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Tag: Israel

  • Ceasefire: Hamas releases 4-year-old girl after 50 days in captivity

    Ceasefire: Hamas releases 4-year-old girl after 50 days in captivity

    A four-year-old American girl released by the Islamist group Hamas has touched the hearts of many people.

    Before being kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip, the little girl witnessed the murder of both her parents.

    The Washington Post reported on Monday that on Oct. 7, the then three-year-old was at home with her two siblings, aged 10 and 6, in a kibbutz on the border with the Gaza Strip when Hamas terrorists invaded.

    The two older children survived because they hid in a closet, where they held out for 14 hours before being rescued.

    A gunman shot the children’s mother, and as her father lay protectively over Abigail, he too was shot dead.

    Abigail, who was initially presumed dead, crawled out from under her father’s body and ran to a neighbour’s house, the Washington Post quoted a relative of the girl as saying.

    The terrorists seized the girl, together with the family of five who were there and took them to the Gaza Strip with many other civilians.

    Last Friday, the little girl turned four years old in captivity.

    “What she endured is unthinkable,” U.S. President Joe Biden said, after the girl was released on Sunday – the first U.S. citizen among the hostages freed in the agreement between Israel and Hamas.

    Abigail “has been through terrible trauma,” said Biden.

    “What a joy it is to see her with us, but on the other hand it is also sad that she is returning to a reality in which she has no parents,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a video posted on social media platform X, formerly Twitter.

    “She has no parents, but she has an entire nation that hugs her, and we will take care of all her needs,” Netanyahu said.

    Abigail’s great-aunt, Liz Hirsh Naftali, said in a statement on Sunday after the girl had been released that they had “no words to express our relief and gratitude,” according to the Washington Post.

    The little girl will be reunited with her siblings and live with her aunt, uncle and grandparents in Israel, a relative was further quoted as saying.

    Since Friday, 58 of the approximately 240 hostages have been released from Hamas control.

    Another 10 hostages are expected to be released this Monday.

    Hope for extended ceasefire rises after Hamas frees more hostages

    Hamas handed over a third group of hostages to Red Cross staff on Sunday as part of a four-day ceasefire agreement in the Gaza war, raising hopes of an extended truce with the release of further hostages in the coming days.

    With the release of 14 Israelis and three Thai citizens on Sunday, a total of 58 hostages have now been released by the extremist organisation Hamas since Friday.

    Israeli officials believe nearly 180 hostages are still in the hands of extremists in Gaza after being kidnapped in the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks.

    On Sunday, in return for the 17 freed prisoners, another 39 Palestinian prisoners were being released from Israeli prisons, as was the case the day before.

    The exchange is part of the Qatar-brokered agreement on a four-day ceasefire, which is to last until at least Tuesday morning.

    Officials on both sides of the conflict, as well as in the U.S. and Qatar, have expressed hopes for an extended truce beyond the originally agreed four days.

    Following the release of a third group of hostages, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu noted that the agreement provides for the possibility of an extension in return for the release of 10 more hostages per day.

    According to Qatar, an extension of an additional six days would be possible.

    A Hamas statement late on Sunday said it also wished to extend the four-day ceasefire in hope of securing the release of further Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons in exchange for hostages.

    While Netanyahu said an extension “would be welcome,” he also said the fighting would resume after the ceasefire.

    “At the end of the outline, we will go to realizing our goals with full force.”

    Among the hostages released by Hamas on Sunday evening was an 84-year-old woman who was brought to an Israeli hospital in a life-threatening condition, several Israeli media reported, citing the hospital in Beersheba in southern Israel.

    The third day of the truce agreement has allowed some desperately needed aid to flow into the densely populated Gaza Strip.

    The north of the territory saw the largest delivery of its kind since the beginning of the war between Islamist Hamas and Israel.

    The Palestinian Red Crescent successfully drove the trucks there, the aid group said on Saturday night.

    People are to be given water, medicine and medical equipment at four distribution points in the north, the group said.

