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”
El-Sisi highlights Egypt’s commitment to Libyan unity
- Haftar’s last visit to Cairo was a few months before nationwide parliamentary and presidential elections that were later delayed due to disagreements over their legal framework
CAIRO: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi on Saturday hosted Libyan military leader Khalifa Haftar for their first meeting since September 2021.
El-Sisi’s office said that during their talks, he stressed Egypt’s commitment to “ensuring the unity and cohesion of Libya’s national institutions.”
He also urged “coordination between all Libyan parties to crystallize a comprehensive political roadmap” toward long-overdue parliamentary and presidential elections.
Haftar’s last visit to Cairo was a few months before nationwide parliamentary and presidential elections that were later delayed due to disagreements over their legal framework.
Libya, which borders Egypt to the east, is struggling to recover from years of conflict after the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that ended dictator Muammar Qaddafi’s four-decade rule.
The country remains split between the UN-recognized government of Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah in Tripoli and Haftar’s authority in the east.
El-Sisi on Saturday said “all foreign forces and mercenaries must be expelled from Libyan territory.”
Nearly 200,000 Syrian refugees have returned since Assad’s fall: UN
- Between December 8 and January 16, some 195,200 Syrians returned home
- Those returns came before a lightning offensive by Islamist rebels late last year ousted Assad
GENEVA: Nearly 200,000 Syrian refugees have returned home since the fall of Bashar Assad in early December, the UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi said Saturday ahead of a visit to the region.
Between December 8 and January 16, some 195,200 Syrians returned home, according to figures published by Grandi on X.
“Soon I will visit Syria — and its neighboring countries — as UNHCR steps up its support to returnees and receiving communities,” Grandi said.
Hundreds of thousands of Syrians had returned home last year as they fled Lebanon to escape Israeli attacks during its conflict with the Hezbollah militant group.
Those returns came before a lightning offensive by Islamist rebels late last year ousted Assad, raising hopes of an end to a 13-year civil war that killed over half million dead and sent millions seeking refuge abroad.
Turkiye, which shares a 900-kilometer (560-mile) border with Syria, hosts some 2.9 million Syrians who have fled since 2011.
Turkish authorities, who are hoping to see many of those refugees return to ease growing anti-Syrian sentiment among the population, are allowing one member of each refugee family to make three round trips until July 1, 2025 to prepare for their resettlement.
Netanyahu says Israel will not proceed with Gaza ceasefire until it gets hostage list
- “Israel will not tolerate violations of the agreement,” Netanyahu said
JERUSALEM: Israel will not proceed with the Gaza ceasefire until it receives a list of the 33 hostages who will be released by Hamas in the first phase of the deal, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday.
“We will not move forward with the agreement until we receive the list of hostages who will be released, as agreed. Israel will not tolerate violations of the agreement. The sole responsibility lies with Hamas,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
Austin Tice's mother, in Damascus, hopes to find son missing since 2012
- "It'd be lovely to put my arms around Austin while I'm here. It'd be the best," Debra Tice told Reuters
- "I feel very strongly that Austin's here, and I think he knows I'm here... I'm here"
DAMASCUS: The mother of American journalist Austin Tice, who was taken captive during a reporting trip to Syria in August 2012, arrived in Damascus on Saturday to step up the search for her son and said she hopes she can take him home with her.
Tice, who worked as a freelance reporter for the Washington Post and McClatchy, was one of the first U.S. journalists to make it into Syria after the outbreak of the civil war.
His mother, Debra Tice, drove into the Syrian capital from Lebanon with Nizar Zakka, the head of Hostage Aid Worldwide, an organisation which is searching for Austin and believes he is still in Syria.
"It'd be lovely to put my arms around Austin while I'm here. It'd be the best," Debra Tice told Reuters in the Syrian capital, which she last visited in 2015 to meet with Syrian authorities about her son, before they stopped granting her visas.
The overthrow of Bashar al-Assad's regime in December by Syrian rebels has allowed her to visit again from her home in Texas.
