GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: A Hamas official on Sunday said the Palestinian militants were ready to free 34 hostages in the “first phase” of a potential deal with Israel, after Israel said indirect talks on a truce and hostage release agreement had resumed in Qatar.
Mediators Qatar, Egypt and the United States have tried for months to strike a deal to end the war. The latest effort comes just days before Donald Trump takes office as president of the United States on January 20.
The talks took place as Israel pounded the Gaza Strip on Sunday, killing at least 23 people according to rescuers, nearly 15 months into the war.
During that time there has been only one truce, a one-week pause in November 2023 that saw 80 Israeli hostages freed along with 240 Palestinians from Israeli jails.
“Hamas has agreed to release 34 Israeli prisoners from a list presented by Israel as part of the first phase of a prisoner exchange deal,” the Hamas official said.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas has yet to provide a list of hostages to be released under an agreement.
The Hamas official, requesting anonymity as he was not authorized to discuss the ongoing negotiations with the media, said the initial swap would include all the women, children, elderly people and sick captives still held in Gaza.
He said some may be dead and that Hamas requires time to determine their condition.
“Hamas has agreed to release the 34 prisoners, whether alive or dead. However, the group needs a week of calm to communicate with the captors and identify those who are alive and those who are dead,” the official said.
During their attack on October 7, 2023 which began the Gaza war, militants seized 251 hostages, of whom 96 remain in Gaza. The Israeli military says 34 of those are dead.
Until the Hamas official’s comment there had been no update on the talks which both warring sides were to resume in Qatar over the weekend.
“Efforts are under way to free the hostages, notably the Israeli delegation which left yesterday (Friday) for negotiations in Qatar” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz told relatives of a hostage on Saturday, according to his office.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, in an interview with RTL radio, said that “we continue to exert the necessary pressure” to reach a deal.
“Unfortunately, it doesn’t depend only on us.”
In December, Qatar expressed optimism that “momentum” was returning to the talks following Trump’s election victory.
But Hamas and Israel then traded accusations of imposing new conditions and obstacles.
In northern Gaza on Sunday, the Civil Defense agency said an air strike on a house in the Sheikh Radwan area killed at least 11 people.
Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said the victims included women and children, and rescuers were using their “bare hands” to search for five people still trapped under rubble.
The Israeli military said Sunday it had struck more than 100 “terror targets” in Gaza over the past two days, marking an apparent escalation in its assault.
The Hamas-run territory’s health ministry said a total of 88 people were killed over the previous 24 hours.
In one strike, five people died when the house of the Abu Jarbou family was struck in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, rescuers said.
AFP footage from another strike, on Bureij camp near Nuseirat, showed rescuers transporting bodies and injured people to a hospital.
In one scene, a medic attempted to resuscitate a wounded man inside an ambulance, while another carried an injured child to the hospital.
Relatives cried over the bodies of two men wrapped in white shrouds, the images showed.
Several of the strikes targeted sites from which militants had been firing projectiles into Israel in recent days, the military said.
The military separately announced that its forced had killed a militant commander in close combat in northern Gaza last week.
It said the slain man was a member of militant group Islamic Jihad’s rocket array, and had participated in the October 7, 2023 attack.
Last week, Katz warned of intensified strikes if the incoming rocket fire continued.
Rocket fire had become less frequent as the war dragged on but has recently intensified, as Israel pressed a major land and air offensive in the territory’s north since early October.
Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people, mostly civilians, according to official Israeli data.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed 45,805 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the territory’s health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.
Hamas official says ready to free 34 Gaza hostages under mooted deal
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Hamas official says ready to free 34 Gaza hostages under mooted deal
- The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas has yet to provide a list of hostages to be released under an agreement
Syrian mayor says Israel collected arms from locals in Golan buffer zone
The Israeli military, contacted by AFP, said it could not comment.
Mohamed Mreiwel, mayor of the village of Jabata Al-Khashab in Quneitra province, said on Monday that he had met three times with Israeli officials who had asked to see him.
Israel, long a foe of Syria, has launched hundreds of strikes on Syrian military sites since the fall of president Bashar Assad on December 8, destroying most of the army’s arsenal, a war monitor has said.
The same day Assad was toppled by Islamist-led forces, Israel also announced that its troops were crossing the armistice line and occupying the UN-patrolled buffer zone that has separated Israeli and Syrian forces on the strategic Golan Heights since 1974.
Mreiwel said that in his first meeting with the Israelis, “they asked for weapons to be handed over to them within 48 hours.”
Residents of the village, which is located in the buffer zone, had complied with the request, he said.
Syria’s army collapsed in the face of the rebel offensive, with thousands of soldiers, policemen and other security officials deserting their posts.
