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

Saif · Jan 9, 2026

5 children among 13 killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli attacks in the Palestinian territory on Thursday killed at least 13 people, including five children, despite a ceasefire that has largely halted the fighting.

www.newagebd.net

5 children among 13 killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza
Agence France-Presse . Gaza City 10 January, 2026, 01:19

A Palestinian girl makes her way over debris in the Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip on Friday following Israeli attacks. | AFP photo

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli attacks in the Palestinian territory on Thursday killed at least 13 people, including five children, despite a ceasefire that has largely halted the fighting.

Four people, including three children, were killed when a drone struck a tent sheltering displaced people in southern Gaza, agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said.

In the north of the Gaza Strip, an 11-year-old girl was killed near the Jabalia refugee camp and a strike on a school killed one person, while a drone near Khan Yunis in the south killed a man, the agency added.

Two more Gazans, including a child, were killed in other attacks, reported the agency, which operates under Hamas authority.

Later on Thursday evening, four more people were killed in an Israeli air strike that targeted a house in an eastern area of Gaza City, Bassal said, adding that rescue work to search for several people who were missing had begun.

‘The death toll has risen to 13 as a result of Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip since this morning in a clear violation of the ceasefire agreement,’ Bassal said.

In a statement Friday morning, the Israeli military said it ‘precisely struck Hamas terrorists and terror infrastructure in the southern and northern Gaza Strip’ in response to a ‘failed projectile’ launch.

‘The projectile that was launched from the Gaza Strip constitutes a violation of the ceasefire agreement,’ the statement added.

Since October 10, a fragile US-sponsored truce in Gaza has largely halted the fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas, but both sides have alleged frequent violations.

Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said that the strikes in Gaza on Thursday ‘confirm the Israeli occupation’s renunciation of its commitment to the ceasefire’.

Israeli forces have killed at least 425 Palestinians in Gaza since the ceasefire took effect, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

At least 21 people were killed on November 22 in Israeli strikes, making it one of the deadliest days in Gaza since the ceasefire came into effect.

The Israeli military said militants have killed three of its soldiers during the same period.

Meanwhile, Palestinian vice president Hussein al-Sheikh met on Friday with former UN Middle East envoy Nickolay Mladenov, who is expected to head the US‑backed Board of Peace in Gaza.

The meeting in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah comes a day after Mladenov held talks with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and met with president Isaac Herzog.

Bulgarian diplomat Mladenov served as the United Nations envoy for the Middle East peace process from early 2015 until the end of 2020.

Media reports say he is expected to serve as the representative on the ground in Gaza for the Board of Peace — a transitional body for the war-battered Palestinian territory which US President Donald Trump would theoretically chair.

In a statement on X, Sheikh said that during his meeting with Mladenov, ‘an in-depth discussion took place on all political and field developments in the Palestinian territories’.

He added there was ‘a focus on the situation in the Gaza Strip, means of transitioning to the second phase of the ceasefire, mechanisms for implementing the US president Donald Trump’s plan, and UN Security Council Resolution 2803’.

Saif · Sunday at 8:07 PM

Palestine Solidarity Committee urges govt not to join Gaza Stabilization Force

Says Bangladesh has always stood firmly in favour of Palestinians’ rights

www.thedailystar.net

Palestine Solidarity Committee urges govt not to join Gaza Stabilization Force

Says Bangladesh has always stood firmly in favour of Palestinians’ rights

By Star Online Report

Star file photo

Palestine Solidarity Committee, Bangladesh, today strongly condemned the interim government's interest, in principle, in joining the proposed International Stabilization Force for Gaza.

Expressing deep concerns, the organisation demanded an immediate withdrawal from this decision.

In a statement, Prof Md Harun-or-Rashid, member secretary of Palestine Solidarity Committee, Bangladesh, said the main responsibility of the Stabilization Force will be to disarm the freedom fighters in Gaza under the pretext of ensuring the security of Israel, and in turn, to completely eliminate the resistance movement of the Palestinian people.

“Unfortunately, the National Security Adviser of the interim government, Khalilur Rahman, who is currently visiting the US, has expressed Bangladesh's interest in participating in the International Stabilization Force for Gaza in a meeting with the US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Allison Hooker, and Assistant Secretary of State, Paul Kapur, in Washington,” it said, referring to a statement from the chief adviser’s press wing.

“It is important to remember that the people of Bangladesh have always stood firmly in favour of the rights and freedom of the Palestinian people,” it noted.

Saif · Tuesday at 8:34 PM

100 children killed in Gaza since ceasefire: UN

At least 100 children have been killed by Israeli airstrikes and ground forces in Gaza since the start of a tenuous ceasefire three months ago, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

www.newagebd.net

100 children killed in Gaza since ceasefire: UN

Agence France-Presse . Geneva, Switzerland 14 January, 2026, 01:09

Palestinians stand next to makeshift shelters inside a war-damaged building, parts of which collapsed on a windy winter day in Gaza City on Tuesday. | AFP photo

At least 100 children have been killed by Israeli airstrikes and ground forces in Gaza since the start of a tenuous ceasefire three months ago, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

The UN children’s agency UNICEF said that at least 60 boys and 40 girls had been killed in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory since early October.

