International
Gaza ceasefire plan turns deadly game of survival – BBC
Gaza ceasefire plan turns deadly game of survival – BBC
For the leaders of both Hamas and Israel, ending the war in Gaza has become a deadly game of survival.
The terms on which the war finally ends could largely determine their political future and their grip on power. For Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, even his physical survival.
It’s partly why previous negotiations have failed. It’s also why the question of how to permanently end the fighting has been put off to the last stages of the plan outlined by US President Joe Biden on Friday.
That transition between talks on a limited hostage-for-prisoner deal to discussions about a permanent ceasefire would, Mr Biden acknowledged, be “difficult”.
But it’s also where the success or failure of this latest deal is likely to hinge.
The US says it has submitted a draft resolution to the UN Security Council supporting the ceasefire plan outlined by President Biden. The three-phase plan involves an end to the conflict, the release of the hostages and reconstruction of the Palestinian territory.
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Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has strong domestic reasons for wanting to take this deal step by step.
Phase one, as outlined by Mr Biden, would see the release of dozens of hostages, both living and dead. That would be widely welcomed in a country where the failure to free all those held by Hamas is, for many, a glaring moral stain on Mr Netanyahu’s management of the war.
But Hamas is unlikely to give up its most politically sensitive hostages – women, wounded, elderly – without some kind of guarantee that Israel won’t simply restart the war once they’re home.
Leaks, quoted by Israeli media on Monday morning, suggested that Benjamin Netanyahu has told parliamentary colleagues that Israel would be able to keep its options open.
That option, to resume fighting – until Hamas is “eliminated” – is, some believe, the least Mr Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners will demand.
Without their support, he faces the prospect of early elections and the continuation of a corruption trial.
Mr Netanyahu needs to keep his long-term options open, to stand a chance of winning their support for any initial hostage deal. Hamas leaders, on the other hand, are likely to want permanent ceasefire guarantees upfront.
Previous deals have collapsed into this chasm. Bridging it now will depend on how much room for manoeuvre Mr Netanyahu has with his hard-right government allies to find alternatives to the “elimination” of Hamas – and how far Hamas leaders are prepared to consider them.
Mr Netanyahu talked over the weekend about the destruction of Hamas’s “military and governing capabilities” and ensuring that the group no longer posed a threat to Israel.
Few dispute that Hamas has suffered major losses to its military infrastructure – and even, some say, to its public support within Gaza and its control of the streets.
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But there’s no sign that Israel has killed or captured its top leaders Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif, and leaving them free in Gaza to celebrate the withdrawal of Israeli forces would spell political disaster for Israel’s embattled prime minister.
On Monday a US State Department spokesman said that although Hamas’s capabilities had “steadily degraded” in recent months, it remained a threat and the US did not believe the group could be eliminated militarily.
Meanwhile the White House said Mr Biden had “confirmed Israel’s readiness to move forward with the terms that have now been offered to Hamas” and said the Palestinian group was now the only obstacle to a deal.
Separately, military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said the Israeli military would be able to ensure Israel’s security in the event of any truce agreed by the government.
However Yanir Cozin, diplomatic correspondent with Israel’s military radio station, GLZ, believes that Mr Netanyahu won’t end the war until he can frame it as a success.
“A deal that leaves Hamas is a big failure,” he said. “Eight months on, when you haven’t achieved any of the war goals – not finishing Hamas, bringing all the hostages back, or securing the borders – then he doesn’t want to end the war. But he also understands that he cannot leave it until the next Israeli election in 2026.”
“If he can say, ‘We exiled Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif, they’re not living in Gaza’ – and if the people living close to Gaza and the northern border can go back – I think he can keep his government together. But it’s a lot of ‘ifs’.”
Hamas is very unlikely to agree to the exile or surrender of its top figures. But there are clear splits emerging between Hamas leaders inside and outside Gaza.
Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, who has also served as defence minister, told Israeli radio on Monday that President Biden had announced the deal “after seeing that Netanyahu only moves ahead when he’s certain that Sinwar will refuse”.
“How do you think Sinwar will react when he tends to agree and then he’s told: but be quick, because we still have to kill you after you return all the hostages,” he said.
