JERUSALEM: The Israeli military on Tuesday released video footage of a Gaza tunnel where it says six hostages were recently killed by Hamas. The video shows a low, narrow passageway deep underground that had no bathroom and poor ventilation.
The discovery of the hostages’ bodies last month has sparked a mass outpouring of anger in Israel and the release of the new video could add to the pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach a ceasefire deal with Hamas to bring the remaining hostages held by Hamas home.
Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Tuesday the footage of the Gaza tunnel had been shown to the hostages’ families, and that it “was very hard for them to see how their loved ones survived in those conditions.”
Hagari revealed the video in a nationally televised press conference after visiting the tunnel himself. He said the tunnel was reached by a shaft buried under a child’s bedroom in a home in the southern Gaza town of Rafah. The tunnel was about 20 meters (70 feet) underground and stretched about 120 meters (yards).
In the video, a hunched-over Hagari, unable to stand upright in the narrow arched passageway, describes the conditions as extremely humid and difficult to breathe. He showed bottles of urine, a bucket that appeared to have served as a makeshift toilet, a chess board and ammunition for an automatic rifle believed to have been used by the captors.
“They were here in this tunnel in horrific conditions, where there’s no air to breathe, where you cannot stand,” he said.
The six included Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, a native of Berkeley, California, whose parents led a high-profile global campaign seeking his release. Goldberg-Polin lost part of his left arm to a grenade in the Oct. 7 attack that sparked the war in Gaza. In April, Hamas issued a video that showed him alive, sparking protests in Israel. The army identified the others as Ori Danino, 25; Eden Yerushalmi, 24; Almog Sarusi, 27; Alexander Lobanov, 33; and Carmel Gat, 40.
Three of the six – including Goldberg-Polin – had reportedly been scheduled to be released in the first phase of a ceasefire proposal discussed in July, further fueling anger when they were found dead.
The Hostages Families Forum, a group representing relatives of hostages, said in a statement that “time is running out” and called for an immediate deal to return those kidnapped.
“Every day that passes is a danger to their lives, hanging by a thread, at the mercy of terrorists capable of the worst crimes against humanity,” the group said.
Pathology tests on the bodies of the six, who were found by the military in the southern Gaza city of Rafah on Saturday, Aug. 31, showed they had been killed sometime on the night of Aug. 29, Hagari told reporters.
Hagari said Israeli soldiers found evidence indicating the hostages and at least two captors had been there for more than a few days. Mattresses, clothes, assault rifle magazines and shells were also found, as was some food, mainly energy bars and tuna. There were blood stains on the floor, he said.
The day before the bodies were found, Hagari said, the army had killed two militants trying to run away from a complex of tunnels near where the hostages were found. There was “a probability” that the two had been those who killed the hostages, he said. DNA tests were being carried out to verify this, he added.
Hamas kidnapped about 250 people during the Oct. 7 attack. More than 100 were released during a brief ceasefire in November in exchange for the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Eight have been rescued by Israeli forces, while Israeli troops mistakenly killed three Israeli hostages who had escaped captivity in December. Israeli authorities say 101 hostages remain in captivity, including 35 who are believed to be dead.
Shai Dickman, the cousin of Gat, one of the hostages who was found dead in the tunnel, told Israel’s Channel 13 TV that the government should move immediately to reach a deal to bring home the remaining hostages.
“There are still people living like this,” she said, holding back tears. “If there had been a deal on time, Carmel would be sitting here.”
Hamas has offered to release the hostages in return for an end to the war, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the release of a large number of Palestinian prisoners, including high-profile militants. But negotiations on a ceasefire have failed to produce any deal.
Israel releases video of a Gaza tunnel where it says Hamas militants killed 6 hostages
https://arab.news/nywd6
Israel releases video of a Gaza tunnel where it says Hamas militants killed 6 hostages
- Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Tuesday the footage of the Gaza tunnel had been shown to the hostages’ families
- It “was very hard for them to see how their loved ones survived in those conditions”
UN General Assembly to debate call for end to Israeli occupation
The text, which has faced fierce criticism from Israel, is based around an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice calling Israel’s occupation since 1967 “unlawful.”
“Israel is under an obligation to bring to an end its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible,” read the opinion, requested by the General Assembly.
In response, Arab countries have called for a special session of the assembly just days before dozens of heads of state and government descend on the UN headquarters this month to address the kick off of this year’s General Assembly session.
“The idea is you want to use the pressure of the international community in the General Assembly and the pressure of the historic ruling by the ICJ to force Israel to change its behavior,” said Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour, who acknowledged the draft resolution had “shocked many countries.”
