CAIRO: A senior Hamas official on Saturday dismissed optimistic talk by US President Joe Biden that a Gaza truce is nearer after negotiations in the Gulf emirate of Qatar.
“To say that we are getting close to a deal is an illusion,” Hamas political bureau member Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP. “We are not facing a deal or real negotiations, but rather the imposing of American diktats.”
He was responding to Biden’s comment on Friday that, “We are closer than we have ever been.”
Biden spoke after two days of talks in Qatar where Washington tried to bridge differences between Israel and Palestinian Hamas militants. The two sides have been at war for more than 10 months in the Gaza Strip.
Previous optimism during months of on-off truce talks has so far proven futile.
But the stakes have significantly risen since the killings in quick succession in late July of Fuad Shukr, a top operations chief of Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, and Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh.
Their deaths led to vows of vengeance from Hezbollah, Iran and other Tehran-backed groups in the region which blamed Israel.
In an effort to avert a broader conflict, Western and Arab diplomats have been shuttling around the Middle East to push for a Gaza deal which they say could help avert a wider regional conflagration.
Biden’s secretary of state, Antony Blinken, was to head on Saturday to Israel in a bid to finalize an agreement.
As efforts toward a truce continued, so did the killing on Saturday in Gaza and Lebanon.
Lebanon’s health ministry said an Israeli air strike in southern Lebanon killed 10 people including a Syrian woman and her two children.
The strike was among the deadliest in southern Lebanon since the onset of near-daily exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah following the start of the Gaza war in October.
Israel’s military said it struck a Hezbollah weapons storage facility.
In Hamas-run Gaza, civil defense rescuers said an Israeli air strike killed 15 people from a single Palestinian family. The fatalities in Al-Zawaida helped push the Gaza health ministry’s war death toll to 40,074.
“We are in the morgue seeing indescribable scenes of limbs and severed heads and children who are dismembered,” said Omar Al-Dreemli, a relative.
The Gaza war has displaced most of the territory’s population, destroyed much of the housing and other infrastructure, and left diseases spreading.
The United Nations on Friday appealed for seven-day pauses in the fighting so it could vaccinate children against polio, after the Palestinian health ministry reported Gaza’s first polio case in 25 years.
Israel claimed the killing of Shukr, in a strike on south Beirut, but has not commented directly on the killing of Haniyeh while he visited Tehran.
On Friday Hezbollah released a polished video appearing to show its fighters trucking large missiles through tunnels at an underground facility.
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 his visit to Israel, Blinken will seek to “conclude the agreement for a ceasefire and release of hostages and detainees,” the State Department said.
Egyptian, Qatari and US mediators are working to finalize details of a framework agreement initially outlined by Biden in May. He said Israel had proposed it.
In a joint statement after two days of talks in Qatar, the mediators said they presented both sides with a proposal that “bridges remaining gaps.”
Talks aiming to secure a deal are to resume in Cairo “before the end of next week,” they said.
Hamas did not attend the Doha talks. An official of the Islamist movement, Osama Hamdan, had told AFP the group would join if the meeting set a timetable for implementing what Hamas had already agreed to.
On Friday, officials told AFP that Hamas will not accept “new conditions” from Israel.
A prospective cessation of hostilities has centered around a phased deal beginning with an initial truce.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Tuesday had detailed its conditions for a truce, including “a veto on certain prisoners” being released from its jails.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, who met French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne in Cairo on Saturday, emphasized the need “to seize the opportunity” offered by the ongoing talks and “spare the region from the consequences of further escalation,” Egypt’s presidency said.
Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi of Jordan blamed Netanyahu for “impeding attempts to finalize” a deal and urged pressure on him.
Netanyahu has denied being the obstacle to a deal, blaming Hamas.
As truce talks took place, thousands of civilians were on the move again after the Israeli military issued fresh evacuation orders ahead of imminent military action in central-southern Gaza.
“During each round of negotiations, they exert pressure by forcing evacuations and committing massacres,” said Issa Murad, a Palestinian displaced to Deir el-Balah.
Over the past day troops expanded their operations in the Khan Yunis area of Gaza’s south, including by “eliminating” militants who had fired munitions toward Nirim, just outside Gaza, Israel’s military said on Saturday.
