Qatar-mediated talks for another pause in fighting resume in Doha – Reuters
A team from Israel’s Mossad intelligence services was in Doha on Saturday for talks with Qatari mediators for another pause in fighting in Gaza, a source briefed on the visit told Reuters.
The Qatar-mediated talks focused on the potential release of new categories of Israeli hostages other than women and children and the parameters of a truce, which the source said differed to the truce agreement that collapsed on Friday.
Israel and Hamas have been considering new parameters for the release of hostages and the truce since before it collapsed.
The truce which began on 24 November involved Hamas releasing Israeli women and children taken hostage on 7 October in exchange for the release of Palestinians, including women, held in Israeli prisons.
Israel and Hamas have traded blame over the collapse of the truce, which lasted a week and was extended twice before mediators were unable to find a way for a third extension.
Israel accused Hamas of refusing to release all the women it held. A Palestinian official said the breakdown occurred over female Israeli soldiers.
Key events
Here are some of the latest images coming through from Israel and Gaza:
David Smith
‘People are being penalised’: Hollywood divided over Israel-Hamas conflict
Stars like Susan Sarandon and Cynthia Nixon are raising their voices in support of Palestine, but many others are paying a steep price for speaking up.
On a chilly day outside the White House, tourists milled about, Secret Service agents stood guard and a group of protesters held aloft a banner that demanded: “Over 14,850 Palestinians killed, how many more before a ceasefire?”
Among activists embarking on a five-day hunger strike is a face instantly recognisable to fans of TV series such as Sex and the City and The Gilded Age. Cynthia Nixon is following in a long tradition of actors using their platform to further a Washington cause. But she is also stepping into a Hollywood rift.
While the entertainment industry has shown remarkable unity in recent years over Donald Trump’s presidency, Black Lives Matter and abortion rights, the Israel-Hamas war is proving uniquely divisive. The air is thick with terms such as antisemitism and genocide. One-time allies are trading accusations of censorship, hypocrisy and betrayal. High-profile figures who take a stand are facing abuse, ostracism or, in some cases, dismissal.
Two members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp who served as military advisers in Syria have been killed in an Israeli attack, Iranian state media reported on Saturday, in the first reported Iranian casualties during the ongoing war in Gaza.
A IRGC statement did not give details of the attack, Reuters reports. Syria earlier said its air defences repelled an Israeli rocket attack against targets in the vicinity of Damascus early on Saturday.
The resumption of fighting in the Gaza Strip has been intense, the director general of the Red Cross said on Saturday, as Israel airstrikes and artillery bombarded the enclave a day after a week-long pause in hostilities there with Hamas collapsed.
Israel’s military has said it struck 400 militant targets and killed an unspecified number of Hamas fighters in the past 24 hours. Palestinian health officials said hundreds of Palestinians had been killed since the end of the truce.
“We don’t have precise reports but what I can say is the resumption of fighting was intense again,” ICRC director, Gen Robert Mardini, told Reuters at the Cop28 UN summit in Dubai.
“It’s a new layer of disruption coming on top of massive, unparalleled destruction of critical infrastructure, of civilian houses and neighbourhoods,” he said, warning that the violence would make it difficult to get humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Mardini described Gaza as being in “shambles and rubble”. The ICRC had 130 staff working there, he said.
Israel and Hamas have traded blame over the collapse of the truce, during which the Palestinian militant group had released hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.
Mardini said that people in Gaza were “living in constant fear of violent death” and struggling to survive amid shortages of food and water caused by the fighting, while hospitals were working with limited resources.
“Everything in Gaza is at the breaking point,” he said.
The truce, which started on 24 November and was extended twice, involved Israeli women and children and foreign hostages being freed in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. But after seven days, mediators failed to agree on a third extension.
The Red Cross, a neutral, Swiss-based organisation, had helped facilitate those exchanges, including transporting hostages that were held in Gaza by the Hamas militant group.
“We stand ready to facilitate further release operations of hostages in Gaza, Palestinian detainees to be reunited with their families,” Mardini said.
At least 193 Palestinians have been killed and 650 wounded in Gaza since a Hamas-Israel truce ended on Friday morning, a spokesperson for the Gaza health ministry said on Saturday.
This comes as the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said the death toll had surpassed 15,200 and that 70% of those killed were women and children, according to AP.
The figure was announced Saturday by ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra, who did provide further details.
The previous toll given by the ministry was more than 13,300 dead. Qidra did not explain the sharp jump. However, the ministry had only been able to provide sporadic updates since 11 November, amid problems with connectivity and major war-related disruptions in hospital operations.
The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
Qatar-mediated talks for another pause in fighting resume in Doha – Reuters
A team from Israel’s Mossad intelligence services was in Doha on Saturday for talks with Qatari mediators for another pause in fighting in Gaza, a source briefed on the visit told Reuters.
The Qatar-mediated talks focused on the potential release of new categories of Israeli hostages other than women and children and the parameters of a truce, which the source said differed to the truce agreement that collapsed on Friday.
Israel and Hamas have been considering new parameters for the release of hostages and the truce since before it collapsed.
The truce which began on 24 November involved Hamas releasing Israeli women and children taken hostage on 7 October in exchange for the release of Palestinians, including women, held in Israeli prisons.
Israel and Hamas have traded blame over the collapse of the truce, which lasted a week and was extended twice before mediators were unable to find a way for a third extension.
Israel accused Hamas of refusing to release all the women it held. A Palestinian official said the breakdown occurred over female Israeli soldiers.
The first aid trucks since the collapse of the Gaza truce have entered through the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing on Saturday, on their way to Awja crossing for inspection before continuing the journey to the Gaza Strip, Egyptian security, and Red Crescent sources told Reuters.
