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

[Saif]

Israeli strikes kill 26 in Gaza

Rescuers in Gaza said on Saturday that Israeli strikes across the Palestinian territory killed at least 26 people, the day after Hamas militants said peace talks were to resume.

www.newagebd.net

Israeli strikes kill 26 in Gaza
Agence France-Presse . Palestinian Territories 05 January, 2025, 00:48

A Palestinian boy walks amid the destruction following an Israeli strike that hit the home of the Ghoula family in the Shujaiya neighbourhood of Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip on Saturday. | AFP photo

Rescuers in Gaza said on Saturday that Israeli strikes across the Palestinian territory killed at least 26 people, the day after Hamas militants said peace talks were to resume.

The civil defence agency said a dawn air strike on the home of the al-Ghoula family in Gaza City killed 11 people, seven of them children.

AFP images from the Gaza City area neighbourhood of Shujaiya showed residents combing through smoking rubble. Bodies including those of small children were lined up on the ground, shrouded in white sheets.

Late on Friday Hamas had said indirect negotiations with Israel were to resume in Qatar that same night for a truce and hostage release deal. There has since been no update.

Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said the Ghoula home in Gaza City ‘was completely destroyed’.

‘It was a two-storey building and several people are still under the rubble,’ he said, adding Israeli drones had ‘also fired on ambulance staff’.

Contacted by AFP, the Israeli army did not immediately comment on the strike.

‘A huge explosion woke us up. Everything was shaking,’ said neighbour Ahmed Mussa. ‘It was home to children, women. There wasn’t anyone wanted or who posed a threat.’

Elsewhere, the civil defence agency said an Israeli strike killed five security officers tasked with accompanying aid convoys as they drove through the southern city of Khan Yunis.

Bassal accused Israel of having ‘deliberately targeted’ them to ‘affect the humanitarian supply chain and increase the suffering’ of the population.

The army has not yet responded to the accusation.

Rescuers said strikes elsewhere in Gaza killed 10 other people, including a child and two other members of the same family, when their house was bombed in Khan Yunis.

AFP images showed Palestine Red Crescent paramedics in Gaza City moving the body of one of their colleagues, his green jacket laid over the blanket that covered his corpse.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said 136 people had been killed over the previous 48 hours.​

 

[Saif]

Hamas agrees to free 34 Gaza hostages under mooted deal

A Hamas official said Sunday the group was ready to free 34 hostages in the ‘first phase’ of a potential deal with Israel, after Israel said indirect talks on a truce and hostage release agreement had resumed in Qatar...

www.newagebd.net

Hamas agrees to free 34 Gaza hostages under mooted deal
Agence France-Presse . Palestine 06 January, 2025, 06:58

A Hamas official said Sunday the group was ready to free 34 hostages in the ‘first phase’ of a potential deal with Israel, after Israel said indirect talks on a truce and hostage release agreement had resumed in Qatar.

Mediators Qatar, Egypt and the United States have tried for months to strike a deal to end the war. The latest effort comes just days before Donald Trump takes office as president of the United States on January 20.

The talks took place as Israel pounded the Gaza Strip on Sunday, killing at least 23 people according to rescuers, nearly 15 months into the war.

During that time there has been only one truce, a one-week pause in November 2023 that saw 80 Israeli hostages freed along with 240 Palestinians from Israeli jails.

Now, ‘Hamas has agreed to release 34 Israeli prisoners from a list presented by Israel as part of the first phase of a prisoner exchange deal,’ said an official of the Palestinian militants.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas had yet to provide a list of hostages for potential release under an agreement.

The Hamas official, requesting anonymity as he was not authorised to discuss the ongoing negotiations with the media, said the initial swap would include all the women, children, elderly people and sick captives still held in Gaza.

But Hamas needed time to determine their condition, he added.

‘Hamas has agreed to release the 34 prisoners, whether alive or dead,’ the official said. ‘However, the group needs a week of calm to communicate with the captors and identify those who are alive and those who are dead.’

On October 7, 2023, when the Gaza war began, Hamas activists seized 251 hostages, of whom 96 remained in Gaza. The Israeli military says 34 of those are dead.

Until the Hamas official’s comment there had been no update on the talks, which both warring sides were to resume in Qatar over the weekend.

‘Efforts are under way to free the hostages, notably the Israeli delegation which left yesterday (Friday) for negotiations in Qatar,’ Israeli defence minister Israel Katz told relatives of a hostage on Saturday, according to his office.

In December, Qatar expressed optimism that ‘momentum’ was returning to the talks following Trump’s election victory.

But Hamas and Israel then traded accusations of imposing new conditions and obstacles.

In northern Gaza on Sunday, the civil defence agency said an air strike on a house in the Sheikh Radwan area had killed at least 11 people.

Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said the victims included women and children, and rescuers were using their ‘bare hands’ to search for five people still trapped under rubble.

The Israeli military said Sunday it had struck more than 100 ‘terror targets’ in Gaza over the past two days, marking an apparent escalation in its assault.

