Middle Eastern Headlines at 10:12 p.m. GMT
Blinken pushes Israel on postwar Gaza plans as pressure mounts on Hamas to accept cease-fire plan
Blinken pushes Israel on postwar Gaza plans as pressure mounts on Hamas to accept cease-fire plan
Israel has assassinated two dozen Hezbollah commanders in Lebanon since last fall amid an intelligence war employing cellphones, drones and fake rocks.
Senior figures in Israel's government have said it is closing in on its war aims of defeating Hamas militarily and the return of hostages seized on Oct. 7. After nine months of pummelling by one of the most powerful militaries in the Middle East, Hamas is much weakened from the force that carried out the cross-border attack on Israel on Oct. 7. Early in the war, Hamas propaganda videos showed well-drilled fighters in body armour and battle fatigues, their torsos wrapped with ammunition belts.
Kamala Harris signaled a major shift on US Gaza policy Thursday, with the presidential hopeful telling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to seal a peace deal and insisting she would not be "silent" on the suffering in the Palestinian enclave."As I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu, it is time to get this deal done," she said.
Many said she did not appear to express the same level of sympathy towards those who had died.
Police say a gang attacked three remote villages in Papua New Guinea, killing at least two dozen.
Former President Trump on Friday claimed there will be a major war in the Middle East and potentially a “third world war” if he does not win November’s election. Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, one day after Netanyahu met at the White House with President Biden…
Israeli troops battled Palestinian fighters in Khan Younis in southern Gaza and destroyed tunnels and other infrastructure, as they sought to suppress small militant units that have continued to hit troops with mortar fire, the military said on Friday. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) said troops had killed around 100 Palestinian fighters since Israeli troops began their latest operation in Khan Younis on Monday, which continued as pressure mounted for a deal to halt the fighting. It said seven small units that had been firing mortars at the troops were hit in an air strike, while further south, in Rafah, four fighters were also killed in air strikes.
A group of 45 American doctors and nurses describe bloodshed in Gaza in an open letter to the White House, and demand immediate ceasefire.
The remains of a teacher and four soldiers were found in an operation in Khan Younis on Wednesday.
French intelligence sources hinted that the massive sabotage attack on rail lines leading to Paris on Friday may have been the work of Left-wing radicals.
STORY: Israel's ground and air campaign in Gaza has killed more than 39,000 people, mostly civilians, according to Palestinian health authorities.:: October 7, 2023:: Ashkelon, IsraelThe war began on October 7 when Hamas militants stormed across the border into Israeli communities. :: October 31, 2023:: Beit Guvrin, IsraelThey killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 253 hostages into Gaza, Israel says. :: How credible is the official toll?So how do Gaza health authorities count the Palestinian dead, and is that toll reliable? :: October 25, 2023U.S. President Joe Biden cast doubt on Gaza's casualty figures in the first weeks of the war.BIDEN: "I have no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using.":: WHOBut the United Nations regularly cites them and the World Health Organization has voiced its full confidence.:: FilePre-war Gaza had robust population statistics and health information systems, public health experts say. :: October 9, 2023London-based non-profit Airwars compiled a list of Gaza deaths in the first weeks of the war using open-source monitoring and cross-checked it with the Health Ministry toll.In a July study, it found a correlation of at least 75%.Airwars head of investigations, Joe Dyke:"That tells you that it's, at least at the beginning of the war, that the Ministry of Health process was rigorous and reliable.":: How do they count the dead?At first, Gaza health authorities calculated death tolls by counting bodies that arrived in hospitals and recorded names and identity numbers for most of them.But fewer hospitals and morgues now operate.From early May, unidentified Gazans were included, and they now account for nearly a third of the toll.Deaths reported online by family members - who have to input data such as identity numbers - are also now added.JOE DYKE: "We would say that beyond that initial period, definitely the information quality coming out of Gaza has declined, partly because there's been a number of Internet blackouts, partly because a large number of people who were reporting or working at the beginning of the war have either left or been killed or injured.":: Are all the dead counted? As many as 10,000 people were missing under the rubble as of May, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.If indirect deaths, caused by factors like disease were included, the death toll could be more than 186,000, according to a letter from three academics in The Lancet medical journal in early July.The U.N. also believes the true death toll to be higher than the official one. :: Does Hamas control the figures? Hamas has run Gaza since 2007.But the enclave's Health Ministry also answers to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.:: June 25, 2024:: Gaza City, GazaAnd the extent of Hamas control in Gaza now is difficult to assess because Israeli forces occupy most of the Gaza Strip and fighting continues.Israeli officials have cast doubt on the figures because of Hamas' control over government. But at other times, Israel's military has credited the toll with being broadly reliable. Gaza Health Ministry figures do not differentiate between civilians and Hamas combatants, who do not wear uniform or carry special ID.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in May the Gazan official toll included 14,000 Hamas fighters.Hamas says Israel exaggerates its losses but has not said how many of its fighters have been killed. Airwars found at least "some militants" were included in the Health Ministry's list.
