International
Explosion rocks Gaza, Israel intercepts rocket as truce ‘expires’
Explosion rocks Gaza, Israel intercepts rocket as truce ‘expires’
Israel’s military said it intercepted a rocket fired from Gaza early on Friday while Hamas-affiliated media reported sounds of gunfire and explosions in the north of the coastal strip shortly before a deadline to extend a seven-day truce was set to expire.
Air raid sirens sounded in Israeli communities near the border with Gaza as the 7 a.m. (0500 GMT) deadline to extend the pause in fighting neared.
Israel’s Kan public broadcaster described the sirens as the first to sound since the truce, which has been extended twice, began on Nov. 24. Neither side has announced an extension to the truce.
There was no immediate comment from Hamas or claim of responsibility for the launch. Israel’s military said its Iron Dome missile defence system had intercepted the projectile.
The Shehab News Agency, which is considered close to Hamas, reported explosions and gunfire could be head in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. Other Hamas-affiliated media reported sounds of military and drone aircraft flying over Gaza City. No other details were immediately available.
After two last-minute extensions, the enemies marked the seventh day of a Qatari-mediated truce on Thursday with the exchange of eight hostages and 30 Palestinian prisoners as well as the infusion of more humanitarian aid into the shattered Gaza Strip.
Mark Regev, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said Israel was open to continuing the ceasefire if Hamas committed to further hostage releases. Israel had previously set the release of 10 hostages a day as the minimum it would accept to pause its assault.
“We’re ready for all possibilities…. Without that, we’re going back to the combat,” he said on CNN.
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Before the prior truce was due to expire early on Thursday, Hamas and its ally, the armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, put their fighters on alert for a resumption of hostilities.
Israel has sworn to annihilate Hamas, which rules Gaza, in response to the Oct. 7 rampage by the militant group, when Israel says gunmen killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostages.
Israel retaliated with intense bombardment and a ground invasion. Palestinian health authorities deemed reliable by the United Nations say more than 15,000 Gazans have been confirmed killed.
BROTHER, SISTER TEENS RELEASED
With fewer Israeli women and children left in captivity, lengthening the truce could require setting new terms for Hamas to release Israeli men, including soldiers.
The militant group could in turn seek to have Palestinian male prisoners handed over. So far, three Palestinian prisoners have been freed for each Israeli hostage.
A view shows the damaged buildings of Northern Gaza strip, as seen from the viewpoint in Sderot
One of Qatar’s lead negotiators, diplomat Abdullah Al Sulaiti, who helped broker the truce through marathon shuttle negotiations, acknowledged in a recent Reuters interview the uncertain odds of keeping the guns silent.
“At the beginning I thought achieving an agreement would be the most difficult step,” he said in an article that detailed the behind-the-scenes efforts for the first time. “I’ve discovered that sustaining the agreement itself is equally challenging.”
Thursday’s releases brought the totals freed during the truce to 105 hostages and 240 Palestinian prisoners.
Among the newly released were six women aged 21 to 40 including one Mexican-Israeli dual national and 21-year-old Mia Schem, who holds both French and Israeli citizenship.
Photos released by the Israeli prime minister’s office showed Schem, who was captured by Hamas along with others at an outdoor music festival in southern Israel on Oct. 7, embracing her mother and brother after they were reunited at the Hatzerim military base in Israel.
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The other two newly released hostages were a brother and sister, Belal and Aisha al-Ziadna, aged 18 and 17 respectively, according to the Israeli prime minister’s office. They are Bedouin Arab citizens of Israel and among four members of their family taken hostage while they were milking cows on a farm.
ISRAEL AGREES TO PROTECT CIVILIANS, BLINKEN SAYS
The truce has allowed some humanitarian aid into Gaza after much of the coastal territory of 2.3 million people was reduced to wasteland in the Israeli assault.
More fuel and 56 trucks of humanitarian supplies entered Gaza on Thursday, Israel’s defence ministry and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said.
But deliveries of food, water, medical supplies and fuel remain far below what is needed, aid workers say.