The Hamas-run territory’s health ministry said that 88 people had been killed over the previous 24 hours.

In one strike, five people died when the house of the Abu Jarbou family was struck in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, rescuers said.

AFP footage from another strike, on Bureij camp near Nuseirat, showed rescuers transporting bodies and injured people to a hospital.

It showed a medic attempting to resuscitate a wounded man inside an ambulance, while another carried an injured child to the hospital.

Relatives cried over the bodies of two men wrapped in white shrouds, the images showed.

Several of the strikes targeted sites from which militants had been firing projectiles into Israel in recent days, the military said.

The military also announced that its forces had killed a militant commander in close combat in northern Gaza past week.

In the Past week, Katz warned of intensified strikes if the incoming rocket fire continued.

Rocket fire had become less frequent as the war dragged on but has recently intensified, as Israel has pressed a major land and air offensive in the territory’s north since early October.

Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people, mostly civilians, according to official Israeli data.

Israel’s military offensive killed 45,805 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the territory’s health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable, while 1,208 people, mostly civilians, were killed at the beginning of the war, according to official Israeli data.

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said Israeli forces had killed a teenager during a raid on a refugee camp near the city of Nablus on Sunday.

Mutaz Ahmad Abdul Wahab Madani, 17, was ‘killed and two others were wounded by occupation forces’ gunfire during a raid near Askar Camp east of Nablus’, said a ministry statement.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli strikes kill 23 in Gaza

Gaza’s civil defence agency reported that Israeli strikes in the Palestinian territory had killed at least 23 people on Sunday, while the military said it had targeted more than ‘100 terror targets’ over the past two days.

www.newagebd.net

Israeli strikes kill 23 in Gaza
Agence France-Presse . Palestinian Territories 06 January, 2025, 00:50

Gaza’s civil defence agency reported that Israeli strikes in the Palestinian territory had killed at least 23 people on Sunday, while the military said it had targeted more than ‘100 terror targets’ over the past two days.

At least 11 people were killed in an air strike on a house in northern Gaza’s Sheikh Radwan area early on Sunday, civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said, adding that the dead included women and children.

‘Rescuers are still searching for five people trapped under the rubble of the house,’ he said.

‘Rescuers are using their bare hands because we lack proper equipment.’

Bassal accused Israeli forces of ‘directing violent air strikes on homes where displaced people were sheltering, claiming they were targeting resistance fighters’.

In a separate strike, five people were killed when the house of the Abu Jarbou family was struck in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, the civil defence said.

Another strike killed four people in the town of Jabalia, the agency added.

The Israeli military said Sunday that it had struck more than 100 ‘terror targets’ in the Gaza Strip over the past two days. Several of the strikes targeted sites from which Palestinian militants had been firing projectiles into Israel in recent days, the military said.

‘The IAF (air force) struck over 100 terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip, and eliminated dozens of Hamas terrorists’ in the past two days, a military statement said.

Gaza’s civil defence agency reported that on Saturday more than 30 people were killed in Israeli strikes.

Last week, Israeli defence minister Israel Katz warned of intensified Israeli strikes if the incoming rocket fire continued.

The renewed fire from Gaza has triggered air raid sirens in Israeli communities that were largely destroyed during Hamas’s October 2023 attack.

Though less frequent than in the early days of the nearly 15-month-long war, there has been a recent spate of launches by militants in the devastated Palestinian territory.

The latest violence in Gaza comes as indirect negotiations for a hostage release deal and ceasefire had resumed in Qatar.

Mediators Qatar, Egypt and the United States have been engaged for months in efforts to strike a deal to end the war and secure the release of dozens of hostages still held in Gaza.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Sunday that 88 people were killed in the Palestinian territory in the past 24 hours, taking the overall death toll of the war to 45,805.

The ministry also said in a statement that at least 1,09,064 people had been wounded in nearly 15 months of war between Israel and Hamas, triggered by the Palestinian group’s October 7, 2023 attack.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli strikes kill 12 in Gaza

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli forces pounded the Palestinian territory on Thursday, killing at least 12 people including three girls, 15 months into the war...

www.newagebd.net

Israeli strikes kill 12 in Gaza
Agence France-Presse . Palestinian Territories 10 January, 2025, 00:30

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli forces pounded the Palestinian territory on Thursday, killing at least 12 people including three girls, 15 months into the war.

The latest strikes came as Qatar, Egypt, and the United States mediate negotiations in Doha between Israel and Hamas militants for a deal to end the fighting in Gaza and secure the release of hostages.

Three girls and their father were killed when an air strike hit their house in Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, the civil defence agency reported.

Local paramedic Mahmud Awad said he helped transfer the bodies of two girls and their father, Mahmud Abu Kharuf to a hospital.

‘Their bodies were found under the rubble of the house that the occupation bombed in the Nuseirat camp,’ Awad said. He added that the body of the third girl had been found earlier by residents.

