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

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Trump administration to cancel student visas of pro-Palestinian protesters
REUTERS
Published :
Jan 30, 2025 00:37
Updated :
Jan 30, 2025 00:42

US President Donald Trump speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One before arriving at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, US on January 27, 2025 — Reuters photo

US President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Wednesday (US standard time) to combat antisemitism and pledge to deport non-citizen college students and others who took part in pro-Palestinian protests, a White House official said.

A fact sheet on the order promises "immediate action" by the Justice Department to prosecute "terroristic threats, arson, vandalism and violence against American Jews" and marshal all federal resources to combat what it called "the explosion of antisemitism on our campuses and streets" since the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.

"To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you," Trump said in the fact sheet.

"I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before."

The Hamas attacks and the subsequent Israeli assault on Gaza led to several months of pro-Palestinian protests that roiled US college campuses, with civil rights groups documenting rising antisemitic, anti-Arab and Islamophobic incidents.

The order will require agency and department leaders to provide the White House with recommendations within 60 days on all criminal and civil authorities that could be used to fight antisemitism, and would demand "the removal of resident aliens who violate our laws."

The fact sheet said protesters engaged in pro-Hamas vandalism and intimidation, blocked Jewish students from attending classes and assaulted worshippers at synagogues, as well as vandalised US monuments and statues.

Many pro-Palestinian protesters denied supporting Hamas or engaging in antisemitic acts, and said they were demonstrating against Israel's military assault on Gaza, where health authorities say more than 47,000 people have been killed.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a large Muslim advocacy group, accused the Trump administration of an assault on "free speech and Palestinian humanity under the guise of combating antisemitism," and described Wednesday's order as "dishonest, overbroad and unenforceable."

During his 2024 election campaign, Trump promised to deport those he called "pro-Hamas" students in the United States on visas.

On his first day in office, he signed an executive order that rights groups say lays the groundwork for the reinstatement of a ban on travelers from predominantly Muslim or Arab countries, and offers wider authorities to use ideological exclusion to deny visa requests and remove individuals already in the country.​

 

[Saif]

Israel halts prisoner release after Gaza hostages freed

Israel on Thursday suspended the planned release of Palestinian prisoners after Gaza’s Hamas members freed three Israeli hostages and five Thais amid chaotic scenes....

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Israel halts prisoner release after Gaza hostages freed
Agence France-Presse . Jerusalem 30 January, 2025, 23:18

Israel on Thursday suspended the planned release of Palestinian prisoners after Gaza’s Hamas members freed three Israeli hostages and five Thais amid chaotic scenes.

‘Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with defence minister Israel Katz, has instructed the delay of the release of the members scheduled for today until the safe departure of our hostages in the upcoming phases is assured,’ Netanyahu’s office said.

Israel had been due to free 110 prisoners, including 30 minors, in exchange for the three Israelis, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group said earlier.

A Hamas source said the group was in touch with mediators to ‘compel’ Israel to release the 110 prisoners in the third exchange under the January 19 ceasefire deal aimed at ending the war in Gaza.

Israel later said it had received assurance from mediators over the future ‘safe release’ of captives.

Another hostage and prisoner release had been scheduled for Saturday, with three Israeli men due to be set free.

The prisoner release setback came after Hamas in Gaza freed three Israeli hostages and five Thais captured in Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

Netanyahu denounced what he called ‘shocking scenes’ during the hostage releases in Khan Yunis.

Television images showed gunmen struggling to control hundreds of Gazans there to witness the handover.

‘This is yet another proof of the unimaginable cruelty of the Hamas terrorist organisation,’ Netanyahu said.

First to be freed Thursday was Israeli woman soldier Agam Berger, 20, handed over separately to International Committee of the Red Cross officials in Jabalia in northern Gaza.

Before she was freed, footage showed her on a stage with masked Hamas members in distinctive green headbands, being prompted to wave to onlookers.

Israel’s military said the three Israeli hostages and five Thais were now back in Israel.

The two other freed Israelis are civilians Gadi Moses, 80, and Arbel Yehud, 29, both of whom also hold German nationality.

Netanyahu’s office named the freed Thais as Watchara Sriaoun, Pongsak Tanna, Sathian Suwannakham, Surasak Lamnau and Bannawat Saethao.

Thailand’s prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said she was ‘elated’ that they were out of captivity.

In devastated Khan Yunis, dense crowds gathered to catch a glimpse of Yehud and Moses ahead of their release near the childhood home of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who Israel killed in October.

On Wednesday, the Moses family said it had ‘received with great excitement the wonderful news of our beloved Gadi’s return’.