‘More than 100 children have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire,’ UNICEF spokesman James Elder told reporters in Geneva.

‘That’s roughly a girl or a boy killed here every day during a ceasefire,’ he said, speaking from Gaza City.

‘These children are killed from airstrikes, drone strikes, including suicide drones. They’re killed from tank shelling. They’re killed from live ammunition. They’re killed from quad copters.

‘We are at 100 — no doubt,’ he said, adding that the true number was likely higher.

‘A ceasefire that slows the bombs is progress but one that still buries children is not enough.’

AFP has sought a response from the Israeli military.

An official at Gaza’s health ministry, which maintains casualty records, has reported a higher figure of 165 children killed during the tenuous ceasefire, out of a total 442 fatalities.

‘Additionally, seven children have died from exposure to cold since the beginning of this year,’ Zaher Al-Wahidi, Director of the Computer Department at the Ministry of Health, said.

Elder stressed that the on-going Israeli attacks came after more than two years of war which has ‘left life for Gaza’s children unimaginably hard’.

‘They still live in fear. The psychological damage remains untreated, and it’s becoming deeper and harder to heal the longer this goes on,’ he said.

In November, authorities in Gaza said more than 70,000 people had been killed there since the beginning of the war waged by Israel in response to Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

Nearly 80 per cent of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged in the relentless air and ground offensive, according to UN data.

On January 1, Israel suspended 37 international aid agencies from accessing the Gaza Strip, despite what the UN said at the time was an ‘outrageous’ move.

‘Blocking international NGOs, blocking any humanitarian aid... that means blocking life-saving assistance,’ Elder stressed on Monday.

While UNICEF had managed to significantly increase aid entering the densely populated strip since October, he stressed: ‘You need partners on the ground, and it (the aid) still doesn’t meet the need.’

‘It’s impossible to overstate just how much still is required to be done here.’

He also insisted: ‘When you’ve got key NGOs banned from delivering humanitarian aid and from bearing witness, and when foreign journalists are barred’ it begs the question if the aim is ‘restricting scrutiny of suffering of children’.

Saif · Wednesday at 7:43 PM

US expected to unveil post-war Gaza leadership, sources say

US President Donald Trump is expected on Wednesday to push ahead with his phased plan for Gaza's future by announcing the administration that will run the war-ravaged Palestinian territory, four Palestinian sources said. Israel and Hamas in October signed off on Trump's 20-point plan which says th

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

US expected to unveil post-war Gaza leadership, sources say

REUTERS
Published :
Jan 14, 2026 20:19
Updated :
Jan 14, 2026 20:19

Displaced Palestinians shelter at a tent camp in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Jan 14, 2026. Photo : REUTERS/Haseeb Alwazeer

US President Donald Trump is expected on Wednesday to push ahead with his phased plan for Gaza's future by announcing the administration that will run the war-ravaged Palestinian territory, four Palestinian sources said.

Israel and Hamas in October signed off on Trump's 20-point plan which says that a technocratic Palestinian body overseen by an international "Board of Peace" is meant to govern Gaza for a transitional period. It is not to include Hamas representation.

The 14-member Palestinian body will be headed by Ali Shaath, a former deputy minister in the Western-backed Palestinian Authority who had been in charge of developing industrial zones, the Palestinian sources said.

Other members tapped by Nickolay Mladenov, the former UN Middle East envoy who is expected to represent the Board of Peace on the ground, include people from the private sector and NGOS, according a list of the names obtained by Reuters.

TRUMP MOVING TO PHASE TWO OF GAZA PLAN DESPITE ISSUES

The first phase of Trump's plan, which included a ceasefire and hostage release deal, has been shaken by issues including Israeli airstrikes in Gaza that have killed hundreds of people, a refusal by Hamas to disarm, the remains of one last Israeli hostage still not having been returned and Israeli delays in reopening Gaza's Rafah border crossing with Egypt.

Although the two sides accuse each other of breaching the deal, Trump says he wants to move on to the second phase, a progression that would entail the establishment of the Board of Peace and a yet-to-be-agreed deployment of peacekeeping forces.

Hamas leaders and other Palestinian factions are in Cairo for talks on the second phase, the group said. Egyptian sources said talks with Hamas would now focus on the group's disarmament.

Hamas has so far not agreed to lay down its weapons, saying it will only give up its weapons once there is a Palestinian state. Further Israeli withdrawals within Gaza are tied to disarmament.

Members of the technocratic Palestinian committee were expected to meet with Mladenov in Cairo on Wednesday. Hamas and its rival Fatah group, led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, have both endorsed the list of members, Egyptian and Palestinian sources said.