In a separate strike, eight people were killed when their house was struck in the town of Jabalia in northern Gaza, where the army has focused its offensive since October 6.

Several more were wounded in that strike, the civil defence agency said.

Israeli air strikes and shelling continues across Gaza, even as mediators push on with their efforts to halt the fighting and secure a deal for the release of hostages still held in Gaza.

On Wednesday, US secretary of state Antony Blinken said in Paris that a ceasefire was ‘very close’.

‘I hope that we can get it over the line in the time that we have,’ Blinken said, referring to president-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20.

But if not, ‘I believe that when we get that deal — and we’ll get it — it’ll be on the basis of the plan that president Joe Biden put before the world back in May.’

In May, Biden unveiled a three-phase plan for the release of the hostages and a ceasefire in Gaza.​

 

[Saif]

Gaza death toll 40% higher than recorded

Says Lancet study; Israeli forces bomb a group of Palestinians in eastern Gaza City

www.thedailystar.net

Gaza death toll 40% higher than recorded
Says Lancet study; Israeli forces bomb a group of Palestinians in eastern Gaza City

Buildings lie in ruin in Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, as seen from southern Israel, January 7, 2025. Photo: Reuters/Kai Pfaffenbach

Research published in The Lancet medical journal today estimates that the death toll in Gaza during the first nine months of Israeli offensive was around 40 percent higher than recorded by the Palestinian territory's health ministry.

The number of dead in Gaza has become a matter of bitter debate since Israel launched its military campaign against Hamas.

Up to June 30 last year, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza reported a death toll of 37,877 in the offensive.

However, the new peer-reviewed study used data from the ministry, an online survey and social media obituaries to estimate that there were between 55,298 and 78,525 deaths from traumatic injuries in Gaza by that time.

Meanwhile, Gaza's rescue service yesterday said in a brief statement on Telegram that the Israeli forces bombed a group of Palestinians near the Shujayea roundabout in the east of Gaza City, reports Al Jazeera online.

The study's best death toll estimate was 64,260, which would mean the health ministry had under-reported the number of deaths to that point by 41 percent.

That toll represented 2.9 percent of Gaza's pre-war population, "or approximately one in 35 inhabitants," the study said.

The UK-led group of researchers estimated that 59 percent of the deaths were women, children and the elderly.

The toll was only for deaths from traumatic injuries, so did not include deaths from a lack of health care or food, or the thousands of missing believed to be buried under rubble, reports AFP.

On Thursday, Gaza's health ministry said that 46,006 people had died over the full 15 months of offensive.

Israel has repeatedly questioned the credibility of the Gaza health ministry's figures, but the United Nations have said they are reliable.

The researchers used a statistical method called "capture–recapture" that has previously been used to estimate the death toll in conflicts around the world.

The analysis used data from three different lists, the first provided by the Gaza health ministry of the bodies identified in hospitals or morgues.

The second list was from an online survey launched by the health ministry in which Palestinians reported the deaths of relatives.

The third was sourced from obituaries posted on social media platforms such as X, Instagram, Facebook and Whatsapp, when the identity of the deceased could be verified.

"We only kept in the analysis those who were confirmed dead by their relatives or confirmed dead by the morgues and the hospital," lead study author Zeina Jamaluddine, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told AFP.

The researchers scoured the lists, searching for duplicates.​

 

[Saif]

32 killed in 48 hours in Gaza

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza yesterday said that 32 people were killed in the Palestinian territory over the past 48 hours, taking the overall death toll to 46,537.

www.thedailystar.net

32 killed in 48 hours in Gaza

Photo: AFP

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza yesterday said that 32 people were killed in the Palestinian territory over the past 48 hours, taking the overall death toll to 46,537.

The ministry said at least 109,571 people have been wounded in more than 15 months of conflict between Israel and Hamas.

The ministry of health added 499 deaths to its death toll on Saturday, specifying they have now completed the data and confirmed identities on files whose information was incomplete.

A source in the ministry's data collection department told AFP that all the 499 additional deaths were from the past several months.

Meanwhile, Gaza's civil defence agency said an Israeli air strike on a school-turned-shelter yesterday killed eight people, including two children, while the Israeli military said it targeted Hamas militants.

Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal confirmed eight people, including two children and two women, were killed by Israeli shelling on the Halwa school in the northern Gaza city of Jabalia.

The attack was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes on school buildings housing displaced people in Gaza, where fighting has raged for more than 14 months.

The number of dead in Gaza has become a matter of bitter debate since Israel launched its military campaign against Hamas in response to the Palestinian militant group's unprecedented attack last year.

Israeli authorities have repeatedly questioned the credibility of the Gaza health ministry's figures.

But a study published Friday by British medical journal The Lancet estimated that the death toll in Gaza during the first nine months of the Israel-Hamas war was around 40 percent higher than recorded by the health ministry.

The new peer-reviewed study used data from the ministry, an online survey and social media obituaries, but only counted deaths from traumatic injuries. It did not include those from a lack of health care or food, or the thousands of missing believed to be buried under rubble.

