[🇧🇩] Israel and Hamas war in Gaza-----Can Bangladesh be a peace broker?

[Saif]

4 Israel soldiers released in Gaza; 200 Palestinians prisoners freed

A total of 200 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails have been freed under the terms of a Gaza ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. Seventy of them will be deported to countries in the region.

www.thedailystar.net

4 Israel soldiers released in Gaza; 200 Palestinians prisoners freed

Former Palestinian prisoners released by Israel gesture as they ride in one of the buses of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC0 as it moves in the town of Beitunia near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on January 25, 2025

A total of 200 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails have been freed under the terms of a Gaza ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. Seventy of them will be deported to countries in the region.

The release comes after Palestinian fighters freed four female Israeli soldiers who were held in Gaza.

The soldiers, who appeared to be in good condition and each carried a bag, were seen smiling as they waved to a packed crowd in Gaza City's Palestine Square.

People react as a military helicopter transporting the four newly-released Israeli hostages lands at the Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva on January 25, 2025. Four young women soldiers, abducted by Palestinian militants on October 7, 2023 while serving near the Gaza border, were released on January 25, following more than 15 months in captivity. Photo: AFP

Israel says it will not allow return of Palestinians to northern Gaza until an issue involving the release of captive Arbel Yehoud is resolved.

Israel's war on Gaza has killed at least 47,283 Palestinians and wounded 111,472 since October 7, 2023. At least 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks that day and more than 200 taken captive.​

 

[Saif]

Hamas has added up to 15,000 fighters since start of war, US figures show

The Palestinian militant group Hamas has recruited between 10,000 and 15,000 members since the start of its war with Israel, according to two congressional sources briefed on US intelligence, suggesting the Iran-backed fighters could remain a persistent threat to Israel. The intelligence indicates

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Hamas has added up to 15,000 fighters since start of war, US figures show
REUTERS
Published :
Jan 25, 2025 18:18
Updated :
Jan 25, 2025 18:48

Palestinian fighters from the armed wing of Hamas take part in a military parade to mark the anniversary of the 2014 war with Israel, in the central Gaza Strip, July 19, 2023. Photo : REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Files

The Palestinian militant group Hamas has recruited between 10,000 and 15,000 members since the start of its war with Israel, according to two congressional sources briefed on US intelligence, suggesting the Iran-backed fighters could remain a persistent threat to Israel.

The intelligence indicates a similar number of Hamas fighters have been killed during that period, the sources said. The latest official U.S. estimates have not been previously reported.

Hamas and Israel began a ceasefire on Sunday after 15 months of a conflict that has devastated the Gaza Strip and inflamed the Middle East.

The sources briefed on the intelligence, which was included in a series of updates from US intelligence agencies in the final weeks of the Biden administration, said that while Hamas has successfully recruited new members, many are young and untrained and are being used for simple security purposes.

The US Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.

On Jan 14, then-President Joe Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States believed Hamas had recruited almost as many fighters as it had lost in the Palestinian enclave, cautioning that this was a “recipe for an enduring insurgency and perpetual war.”

He did not provide further details about the assessment, but Israeli figures have put the total militant death toll in Gaza at around 20,000.

“Each time Israel completes its military operations and pulls back, Hamas militants regroup and re-emerge because there’s nothing else to fill the void,” Blinken said. Both Israel and the United States brand Hamas a terrorist group.

Asked for comment, a Hamas official said he was checking with the relevant parties in the group. Hamas armed wing spokesman Abu Ubaida said in July that the group had been able to recruit thousands of new fighters.

In the days since the ceasefire, Hamas has shown itself to be deeply entrenched in Gaza despite Israel’s vow to destroy the militant group. The territory’s Hamas-run administration has moved quickly to reimpose security measures and to begin restoring basic services to parts of the enclave, much of which has been reduced to wasteland by the Israeli offensive.