Hamas official dismisses ‘illusion’ that Gaza truce nearer
https://arab.news/vxj26
Hamas official dismisses ‘illusion’ that Gaza truce nearer
- “To say that we are getting close to a deal is an illusion,” Hamas political bureau member Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP
- “We are not facing a deal or real negotiations, but rather the imposing of American diktats“
Population of Occupied Palestinian Territories grows tenfold since Nakba, despite Israeli atrocities
Population of Occupied Palestinian Territories grows tenfold since Nakba, despite Israeli atrocities
- 77 years after the ‘catastrophe,’ the number of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip stands at 5.5 million
- Number of Palestinians in Gaza down by 10 percent since October 2023 as a result of ongoing war between Israel and Hamas
LONDON: The population of the Occupied Palestinian Territories has increased tenfold since 1948, the year in which the Nakba, or “catastrophe,” displaced almost a million Palestinians from their homes to neighboring Arab countries, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics said that 957,000 people out of a population of 1.4 million were displaced by Israeli militias, many of them to other countries, some to Gaza and the West Bank, during the establishment of modern-day Israel 77 years ago this month.
The remainder, about 450,000, were already in Gaza and the West Bank, where the population now stands at 5.5 million. This represents more than a tenfold increase since the Nakba, which Palestinians commemorate on May 15 each year.
Ola Awad, the president of the bureau, said: “The atrocities of Zionist forces (in 1948) also included more than 70 massacres in which more than 15,000 Palestinians were martyred.”
According to the bureau’s statistics, Israeli forces destroyed 531 Palestinian towns and villages during the Nakba. A further 200,000 people were displaced from the occupied territories to neighboring countries by the Six-Day War in June 1967, which led to the occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and the Syrian Golan Heights.
Awad said the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, which began in October 2023, has reduced the Palestinian population in the occupied territories by 10 percent, as more than 52,000 people have been killed and thousands displaced.
The statistics bureau said that since 1948, an estimated 154,000 people have been killed in the occupied territories or Arab countries as a result of Israeli attacks or armed clashes. The majority were Palestinian, but some were citizens of other Arab countries. Nearly 34 percent of them lived Gaza and were killed in the past two years.
UN says found 225 arms caches since Israel-Hezbollah truce
The November truce largely ended more than a year of hostilities between Israel and the Iran-backed group, including two months of all-out war.
Under the deal, Hezbollah was to withdraw its fighters north of Lebanon’s Litani River and Israel was to pull all its forces from south Lebanon, however it has kept troops in five areas it deems “strategic.”
The Lebanese army has been deploying in the area as Israeli forces have withdrawn and has been dismantling Hezbollah infrastructure there.
Since the November 27 truce began, “peacekeepers have found over 225 weapons caches and referred them” to the Lebanese army, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon said in a statement.
UNIFIL also has a seat on the ceasefire monitoring committee, alongside truce brokers France and the United States, and the Israeli and Lebanese governments.
“With UNIFIL support,” Lebanon’s army has “redeployed to more than 120 permanent positions south of the Litani,” the peacekeeping force said.
“Full (army) deployment is hindered by the presence of Israeli forces in Lebanese territory,” it added.
Israel’s military still carries out regular strikes in Lebanon, saying it is targeting Hezbollah operatives and infrastructure.
The ceasefire deal was based on a UN Security Council resolution that says Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers should be the only forces in south Lebanon, and that calls for the disarmament of all non-state groups.
President Joseph Aoun said last month the Lebanese army was now deployed in more than 85 percent of the south and that the sole obstacle to full control across the frontier area was “Israel’s occupation of five border positions.”
Lebanese authorities have vowed to implement a state monopoly on bearing arms, though Aoun has said disarming Hezbollah is a “delicate” matter that requires dialogue.
Hezbollah, long a dominant force in Lebanon, was heavily weakened in its latest war with Israel.
Syria and neighbors urge Israel to stop bombings
- Syrian FM Asaad Al-Shaibani told the joint press conference that “our borders are constantly violated by Israeli attacks”
ANKARA: The foreign ministers of Syria, Turkiye and Jordan, meeting Monday in Ankara, called on Israel to cease attacks on Syria and to withdraw troops from the country.