The UN considers the Gaza health ministry's numbers to be reliable.​

 

[Saif]

Top Israeli security delegation in Doha for Gaza talks

A top-level Israeli security delegation arrived in Qatar yesterday for talks on a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal, a spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, in a possible sign of so-far elusive agreements nearing.

www.thedailystar.net

Top Israeli security delegation in Doha for Gaza talks

A child feeds another a spoonful of food as they sit atop graves at a cemetery where families displaced by conflict are taking shelter in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip yesterday. Photo: AFP

A top-level Israeli security delegation arrived in Qatar yesterday for talks on a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal, a spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, in a possible sign of so-far elusive agreements nearing.

Qatar and fellow mediators Egypt and the United States are making renewed efforts to reach a deal to halt the fighting in the enclave and free the remaining 98 hostages held there before President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

Netanyahu's office said on Saturday that the delegation includes Mossad Head David Barnea, the head of the Shin Bet domestic security service Ronen Bar and the military's head of the hostage brief, Nitzan Alon.

Trump's Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, met on Saturday with Netanyahu, after having met on Friday with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.

Israeli and Palestinian officials have said since Thursday that some progress has been made in the indirect talks between Israel and militant group Hamas but did not elaborate. The sides have been keeping a tight lid on the details being worked out.

It is unclear how they will bridge one of the biggest gaps that has persisted throughout previous rounds of talks: Hamas demands an end to the war while Israel says it won't end the war as long as Hamas rules Gaza and poses a threat to Israelis.

Since October 7, 2023, more than 46,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to Palestinian health officials, with much of the enclave laid to waste and gripped by a humanitarian crisis, and most of its population displaced.

On Saturday, the Palestinian civil emergency service said eight people were killed, including two women and two children, in an Israeli airstrike on a former school sheltering displaced families in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip. The Israeli military said the strike had targeted Hamas militants who were operating at the school and that it had taken measures to reduce the risk of harm to civilians.

Later on Saturday, the Gaza Civil Emergency Service said five people were killed and several others were wounded in two Israeli strikes. One of the two strikes killed three people in a house near the Daraj neighborhood in Gaza City.​

 

[Saif]

‘On the brink’ of Gaza truce: Biden

‘In the war between Israel and Hamas, we’re on the brink of a proposal that I laid out in detail months ago finally coming to fruition,’ Biden said in a farewell speech at the State Department...

www.newagebd.net

‘On the brink’ of Gaza truce: Biden
Agence France-Presse . Jerusalem, Undefined 14 January, 2025, 03:45

The US president, Joe Biden, said on Monday that a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal between Hamas and Israel was ‘on the brink’ of being finalised, even as heavy fighting rocked the Palestinian territory.

Since early January, international mediators Qatar, Egypt and the United States have intensified efforts to reach a deal for a ceasefire in Gaza, which would help facilitate the release of hostages still being held there.

‘In the war between Israel and Hamas, we’re on the brink of a proposal that I laid out in detail months ago finally coming to fruition,’ Biden said in a farewell speech at the State Department.

Earlier on Monday, White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan said that a truce deal could be finalised this week.

‘I’m not making a promise or prediction, but it is there for the taking and we are going to work to make it happen,"’Sullivan told reporters.

A source familiar with the negotiations in Doha told AFP there had been ‘significant progress on the remaining sticking points’ in the latest talks in Qatar.

This has led to a new ‘concrete’ proposal being presented to the parties, the source said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks.

‘Israel really wants to release the hostages and is working hard to secure a deal,’ Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar said at a press conference.

‘The current round of negotiations is the most serious and deep and has made significant progress,’ a Palestinian official close to Hamas told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Israel’s far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, however, warned that he would oppose any deal that stopped the war.

‘The proposed agreement is a catastrophe for Israel’s national security,’ Smotrich said on X. ‘We will not be part of a surrender deal that involves releasing dangerous terrorists, halting the war, squandering the hard-won achievements paid for in blood and abandoning many hostages still in captivity.

‘Now is the time to intensify our efforts, using all available force to fully secure and cleanse the Gaza Strip,’ he added.

Smotrich, an outspoken member of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, has repeatedly opposed halting the war in Gaza.

His comments came amid rising calls by Israelis, particularly families of hostages held in Gaza, to reach an accord that would bring their loved ones home.

Smotrich’s remarks underline the sharp divides in Netanyahu’s ruling coalition over a deal.

But Netanyahu could nonetheless muster enough support to pass the deal through his cabinet, even without Smotrich.

Successive rounds of negotiations held in the past year repeatedly failed to produce a deal.

Among the key sticking points in the talks have been disagreements over the permanence of any ceasefire and the scale of humanitarian aid for the Palestinian territory.

Other points of contention include the return of displaced Gazans to their homes, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Palestinian territory and the reopening of border crossings.

Netanyahu has firmly rejected a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and remains opposed to any Palestinian governance of the territory.