"I feel very strongly that Austin's here, and I think he knows I'm here... I'm here," she said.
Debra Tice and Zakka are hoping to meet with Syria's new authorities, including the head of its new administration Ahmed al-Sharaa, to push for information about Austin. They are also optimistic that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who will be inaugurated on Monday, will take up the cause.
"I am hoping to get some answers. And of course, you know, we have inauguration on Monday, and I think that should be a huge change," she said.
"I know that President Trump is quite a negotiator, so I have a lot of confidence there. But now we have an unknown on this (Syrian) side. It's difficult to know, if those that are coming in even have the information about him," she said.
Her son, now 43, was taken captive in August 2012, while travelling through the Damascus suburb of Daraya.
Reuters was first to report in December that in 2013 Tice, a former U.S. Marine, managed to slip out of his cell and was seen moving between houses in the streets of Damascus' upscale Mazzeh neighbourhood.
He was recaptured soon after his escape, likely by forces who answered directly to Assad, current and former U.S. officials said.
Debra Tice came to Syria in 2012 and 2015 to meet with Syrian authorities, who never confirmed that Tice was in their custody, both she and Zakka said.
She criticised outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden's administration, saying they did not negotiate hard enough for her son's release, even in recent months.
"We certainly felt like President Biden was very well positioned to do everything possible to bring Austin home, right? I mean, this was the end of his career. This would be a wonderful thing for him to do. So we had an expectation. He pardoned his own son, right? So, where's my son?"
Debra Tice said her "mind was just spinning" as she drove across the Lebanese border into Syria and teared up as she spoke about the tens of thousands whose loved ones were held in Assad's notorious prison system and whose fate remains unknown.
"I have a lot in common with a lot of Syrian mothers and families, and just thinking about how this is affecting them - do they have the same hope that I do, that they're going to open a door, that they're going to see their loved one?"
Hezbollah chief warns Israel over ‘hundreds’ of truce violations
- Naim Qassem, the Hezbollah leader, called “on the Lebanese state to be firm in confronting violations, now numbering more than hundreds. This cannot continue”
- “I call on you not to test our patience“
BEIRUT: The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group on Saturday accused Israel of hundreds of violations of a ceasefire, to be fully implemented by next week, and warned against testing “our patience.”
His remarks came during a visit to Lebanon by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who called for Israel to end military operations and “occupation” in the south, almost two months into the ceasefire between Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel.
Guterres on Friday said UN peacekeepers had also found more than 100 weapons caches belonging “to Hezbollah or other armed groups.”
Naim Qassem, the Hezbollah leader, called “on the Lebanese state to be firm in confronting violations, now numbering more than hundreds. This cannot continue,” he said in a televised speech.
“We have been patient with the violations to give a chance to the Lebanese state responsible for this agreement, along with the international sponsors, but I call on you not to test our patience,” Qassem said.
Under the November 27 ceasefire accord, which ended two months of all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese army has 60 days to deploy alongside peacekeepers from the UNIFIL mission in south Lebanon as the Israeli army withdraws.
At the same time, Hezbollah is required to pull its forces north of the Litani River, around 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border, and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure it has in the south.
Qassem’s speech came as Guterres met Lebanon’s new President Joseph Aoun, the former army chief who has vowed that the state would have “a monopoly” on bearing weapons.
Analysts say Hezbollah’s weakening in the war with Israel allowed Lebanon’s deeply divided political class to elect Aoun and to back his naming as prime minister Nawaf Salam, who was presiding judge at the International Criminal Court.
Qassem insisted Hezbollah and ally Amal’s backing “is what led to the election of the president by consensus,” after around two years of deadlock.
“No one can exploit the results of the aggression in domestic politics,” he warned. “No one can exclude us from effective and influential political participation in the country.”
After his meeting with Aoun on Saturday, Guterres expressed hope Lebanon could open “a new chapter of peace.” The UN chief has said he is on a “visit of solidarity” with Lebanon.
French President Emmanuel Macron was also in Lebanon on Friday and said there must be “accelerated” implementation of the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire.