  • Israel to release another 42 Palestinian women, children from prison

    Israel to release another 42 Palestinian women, children from prison

    Another 42 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons are to be released on Saturday as part of the agreement between the Israeli government and the Islamist Hamas movement, according to the Times of Israel newspaper.

    Israel will initially transfer the detainees to Ofer Prison in the occupied West Bank for medical examinations by International Red Cross staff, according to the newspaper, which cited Israeli prison officials.

    Al Jazeera reported that the prisoners to be released include 18 women and 24 teenage boys.

    As a condition of the agreement, Hamas militants must first release Israeli hostages being held in Gaza before the Palestinian prisoners are released from Israeli custody, according to the report.

    After their release, the Palestinians are to return to the places where they previously lived, for example in the West Bank or East Jerusalem.

    The first group of Palestinian prisoners consisted of minors and women held in Israeli prisons on offences ranging from stone-throwing to attacks on police officers, including some who were arrested but never faced trial, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.

  • Temporary Ceasefire: Israel, Palestine free 63 hostages

    Temporary Ceasefire: Israel, Palestine free 63 hostages

    Following the temporary cease fire afreed by both sides about 39 Palestinian women and children detainees from Israeli jails were on Friday evening released as they have been held hostage for weeks following the crisis between both countries.

    Similarly, some convicted prisoners who had been jailed for attempted murder for attacks on Israeli forces, and 15 teenagers jailed for offenses such as throwing stones were released by Israel on Friday evening.

    The Guardian UK noted that some may not have seen their families for many years.

    Moreso, a certain number of Israelis held hostage were also released to team up with their families and friends.

    This recent hostage freedom is part of the temporary truce made by both parties hostages in the war-ravaged Gaza.

    The released hostages underwent an initial medical assessment inside Israeli territory. They will continue to be accompanied by IDF soldiers as they make their way to Israeli hospitals, where they will be reunited with their families, Axios’ Barak Ravid confirmed in a statement.

    It was gathered that four German-Israeli dual nationals were among the hostages released from Gaza, Saturday.

    The released hostages whose family members said they had dual citizenship were: Aviv Asher, two; Raz Asher, four; and Doron Katz-Asher, 34; as well as Margalit Mozes, 77.

    Germany’s foreign minister Annalena Baerbock, on the sidelines of a Greens’ party conference, confirmed four dual nationals were among those released, Deutsche Welle reported.

    The Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Daniel Hagari has held a news conference where he said the released hostages – 13 Israelis and 11 foreigners – have all undergone medical tests and are in good condition.

    The freed hostages are being taken to Hatzerim airbase to complete physical and mental checkups, and to call their families, the Times of Israel reported.

    The foreigners, from Thailand and the Philippines, will meet representatives of their nations, he said.

    Thirteen Israeli hostages captured during Palestinian militants’ cross-border raids were back in Israeli territory where they would undergo medical checks before being reunited with their families, the army said.

    They included four children and six elderly women, a list issued by the Israeli prime minister’s office showed.

    A convoy of Red Cross vehicles crossed the border between Gaza and Egypt, with some of the passengers waving, after Hamas handed over the hostages to the humanitarian organisation.

     

    Israel is set to free three times as many Palestinian prisoners — women and teenage boys — under a deal that followed weeks of talks involving Israel, Palestinian militant groups, Qatar, Egypt and the United States.

    During a four-day truce, at least 50 hostages are expected to be freed, leaving an estimated 190 in the hands of Palestinian militants.

    In exchange, 150 Palestinian prisoners are expected to be released.

  • Israel-Hamas conflict has gone beyond war to ‘terrorism’ – Pope

    Israel-Hamas conflict has gone beyond war to ‘terrorism’ – Pope

    Pope Francis on Wednesday met separately with Israeli relatives of hostages held by Hamas and Palestinians with family in Gaza and said the conflict had gone beyond war to become “terrorism”.