It will also include the head of the Gaza Chamber of Commerce Ayed Abu Ramadan and Omar Shamali, who has worked for the Palestinian Telecommunication Group PALTEL, the Palestinian sources said.

Israeli officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Saif · 2026-01-16T20:19:38-0500

Gaza ceasefire enters phase 2 despite unresolved issues

A US-backed plan to end the war in Gaza has entered its second phase despite unresolved disputes between Israel and Hamas over alleged ceasefire violations and issues unaddressed in the first stage.

www.newagebd.net

Gaza ceasefire enters phase 2 despite unresolved issues
Agence France-Presse . Jerusalem, Undefined 17 January, 2026, 01:39

Palestinians survey the destruction of a house after an Israeli military attack on the home of the al-Houli family, in which four people were reportedly killed, west of Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip on Friday. | AFP photo

A US-backed plan to end the war in Gaza has entered its second phase despite unresolved disputes between Israel and Hamas over alleged ceasefire violations and issues unaddressed in the first stage.

The most contentious questions remain Hamas’s refusal to publicly commit to full disarmament, a non-negotiable demand from Israel, and Israel’s lack of clarity over whether it will fully withdraw its forces from Gaza.

The creation of a Palestinian technocratic committee, announced on Wednesday, is intended to manage day-to-day governance in post-war Gaza, but it leaves unresolved broader political and security questions.

Below is a breakdown of developments from phase one to the newly launched second stage.

The first phase of the plan, part of a 20-point proposal unveiled by US president Donald Trump, began on October 10 and aimed primarily to stop the fighting in the Gaza Strip, allow in aid and secure the return of all remaining living and deceased hostages held by Hamas and allied Palestinian militant groups.

All hostages have since been returned, except for the remains of one Israeli, Ran Gvili.

Israel has accused Hamas of delaying the handover of Gvili’s body, while Hamas has said widespread destruction in Gaza made locating the remains difficult.

Gvili’s family had urged mediators to delay the transition to phase two.

‘Moving on breaks my heart. Have we given up? Ran did not give up on anyone,’ his sister, Shira Gvili, said after mediators announced the move.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said efforts to recover Gvili’s remains would continue but has not publicly commented on the launch of phase two.

Hamas has accused Israel of repeated ceasefire violations, including air strikes, firing on civilians and advancing the so-called ‘Yellow Line,’ an informal boundary separating areas under Israeli military control from those under Hamas authority.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said Israeli forces had killed 451 people since the ceasefire took effect.

Israel’s military said it had targeted suspected militants who crossed into restricted zones near the Yellow Line, adding that three Israeli soldiers were also killed by militants during the same period.

Aid agencies say Israel has not allowed the volume of humanitarian assistance envisaged under phase one, a claim Israel rejects.

Gaza, whose borders and access points remain under Israeli control, continues to face severe shortages of food, clean water, medicine and fuel.

Israel and the United Nations have repeatedly disputed figures on the number of aid trucks permitted to enter the Palestinian territory.

Under the second phase, Gaza is to be administered by a 15-member Palestinian technocratic committee operating under the supervision of a so-called ‘Board of Peace,’ to be chaired by Trump.

‘The ball is now in the court of the mediators, the American guarantor and the international community to empower the committee,’ Bassem Naim, a senior Hamas leader, said in a statement on Thursday.

Trump on Thursday announced the board of peace had been formed and its members would be announced ‘shortly’.

Mediators Egypt, Turkey and Qatar said Ali Shaath, a former deputy minister in the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, had been appointed to lead the committee.

Later on Thursday, Egyptian state television reported that all members of the committee had ‘arrived in Egypt and begun their meetings in preparation for entering the territory’.

Al-Qahera News, which is close to Egypt’s state intelligence services, said the members’ arrival followed US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff’s announcement on Wednesday ‘of the start of the second phase and what was agreed upon at the meeting of Palestinian factions in Cairo yesterday’.

Shaath, in a recent interview, said the committee would rely on ‘brains rather than weapons’ and would not coordinate with armed groups.

On Wednesday, Witkoff said phase two aims for the ‘full demilitarisation and reconstruction of Gaza,’ including the disarmament of all unauthorised armed factions.

Witkoff said Washington expected Hamas to fulfil its remaining obligations, including the return of Gvili’s body, warning that failure to do so would bring ‘serious consequences’.

The plan also calls for the deployment of an International Stabilisation Force to help secure Gaza and train vetted Palestinian police units.

For Palestinians, the central issue remains Israel’s full military withdrawal from Gaza — a step included in the framework but for which no detailed timetable has been announced.

With fundamental disagreements persisting over disarmament, withdrawal and governance, diplomats say the success of phase two will depend on sustained pressure from mediators and whether both sides are willing — or able — to move beyond long-standing red lines.