At an emergency meeting in Amman, Jordan’s King Abdullah on Thursday urged U.N. officials and international groups to pressure Israel to allow more aid into the beleaguered enclave, according to delegates.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in Israel during his third visit to the Middle East since the war began, agreed that the flow of aid into Gaza was not sufficient.
Blinken said he told Netanyahu that Israel cannot repeat in south Gaza the massive civilian casualties and displacement of residents it inflicted in the north.
“We discussed the details of Israel’s ongoing planning and I underscored the imperative for the United States that the massive loss of civilian life and displacement of the scale that we saw in northern Gaza not be repeated in the south,” Blinken told reporters in Tel Aviv.
“And the Israeli Government agreed with that approach,” he said. This would include concrete measures to avoid damaging critical infrastructure such as hospitals and water facilities and clearly designating safe zones, he said.
Explosion rocks Gaza, Israel intercepts rocket as truce ‘expires’
(REUTERS)
International
Gaza: Hamas studies new Israeli truce proposal, 32 more killed
Gaza: Hamas studies new Israeli truce proposal, 32 more killed
JEDDAH/GAZA STRIP: Palestinians in Rafah said on Saturday they were living in “constant terror” as Israel vows to push ahead with its planned assault on the south Gaza city flooded with displaced civilians.
The Israeli military has massed dozens of tanks and armored vehicles in southern Israel close to Rafah and hit locations in the city in near-daily airstrikes.
“We live in constant terror and fear of repeated displacement and invasion,” said Nidaa Safi, 30, who fled Israeli strikes in the north and came to Rafah with her husband and children.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said at least 34,388 people have been killed in the besieged territory during more than six months of war between Israel and Hamas militants.
The tally includes at least 32 deaths in the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said, adding that 77,437 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war broke out when Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7.
Early Saturday, an airstrike hit a house in Rafah’s Tel Sultan neighborhood, killing a man, his wife and their sons, ages 12, 10 and 8, according to records of the Abu Yousef Al-Najjar hospital’s morgue. A neighbor’s 4-month-old girl was also killed.
Ahmed Omar rushed with other neighbors after the 1:30 a.m. strike to look for survivors, but said they only found bodies and body parts. “It’s a tragedy,” he said.
An Israeli airstrike later Saturday on a building in Rafah killed seven people, including six members of the Ashour family, according to the morgue.
Five people were killed in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza overnight when an Israeli strike hit a house, according to officials at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
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Elsewhere, Israeli forces shot and killed two Palestinian men at a checkpoint in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the military said. It said the men had opened fire at troops stationed at Salem checkpoint near the city of Jenin.
Violence in the West Bank has flared since the war. The Ramallah-based Health Ministry says 491 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire.
Israel’s counterproposal
Hamas said it was studying Israel’s latest counterproposal for a ceasefire, a day after reports said a delegation from mediator Egypt was in Israel trying to jump-start stalled negotiations.
Israel’s foreign minister said that the Rafah incursion could be suspended should there be a deal to secure the release of Israeli hostages.
“The release of the hostages is the top priority for us,” said Israel Katz. “If there will be a deal, we will suspend the operation.”
The Egyptian delegation discussed a “new vision” for a prolonged ceasefire in Gaza, according to an Egyptian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to freely discuss the developments.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether Israel’s proposal was directly related to the visit.
Khalil Al-Hayya, deputy head of Hamas’s political arm in Gaza, said it had “received the official Zionist occupation response to the movement’s position, which was delivered to the Egyptian and Qatari mediators on April 13.”
Negotiations earlier this month centered on a six-week ceasefire proposal and the release of 40 civilian and sick hostages in exchange for freeing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
A separate Hamas statement said leaders from the three main militant groups active in Gaza discussed attempts to end the war. It didn’t mention the Israeli proposal.
The armed wing of Hamas also released video footage of two men held hostage in Gaza, identified by Israeli campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum as Keith Siegel and Omri Miran.
Mediators are working on a compromise that will answer most of both parties’ main demands, which could pave the way to continued negotiations with the goal of a deal to end the war, the official said.