The war in Gaza was sparked on October 7, 2023 when 1,210 people were killed on the Israeli side, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

On that day, Hamas also reportedly took 251 people hostage, 94 of whom are still allegedly being held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive in Gaza has killed 46,584 people, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry that the United Nations says are reliable.

Even as intense diplomatic efforts continued towards a truce deal, Israeli forces pounded Gaza City on Monday, killing more than 50 Palestinians, according to civilian rescuers.

‘They bombed schools, homes and even gatherings of people,’ Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for the civil defence agency, told AFP.

Eleven people were killed and several others injured when an Israeli strike targeted a house belonging to the Jaradah and Abu Khater families in the city’s Shujaiya neighbourhood, the agency said in a statement.

The remaining casualties occurred in other strikes across Gaza City throughout the day, it added.

The Israeli military said it was looking into those reports.

‘There is no room in hospitals to receive the wounded,’ Bassal said.

The Israeli military also suffered losses on Monday, with five of its soldiers killed in fighting in northern Gaza, the military said in a statement.

The latest deaths bring the Israeli military’s losses to 408 in the Gaza military campaign since it began a ground offensive against Hamas in the Palestinian territory on October 27, 2023.​

 

[Saif]

Final draft of Gaza truce deal presented after ‘breakthrough’

Mediators gave Israel and Hamas a final draft of a deal on Monday to end the war in Gaza, an official briefed on the negotiations said, after a midnight “breakthrough” in talks attended by envoys of both Joe Biden and Donald Trump. The official said the text for a ceasefire and release

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Final draft of Gaza truce deal presented after ‘breakthrough’
REUTERS
Published :
Jan 13, 2025 19:17
Updated :
Jan 13, 2025 19:17

Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced people, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City January 13, 2025. Photo : REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

Mediators gave Israel and Hamas a final draft of a deal on Monday to end the war in Gaza, an official briefed on the negotiations said, after a midnight “breakthrough” in talks attended by envoys of both Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

The official said the text for a ceasefire and release of hostages was presented by Qatar to both sides at talks in Doha, which included the chiefs of Israel’s Mossad and Shin Bet spy agencies and Qatar’s prime minister.

The official said Steve Witkoff, who will become US envoy when Trump returns to the US presidency next week, attended the talks. A US source said the outgoing Biden administration’s envoy Brett McGurk was also there.

“The next 24 hours will be pivotal to reaching the deal,” the official said, characterising the draft as the outcome of a breakthrough reached in the early hours of Monday.

Israel’s Kan radio, citing an Israeli official, reported on Monday that Israeli and Hamas delegations in Qatar had both received a draft, and that the Israeli delegation had briefed Israel’s leaders. Israel, Hamas and the foreign ministry of Qatar did not respond to requests for confirmation or comment.

Officials on both sides, while stopping short of confirming that a final draft had been reached, described progress at the talks.

A senior Israeli official said a deal could be sealed within a few days if Hamas replies to a proposal. A Palestinian official close to the talks said information from Doha was “very promising”, adding: “Gaps were being narrowed and there is a big push toward an agreement if all goes well to the end.”

The United States, Qatar and Egypt have worked for more than a year on talks to end the war in Gaza, so far fruitlessly.

HELL TO PAY

Both sides have agreed for months broadly on the principle of halting the fighting in return for the release of hostages held by Hamas and Palestinian detainees held by Israel. However, Hamas has always insisted that the deal must lead to a permanent end to the war and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, while Israel has said it will not end the war until Hamas is dismantled.

Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration is now widely seen in the region as a de facto deadline. The president-elect has said there would be “hell to pay” unless hostages held by Hamas are freed before he takes office, while outgoing President Biden has also pushed hard for a deal before he leaves.

The official said talks went until the early hours of Monday, with Witkoff pushing the Israeli delegation in Doha and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani pushing Hamas officials to finalise an agreement.

The head of Egypt’s general intelligence agency Hassan Mahmoud Rashad was also in the Qatari capital as part of the talks, the official said.

Trump envoy Witkoff has travelled to Qatar and Israel several times since late November. He was in Doha on Friday and travelled to Israel to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday before returning to Doha.

Biden also spoke on Sunday by phone with Netanyahu, stressing “the immediate need for a ceasefire in Gaza and return of the hostages with a surge in humanitarian aid enabled by a stoppage in the fighting under the deal,” the White House said.

Israel launched its assault in Gaza after Hamas fighters stormed across its borders in October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Since then, more than 46,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to Palestinian health officials, with much of the enclave laid to waste and most of its population displaced.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a hardline nationalist who has opposed previous attempts to reach a deal, denounced the latest proposals as a “surrender” and a “catastrophe for the national security of the state of Israel”.

Bloodshed continued in Gaza on Monday, with Israeli military strikes killing at least 21 people, medics said, including five killed in an Israeli strike at a Gaza City school sheltering displaced families.

For the last several months, fighting has been particularly intense along the northern edge of Gaza, where Israel says it is trying to prevent Hamas from regrouping and Palestinians accuse Israel of seeking to permanently depopulate a buffer zone.