The resolution
The draft resolution, due to be voted on late Tuesday or Wednesday, “demands that Israel brings to an end without delay its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” and that this be done “no later than 12 months from the adoption.”
The first draft text gave only six months.
The draft resolution also “demands” the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Palestinian territories, a halt to new settlements, the return of seized land and property, and the possibility of return for displaced Palestinians.
A paragraph calling on member states to halt arms exports to Israel disappeared from the draft text during negotiations, however.
“I hope that we will have good numbers,” Mansour said, underlining the “tremendous amount of sympathy and solidarity” with the Palestinians.
While the Security Council is largely paralyzed on the Gaza issue — with the United States repeatedly vetoing censures of its ally Israel — the General Assembly has adopted several texts in support of Palestinian civilians amid the current war.
In May the assembly overwhelmingly supported a largely symbolic resolution on full Palestinian membership of the UN, garnering 143 votes in favor, nine against with 25 abstentions.
The push had previously been vetoed by Washington at the Security Council.
Although General Assembly resolutions are not binding, Israel has already denounced the new text as “disgraceful.”
The resolution’s adoption would be “a reward for terrorism and a message to the world that the barbaric slaughter of children, the rape of women and the kidnapping of innocent civilians is a worthwhile tactic,” said Israel’s UN ambassador Danny Danon.
Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Militants also seized 251 hostages, 97 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s offensive has killed at least 41,226 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which does not provide a breakdown of civilian and militant deaths. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.
10 killed in Iran bus crash: state media
TEHRAN: At least 10 people were killed and dozens injured when bus crashed in central Iran, official media reported on Tuesday.
The bus overturned in Yazd province while traveling between the cities of Bushehr in southwestern Iran and Mashhad in the northeast, state television said.
“The accident left 10 people dead and 41 injured, according to initial figures,” it said, without specifying the total number of passengers on board.
Iran has a poor road safety record, with more than 20,000 deaths in accidents recorded in the year to March, according to the judiciary’s Legal Medicine Organization cited by local media.
Last month, a bus carrying Pakistani pilgrims crashed in central Iran, killing 28 people en route to Iraq for Arbaeen, one of the most significant events in the Shiite Muslim calendar.
Days later, another bus crash killed three people and injured 48 others.
Iran releases Austrian citizen jailed in country, judiciary’s Mizan news agency says
- He was handed over to his country’s ambassador to arrange his exit
- Mizan did not specify the crime for which Weber was jailed
TEHRAN: Iranian authorities have released Austrian citizen Christian Weber, detained for crimes committed in Iran’s West Azerbaijan Province, to Austria’s ambassador in Tehran, the Iranian judiciary’s Mizan news agency reported on Tuesday.
Austria had said in 2022 one of its citizens was arrested in Iran for charges not related to protests that broke out in the country after the death of Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish Iranian woman, in custody.
The news agency said the Austrian citizen was freed in consideration of Islamic mercy. He was handed over to his country’s ambassador to arrange his exit, the agency said.
Mizan did not specify the crime for which Weber was jailed. Calls to the Austrian embassy before regular office hours went unanswered.
The death of 22-year-old Amini in September 2022 while in custody for allegedly flouting Iran’s Islamic dress code unleashed months of protests in the biggest challenge to the Islamic republic’s clerical leaders in decades.
US airs frustration with Israel’s military about strikes in Gaza
- Thomas-Greenfield said the United States expects Israeli military leaders to implement “fundamental changes” in their operations
UNITED NATIONS: The US ambassador to the United Nations on Monday accused Israel’s military of striking schools, humanitarian workers and civilians in Gaza in a sign of growing American frustration with its close ally as the war approaches its first anniversary.
Israel has repeatedly said it targets Hamas militants, who often hide with civilians and use them as human shields, in retaliation for the Oct. 7 attacks in southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people and launched the war in Gaza.
US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield was unusually outspoken against the Israeli military at a UN Security Council meeting, saying many of the strikes in recent weeks that injured or killed UN personnel and humanitarian workers “were preventable.”
Many council members cited last week’s Israeli strike on a former school turned civilian shelter run by the UN agency helping Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, in which six UNRWA staffers were among at least 18 people killed, including women and children.
Israel said it targeted a Hamas command-and-control center in the compound, and Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, asserted Monday that Hamas militants were killed in the strike. He named four, claiming to the council that they worked for UNRWA during the day and Hamas at night.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for an independent investigation.