Since the start of the war, American officials have not said publicly how many fighters Washington believes Hamas has lost, only noting that the group has been significantly degraded and has likely lost thousands.

WARNINGS OF A CONTINUED THREAT

US officials have issued similar warnings since Hamas’ Oct 7, 2023, attack on Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 were taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies. More than 46,000 people have been killed in the Israeli assault that followed, according to Palestinian health authorities whose figures do not differentiate between civilians and combatants.

At a congressional hearing in March 2024, then-Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said that the war in Gaza would have “generational impact on terrorism” and that the crisis had already “galvanized violence by a range of actors around the world.”

Gathering exact data on Hamas is notoriously difficult because of a lack of verifiable intelligence from inside Gaza and because the group’s recruitment and training efforts are fluid. But official US figures show, opens new tab that prior to Oct 7, 2023, Hamas had anywhere between 20,000 and 25,000 fighters.

Asked on Wednesday about Blinken’s comments, Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon acknowledged Hamas’ recruitment efforts but played down the threat.

“We know that Hamas recruits youngsters,” Danon said. “But even if they recruit youngsters, they don’t have the weapons or the training facilities. So basically, yes, you can incite those youngsters against Israel, but they cannot become a terrorist, because you cannot equip them with weapons or rockets.”

Following the ceasefire, Israeli troops have begun to move back from some of their positions inside Gaza. The second phase of the ceasefire deal could bring about a permanent end to the fighting.

The terms of that phase still need to be negotiated.

In his resignation speech on Tuesday, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, Israel’s military chief, said Hamas had been severely damaged and that most of the group’s military commanders had been killed. But he said the group had not been eliminated and the Israel Defense Forces would continue to fight to further dismantle Hamas.

One of the most difficult issues involved in negotiating the next phases is postwar Gaza’s governance. Some Israeli officials say they won’t accept Hamas staying in power. Hamas so far has not given ground.

Newly inaugurated President Donald Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz said on Sunday that Hamas will never govern Gaza and if it reneges on the deal, Washington will support Israel “in doing what it has to do.”​

 

[Saif]

Elation in Israel as more hostages released from Gaza

Israelis celebrated on Saturday the release of four Israeli soldiers held hostages in Gaza for the past 15 months, with scenes of jubilation in Tel Aviv where crowds gathered in a public square to watch the release broadcast live on screens. The release of Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, Naama Levy

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Elation in Israel as more hostages released from Gaza
REUTERS
Published :
Jan 25, 2025 22:04
Updated :
Jan 25, 2025 22:04

An Israeli military helicopter transporting released Israeli hostages, who have been held in Gaza since the deadly October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, as part of a prisoner-hostage exchange deal between Israel and Hamas, arrives at Beilinson Schneider complex, in Petah Tikva, Israel, January 25, 2025. Photo : REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

Israelis celebrated on Saturday the release of four Israeli soldiers held hostages in Gaza for the past 15 months, with scenes of jubilation in Tel Aviv where crowds gathered in a public square to watch the release broadcast live on screens.

The release of Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, Naama Levy, all aged 20, and Liri Albag, 19, comes after days of anticipation for families of hostages with Palestinian militant group Hamas only on Friday announcing who would be released.

Three hostages were released the previous weekend as part of a complex, multi-phased ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas that includes the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

At the Gilboa family home in Petah Tikva, near Tel Aviv, Daniella’s 15-year-old sister said the family never lost hope.

“We remained optimistic and we did everything to see her back here, for her return,” Noam Gilboa said, after seeing images broadcast on television of Daniella being released.

“Wow, I imagined her totally different. It brought back all the emotions I’ve had this past year,” Noam said.

Gilboa, Ariev, Levy and Albag were abducted during the Hamas-led cross-border attack Israel on Oct 7, 2023, in which around 1,200 people were killed and 250 more were taken hostage, according to Israeli officials. More than 100 were released in November 2023 during a week-long truce between Israel and Hamas.