Hamas armed wing spokesman Abu Ubaida said the group’s fighters attacked Israeli forces in the area killing at least 10 soldiers and injuring dozens of others in the past 72 hours. Israel confirmed on Saturday that four soldiers had been killed.​

 

[Saif]

Qatar says Gaza truce talks in ‘final stages’

Key mediator Qatar said negotiations for a Gaza truce and hostage release deal were in their ‘final stages’ on Tuesday, adding that it was hopeful an agreement could be reached ‘very soon’.

www.newagebd.net

Qatar says Gaza truce talks in ‘final stages’
Agence France-Presse . Jerusalem 15 January, 2025, 01:07

A man climbs out of rubble and fallen building remains after attempting to search for survivors and bodies of victims at a site that was hit by Israeli bombardment east of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday amid the on-going war in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas. | AFP photo

Key mediator Qatar said negotiations for a Gaza truce and hostage release deal were in their ‘final stages’ on Tuesday, adding that it was hopeful an agreement could be reached ‘very soon’.

Qatar, Egypt and the United States have stepped up efforts to broker a ceasefire to enable the release of hostages held in Gaza since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

On Monday, US president Joe Biden said a deal was ‘on the brink’ of being finalised, just days before the inauguration of his successor, Donald Trump.

On Tuesday, Qatar foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said negotiations were in their ‘final stages’.

‘We do believe that we are at the final stages certainly we are hopeful that this would lead very soon to an agreement,’ Ansari said, adding ‘until there is an announcement we shouldn’t be over-excited about what’s happening right now’.

‘We have reached a point where the major issues that were preventing a deal from happening were addressed,’ he told a news conference.

Hamas’s October 7 attack, the deadliest in Israel’s history, resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

On that day, militants also took 251 people hostage, 94 of whom are still being held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign in Gaza has killed 46,645 people, a majority of them civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, figures that the UN considers reliable.

The health ministry in Gaza said 61 people were killed in the Palestinian territory over the past 24 hours.

A source briefed on the Doha negotiations said earlier the heads of Israel’s intelligence agencies, the Middle East envoys for the incoming and outgoing US administrations and Qatar’s prime minister had been due at the talks.

‘Mediators will hold separate talks with Hamas,’ the source said.

Qatar said later the talks were being held at the ‘highest level’.

Sources close to the talks and Israeli media said the first phase of a deal would see 33 Israeli hostages released, while two Palestinian sources close to Hamas said that Israel would release about 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange.

An Israeli government official said that ‘several hundred terrorists will be released’ as part of the first phase of the deal.

Israeli media also reported on Tuesday that under the proposed deal, Israel would be allowed to maintain a buffer zone inside Gaza during the implementation of the first phase.

Successive rounds of negotiations had failed to end the deadliest war in Gaza’s history.

On Monday, White House National Security advisor Jake Sullivan said a truce deal could be finalised this week.

‘I’m not making a promise or prediction, but it is there for the taking and we are going to work to make it happen,’ he said.

Israel’s far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, however, warned on Monday he would oppose any deal that stopped the war.

‘The proposed agreement is a catastrophe for Israel’s national security,’ Smotrich said on X.

An outspoken member of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, Smotrich has repeatedly opposed halting the war in Gaza.

His comments came amid rising calls by Israelis, particularly families of hostages held in Gaza, to reach an accord that would bring their loved ones home.

Among the key sticking points in the talks have been disagreements over the permanence of any ceasefire and the scale of humanitarian aid for the Palestinian territory.

Other points of contention include the return of displaced Gazans to their homes, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Palestinian territory and the reopening of border crossings.

Netanyahu has firmly rejected a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and has opposed any Palestinian governance of the territory.

Even as intense diplomatic efforts continued towards a truce deal, Israeli forces pounded targets across Gaza.

The territory’s civil defence agency said overnight air strikes and shelling killed at least 18 people in Gaza City in the north, the central area of Deir el-Balah and Khan Yunis in the south.

‘Last night was harsh and bloody,’ spokesman Mahmud Bassal said.

The Israeli military said it targeted Hamas militants.

‘Overnight, with the direction of IDF (army) intelligence, the IAF (air force) conducted several strikes on Hamas terrorists who were involved in terror activities,’ it said.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli minister Ben-Gvir threatens to quit Netanyahu cabinet over Gaza deal

Israeli far-right police minister Itamar Ben-Gvir threatened on Tuesday to quit Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government if he agrees to a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal being negotiated at talks in Qatar. Ben-Gvir, whose departure would not bring down Netanyahu's government, urged

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Israeli minister Ben-Gvir threatens to quit Netanyahu cabinet over Gaza deal
REUTERS
Published :
Jan 14, 2025 21:48
Updated :
Jan 14, 2025 21:48

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir speaks while a conference on the resettlement of the Gaza Strip takes place, at an unspecified location in southern Israel on October 21, 2024 — Reuters/File

Israeli far-right police minister Itamar Ben-Gvir threatened on Tuesday to quit Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government if he agrees to a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal being negotiated at talks in Qatar.