The January 19 ceasefire hinges on the release of Israeli hostages taken during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, in exchange for around 1,900 people — mostly Palestinians — in Israeli custody.

Before Thursday, Hamas had released seven hostages, with 290 prisoners freed in exchange.

The halt to the prisoner releases led to disappointment for around 300 Palestinians waiting for relatives in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.

‘I am so tired. This isn’t fair. See for yourself all the families that came to wait and now are uncertain when we will see them,’ said Raghed Nasser, 21, whose father Hussein was jailed 22 years ago while her mother was pregnant with her.

The truce deal has allowed a surge of aid into the devastated Gaza Strip, where the war has created a long-running humanitarian crisis.

However, senior Hamas officials accused Israel of slowing aid deliveries, with one citing key items such as fuel, tents, heavy machinery and other equipment.

COGAT, the Israeli defence ministry body that oversees civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories, called this ‘totally fake news’.

As the text of the agreement — mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States — has not been made public, AFP was not able to verify its terms on aid.

The ceasefire deal is currently in its first, 42-day phase, which should see 33 hostages freed. The Thai hostages are not included in that number.

US president Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed credit for sealing the agreement, which took effect before his inauguration, and his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who took part in the talks, met Netanyahu in Israel on Wednesday.

Trump has invited Netanyahu to the White House on February 4, according to the premier’s office.

After the truce began, Trump touted a plan to ‘clean out’ Gaza, calling for Palestinians to relocate to neighbouring countries such as Egypt or Jordan.

However, both Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II rejected this.

More than 3,76,000 displaced Palestinians have gone back to northern Gaza since Israel reopened access earlier this week, according to the UN humanitarian office OCHA, with many returning to little more than rubble.

‘My house is destroyed,’ 33-year-old Mohammed Al-Faleh said.

‘The biggest problem is that there is no water,’ he added. ‘Food aid is reaching Gaza but there is no gas or electricity. We bake bread on a fire fuelled by wood and nylon.’

Israel cut ties with the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) from Thursday following accusations it provided cover for Hamas, a move likely to hamper delivery of vital services after 15 months of war in Gaza.

UNRWA, which has long been the lead agency in coordinating aid to Gaza, will be banned from operating on Israeli soil, and contact between it and Israeli officials will also be forbidden.

UN chief Antonio Guterres had demanded Israel retract its order.​

 

[Saif]

Hamas to free three Israeli hostages in next ceasefire swap

Hamas and Israel will carry out their fourth hostage-prisoner swap of the Gaza ceasefire on Saturday, with the militant group to free three Israeli captives in exchange for 90 inmates in Israeli jails.

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Hamas to free three Israeli hostages in next ceasefire swap
Agence France-Presse . Jerusalem 01 February, 2025, 01:25

Hamas and Israel will carry out their fourth hostage-prisoner swap of the Gaza ceasefire on Saturday, with the militant group to free three Israeli captives in exchange for 90 inmates in Israeli jails.

Militants in Gaza began releasing hostages after the first 42-day phase of the ceasefire with Israel took effect on January 19. The hostages have been in captivity for nearly 15 months.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants have so far handed over 15 hostages to the International Committee of the Red Cross in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

Israeli campaign group, the Hostage and Missing Families Forum, named the captives to be released on Saturday as Yarden Bibas, Keith Seigel, who also has US citizenship, and Ofer Kalderon, who also holds French nationality.

The office of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed it had received the names of the three captives to be released.

In exchange, Israel will free 90 prisoners, nine of whom are serving life sentences, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group said.

During their October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which started the Gaza war, militants abducted Siegel from kibbutz Kfar Aza, and Kalderon and Bibas from kibbutz Nir Oz.

Militants took a total of 251 people hostage that day. Of those, 79 still remain in Gaza, including at least 34 the military says are dead.

Those seized include the wife and two children of Bibas, whom Hamas has already declared dead, although Israeli officials have yet to confirm that.

The two Bibas boys — Kfir, the youngest hostage, who turned two in captivity earlier this month, and his four-year-old brother Ariel — have become symbols of the suffering of the hostages held in Gaza.

The children were taken along with their mother, Shiri.

Hamas says the boys and their mother were killed in an Israeli air strike in November 2023.

The arrangements for hostage handovers in Gaza have sometimes been chaotic, particularly for the most recent handover in the southern city of Khan Yunis, which produced scenes that the Israeli prime minister condemned as ‘shocking’.

Woman hostage Arbel Yehud was visibly distressed as masked gunman struggled to clear a path for her through crowds of spectators desperate to witness her handover, television images showed.

Israel briefly delayed Thursday’s prisoner release in protest and the ICRC urged all parties to improve security.