Thomas-Greenfield told council members that the US will keep raising the need for Israel to facilitate humanitarian operations in the Palestinian territory and protect humanitarian workers and facilities like the UNRWA shelter.
She also reiterated US “outrage” at the death of Turkish American activist Aysenur Eygi, who was shot and killed during a protest in the West Bank last week. Israeli Defense Forces said it likely killed Eygi by mistake, and the government has begun a criminal investigation.
“The IDF is a professional military and knows well how to ensure that incidents such as these do not happen,” the US envoy said.
Thomas-Greenfield said the United States expects Israeli military leaders to implement “fundamental changes” in their operations — including to their rules of engagement and procedures to ensure that military operations do not conflict with humanitarian activities and do not target schools and other civilian facilities.
“We have also been unequivocal in communicating to Israel that there is no basis — absolutely none — for its forces to be opening fire on clearly marked UN vehicles as recently occurred on numerous occasions,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
At the same time, she said Hamas is also hiding in — and in some cases, taking over or using — civilian sites, which poses “an ongoing threat.”
She said it underscores the urgency of reaching a ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza. While the United States works with fellow mediators Egypt and Qatar to try to get both sides “to agree that enough is enough,” she said, “this is ultimately a question of political will” and difficult compromises.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken heads to Egypt this week for talks partly about refining a proposal to present to Israel and Hamas.
The United States urges “all council members with influence over Hamas to join others in pressing its leaders to stop stalling, make these compromises, and accept the deal without delay,” Thomas-Greenfield.
She spoke after the top UN humanitarian official in Gaza said the territory is “hell on Earth” for its more than 2 million people, calling the lack of effective protection for civilians “unconscionable.”
Sigrid Kaag, the UN senior humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator for Gaza, told council members and reporters that the war has turned the territory “into the abyss.”
Over 41,000 Palestinians have been killed during Israel’s offensive, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Humanitarian operations are being impeded by lawlessness, Israeli evacuation orders, fighting and difficult conditions for aid workers that include Israeli denials of access, delays, a lack of safety and security, and “poor logistical infrastructure,” Kaag said.
Danon insisted that Israel’s humanitarian efforts “are unparalleled” for a country forced to go to war and urged the Security Council and the UN “to speak to the facts.”
Over 1 million tons of aid have been delivered via more than 50,000 trucks and nearly 1 million land crossings, he said, adding that hardly a fraction have been stopped.
When asked about Danon’s statement, Kaag pointed to recent strikes on humanitarian convoys and schools and health facilities where Israel had received prior notification.
“It’s not about trucks. It’s about what people need,” she said. “We’re way, way off what people need, not only daily, but also what we would all consider a dignified human life.”
Houthi official says US offered to recognize Sanaa government; US official denies claim
- The remarks came a day after a Houthi ballistic missile reached central Israel for the first time
CAIRO: The US offered to recognize the Houthi government in Sanaa in a bid to stop the Yemeni rebel group’s attacks, a senior Houthi official said on Monday, in remarks that a US official said were false.
The Houthi official’s remarks came a day after a ballistic missile from the Iran-aligned group reached central Israel for the first time, prompting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to say Israel would inflict a “heavy price” on them.
“There is always communication after every operation we conduct,” Mohammed Al-Bukhaiti, a member of the Houthi movement’s political bureau, told Al Jazeera Mubasher TV. “These calls are based on either threats or presenting some temptations, but they have given up to achieve any accomplishment in that direction.”
A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, called the remarks “a total fabrication.”
Separately, a US State Department official said: “Houthi propaganda is rarely true or newsworthy. Coverage like this puts a guise of credibility on their misinformation.”
Al-Bukhaiti said the calls after attacks included some from the US and the United Kingdom indirectly through mediators and that the threats included direct US military intervention against countries that intervene militarily “in support of Gaza.”
Beside attacks on Israel, the Yemeni group has also continued to launch attacks on ships they say are linked or bound to Israel in support of Palestinians amid the war in Gaza.
The Houthis have damaged more than 80 ships in missile and drone attacks since November, sinking two vessels, seizing another and killing at least three crew members.
The war in the Gaza Strip started after Hamas gunmen launched a surprise attack on Israel which left 1,200 people killed and around 250 foreign and Israelis taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies. Israel’s subsequent offensive on Gaza has so far killed 41,226 Palestinians and wounded 95,413 others, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
Yemen has been embroiled in years of civil war. In 2014, the Houthis took control of the capital, Sanaa, and ousted the internationally recognized government. In January, the United States put the Houthis back on its list of terrorist groups.
