.

When the commission’s last report in March found Israel carried out “genocidal acts” against Palestinians by systematically destroying women’s health care facilities during the conflict in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the findings were biased and antisemitic.

In its latest report, the commission said Israel had destroyed more than 90 percent of the school and university buildings and more than half of all religious and cultural sites in Gaza.

“Israeli forces committed war crimes, including directing attacks against civilians and wilful killing, in their attacks on educational facilities ... In killing civilians sheltering in schools and religious sites, Israeli security forces committed the crime against humanity of extermination,” it said.

The war was triggered when Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people in Israel in a surprise attack in October 2023, and took 251 hostages back to the enclave, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel responded with a military campaign that has killed over 54,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.

Harm done to the Palestinian education system was not confined to Gaza, the report found, citing increased Israeli military operations in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as well as harassment of students and settler attacks there.

“Israeli authorities have also targeted Israeli and Palestinian educational personnel and students inside Israel who expressed concern or solidarity with the civilian population in Gaza, resulting in their harassment, dismissal or suspension and in some cases humiliating arrests and detention,” it said.

“Israeli authorities have particularly targeted female educators and students, intending to deter women and girls from activism in public places,” the commission added.


Israel says activist Greta Thunberg leaving on flight to France

Updated 29 min 15 sec ago
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Israel says activist Greta Thunberg leaving on flight to France

  • Israel says Greta Thunberg is being deported after Gaza-bound ship she was on was seized

PARIS: Israel on Tuesday said Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was leaving the country on a flight to France, after she was detained along with other activists aboard a Gaza-bound aid boat and taken to a Tel Aviv airport for deportation.
“Greta Thunberg is departing Israel on a flight to France,” Israel’s foreign ministry said on its official X account, along with two photos of the activist on board a plane.

Five French activists aboard the boat for Gaza were set to face an Israeli judge, the French foreign minister said on Tuesday.
“Our consul was able to see the six French nationals arrested by the Israeli authorities last night,” Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on X. “One of them has agreed to leave voluntarily and should return today. The other five will be subject to forced deportation proceedings.”