‘The security of these operations must be assured, and we urge for improvements in the future,’ ICRC president Mirjana Spoljaric said.

Later on Thursday, Israeli authorities released 110 imates from Ofer prison, including high-profile former militant commander Zakaria Zubeidi, 49, who was given a hero’s welcome in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Also freed was Hussein Nasser, who received little attention from the crowd but was at the centre of his daughters’ world.

‘Where’s Dad?’ Raghda Nasser asked tearfully as she moved through the crowd, an AFP correspondent reported.

Raghda, 21, hugged her father in the flesh for the first time Thursday night. Her mother was pregnant with her when he was jailed 22 years ago.

‘I just visited him behind the glass in Israeli prisons. I cannot express my feelings,’ Raghda said.

The fragile ceasefire hinges on the release of a total of 33 hostages in exchange for around 1,900 people — mostly Palestinians — in Israeli jails.

The truce deal has allowed a surge of aid into Gaza, where the war has created a long-running humanitarian crisis.

Negotiations for a second phase of the deal are set to start on Monday, according to a timeline provided by an Israeli official. This phase would cover the release of the remaining captives.

During the current phase, more than 4,62,000 war-displaced Palestinians have returned to the north of Gaza since Israel restored access on Monday, according to UN figures. Many have gone back to homes that have been completely destroyed.​

 

[Saif]

Hamas-Israel complete fourth hostage-prisoner swap

Freed Palestinian inmates were greeted by a cheering crowd in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah on Saturday, after Hamas released three Israeli hostages from the Gaza Strip in the fourth exchange under the group’s ceasefire deal with Israel...

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Hamas-Israel complete fourth hostage-prisoner swap
Agence France-Presse . Gaza City 01 February, 2025, 23:54

Freed Palestinian inmates were greeted by a cheering crowd in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah on Saturday, after Hamas released three Israeli hostages from the Gaza Strip in the fourth exchange under the group’s ceasefire deal with Israel.

Three other buses carrying freed Palestinians also arrived in the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis, with the inmates in grey prison uniforms met by hundreds of well-wishers.

In Ramallah, the bus carrying the inmates struggled to make its way through the jubilant throng of supporters as it arrived from the Israeli-run Ofer Prison.

Several of the freed inmates were hoisted onto the crowd’s shoulders, including an elderly man who raised his crutches over his head in a triumphant pose.

Earlier in Gaza, hostages Ofer Kalderon and Yarden Bibas were paraded on stage by Hamas fighters before being handed over to the Red Cross in the southern city of Khan Yunis. American-Israeli Keith Siegel was freed shortly thereafter in a similar ceremony at Gaza City’s port in the north.

Israel’s military later confirmed that all three were back in Israel.

Israeli campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum hailed the release as ‘a ray of light in the darkness’.

French-Israeli hostage Kalderon’s uncle Shemi said: ‘We have waited for this moment for a very long time.’

‘I hope that this is a sign of the rebirth of the people of Israel, not just of Ofer, not just of the hostages,’ he said, overcome with emotion.

After holding the hostages for more than 15 months, militants in Gaza began releasing them on January 19 under the terms of the ceasefire deal with Israel.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants have so far handed over 18 hostages to the International Committee of the Red Cross in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, many of them women and minors.

The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group had said Israel would free 183 prisoners Saturday.

Hamas sources said a fifth hostage-prisoner exchange would take place next Saturday.

During their October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which started the Gaza war, militants abducted Siegel from the Kfar Aza kibbutz community, and Bibas and Kalderon from kibbutz Nir Oz.

Militants took a total of 251 people hostage that day. Of those, 76 remain in Gaza, including at least 34 the military says are dead.

Those seized include Bibas’s wife Shiri and their two children, whom Hamas has declared dead, although Israeli officials have not confirmed that.

Bibas’s sons — Kfir, the youngest hostage, whose second birthday was earlier this month, and his older brother Ariel, whose fifth birthday was in August — have become symbols of the hostages’ ordeal.

‘Our Yarden is supposed to return tomorrow and we are so excited but Shiri and the children still haven’t returned,’ the Bibas family said on Instagram Friday, adding it had ‘such mixed emotions’.

Footage released by the Israeli military showed Bibas being reunited with his sister and father, who held him in a lengthy embrace.

Hundreds had gathered in Tel Aviv’s ‘Hostage Square’ to watch the live broadcast of the latest hostage releases.

Sighs of relief ran through the crowd as the three were freed and handed over to the Red Cross, though the mood was mostly sombre.