    Speaking in unscripted remarks at his Wednesday general audience in St. Peter’s Square shortly after the early morning meetings in his residence, Francis said he heard directly how “both sides are suffering” in the conflict.

    “This is what wars do. But here we have gone beyond wars. This is not war. This is terrorism,” he said.

    He asked for prayers so that both sides would “not go ahead with passions, which in the end, kill everyone”.

    Both groups would be holding separate news conferences later on Wednesday.

    The meetings and the pope’s comments came hours after Israel’s government and Hamas agreed to silence the guns in Gaza for at least four days to allow in aid and release at least 50 hostages captured by militants in exchange for at least 150 Palestinians jailed in Israel.

    Israel has placed Gaza under siege and relentless bombardment since a Hamas attack on Oct. 7, which killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli tallies.

    Since then, more than 13,000 Gazans have been killed, about 40 per cent of them children, according to medical officials in the Hamas-ruled territory, figures deemed reliable by the United Nations.

     

     

  • Truce: Israel agrees deal with Hamas to free hostages

    Truce: Israel agrees deal with Hamas to free hostages

    Israel’s government and Hamas agreed on Wednesday to a four-day pause in fighting to allow the release of 50 hostages held in Gaza in exchange for 150 Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, and the entry of humanitarian aid into the besieged enclave.

    Officials from Qatar, which has been mediating secret negotiations, as well as the U.S., Israel, and Hamas have for days been saying a deal was imminent.

    Hamas is believed to be holding more than 200 hostages, taken when its fighters surged into Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies.

    A statement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said 50 women and children will be released over four days, during which there will be a pause in fighting.

    For every additional 10 hostages released, the pause would be extended by another day, it said, without mentioning the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange.

    “Israel’s government is committed to returning all the hostages home.

    “Tonight, it approved the proposed deal as a first stage to achieving this goal,” said the statement, released after hours of deliberation that were closed to the press.

    Hamas said the 50 hostages would be released in exchange for 150 Palestinian women and children who are held in Israeli jails.

    The truce deal will also allow hundreds of trucks of humanitarian, medical, and fuel aid to enter Gaza, the Palestinian group said in a statement.

    Israel had committed not to attack or arrest anyone in all parts of Gaza during the truce period, it added.

    During the four-day truce, air traffic will completely stop in southern Gaza and will halt for six hours a day, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (local time), in northern Gaza, the statement said.

    The accord is the first truce of a war in which Israeli bombardments have flattened swathes of Hamas-ruled Gaza, killed 13,300 civilians in the tiny densely populated enclave and left about two-thirds of its 2.3 million people homeless, according to authorities in Gaza.

    Before gathering with his full government, Netanyahu met on Tuesday with his war cabinet and wider national security cabinet over the deal.

    Ahead of the announcement of the deal, Netanyahu said the intervention of U.S. President Joe Biden had helped to improve the tentative agreement so that it included more hostages and fewer concessions.

    But Netanyahu said Israel’s broader mission had not changed.

    “We are at war and we will continue the war until we achieve all our goals. To destroy Hamas, return all our hostages and ensure that no entity in Gaza can threaten Israel,” he said in a recorded message at the start of the government meeting.

    Hamas said in its statement: “As we announce the striking of a truce agreement, we affirm that our fingers remain on the trigger, and our victorious fighters will remain on the look out to defend our people and defeat the occupation.”

    Three Americans, including a 3-year-old girl whose parents were among those killed during Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, are expected to be among the hostages to be released, a senior U.S. official said.

    Israeli media said the first release of hostages was expected on Thursday.

    Implementing the deal must wait for 24 hours to give Israeli citizens the chance to ask the Supreme Court to block the release of Palestinian prisoners, reports said.

    Hamas has to date released only four captives: U.S. citizens Judith Raanan, 59, and her daughter, Natalie Raanan, 17, on Oct. 20, citing “humanitarian reasons,” and Israeli women Nurit Cooper, 79, and Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, on Oct. 23.

