Israeli fire has killed eight Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and three more in the occupied West Bank over the past 24 hours, Palestinian officials said Tuesday, even as a fragile ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza has largely held since late January. Israeli forces have killed dozens of Palestinians in Gaza during the ceasefire who the military says had approached its troops or entered unauthorized areas.
Hamas says a new round of ceasefire talks have started Tuesday. Israel wants Hamas to release half of the remaining hostages in return for a promise to negotiate a lasting truce. Hamas instead wants to start negotiations on the ceasefire’s more difficult second phase, in which the remaining hostages would be released and Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza. Hamas is believed to have 24 living hostages and the bodies of 35 others.
Israel is trying to force Hamas to accept its plan by cutting off all electricity, food, medicine and other goods to Gaza’s more than 2 million Palestinians. The United Nations and other humanitarian aid providers say Israel is violating international law.
Here’s the latest:
The United Nations says the Israeli ban on food, fuel, electricity and other humanitarian aid entering Gaza for the last 10 days is reversing progress in getting supplies to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during the six weeks of ceasefire.
The U.N. humanitarian office is reporting that fuel for backup generators at water and health facilities is running low, cooking gas prices are rising, and distribution of flour, fresh produce and tents and other shelter materials have been disrupted, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the U.N. children’s agency, UNICEF, is warning that severe water shortages have reached critical levels, with only one in 10 people in Gaza able to access safe drinking water.
The Iran-backed rebels’ secretive leader had warned Friday that attacks against Israel-linked vessels would resume within four days if Israel didn’t let aid into Gaza. As the deadline passed Tuesday, the Houthis said they were again banning Israeli vessels from the waters off Yemen.
Although no attacks were reported, the warning has put shippers on edge. The rebels targeted over 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two vessels and killing four sailors.
This time, the Yemeni rebels only mentioned targeting Israeli ships. Before the ceasefire in Gaza, the Houthis had said they attacked ships linked to Israel, the U.S. or the United Kingdom to force an end to Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza. However, many of the ships attacked had little or no connection to the conflict.
He warned Syria’s interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa that Israel “is watching him from the heights of Mt. Hermon,” which Israeli forces captured as part of a buffer zone inside Syria last year, and said Israel struck 40 military targets overnight in southern Syria.
Israel plans to allow members of the Druze minority from Syria to work in Israeli-controlled parts of the Golan Heights as soon as the coming week, Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement Tuesday issued from Mt. Hermon. He stressed that Israel plans to remain in the Syrian buffer zone for an “indefinite period” to ensure that southern Syria remains demilitarized and does not pose a threat to residents of Israel or the Golan Heights.
The Israeli minister’s comments come days after Syrian government-linked forces killed hundreds of civilians in revenge attacks primarily targeting members of the Alawite religious minority. The Druze minority straddles Israel, the Golan Heights, Syria, and Lebanon.
The Palestinian group Hamas said on Tuesday it was “dealing responsibly and positively with these negotiations, including the talks with the American envoy for hostage affairs.”
Hamas had said Sunday that it wrapped up the latest round of ceasefire talks with Egyptian mediators – without changes to its position.
Hamas wants to start negotiations on the ceasefire’s more difficult second phase, which would see the release of remaining hostages from Gaza, the withdrawal of Israeli forces and a lasting peace. Israel wants Hamas to release half of the remaining hostages in return for a promise to negotiate a lasting truce.
A breakthrough agreement to consolidate control of Syria under a single central authority in Damascus is a “step in the right direction,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday, but he said the deal must be fully implemented.
Associated Press
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