Two fuel trucks and 50 aid trucks went through the Egyptian side heading to Awja for inspection, the sources added.
Here are the latest images coming across the wires:
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said that the chance for peace in Gaza after the humanitarian pause was lost for now due to Israel’s uncompromising approach, broadcaster NTV reported on Saturday.
“We have always emphasized that we are in favour of a permanent ceasefire rather than a humanitarian break … There was an opportunity for peace here, and unfortunately, we have lost this opportunity for now due to Israel’s uncompromising approach,” Erdoğan was quoted as saying by NTV and other Turkish media, according to Reuters.
The truce that started on 24 November had been extended twice. But after seven days during which women, children and foreign hostages were freed as well as a number of Palestinian prisoners, mediators failed to find a formula to release more.
Since then Israeli airstrikes and artillery bombardments have hit southern Gaza, extending the nearly two-month-old war in which thousands of people have died.
Speaking to reporters on his way back from the United Arab Emirates, Erdoğan also said that he is not losing hope for a lasting peace in the conflict adding that Hamas could not be excluded from its potential solution, according to NTV.
“We need to focus on the two-state solution … The exclusion of Hamas or destruction of Hamas is not a realistic scenario,” Erdoğan said during the interview, adding that he would not define Hamas as a terrorist organisation.
Separately, sources told Reuters that Israel has informed several Arab states that it wants to carve out a buffer zone on the Palestinian side of Gaza’s border to prevent future attacks as part of proposals for the enclave after the war ends.
Erdogan also said a contact group formed by the OIC and Arab League would visit the United States to discuss possible resolution of conflict in Gaza after meeting with authorities in London, Paris, Barcelona and the United Nations.
Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants exchanged fire across the Israel-Lebanon border on Saturday, in a second day of hostilities after the collapse of a truce in Gaza between Palestinian group Hamas and Israel.
Iran-backed Hezbollah said in a statement that one of its fighters was killed but did not specify when. Three people in south Lebanon were killed by Israeli shelling on Friday, according to Lebanon’s state news agency. Hezbollah said two of the dead were its fighters, Reuters reports.
Hezbollah also said it fired rockets at an Israeli position. Israel’s military said two mortar bombs launched from Lebanon fell in open areas in Shomera, across the border from the south Lebanon village of Marwahin. The military said it responded by attacking the launch site and elsewhere in south Lebanon.
Earlier on Saturday, shelling from Israel hit close to the United Nations interim force in Lebanon (Unifil) headquarters near the coastal town of Naqoura and around the border village of Rmaych, a Unifil spokesperson said.
The Israeli military said it carried out shelling near Naqoura after spotting “unusual activity” in the area.
Unifil also detected fire around 11am. (0900 GMT) from the area of Tayr Harfa, about a mile from the Israeli frontier, toward Israel, the spokesperson said.
Following the eruption of the Hamas-Israel war on 7 October, Hezbollah mounted near-daily rocket attacks on Israeli positions at the frontier while Israel waged air and artillery strikes in south Lebanon. But the border was largely calm during the week-long truce in the Gaza war.
It has been the worst fighting since the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, a Hamas ally.
Just over 100 people in Lebanon have been killed during the hostilities, 83 of them Hezbollah fighters. Tens of thousands of people have fled both sides of the border.
A protester with a Palestinian flag self-immolated on Friday outside the Israeli consulate in Atlanta, injuring a security guard who attempted to intervene, authorities said.
The person, whom officials did not identify, is in critical condition, the Atlanta police chief, Darin Schierbaum, said at a news conference. The guard’s condition was not immediately clear.
“We believe this building remains safe, and we do not see any threat here,” the chief said. “We believe that was an act of extreme political protest.“
Lebanon’s heavily armed Hezbollah said in a statement that one of its fighters was killed in south Lebanon on Saturday, Reuters reports the day after the collapse of a truce between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas led hostilities to flare at the frontier.
Renewed fighting in Gaza stretched into a second day on Saturday after talks to extend a week-old truce with Hamas collapsed and mediators said Israeli bombardments were complicating attempts to again pause hostilities.
Eastern areas of Khan Younis in southern Gaza came under intense bombardment as the truce deadline lapsed shortly after dawn on Friday, with columns of smoke rising into the sky, Reuters reports.
Residents took to the road with belongings heaped up in carts, searching for shelter further west.
Israel said its ground, air and naval forces struck more than 200 “terror targets” in Gaza. By Friday evening, health officials in the coastal strip said Israeli strikes had killed 184 people, wounded at least 589 others and hit more than 20 houses.
Early on Saturday, rocket sirens sounded in Israeli communities outside Gaza, but there were no reports of serious damage or casualties. Footage of Gaza, taken from southern Israel, included the sounds of explosions and showed smoke rising into the sky.
The warring sides blamed each other for the collapse of the truce, during which Hamas militants had released hostages in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
The United Nations said the fighting would worsen an extreme humanitarian emergency. “Hell on Earth has returned to Gaza,” said Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the UN humanitarian office in Geneva.
A pause that started on 24 November had been extended twice, and Israel had said it could continue as long as Hamas released 10 hostages a day. But after seven days during which women, children and foreign hostages were freed, mediators failed to find a formula to release more.
Israel accused Hamas of refusing to release all the women it held. A Palestinian official said the breakdown occurred over female Israeli soldiers.
Israel has sworn to annihilate Hamas after an 7 October rampage in which it says the militant group killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostage. Israeli assaults since have laid waste much of Gaza, ruled by Hamas since 2007. Palestinian health authorities deemed reliable by the United Nations say more than 15,000 Palestinians have been killed and thousands are missing.