    The armed wing of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad, which participated in the Oct. 7 raid with Hamas, said late on Tuesday that one of the Israeli hostages it has held since the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel had died.

    “We previously expressed our willingness to release her for humanitarian reasons, but the enemy was stalling and this led to her death,” Al Quds Brigades said on its Telegram channel.

    As attention focused on the hostage release deal, fighting on the ground raged on.

    Mounir Al-Barsh, director-general of Gaza’s health ministry, told Al Jazeera TV that the Israeli military ordered the evacuation of the Indonesian Hospital in Gaza City.

    Israel said militants were operating from the facility and threatened to act against them within four hours, he said.

    Hospitals, including Gaza’s biggest Al Shifa, have been rendered virtually inoperable by the conflict and shortages of critical supplies.

    Israel claims that Hamas conceals military command posts and fighters within them, a claim that Hamas and hospital staff deny.

    On Tuesday, Israel also said its forces had encircled the Jabalia refugee camp, a congested urban extension of Gaza City where Hamas has been battling advancing Israeli armoured forces.

    The Palestinian news agency WAFA said 33 people were killed and dozens wounded in an Israeli air strike on part of Jabalia.

    According to the United Nations, most Palestinians in Gaza are registered as refugees because they or their ancestors were displaced by the 1948 war of Israel’s creation.

    In southern Gaza, Hamas-affiliated media said 10 people were killed and 22 injured by an Israeli air strike on an apartment in the city of Khan Younis.

    Reuters could not immediately verify the accounts of fighting on either side.

  • Israeli army says it has opened door leading to tunnel under hospital

    Israeli army says it has opened door leading to tunnel under hospital

    The Israeli army says it has broken open the sealed blast-door at the end of a suspected Hamas tunnel under the al-Shifa hospital in the Gaza Strip.

    The military published two pictures on social media platform X, formerly called Twitter, Tuesday evening showing the open door in a tunnel.

    What exactly is behind the door remained unclear at first.

    “Just through this door, underneath the Shifa Hospital, are Hamas’ terrorists tunnels.

    “Here’s the PROOF of Hamas’ terrorism festering underneath hospitals,” the Israel Defense Forces said in their post on X.

    However, the photographs were published without context and could not be independently verified.

    The military suspects a command centre of the Islamist Hamas under the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip.

    Buildings in the vicinity of the hospital were also suspected.

    According to the army, a shaft uncovered a few days ago in the grounds of the embattled hospital led to a tunnel, at the end of which there was a locked “explosion-proof door” after 55 metres.

    Israel says the tunnel leads to a network of Hamas tunnels and bunkers.

    In spite of international criticism, Israeli soldiers have been engaging in combat operations in and around the Shifa hospital for days.

    Israel accuses Hamas of misusing the hospital for “terrorist purposes.”

    But Hamas denies this.

  • Israel/Hamas war: Ceasefire to be announced in coming hours

    Israel/Hamas war: Ceasefire to be announced in coming hours

    A Hamas official said Tuesday that a ceasefire agreement with Israel would be announced in the coming hours in Qatar.

    The official, who requested to remain anonymous, spoke with Xinhua.

    “We are close to reaching an agreement in the coming hours, and the movement has delivered its response to the mediators.’’

    Another Hamas source said, “the agreement will be announced in Qatar, and it may be soon, and its success is linked to the commitment of the Israeli side.”

    The ceasefire deal, said the sources, would last for five days and would include the release of 50 civilians and foreign nationals held by Hamas in exchange for the release of 300 Palestinian detainees.

    This would include children and women, held by Israel.

    The deal also included the entry of 300 trucks of food, medical and fuel aid into the Gaza Strip.

    The sources indicated that the release of prisoners would take place in stages, at a rate of 10 Israeli prisoners per day compared with that of 30 Palestinian prisoners.