Some Syrians seized weapons left behind by soldiers and security personnel, Mreiwel said, with the Israeli army “dedicating an area for people to hand over those weapons.”
During his latest meeting with the Israelis on Sunday, “we told them that we no longer had any weapons and that if we had any, we would hand them over to the Syrian government,” said Mreiwel.
He added that he told the Israeli officials that “we are not allowed to meet with you,” as Syria and Israel are still technically at war and do not have diplomatic ties.
Israeli troops have conducted patrols on the main street of Jabata Al-Khashab, an AFP correspondent said.
Israeli tanks are also stationed in nearby Baath City, named for the now suspended political party that ran Syria for decades until Assad’s ousting.
Israel seized much of the Golan Heights from Syria in war in 1967, later annexing the territory in a move largely unrecognized by the international community.
Jordan, Syria to combat arms and drugs smuggling, resurgence of Daesh
DUBAI: Jordan and Syria agreed to form a joint security committee to secure their border and combat the smuggling of arms and drugs as well as cooperating to prevent the resurgence of Daesh, Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said on Tuesday.
During the press conference with his Jordanian counterpart Al-Shibani said that the latest US move to ease sanctions should be a step towards full lifting of sanctions. Shibani said existing sanctions were a main hurdle to the recovery of Syria
Israel calls for pressure on Turkiye to stop attack on Kurds
JERUSALEM: Turkiye must face pressure from world powers to stop attacks on Kurds in northern Syria, a senior Israeli foreign ministry official said on Tuesday.
"The international community must call on Turkey to stop these aggressions and killing. The Kurds must be protected by the international community," foreign ministry director general Eden Bar Tal told reporters.
Palestinian health ministry says 2 killed in Israeli West Bank raids
- Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 820 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the war
Ramallah: The Palestinian ministry of health said Israeli forces killed two people on Tuesday in separate raids in the northern West Bank, while the military said it had targeted a “terrorist cell.”
One Palestinian was killed in the town of Tammun, and another in the village of Talouza, the Ramallah-based ministry said.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said its teams had transported the body of an 18-year-old from Tammun who was killed “as a result of shelling,” and that five other people were severely injured during the Israeli raid.
The body was taken to the Turkish Hospital in the nearby city of Tubas, where the director identified the deceased as Suleiman Qutaishat.
The Red Crescent said the other Palestinian was killed in an Israeli raid around the village of Talouza, near Nablus, and was 40 years old.
Residents in the area identified him as Jaafar Dababshe, who they said was shot dead by Israeli forces in front of his house.
The Israeli army when contacted did not offer details, but said on its Telegram channel: “An air force aircraft targeted an armed terrorist cell in the Tammun area” in the early hours of Tuesday.
Violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank has soared since the war in Gaza erupted on October 7, 2023 after Hamas’ attack on Israel.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 820 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the war, according to the Ramallah-based health ministry.
Palestinian attacks on Israelis have also killed at least 28 people in the West Bank in the same period, according to Israeli official figures.
On Monday, three Israelis were killed when gunmen opened fire on a bus and other vehicles in the West Bank, according to medics.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.
International flights resume at Damascus airport
- Syria will receive two electricity-generating ships from Turkiye and Qatar to boost energy supplies hit by damage to infrastructure during President Bashar Assad’s rule
Damascus: International flights resumed at Syria’s main airport in Damascus on Tuesday for the first time since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar Assad last month.
A Syrian Airlines flight bound for Sharjah, in the United Arab Emirates, took off at around 11:45 am, marking the first international commercial flight from the airport since December 8.
Syria to receive electricity-generating ships from Qatar and Turkiye
Syria will receive two electricity-generating ships from Turkiye and Qatar to boost energy supplies hit by damage to infrastructure during President Bashar Assad’s rule, state news agency SANA quoted an official as saying on Tuesday.
Khaled Abu Dai, director general of the General Establishment for Electricity Transmission and Distribution, told SANA the ships would provide a total of 800 megawatts of electricity but did not say over what period.
“The extent of damage to the generation and transformation stations and electrical connection lines during the period of the former regime is very large, we are seeking to rehabilitate (them) in order to transmit energy,” Abu Dai said.
He did not say when Syria would receive the two ships.
The United States on Monday issued a sanctions exemption for transactions with governing institutions in Syria for six months after the end of Assad’s rule to try to increase the flow of humanitarian assistance.
The exemption allows some energy transactions and personal remittances to Syria until July 7. The action did not remove any sanctions.
Syria suffers from severe power shortages, with state-supplied electricity available just two or three hours a day in most areas. The caretaker government says it aims within two months to provide electricity up to eight hours a day.