Ben-Gvir, whose departure would not bring down Netanyahu's government, urged Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to join him in a last-ditch attempt to prevent a ceasefire deal, which he described as a dangerous capitulation to Hamas.

"This move is our only chance to prevent (the deal's) execution, and prevent Israel's surrender to Hamas, after more than a year of bloody war, in which more than 400 IDF (Israel Defence Forces) soldiers fell in the Gaza Strip, and to ensure that their deaths are not in vain," Ben-Gvir said on X.

Smotrich said on Monday that he objects to the deal but did not threaten to bolt Netanyahu's coalition. A majority of ministers are expected to back the phased ceasefire deal, which details a halt to fighting and the release of hostages.

Ben-Gvir echoed remarks by Smotrich, who said on Monday Israel should keep up its military campaign in Gaza until the complete surrender of Palestinian militant group Hamas, whose Oct. 7 2023 attack caused the war.

About 1,200 people were killed in Hamas' 2023 assault on Israel and more than 250 others were taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

Since then, more than 46,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to Palestinian health officials, with much of the enclave laid to waste and most its population displaced.

The United States, Qatar and Egypt have been mediating a ceasefire deal and agreements could be imminent, officials have said.

Some hostage families oppose the deal because they fear that the phased deal taking shape will see only some of the remaining 98 hostages freed and others left behind.

Successive surveys have shown broad support among the Israeli public for such a deal.​

 

[Saif]

Thousands across Gaza celebrate ceasefire deal

Crowds of Gazans chanted and embraced as news spread that a ceasefire and hostage release deal had been reached

www.thedailystar.net

Thousands across Gaza celebrate ceasefire deal

Photo: Collected

Crowds of Gazans chanted and embraced on Wednesday as news spread that a ceasefire and hostage release deal had been reached between Israel and Hamas aimed at ending more than 15 months of war in the Palestinian territory.

After a US official and a source close to the negotiations first revealed the agreement, Israel cautioned that several points "remain unresolved" that it hoped would be resolved.

But celebrations were already underway in Gaza, where AFP journalists saw crowds of people hugging and taking photos to mark the announcement.

"I can't believe that this nightmare of more than a year is finally coming to an end. We have lost so many people, we've lost everything," said Randa Sameeh, a 45-year-old displaced from Gaza City to the Nuseirat Camp in the centre of the territory.

"We need a lot of rest. As soon as the truce begins, I will go to the cemetery to visit my brother and family members. We buried them in Deir el-Balah cemetery without proper graves. We will build them new graves and write their names on them."

Outside Deir al-Balah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where so many of the war's casualties have been taken, hundreds of Palestinians gathered to chant, sing and wave flags, AFPTV footage showed.

At one point, a member of the crowd and a journalist in body armour were raised on people's shoulders to conduct an interview above the mass of elated Gazans.

As an ambulance squeezed through the crowd to reach the hospital, smiling men and women alike chanted "Allahu Akbar", or "God is greatest" in Arabic, and waved the Palestinian flag.

Young children, some looking confused by the commotion, gathered outside the hospital too, milling between adults and watching as they gave interviews to the waiting media.

A gaggle of young boys in the centre of the crowd led a popular pro-resistance chant as adults filmed the moment on their phones.

In Gaza City, 27-year-old Abdul Karim said: "I feel joy despite everything we've lost."

"I can't believe I will finally see my wife and two children again," he added. "They left for the south almost a year ago. I hope they allow the displaced to return quickly."

Large crowds also gathered in Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza, with young men surfing through the crowd on the shoulders of others beating drums and cheering, an AFP photographer saw.

The deal agreed on Wednesday is expected to halt the fighting in the devastated Palestinian territory and see hostages held in Gaza released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

Hamas carried out the attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, resulting in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

Palestinian men also took 251 people hostage during the attack, 94 of whom are still being held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel's retaliatory campaign in Gaza has killed 46,707 people, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry that the UN considers reliable.​

 

[Saif]

Trump takes credit for 'epic' Gaza peace deal

Trump also signaled he would push for an elusive deal to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia

www.thedailystar.net

Trump takes credit for 'epic' Gaza peace deal

Donald Trump

US President-elect Donald Trump hailed an "epic" ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas on Wednesday -- and claimed credit for an accord that comes days before he is due to be sworn in for his second term.

"We have a deal for the hostages in the Middle East. They will be released shortly. Thank you!" Trump said on his Truth Social network, before any official announcement from outgoing President Joe Biden's White House.

Trump had warned Palestinian armed group Hamas of "hell to pay" if it did not free the captives before he took office, and envoys from both his incoming administration and Biden's outgoing one had been present at the latest negotiations.

"This EPIC ceasefire agreement could have only happened as a result of our Historic Victory in November," Trump added in a lengthy second post.