WASHINGTON/CAIRO (Reuters) -Israel is seeking changes to a plan for a Gaza truce and the release of hostages by Hamas, complicating a final deal to halt nine months of combat that have devastated the enclave, according to a Western official, a Palestinian and two Egyptian sources. Israel says that displaced Palestinians should be screened as they return to the enclave's north when the ceasefire begins, retreating from an agreement to allow civilians who fled south to freely return home, the four sources told Reuters. Israeli negotiators "want a vetting mechanism for civilian populations returning to the north of Gaza, where they fear these populations could support” Hamas fighters who remain entrenched there, said the Western official.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris pressured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday to help reach a Gaza ceasefire deal that would ease the suffering of Palestinian civilians, striking a tougher tone than President Joe Biden. "It is time for this war to end," Harris said in a televised statement after she held face-to-face talks with Netanyahu. Harris, the likely Democratic presidential nominee after Biden dropped out of the election race on Sunday, did not mince words about the humanitarian crisis gripping Gaza after nine months of war between Israel and Hamas militants.
Musician Dave Matthews criticized congressional support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while attending a protest outside the Capitol on Wednesday, calling it “disgusting.” Matthews spoke to Al Jazeera during one of the demonstrations protesting Netanyahu’s visit to the U.S. to address a joint meeting of Congress. Matthews knocked lawmakers’ support for the Israeli leader,…
Protesters against the Gaza war held a “die-in” across from Lafayette Park and the White House on Thursday as President Joe Biden met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The protesters poured red liquid onto the street, saying it symbolized the blood of those killed in Gaza.
Palestinian Olympic athletes were greeted with a roar of a crowd and gifts of food and roses as they arrived in Paris on Thursday, ready to represent war–torn Gaza and the rest of the territories on a global stage. As the beaming athletes walked through a sea of Palestinian flags at the main Paris airport, they said they hoped their presence would serve as a symbol amid the Israel-Hamas war that has claimed more than 39,000 Palestinian lives. Athletes, French supporters and politicians in the crowd urged the European nation to recognize a Palestinian state, while others expressed outrage at Israel's presence at the Games after U.N.-backed human rights experts said Israeli authorities were responsible for “war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
Bangladeshi police detectives on Friday forced the discharge from hospital of three student protest leaders blamed for deadly unrest, taking them to an unknown location, staff told AFP. Nahid Islam, Asif Mahmud and Abu Baker Majumder are all members of Students Against Discrimination, the group responsible for organising this month's street rallies against civil service hiring rules.Islam, 26, the chief coordinator of Students Against Discrimination, told AFP from his hospital bed on Monday that
STORY: U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday said she pressured Israel's leader to help reach a Gaza ceasefire deal, striking a tougher tone than President Joe Biden:"The first phase of the deal would bring about a full ceasefire, including a withdrawal of the Israeli military from population centers in Gaza. In the second phase, the Israeli military would withdraw from Gaza entirely. And it will lead to a permanent end to the hostilities. It is time for this war to end."It was part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington D.C. - he'd earlier addressed lawmakers in Congress and met with the U.S. President.A ceasefire has been the subject of negotiations for months. U.S. officials believe the parties are closer than ever before to a deal for a six-week ceasefire in exchange for Hamas releasing some hostages.A White House readout said Biden met with Netanyahu earlier and told him that he needed to close gaps to reach a ceasefire and remove obstacles in the flow of aid.While Harris, who is now the likely Democratic presidential nominee, mostly echoed Biden in firmly backing Israel's right to defend itself but she made clear on Thursday that she was losing patience with Israel's military approach."I also expressed with the Prime Minister my serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza, including the death of far too many innocent civilians. And I made clear my serious concern about the dire humanitarian situation there. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent."Palestinian health authorities say Israel's retaliatory attack killed more than 39,000 people in the Gaza Strip.The conflict began on October 7 when Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing 1200 people and taking more than 250 hostages.The Gaza conflict has splintered the Democratic Party. Protesters, pouring fake blood near the White House ahead of Biden's meeting with Netanyahu, were just some of many over the months who had appeared at Biden events, angered at U.S. weapons shipments to Israel.Meanwhile, Netanyahu will meet Harris' Republican rival, Donald Trump, on Friday at Mar-a-Lago.
The first time President Joe Biden's administration considered ordering the U.S. military to build a floating pier off Gaza to deliver aid in late 2023, it was put on the backburner. The United States was under pressure to ease the humanitarian crisis in the war-torn Palestinian enclave, which had been worsened by Israel's closure of many land border crossings, and sea deliveries were seen as a possible solution. U.S. Admiral Christopher Grady, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a career Navy surface warfare officer, told a meeting that he was very concerned that the sea could become too rough for a pier to deliver humanitarian aid and laid out weather-related risks, a former U.S. official and a current U.S. official said.
Italy plans to send an ambassador back to Syria after a decade-long absence, the country’s foreign minister said, in a diplomatic move that could spark divisions among European Union allies. Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, speaking in front of relevant parliamentary committees Thursday, announced Rome’s intention to re-establish diplomatic ties with Syria to prevent Russia from monopolizing diplomatic efforts in the Middle Eastern country. Moscow is considered a key supporter of Syrian President Bashar Assad, who has remained in power despite widespread Western isolation and civilian casualties since the start of Syria’s civil war in March 2011.