At Tel Aviv’s Sheba Hospital, Kalderon, a keen mountain biker, was met by a contingent of cyclist friends and other supporters, beaming and blowing kisses as they chanted his name.

‘It’s amazing, amazing! A year-and-a-half is culminating in this moment,’ said Navit Hermesh. ‘We missed him so much, we worried about him so much, and we are so happy that he’s coming back.’

Ahead of both exchanges in Khan Yunis and Gaza City, scores of masked Hamas fighters stood sentry, apparently to control onlookers, and large crowds were mostly absent.

It was a sharp contrast to Thursday’s frenzied exchange, which drew Israeli condemnation and led it to briefly delay the release of Palestinian prisoners.

After Saturday’s hostage release, Gaza’s key Rafah border crossing was reopened, with the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory saying 50 Palestinian patients had gone through the crossing to Egypt.

Egyptian state-linked channel Al-Qahera News showed footage of the first evacuees, including a child with an autoimmune disease, crossing into Egypt to receive treatment.

Muhammad Zaqout, director for Gaza hospitals, said he hoped the number would increase.

‘We now have 6,000 cases ready to be transferred, and more than 12,000 cases that are in dire need of treatment,’ he said.

Rafah was a vital Gaza aid entry point before the Israeli military seized the Palestinian side of the crossing in May.

The fragile ceasefire’s 42-day first phase hinges on the release of a total of 33 hostages in exchange for around 1,900 people, mostly Palestinians, held in Israeli jails.

Negotiations for a second phase of the deal are set to start on Monday, according to a timeline provided by an Israeli official.

The second phase is expected to cover the release of the remaining captives and to include discussions on a more permanent end to the war.

The ceasefire deal was negotiated by mediators Qatar, Egypt and the United States.

US president Donald Trump, who has claimed credit for the deal, is expected to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Tuesday.​

 

[Saif]

Five Arab FMs reject forced displacement of Palestinians

Top diplomats from Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar rejected any forcible displacement of Palestinians during a meeting in Cairo on Saturday, according to a joint statement.

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Five Arab FMs reject forced displacement of Palestinians
Agence France-Presse . Cairo 01 February, 2025, 22:44

Top diplomats from Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar rejected any forcible displacement of Palestinians during a meeting in Cairo on Saturday, according to a joint statement.

The meeting came after US president Donald Trump floated an idea to relocate Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Egypt and Jordan.

The foreign ministers rejected any ‘infringement of the inalienable rights’ of Palestinians, whether by ‘settlement, expulsion, home demolitions, annexation, depopulation of the land of its people through displacement, encouraged transfer or the uprooting of Palestinians from their land’.

Both Egypt and Jordan — key US allies in the region — have repeatedly rejected Trump’s proposal to ‘clean out’ the Gaza Strip.

Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said Wednesday that the ‘displacement of the Palestinian people from their land is an injustice that we cannot take part in’.

The foreign ministers added Saturday that they ‘look forward to working with the administration of US President Donald Trump to achieve a just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East, in accordance with the two-state solution’.

The meeting included Arab League secretary general Ahmed Aboul Gheit and Hussein al-Sheikh, secretary general of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

Two days after Israel severed all ties with the UN’s main aid agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, the ministers also affirmed the ‘pivotal, indispensable and irreplaceable role’ of the agency, ‘categorically rejecting any attempts to bypass it or limit its role’.​

 

[Saif]

Iran warns against ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Palestinians

Iran on Monday condemned US president Donald Trump’s proposal to relocate Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, warning it would amount to ‘ethnic cleansing’.

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Iran warns against ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Palestinians
Agence France-Presse . Tehran, Iran 03 February, 2025, 22:54

Iran on Monday condemned US president Donald Trump’s proposal to relocate Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, warning it would amount to ‘ethnic cleansing’.

Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said the international community should help Palestinians ‘secure their right to self-determination... rather than pushing for other ideas that would be tantamount to ethnic cleansing’.

The remarks from Baqaei come after Trump repeatedly floated an idea to ‘clean out’ the Gaza Strip and move its population to Egypt and Jordan.

‘Cleaning out Gaza... is part of colonial erasure of (the) Gaza Strip and the whole Palestine,’ Baqaei said, adding that ‘no third party’ can decide on the future of the Palestinian territory.

Iran, which does not recognise Israel, has made support for the Palestinian cause one of the pillars of its foreign policy since the victory of Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Iran and Israel, enemies for years, saw their first direct exchange of fire during the war in Gaza.

Iran provides financial and military backing for Hamas, but insists it and the other groups Tehran supports act independently.

Iranian vice-president Mohammad Javad Zarif recently said that Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 had ‘undermined’ nuclear negotiations between Iran and the United States.​