RAMAT HASHALON, Israel (AP) – Egypt’s president announced Sunday that his country has proposed a two-day ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, during which four hostages are being held. Gaza It will be liberated. There was no immediate reaction from Israel or Hamas as the latest talks were expected to take place in Qatar, another major mediator.
president Abdel Fattah El Sisi He said the proposal includes the release of some Palestinian prisoners and the provision of humanitarian aid to besieged Gaza. He said the aim was to “move the situation forward” and added that negotiations would continue to make the ceasefire permanent.
Talks aimed at a longer-term phased ceasefire have repeatedly stalled. Hamas wants Israeli forces to withdraw from Gaza as a precondition, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israeli forces will remain until Hamas is destroyed. There has been no ceasefire since then. A week’s suspension of fighting in November In the first weeks of the war.
Israel’s Mossad chief traveled to Doha on Sunday to meet with Qatari prime minister and CIA director in the latest attempt to end fighting and ease tensions in the region that have risen since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel. was.
As a result of these tensions, Israel is currently at war with Hamas in both the Gaza Strip and the Gaza Strip. hezbollah in Lebanon and openly attacking their supporter Iran, First time this weekend. Iran’s supreme leader said Sunday that Israel’s response to Iran’s ballistic missile attacks this month “should neither be exaggerated nor underestimated.” Stop short of seeking retribution.
At a government commemoration ceremony on the Hebrew anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that “military operations alone cannot achieve all goals,” adding that the return of the hostages would require “a painful process.” “Compromises will have to be made,” he added.
At the same event, demonstrators shouted “shame” and disrupted Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech. Many Israelis accuse him of security lapses that led to the attack and hold him responsible for not allowing the hostages to return home yet.
In the Gaza Strip, Palestinian officials say recent Israeli airstrikes in the north have killed at least 33 people, mostly women and children, in the hard-hit isolated area. Entered the 3rd week. The UN Secretary-General described the plight of Palestinians there as “intolerable”. Israel said it was targeting extremists.
Prime Minister Netanyahu says Iran attack achieved Israel’s goals
“We have severely damaged Iran’s defense capabilities and its ability to produce missiles for us,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in his first public comments on the attack.
Damage confirmed by satellite images Two secret Iranian military basesOne is related to research into nuclear weapons, which Western intelligence agencies and nuclear inspectors say was halted in 2003, and the other is related to Iran’s ballistic missile program. Iran said one civilian was killed, but did not provide details. Earlier, it was announced that four air defense personnel had died.
“It is up to the authorities to decide how to convey the power and will of the Iranian people to the Israeli regime,” said Iran’s 85-year-old supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei. Khamenei will make the final decision on how Iran responds.
The United Nations Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting on Monday at Iran’s request. Switzerland, which holds the council’s rotating presidency, said Russia, China and Algeria, the council’s Arab representative, supported the request.
Iran’s most powerful proxy is Hezbollah, which has stepped up shelling of Israel in recent weeks in response to Israel’s ground incursions into southern Lebanon.
Two Israeli airstrikes killed eight people and injured 25 others in Sidon, in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese Ministry of Health said.
The Israeli military said four soldiers, including an army rabbi, were killed in fighting in southern Lebanon, but did not provide details. Five people were injured in Israel by explosive drones and projectiles fired from Lebanon, authorities said.
Dozens injured in truck crash in Israel
One person was killed and more than 30 injured when a truck crashed into a bus stop in Ramat Hasharon, near Tel Aviv. Israeli police said the attacker was an Israeli Arab and had been “neutralized.” The ramming incident took place outside a military base, near the headquarters of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad.
Hamas and smaller Islamic Jihad militant groups praised the attack but did not claim it.
Tensions have been rising since the war in Gaza began, with Israel Regular military raids on the occupied West Bank It caused hundreds of deaths.
‘Tragically high death toll’ in northern Gaza
The Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency services said 11 women and two children were among the 22 people killed in the strike in the northern city of Beit Lahiya late Saturday. The Israeli military announced that it had carried out an attack on the insurgents.
Ministry official Hussein Mohesin said 11 people were killed and many injured in an Israeli attack on a school in the northern Shati refugee camp, which was used as a shelter. “Most of the injured are children and women, and most of them are in very serious condition,” he said. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.
Israel has carried out large-scale air and ground attacks in northern Gaza since early October, claiming that Hamas militants have regrouped in Gaza. Hundreds of people were killed and tens of thousands of Palestinians were displaced. The latest wave of evacuations.
Aid groups are warning of a catastrophic situation. Israel Strictly restricting entry of humanitarian aid The country says its three remaining hospitals in the north are at capacity as infections have increased in recent weeks. The UN Secretary-General called out the “appalling level of deaths”.
The war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants entered southern Israel. They killed about 1,200 people (mostly civilians) and abducted about 250. About 100 hostages remain in Gazaabout a third of them were thought to have died.
More than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli retaliatory attacks, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. It does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but says more than half of the dead were women and children. Israel claims, without providing evidence, that it has killed more than 17,000 militants.
The attack destroyed much of Gaza and forced approximately 90% of the country’s population of 2.3 million to flee multiple times.
___
Mr. Goldenberg reported from Tel Aviv, Israel, Mr. Magdy from Cairo, and Mr. Kraus from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writers Wafa Shurafa in Gaza Strip Deliverance, John Gambrell in Dubai and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.
___
Follow AP’s war coverage. https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