Hamas has said it won’t back down from demands for a permanent ceasefire and full withdrawal of Israeli troops.
Israel has rejected both and said it will continue military operations until Hamas is defeated and that it will retain a security presence in Gaza.
There is growing international pressure for Hamas and Israel to reach a ceasefire deal and avert an Israeli attack on Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have sought refuge.
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Israel has insisted for months it plans a ground offensive into Rafah, on the border with Egypt, where it says many remaining Hamas militants remain, despite calls for restraint including from Israel’s staunchest ally, the United States.
Egypt has cautioned an offensive into Rafah could have “catastrophic consequences” on the humanitarian situation in Gaza, where famine is feared, and on regional peace and security.
Tolerating Israeli abuses
Washington has been critical of Israeli policies in the West Bank. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is expected in Israel on Tuesday, recently determined an army unit committed rights abuses there before the war in Gaza.
But Blinken said in an undated letter to US House Speaker Mike Johnson, obtained by The Associated Press on Friday, that he’s postponing a decision on blocking aid to the unit to give Israel more time to right the wrongdoing. Blinken stressed that overall US military support for Israel’s defense wouldn’t be affected.
The US has also been building a pier to deliver aid to Gaza through a new port. Israel’s military confirmed Saturday that it would be operational by early May.
The BBC reported the UK government was considering deploying troops to drive the trucks to carry the aid to shore, citing unidentified government sources. British officials declined to comment.
Another aid effort, a three-ship flotilla coming from Turkiye, was prevented from sailing, organizers said.
Student protests over the war and its effect on Palestinians are growing on college campuses in the US, while demonstrations continue in many countries.
Hamas sparked the war by attacking southern Israel on Oct. 7, with militants killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 hostage. Israel says the militants still hold around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.
Gaza: Hamas studies new Israeli truce proposal, 32 more killed
Arab News
International
Ukraine receives bodies of 140 fallen soldiers from Russia
Ukraine receives bodies of 140 fallen soldiers from Russia
Ukraine has received the bodies of 140 soldiers killed while trying to defend the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya and Kherson from Russian attacks.
The authority responsible for prisoner-of-war matters said on Telegram on Friday that five bodies were from the Sumy section in northern Ukraine.
Russia has no Ukrainian territories under its control in this area; however, at the beginning of March, units of allegedly Russian volunteers fighting on the side of Ukraine made advances from the Sumy region into Russian territory.
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Once the identities of the dead have been established, they will be handed over to their relatives, the authority said.
The authority, known as the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, thanked the International Committee of the Red Cross for arranging the return.
Ukraine has been fending off a Russian invasion for over two years.
Despite the ongoing fighting, both sides regularly exchange the bodies of fallen soldiers and prisoners of war.
It is not yet known whether and how many dead soldiers Russia has received in return.
Ukraine receives bodies of 140 fallen soldiers from Russia
International
Weeks after Iran’s attack, Israel discovers another massive surface-to-surface missile
Weeks after Iran’s attack, Israel discovers another massive surface-to-surface missile
Weeks after missiles sent by Iran on April 14 rocked several parts of Israel, another debris of a surface-to-surface missile has been found in the southern part of the country.
According to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the debris that was found by hikers in southern Israel, has been successfully evacuated.
“The effects of Iran’s attack on Israel can still be seen weeks after it occurred.
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“Earlier today, our troops removed the debris of a surface-to-surface missile intercepted during the Iranian attack. At the beginning of the week, the debris was found by hikers in southern Israel.
A complex removal, the process was made possible through advanced preparation by the Home Front Command and assistance from the IAF. During the process, the missile debris was cleared of hazardous materials, ” the IDF said in a post on Friday.
This is not the first missile discovered in the south since the attack. Similar missiles were discovered nearby in the Dead Sea area immediately after the major attack that Tehran launched against Israel, which included more than 300 suicide drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles.
Weeks after Iran’s attack, Israel discovers another massive surface-to-surface missile
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