In the meantime, tens of thousands of Israelis displaced after the Hamas attacks on 7 October are watching their prime minister’s next move.
Among them is Yarin Sultan, a 31-year-old mother of three who ran from her home in Sderot on Gaza’s border the morning after the Hamas attacks. She says she won’t go home until Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif are no longer free.
“This ceasefire will kill us,” she told the BBC. “We will free the hostages, but a few years from now you will be the next hostages, you will be the next people who get murdered, the women that are raped – all this will happen again.”
Gaza ceasefire plan turns deadly game of survival – BBC
BBC
International
Israel ejects Gaza hospital, detains medical personnel
Israel ejects Gaza hospital, detains medical personnel
The last major functioning hospital in northern Gaza was forcibly evacuated by the Israeli military on Friday after dozens of people were reportedly killed in Israeli strikes targeting the area.
Medical staff, including the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, have also been detained, Gaza health officials said on Saturday.
The hospital director, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, was among the first to report that about 50 people had been killed in Israeli air strikes targeting the vicinity of the hospital on Friday.
The IDF had said it was carrying out an operation in the area, alleging the hospital was a “Hamas terrorist stronghold”.
On Friday, patients at the hospital were forcibly moved to the nearby Indonesian Hospital which doctors warn is damaged and unsuitable due to a lack of power generators and water.
Eid Sabbah, head of the nursing department at Kamal Adwan, told the BBC the military had ordered the evacuation around 07:00 on Friday, giving the hospital about 15 minutes to move patients and staff into the courtyard.
Israeli troops then entered the hospital and removed the remaining patients, he said.
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The IDF said it had “facilitated the secure evacuation of civilians, patients and medical personnel” before beginning the operation.
Seriously ill patients were moved to the nearby Indonesian Hospital, itself evacuated earlier in the week, which medics have described as non-functional.
“You can’t call it a hospital, it’s more of a shelter. It’s not equipped for patients,” Gaza’s deputy minister of health, Dr Abu-Al Rish, told the BBC on Friday.
Dr Sabbah, from Kamal Adwan Hospital, said: “It’s dangerous because there are patients in the ICU department in a coma and in need of ventilation machines and moving them will put them in danger.”
He had said critically ill patients needed to be moved in specialised vehicles.
The World Health Organization said the raid “has put this last major health facility in north Gaza out of service”.
“Initial reports indicate that some key departments were severely burnt and destroyed during the raid,” it posted on X on Friday.
Nadav Shoshani, international spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), said in a post on Friday evening on X that a “small fire broke out in an empty building inside the hospital that is under control”.
This was when IDF troops were not inside the hospital, he said, adding that “after preliminary examination, no connection was found between IDF activity to the fire”.
The director of Kamal Adwan hospital had said on Friday that approximately 50 people had been killed, including five medical staff, in a series of Israeli air strikes targeting the vicinity of the hospital.
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The statement from Dr Hussam Abu Safiya said a building opposite the hospital was targeted by Israeli warplanes, leading to the death of a paediatrician and a lab technician, as well as their families.
He said a third staff member who worked as a maintenance technician was targeted and killed as he rushed to the scene of the first strike.
Two of the hospital’s paramedics were 500m (1,640ft) away from the hospital when they were targeted and killed by another strike, the statement continued, with their bodies remaining in the street with no-one able to reach them.
The Israeli military said on Friday morning that it was “unaware of strikes in the area of Kamal Adwan hospital” and was looking into the reports that staff had been killed.
Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia has been under a tightening Israeli blockade imposed on parts of northern Gaza since October, when the military said it had launched an offensive to stop Hamas from regrouping there.
The UN has said the area is under a “near-total siege” as the Israeli military heavily restricts access of aid deliveries to an area where an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 people remain.
In recent days, the hospital’s administrators have issued desperate pleas appealing to be protected, as they say the facility has become a regular target for Israeli shelling and explosives.
Oxfam said that attempts by aid agencies to deliver supplies to the area since October had been unsuccessful because of “deliberate delays and systematic obstructions” by the Israeli military.