  • Lebanon’s Hezbollah attacks Israeli troops with drones, artillery, missiles

    Lebanon’s Hezbollah attacks Israeli troops with drones, artillery, missiles

    A militia group in Lebanon, the Hezbollah movement has claimed that it targeted troops in northern Israel with drones, artillery and missiles on Monday, claiming a string of new attacks.

    Hezbollah has always been in solidarity with the Palestine’s Hamas as the crisis between Palestine and Israel rages on.

    Hezbollah fighters targeted soldiers west of Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel “with three attack drones”, the Iran-backed group said in a statement, adding shortly after that it had also targeted troops in the area with artillery fire.

    Both statements claimed the attacks were “direct hits”.

    Earlier Monday, Hezbollah said it had fired “Burkan missiles” at an Israeli barracks, and also claimed a number of other attacks on Israeli positions.

    Israel’s army said “three UAVs (drones) were identified striking adjacent” to an army post, without specifying where. It added that “no injuries were reported”.

    In a statement, it said “25 launches were identified from Lebanon toward several locations adjacent to the border”, and added that aerial defences “intercepted a number of the launches and the rest fell in open areas”.

    “Tanks, a fighter jet, and a helicopter struck Hezbollah terror infrastructure in Lebanon” in response to “launches toward Israeli territory”, it said, while the army struck fighters attempting to fire “anti-tank missiles” in south Lebanon.

    Deadly skirmishes on Israel’s northern border began on October 7 when Gaza-based Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking about 240 hostages, according to Israeli officials.

  • Israeli army recovers body of kindergarten teacher killed by Hamas

    Israeli army recovers body of kindergarten teacher killed by Hamas

    The Israel Defense Forces say they have recovered the body of 65-year-old Yehudit Weiss, said to have been killed by Hamas.

    TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports Yehudit, whose husband, Shmulik Weiss, was murdered in their home, worked with kindergarten kids.

    IDF soldiers disclosed her body was recovered from a building adjacent to the Shifa Hospital in Gaza on Thursday.

    “On October 7, Yehudit was abducted by Hamas from her home in Kibbutz Be’eri.

    “Her husband, Shmulik Weiss, was murdered in their home. Yehudit and Shmulik were parents to 5 children.

    “IDF soldiers recovered her body from a building adjacent to the Shifa Hospital in Gaza earlier today.

    “AK-47s, RPGs, and other military equipment were also found where Yehudit’s body was located,” IDF said in a statement.

    Earlier, the IDF had released footage of a terror tunnel on the grounds of the Shifa Hospital.

    In the Shifa Hospital complex, IDF troops found a hidden booby-trapped vehicle containing a large number of weapons, including AK-47s, RPGs, sniper rifles, grenades and other explosives.

  • Hostage gives birth in Hamas captivity

    Hostage gives birth in Hamas captivity

    A female hostage held by the Islamist terrorist organisation Hamas has given birth to a baby, according to Israeli reports.

    Sara Netanyahu, the wife of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, wrote about this in a letter to the wife of the U.S. President, First Lady Jill Biden, on Wednesday.

    She was writing mother-to-another-mother, Netanyahu said in the letter.

    Sara Netanyahu wrote in the letter that 32 children were among the hostages. One of them was 10 months old.

    “One of the kidnapped women was pregnant,” she also wrote, adding: “She gave birth to her baby in Hamas captivity.

    “You can only imagine, as I do, what must be going through that young mother’s mind as she is being held with her newborn by these murderers.”

    Netanyahu appealed to Jill Biden to work with her on behalf of the abducted children.

    “We must speak out on behalf of these children. We must call for the immediate release of them and all those being held,” she wrote.

    She also said the Red Cross must be allowed to see the hostages.

    “This nightmare that began over a month ago must end,” Netanyahu wrote. “These children need our help,” he continued.

    Islamist Hamas killed around 1,200 people in southern Israel on Oct. 7.

    The terrorists also kidnapped some 240 people and took them to the Gaza Strip, where they have since been held.

    According to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza, more than 11,500 people have been killed in Israeli counter-attacks.