The Republican said his 2024 US election win had "signaled to the entire World that my Administration would seek Peace and negotiate deals to ensure the safety of all Americans, and our Allies."

He added that he was "thrilled" about the release of the hostages taken by Hamas in its October 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Those taken included several Americans.

The attack sparked a war that has seen Israel level large swaths of Gaza, killing at least 46,707 people, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry that the UN considers reliable.

Hamas's attack resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, also mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures. The group took 251 people hostage during the attack, 94 of whom are still being held in Gaza. At least 34 are dead, according to the Israeli military.

Trump returns to the White House on Monday -- meaning that much of the implementation of the Gaza deal will play out under his incoming administration.

The 78-year-old said his national security team would "work closely with Israel and our Allies to make sure Gaza NEVER again becomes a terrorist safe haven."

Trump also signaled he would push for an elusive deal to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

He said he would "build upon the momentum of this ceasefire" to expand the Abraham Accords from his first term, which established diplomatic ties between Israel and the Gulf countries of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

Trump's incoming National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz, credited the Gaza deal in a post on X to "The Trump Effect."​

 

[Saif]

‘An earthquake struck’

After news of a ceasefire agreement sparked mass rejoicing in Gaza, residents woke up yesterday to columns of smoke, rubble and more deaths following new Israeli air strikes.

www.thedailystar.net

An earthquake struck’
Say Palestinians as air strikes in Gaza crush joy of ceasefire deal

After news of a ceasefire agreement sparked mass rejoicing in Gaza, residents woke up yesterday to columns of smoke, rubble and more deaths following new Israeli air strikes.

"We were waiting for the truce and were happy. It was the happiest night since October 7," said Gaza resident Saeed Alloush, referring to the Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the war in 2023.

"Suddenly... we received the news of the martyrdom of 40 people," including his uncle, Alloush said. "The whole area's joy turned to sadness, as if an earthquake struck."

The latest strikes came after Qatar and the United States announced a fragile ceasefire deal that should take effect on Sunday.

AFP has contacted the Israeli military for comment.

Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for Gaza's civil defence agency, told AFP yesterday that at least 73 people had been killed in Israeli air strikes since the announcement on Wednesday.

Among them were 20 children and 25 women, he said, with around 200 others wounded.

As day broke, crowds gathered to inspect and clear the remains of a building reduced to rubble, where chunks of concrete lay interspersed with rebar and personal items scattered across the site.

The scenes mirrored those in other parts of the densely populated territory of 2.4 million people, most of whom have been displaced at least once since the offensive broke out in October 2023.

At Nasser Hospita ln Khan Yunis, AFP journalists saw stained metal mortuary stretchers stained in red as staff drained them of the blood of the dead in a strike.

In Gaza City's Al-Ahli hospital, where several strike casualties were taken, grieving families knelt by the white shrouds enveloping their loved ones' bodies.

Rescuer Ibrahim Abu al-Rish told AFP that "after the ceasefire was announced and people were happy and joyful, a five-storey building was targeted, with over 50 people inside".​

 

[Saif]

What are the details of truce deal in Gaza?

Qatar said Wednesday that Israel and Hamas had agreed to a ceasefire in Gaza starting on Sunday and a hostage and prisoner exchange after 15 months of offensive.

www.thedailystar.net

What are the details of truce deal in Gaza?
PRISONER-HOSTAGE SWAP

Qatar said Wednesday that Israel and Hamas had agreed to a ceasefire in Gaza starting on Sunday and a hostage and prisoner exchange after 15 months of offensive.

Thirty-three Israeli hostages will be released in the first, 42-day phase of the agreement that could become a "permanent ceasefire", said Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani.

Those first released would be "civilian women and female recruits, as well as children, elderly people... civilian ill people and wounded", he said.

Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said on Tuesday Israel was "prepared to pay a heavy price -- in the hundreds" in exchange for the 33 hostages.

ISRAELI POSITIONS IN GAZA

During the initial, 42-day ceasefire Israeli forces will withdraw from Gaza's densely populated areas to "allow for the swap of prisoners, as well as the swap of remains and the return of the displaced people", Qatar's prime minister said.

Negotiations for a second phase would commence on the "16th day" after the first phase's implementation, an Israeli official said. This phase would cover the release of the remaining captives, including "male soldiers, men of military age, and the bodies of slain hostages", the Times of Israel reported.

Israeli media reported that under the deal, Israel would maintain a buffer zone within Gaza during the first phase.

Israeli forces were expected to remain up to "800 metres (yards) inside Gaza stretching from Rafah in the south to Beit Hanun in the north," according to a source close to Hamas. Israeli forces would not fully withdraw from Gaza until "all hostages are returned", the Israeli official said.

END TO THE OFFENSIVE

Joint mediators Qatar, the United States and Egypt will monitor the ceasefire deal through a body based in Cairo, Sheikh Mohammed said, urging "calm" in Gaza before the agreement comes into force.

There was "a clear mechanism to negotiate phase two and three", Sheikh Mohammed added.​