Additional reporting by Shaimaa Khalil
Israel ejects Gaza hospital, detains medical personnel
BBC
International
Trump asks Supreme Court to suspend law for TikTok ban
Trump asks Supreme Court to suspend law for TikTok ban
US President-elect Donald Trump filed a brief Friday urging the Supreme Court to pause a law that would ban TikTok the day before his January 20 inauguration if it is not sold by its Chinese owner ByteDance.
“In light of the novelty and difficulty of this case, the court should consider staying the statutory deadline to grant more breathing space to address these issues,” Trump’s legal team wrote, to give him “the opportunity to pursue a political resolution.”
Trump was fiercely opposed to TikTok during his 2017-21 first term, and tried in vain to ban the video app on national security grounds.
The Republican voiced concerns — echoed by political rivals — that the Chinese government might tap into US TikTok users’ data or manipulate what they see on the platform.
US officials had also voiced alarm over the popularity of the video-sharing app with young people, alleging that its parent company is subservient to Beijing and that the app is used to spread propaganda, claims denied by the company and the Chinese government.
Trump called for a US company to buy TikTok, with the government sharing in the sale price, and his successor Joe Biden went one stage further — signing a law to ban the app for the same reasons.
– Reversing course –
Trump has now, however, reversed course.
At a press conference last week, Trump said he has “a warm spot” for TikTok and that his administration would take a look at the app and the potential ban.
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Earlier this month, the president-elect met with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.
Recently, Trump told Bloomberg he had changed his mind about the app: “Now (that) I’m thinking about it, I’m for TikTok, because you need competition.”
“If you don’t have TikTok, you have Facebook and Instagram — and that’s, you know, that’s Zuckerberg.”
International
Romeo and Juliet actress Olivia Hussey dies at 73
Romeo and Juliet actress Olivia Hussey dies at 73
Actress Olivia Hussey, who shot to international prominence as a teenager for her role in the acclaimed 1968 film version of Romeo and Juliet, has died aged 73.
The Argentinian-born actress, who grew up in London, died on Friday surrounded by her loved ones, a statement posted on her Instagram said.
Hussey won the best new actress Golden Globe for her part as Juliet, but decades later she sued Paramount Pictures for sexual abuse as she was aged just 15 when she filmed the movie’s nude scene.
Her other most notable screen role was as Mary, mother of Jesus, in 1977 TV miniseries Jesus of Nazareth.
“As we grieve this immense loss, we also celebrate Olivia’s enduring impact on our lives and the industry,” the statement said.
Hussey was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1951, before moving to London aged seven and studying at the Italia Conti Academy drama school.
1968’s Romeo and Juliet was nominated for best picture and director Oscars
She was 15 when Romeo and Juliet director Franco Zeffirelli discovered her onstage, playing opposite Vanessa Redgrave in the play The Prime of Miss Joan Brodie
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Zeffirelli was looking for someone who was young enough to be a convincing Juliet in what he intended to be the definitive cinematic version of the Shakespeare play.
He cast Hussey alongisde British 16-year-old Leonard Whiting as Romeo in the film.
The film was nominated for an Oscar for best picture and director. Hussey missed out on an Oscar nomination herself in a strong year in which Barbra Streisand won the main award for Funny Girl.
But at that year’s Golden Globes Hussey won the award for best new star.
Decades later, she and Whiting sued Paramount Pictures alleging Zeffirelli – who died in 2019 – had encouraged them to film nude scenes despite previous assurances they would not have to.
The pair sought damages of more than $500m (£417m), based on suffering they said they had experienced and the revenue brought in by the film since its release.
But last year a judge dismissed the case, finding the scene was not “sufficiently sexually suggestive”.
In 1977, Hussey had reunited with Zeffirelli for Jesus of Nazareth to play the Virgin Mary, before appearing in Death on the Nile a year later based on Agatha Christie’s novel.
Her roles in early slasher film Black Christmas (1974) and TV film Psycho IV: The Beginning earned her recognition as a scream queen. In the latter, she p[layed Norman Bates’s mother in a prequel storyline.
In later years she also took on work as a voice actress, appearing frequently in video games.
But she did have one final reunion with her former Romeo – as she and Whiting appeared together in the 2015 British film Social Suicide, which was loosely based on Romeo and Juliet, albeit set in the social media era.
Romeo and Juliet actress Olivia Hussey dies at 73
BBC
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