[🇧🇩] 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...

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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.​

 

[Saif]

Gaza rescuers say seven killed in Israeli air strikes

Four people were killed in the Al-Rimal area near Gaza City, two in Al-Sabra west of Gaza City and one in Khan Yunis.

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Gaza rescuers say seven killed in Israeli air strikes
AFP Gaza City, Palestinian Territories
Published: 22 Apr 2025, 08: 37

A Palestinian man carries away an injured child from a home that was hit in an Israeli strike on the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, on 7 November, 2024. Israel's military has been conducting a sweeping air and ground assault in northern Gaza since 6 October, 2024, particularly around Jabalia, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun, saying it aims to prevent Hamas regrouping. AFP

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Tuesday that seven people were killed in fresh Israeli air strikes across the Hamas-run territory.

“The occupation launched violent air strikes on Gaza City and the towns of Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun, and Khan Yunis, killing seven civilians,” civil defence spokesman Mahmoud Bassal told AFP.

Four people were killed in the Al-Rimal area near Gaza City, two in Al-Sabra west of Gaza City and one in Khan Yunis.

“The occupation also destroyed more than 10 homes east of Gaza City and in Rafah,” he added.

The Israeli military, which did not immediately comment, has intensified its aerial bombardments and expanded its ground operations in the Gaza Strip since it resumed its offensive in the besieged Palestinian territory on March 18.

Gaza’s civil defence agency on Monday accused the Israeli military of carrying out “summary executions” in the killing of 15 rescue workers last month, rejecting the findings of an internal probe by the army.

At least 1,691 people have been killed in Gaza since the military resumed its offensive, bringing the total death toll since the war erupted to at least 51,065, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

Hamas’s attack on Israel that ignited the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.​

 

[Saif]

Hamas team heads to Cairo for Gaza talks as Israeli strikes kill 26

A Hamas delegation left for Cairo to discuss ‘new ideas’ aimed at securing a Gaza ceasefire, an official from the group said, as Israeli air strikes killed 26 people across the territory Tuesday.

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Hamas team heads to Cairo for Gaza talks as Israeli strikes kill 26
Agence France-Presse . Gaza City 23 April, 2025, 03:24

A Hamas delegation left for Cairo to discuss ‘new ideas’ aimed at securing a Gaza ceasefire, an official from the group said, as Israeli air strikes killed 26 people across the territory Tuesday.

The renewed effort follows Hamas’s rejection last week of Israel’s latest proposal to secure the release of hostages still held in Gaza.

Talks have so far failed to produce any breakthrough since Israel resumed its air and ground assault on Gaza from March 18, ending a two-month ceasefire.

‘The delegation will meet with Egyptian officials to discuss new ideas aimed at reaching a ceasefire,’ the Hamas official said, adding the team included the group’s chief negotiator Khalil Al-Hayya.

The discussions will come a day after newly appointed US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee urged Hamas to accept a deal that would secure the release of hostages in exchange for humanitarian aid entering Gaza.

‘When that happens, and hostages are released which is an urgent matter for all of us, then we hope that the humanitarian aid will flow and flow freely knowing it will be done without Hamas being able to confiscate and abuse their own people’, Huckabee said in a video statement.

Israel blocked all aid to Gaza on March 2, days before its renewed offensive began.

Israel has accused the Palestinian militant group of diverting aid, which Hamas denies.

‘Gaza has become a land of desperation,’ Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, said on X on Tuesday.

‘Hunger is spreading and deepening, deliberate and manmade. Humanitarian aid is being used as a bargaining chip and a weapon of war.’

Qatar, with the United States and Egypt, brokered a truce in Gaza between Israel and Hamas which began on January 19 and enabled a surge in aid, alongside exchanges of hostages and prisoners.

But the truce collapsed after disagreements over the terms of the next stage.

Hamas had insisted that negotiations be held on a second phase of the truce, leading to a permanent end to the war, as outlined in the January framework announced by former US president Joe Biden.

Israel, however, sought to extend the first phase.

Following the impasse, Israel blocked aid and resumed its military campaign.

Most recently, Israel proposed a 45-day ceasefire in exchange for the release of 10 living hostages — an offer Hamas rejected last week.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli air strikes killed at least 26 people across the Hamas-run territory on Tuesday.

Among the fatalities were nine people when a house was struck in central Khan Yunis, senior agency official Mohammad Mughayyir said, adding that six others remain trapped.

‘We found people torn apart,’ said Ahmad Shourab who witnessed the strike. ‘They were all women and children. What do they want from us?’

Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said air strikes also destroyed bulldozers and other equipment belonging to the Jabalia municipality in northern Gaza.

‘We relied on them for rescue operations to clear debris and recover the bodies of martyrs from beneath the rubble,’ Bassal said.

‘Now, if a large-scale strike occurs and heavy machinery is needed, how will we obtain the equipment to save lives, pull people from the rubble, or evacuate them from buildings targeted in attacks?’

Israel’s military did not immediately comment on the latest strikes.

At least 1,890 people have been killed in Gaza since the military resumed its offensive, bringing the total death toll since the war erupted to at least 51,266, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which ignited the war, resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Militants also abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli airstrikes hit Gaza school, hospital

An Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced families in northern Gaza killed at least 10 people, while another hit a children’s hospital, local health authorities said, taking yesterday’s death toll to 20.

www.thedailystar.net

Israeli airstrikes hit Gaza school, hospital
20 Palestinians killed; President Abbas calls on Hamas to hand over arms to his authority

An Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced families in northern Gaza killed at least 10 people, while another hit a children's hospital, local health authorities said, taking yesterday's death toll to 20.

Medics said the airstrike on the Yaffa School in the Tuffah area of Gaza City set fire to tents and classrooms. There has been no Israeli comment on the school attack.

Some furniture was still in flames several hours after the strike as people sifted through blackened classrooms and the schoolyard in search of their belongings.

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"We were sleeping and suddenly something exploded, we started looking and found the whole school on fire, the tents here and there were on fire, everything was on fire," said eyewitness, Um Mohammed Al-Hwaiti.

"People were shouting and men were carrying people, charred (people), charred children, and were walking and saying: 'Dear God, dear God, we have no one but you.' What can we say? Dear God, only," she told Reuters.

Medics said at least 10 other people were killed in separate Israeli strikes across the enclave.

Since a January ceasefire collapsed on March 18, Israeli attacks have killed more than 1,600 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health authorities.

Meanwhile, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in a televised speech yesterday, called on Hamas to cede its responsibility over the Gaza Strip, hand over its arms to the Palestinian Authority and turn itself into a political party.

Yesterday, the Gaza health ministry said an Israeli missile also hit the upper building of the Durra Children's Hospital in Gaza City, damaging the intensive care unit and destroying the solar panel system that feeds the facility with power. No one was killed in the hospital strike.

Gaza's healthcare system is close to collapse due to an Israeli blockade on all supplies to Gaza, including fuel and electricity, since the beginning of March, when it relaunched military operations.

The health ministry said many Palestinian victims of Israeli military strikes remained trapped under rubble and on the roads, as rescue teams are unable to reach them because of ongoing bombardments.

The attacks have also hit dozens of bulldozers and machinery used to clear roads, remove debris and to carry out rescue operations.

The Israeli military said on Tuesday it had hit 40 "engineering vehicles" that were used for "terrorist actions. Some of those heavy vehicles were parked on the road and others inside the garages of municipalities.​