In a message on Saturay, Israeli President Isaac Herzog wrote “an entire nation weeps and rejoices with you at this moment.”

The Israeli military released videos of the emotional moments when the hostages were reunited with their families. In one of the videos, Liri’s mother can be heard telling her daughter: “You are a hero, you are home, that’s it”.

But little information has been disclosed of their conditions after more than 470 days held in captivity in Gaza.

A health ministry official speaking at the Rabin Medical Centre, where the four hostages were being treated, described the moment as “emotionally and medically complex for those returning and their families, for the families of all captives”.

Ruhama Albag described a feeling of “unbelievable joy” after the release of her niece, Liri, that had brought immense relief and happiness to the family, as they celebrate Liri’s freedom.

“She’s looking wonderful, full of energy, full of vitality, waving, in peace with herself,” Ruhama said of Liri.

“We won’t rest for a moment until everyone (all hostages) is back. And this moment can’t be described, it is pure joy,” she said, referring to the more than 80 hostages still held in Gaza.

While there was elation across Israel the mood was dampened by the absence of a female civilian hostage who many expected would be freed. Arbel Yehud, 29, was abducted from her home in Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct 7, 2023, alongside her boyfriend.

Hamas said Yehud would be released next week.​

 

[Saif]

Trump floats plan to ‘just clean out’ Gaza

US president Donald Trump floated a plan Saturday to ‘just clean out’ Gaza, and said he wants Egypt and Jordan to take Palestinians from the territory in a bid to create Middle East peace.

www.newagebd.net

Trump floats plan to ‘just clean out’ Gaza
Agence France-Presse . Miami 26 January, 2025, 22:46

US president Donald Trump

US president Donald Trump floated a plan Saturday to ‘just clean out’ Gaza, and said he wants Egypt and Jordan to take Palestinians from the territory in a bid to create Middle East peace.

Describing Gaza as a ‘demolition site’ after the Israel-Hamas war, Trump said he had spoken to Jordan’s King Abdullah II about the issue and expected to talk to Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Sunday.

‘I’d like Egypt to take people. And I’d like Jordan to take people,’ Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.

‘You’re talking about probably a million and half people, and we just clean out that whole thing. You know, over the centuries it’s had many, many conflicts that site. And I don’t know, something has to happen.’

The vast majority of Gaza’s 2.4 million people have been displaced, often multiple times, by the war that began with Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

Trump said moving Gaza’s inhabitants could be ‘temporarily or could be long term.’

‘It’s literally a demolition site right now, almost everything is demolished and people are dying there,’ added Trump.

‘So I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing at a different location where they can maybe live in peace for a change.’

A fragile truce and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas — which was signed on the last day of former US president Joe Biden’s administration but which Trump has claimed credit for — has entered its second week.

Trump’s new administration has promised ‘unwavering support’ for Israel, without yet laying out details of its Middle East policy.

Trump confirmed on Saturday that he had ordered the Pentagon to release a shipment of 2,000-lb bombs for Israel which was blocked by his predecessor Biden.

‘We released them. We released them today,’ Trump said. ‘They paid for them and they’ve been waiting for them for a long time.’

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has left much of the Palestinian territory in ruins, with infrastructure destroyed, and the United Nations estimates reconstruction will take many years.

In October during his presidential campaign, former real estate developer Trump said that war-torn Gaza could be ‘better than Monaco’ if it was ‘rebuilt the right way.’

Trump’s son-in-law and former White House employee Jared Kushner suggested in February that Israel empty Gaza of civilians to unlock the potential of its ‘waterfront property.’

For Palestinians, any attempt to move them from Gaza would evoke dark historical memories of what the Arab world calls the ‘Nakba’ or catastrophe — the mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel’s creation 75 years ago.

Israel has denied having any plans to force Gazans to move.