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on Syria since longtime ruler Bashar Assad was ousted in December, often targeting military sites and killing dozens of people.
Israeli officials have also described Syria’s new authorities as jihadists and claimed to defend the country’s Druze minority with a recent spate of attacks.
Turkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told a press conference with his Jordanian and Syrian counterparts that “Israel’s expansionism poses a significant threat to the security, stability and future of Syria.”
“This must come to an end. And we are on the same page about this. Syria needs to be supported to prevent terrorist organizations from settling in this region,” Fidan added, noting that Syria shares a 900-kilometer (560-mile) border with Turkiye.
Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani told the joint press conference that “our borders are constantly violated by Israeli attacks.”
The Israeli strikes are “calculated escalations aimed at destabilising Syria and dragging the region into a new cycle of conflict,” Shaibani said, decrying “systematic violations of international law and explicit provocations.”
He called on the international community to put Israel under “increased pressure” to halt the bombings.
Jordan’s top diplomat, Ayman Safadi, said attacks on Syrian soil “will not bring security to Israel and will bring nothing to Syria except ruin and destruction.”
Israel urges ICC to drop arrest warrants against PM
- In ruling that made headlines, ICC found “reasonable grounds” to believe Netanyahu and Gallant bore “criminal responsibility” for war crimes, crimes against humanity
THE HAGUE: Israel has asked the International Criminal Court to dismiss its arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant while ICC judges reconsider complex jurisdictional questions.
In a 14-page document dated May 9 but posted on the ICC website on Monday, Israel argued the warrants issued in November were null and void while judges weigh a previous Israeli challenge to the ICC’s jurisdiction in the case.
In a ruling that made headlines around the world, the ICC found “reasonable grounds” to believe Netanyahu and Gallant bore “criminal responsibility” for war crimes and crimes against humanity related to the war in Gaza.
The court also issued a war crimes warrant against top Hamas commander Mohammed Deif over the October 7 attacks that sparked the conflict. The case against Deif was dropped in February after his death.
Israel, not one of the ICC’s 125 members, challenged the court’s jurisdiction but judges on the ICC’s “Pre-Trial Chamber” dismissed the bid and issued the arrest warrants.
But last month, the ICC’s Appeals Chamber ruled the Pre-Trial Chamber was wrong to dismiss the challenge and ordered it to look again in detail at Israel’s arguments.
Israel says now that the arrest warrants should not stay in place while this complex and lengthy process is ongoing.
“Unless and until the Pre-Trial Chamber has ruled on the substance of the jurisdiction challenge... the prerequisite jurisdictional finding does not exist,” Israel argued.
“It follows that the arrest warrants issued on 21 November 2024 must be withdrawn or vacated pending the Pre-Trial Chamber’s determination of Israel’s jurisdictional challenge.”
Israel and its allies reacted furiously to the warrants issued on November 21, Netanyahu describing it as an “anti-Semitic decision” and then US president Joe Biden slamming it as “outrageous.”
Technically, any member of the ICC is required to arrest Netanyahu if he travels there, although the court has no independent power to enforce warrants.
Israel argued in its submission that Netanyahu could theoretically be arrested while the court was still weighing whether it had jurisdiction in the case.
“Depriving persons of their liberty on the basis of an arrest warrant issued in the absence of the necessary legal pre-conditions is an egregious violation of fundamental human rights and of the rule of law,” Israel argued.
Allowing the warrants to stay in place during the deliberations “is unlawful and undermines the legitimacy of the court,” said Israel.
Syrian, Turkish foreign ministers address security issues in Ankara
- Officials convened during trilateral meeting involving Syria, Turkiye and Jordan
LONDON: Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani met his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, in Ankara on Monday.
The officials convened during trilateral talks, which included Jordan’s foreign minister, to address joint security and economic issues in the region.
The ministers discussed various issues, including Israeli actions in the southern Syrian Arab Republic since the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, as well as coordination with Arab states and the international community to support Syria’s security, stability and sovereignty.
