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

[Saif]

Israeli air strikes kill 25 in Gaza

Gaza’s civil defence agency reported that Israeli air strikes since dawn on Sunday have killed at least 25 people across the Gaza Strip, including women and children...

www.newagebd.net

Israeli air strikes kill 25 in Gaza
Agence France-Presse . Gaza City 21 April, 2025, 00:00

Gaza’s civil defence agency reported that Israeli air strikes since dawn on Sunday have killed at least 25 people across the Gaza Strip, including women and children.

Israel resumed its aerial and ground assault on Gaza on March 18, reigniting fighting after a two-month ceasefire that had paused more than 15 months of war in the coastal territory.

‘Since dawn today, the occupation’s air strikes have killed 20 people and injured dozens more, including children and women across the Gaza Strip,’ Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for the civil defence agency said.

In a separate statement later, the agency reported that five people were killed in an Israeli drone strike on a group of civilians in eastern Rafah.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday vowed to continue the war and bring home the remaining hostages held in Gaza without yielding to Hamas’s demands.

‘We are at a critical stage of the campaign, and at this point, we need patience and determination to win,’ Netanyahu said in a statement, rejecting calls from the militants to end the war and withdraw troops from Gaza.

Since Israel resumed its offensive last month, at least 1,827 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

The overall death toll in the Gaza war has reached 51,201, the majority of them civilians, according to the ministry, figures the UN considers reliable.

The war broke out after Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel in October 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

During that attack, Palestinian militants abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still held hostage in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.​

 

[Saif]

‘Frustrated’ by pace of Gaza ceasefire talks

Qatar’s chief negotiator voiced frustration over talks for a truce in Gaza in an interview with AFP, a month after Israel resumed its strikes on the Palestinian territory and another round of negotiations ended without a deal.

www.thedailystar.net

‘Frustrated’ by pace of Gaza ceasefire talks
Says Qatar’s chief negotiator as another round of negotiations ended without a deal

Qatar's chief negotiator voiced frustration over talks for a truce in Gaza in an interview with AFP, a month after Israel resumed its strikes on the Palestinian territory and another round of negotiations ended without a deal.

"We're definitely frustrated by the slowness, sometimes, of the process in the negotiation. This is an urgent matter. There are lives at stake here if this military operation continues day by day," Mohammed Al-Khulaifi said on Friday.

Late on Thursday, Hamas signalled the group would not accept Israel's newest proposal for a 45-day ceasefire. Israel had wanted the release of 10 living hostages held by the Palestinian group, the group said.

"We've been working continuously in the last days to try to bring the parties together and revive the agreement that has been endorsed by the two sides," the Qatari minister of state said.

"And we will remain committed to this, in spite of the difficulties," he added.

During the long mediation process, Qatar has been the target of direct criticism from Israel and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

At least two of Netanyahu's aides are suspected of receiving payments from the Qatari government to promote Doha's interests in Israel, prompting an Israeli criminal probe. Qatar has dismissed the attacks as a "smear campaign".

Earlier in March, an investigation by Israel's domestic security agency attributed funds from the Gulf state to an increase in Hamas's military strength before the October 7 attack. Qatar has rebuffed the accusation as "false".

"We've been receiving those types of criticism and negative comments since the early times of our involvement," Al-Khulaifi said.

"Critiques without any context, such as the ones that we keep hearing from Netanyahu himself, are often just noise," he added.

Al-Khulaifi rejected recent remarks from Netanyahu to the US-based evangelical Christian channel Daystar that Qatar had promoted "anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism" on US college campuses.

"His claims about Qatar's educational partnerships have been repeatedly disproven. Everything we do is transparent," the Qatari official added.

Qatar, with Al-Khulaifi as its lead negotiator, has emerged as a facilitator in the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo that has flared in recent months, with the armed M23 group making a series of rapid gains in the country's resource-rich east.​