But some extreme-right members of the Israeli government have publicly supported the idea of Gazans leaving the Palestinian territory en masse.​

 

[Saif]

Displaced Gazans mass at Israeli barrier waiting to reach north

A vast crowd of Gazans massed near an Israeli military barrier preventing them from heading to their homes in the north on Sunday amid a row between Hamas and Israel over the terms of their ceasefire deal....

www.newagebd.net

Displaced Gazans mass at Israeli barrier waiting to reach north
Agence France-Presse . Palestinian Territories 26 January, 2025, 20:41

This aerial photo shows displaced Gazans gathering in an area in Nuseirat on Sunday, to return to their homes in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. | AFP photo

A vast crowd of Gazans massed near an Israeli military barrier preventing them from heading to their homes in the north on Sunday amid a row between Hamas and Israel over the terms of their ceasefire deal.

Aerial footage from AFPTV showed the crowd fanning out for hundreds of metres from a junction on a coastal road in the Nuseirat area and spilling onto a nearby beach.

Dotted among the crowd were water tankers, ambulances, donkey carts, TV crews and their vehicles, and dozens of tents in which displaced Gazans sat and waited for permission to continue their journey.

AFP journalists at the scene said the mass of people stretched for three kilometres along Al-Rashid Road, with Gaza police preventing civilians from getting close to the Israelis, whose jets and drones flew overhead.

Dozens of displaced people camped in the garden of a bombed-out villa, some of them milling around in its empty swimming pool.

Whole families sat on the side of the road waiting for news, their belongings bundled up in blankets or crammed into overstuffed backpacks.

Saeed Abu Sharia, 49, said he arrived on Saturday night and slept outside while his wife, mother and children stayed in his car for warmth.

‘I burned the tent last night because it was a symbol of misery and humiliation,’ he said.

Fifty of his relatives were killed in the 15-month war, said Abu Sharia, whose home was also destroyed.

A few kilometres inland, hundreds of Palestinian families were waiting next to their cars in a long traffic jam on Salah al-Din Street, with everything they owned piled in great mounds atop their vehicles and strapped down tight.

‘Tens of thousands of displaced people are waiting near the Netzarim Corridor to return to the northern Gaza Strip,’ Gaza civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said, with Israel refusing to allow them through in a dispute over a hostage release.

Ismail al-Thawabtah, director general of the government media office in Hamas-run Gaza, also said there were tens of thousands waiting at the junction.

He put the total number of Gazans wanting to return to the north at ‘between 6,15,000 and 6,50,000’, with two-thirds of them likely to use the coastal road.

The Netzarim Corridor is a seven-kilometre strip of land militarised by Israel that bisects the Gaza Strip from the Israeli border to the Mediterranean Sea. The corridor cuts off the north from the rest of the territory.

Israel and Hamas have accused each other of violating the terms of the ceasefire, which began a week ago.

As part of the deal, Israel was due to let displaced Gazans cross the corridor and return to their homes, with Hamas officials saying this would happen on Saturday.

Israel, however, accused Hamas of reneging on the deal by not releasing hostage Arbel Yehud on Saturday. Yehud was one the 251 hostages seized during the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the war.

As a civilian woman, Yehud ‘was supposed to be released’ as part of the second hostage-prisoner swap under the truce deal, a statement from the office of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

‘Israel will not allow the passage of Gazans to the northern part of the Gaza Strip until the release of civilian Arbel Yehud is arranged,’ it added.

Two Hamas sources said on Saturday that Yehud was ‘alive and in good health’, with one source saying she would be ‘released as part of the third swap set for next Saturday’, on February 1.

Hamas on Sunday said Israel blocking returns to the north amounted to a truce violation, adding it has provided ‘all the necessary guarantees’ for Yehud’s release.

On the other side of the corridor in north Gaza was Bashar Naser, a 28-year-old from Jabalia, who had been waiting for his relatives since early morning.

‘We want to welcome them and celebrate this is a great joy.’​