A former Israeli defence minister has accused Israel of committing war crimes and ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip, drawing a sharp rebuke from government ranks.
Hamas leaders held talks with Egyptian security officials on Sunday in a fresh push for a ceasefire in the Gaza war, said two Hamas sources, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was set to hold security talks on the matter, said two Israeli officials.
US president-elect Donald Trump on Sunday said Lebanese American businessman Massad Boulos would serve as a senior adviser on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs.
Ex-Israeli defence minister warns of ethnic cleansing in Gaza
A former Israeli defence minister has accused Israel of committing war crimes and ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip, drawing a sharp rebuke from government ranks.
Moshe Ya’alon, a hawkish former general, told Israeli media that hardliners in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right Cabinet were looking to chase Palestinians from northern Gaza and wanted to re-establish Jewish settlements there.
“I am compelled to warn about what is happening there and is being concealed from us,” Ya’alon told Israel’s public broadcaster Kan on Sunday. “At the end of the day, war crimes are being committed.”
Ya’alon is a former army chief of staff who served as defence minister under Netanyahu from 2013-2016 and has been a fierce critic of the prime minister ever since.
Netanyahu’s Likud party accused him of spreading “slanderous lies”, while Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, head of a small rightist party, said his accusations were baseless.
“Everything Israel does is in accordance with international law and it is a pity that former minister Ya’alon does not realise the damage that he has done and retract his remarks,” he told a conference hosted by Israel Today newspaper.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) last month issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defence chief Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict.
Netanyahu and Gallant both rejected the charges, but in a separate interview with Democrat TV on Saturday, Ya’alon warned that the nation was at a crossroads, with the government looking “to conquer, to annex, to carry out ethnic cleansing”.
Palestinians have long accused Israel of looking to chase them out of swathes of Gaza during the ongoing conflict.
Israel has been at war in Gaza since October 2023, after Hamas militants launched a surprise attack in which they killed about 1,200 people and abducted more than 250 hostages. Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 44,400 people and displaced nearly all of the enclave’s population.
In recent weeks, the Israelis have focused much of their firepower back on northern Gaza, saying they are targeting Hamas fighters who have regrouped, and urging civilians to leave the area until further notice.
“What is going on there? There is no Beit Lahiya, no Beit Hanoun, they are operating now in Jabaliya and basically cleaning the area of Arabs,” Ya’alon told Democrat TV, referring to Palestinian neighbourhoods north of Gaza City.
He added that hardliners wanted to establish Jewish settlement there, 19 years after Israel withdrew from the territory — a disengagement Ya’alon had opposed at the time.
Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf visited the Gaza border last Thursday and backed an initiative to re-establish settlements in the enclave.
“Jewish settlement here is the answer to the terrible massacre and the answer to the International Criminal Court in the Hague,” Goldknopf was quoted as saying in Israeli media.
Egypt hosts Hamas in new Gaza ceasefire push, looting halts aid
Hamas leaders held talks with Egyptian security officials on Sunday in a fresh push for a ceasefire in the Gaza war, said two Hamas sources, and Netanyahu was set to hold security talks on the matter, said two Israeli officials.
The Hamas visit to Cairo was the first since the US announced on Wednesday it would revive efforts in collaboration with Qatar, Egypt and Turkey to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza, that would include a hostage deal.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said he thought the chances of a ceasefire and hostage deal in the Palestinian territory were now more likely.
“[Hamas] are isolated. Hezbollah is no longer fighting with them, and their backers in Iran and elsewhere are preoccupied with other conflicts,” he told CNN on Sunday.
“So I think we may have a chance to make progress, but I’m not going to predict exactly when it will happen ... we’ve come so close so many times and not gotten across the finish line.”
Through several rounds of negotiations over the past year, Hamas has insisted that any deal should conclude with Israel ending the war, while Israel says the war will end when Hamas no longer rules Gaza or poses a threat to Israelis.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Sunday that there was some indication of progress toward a hostage deal but that Israel’s conditions for ending the war have not changed.
Fighting raged on meanwhile in the enclave and the head of the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (Unrwa) said it had to halt aid deliveries through one crossing a day after armed gangs inside Gaza seized food from a truck convoy.
“This difficult decision comes at a time hunger is rapidly deepening,” said Unrwa’s Philippe Lazzarini in a post on X.
The halting of aid deliveries through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing came almost two weeks after a large shipment was hijacked on the same route.
Lazzarini said it was Israel’s responsibility “as occupying power” to protect aid workers and supplies, and that the humanitarian operation had become “unnecessarily impossible” due to what he said were Israeli restrictions.
Cogat, the Israeli military department responsible for aid transfers, denies it is hindering humanitarian relief into Gaza, saying there is no limit on supplies for civilians and blaming delays on the United Nations, which it says is inefficient.
On Sunday, Israeli airstrikes killed at least 20 people, said medics, as Israeli forces kept up bombardments across the enclave and blew up houses on its northern edge.
In the central Gaza camp of Nuseirat, an Israeli airstrike killed six people in a house, and another attack killed three in a home in Gaza City, said medics.
Two children were killed when a missile hit a tent encampment in Khan Younis in the south, while four other people were killed in an airstrike in Rafah, near the border with Egypt, medics told Reuters.
Residents said the military blew up clusters of houses in the northern Gaza areas of Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, where Israeli forces have operated since October.
Palestinians say Israel’s operations on the northern edge of the enclave are part of a plan to clear people out through forced evacuations and bombardments to create a buffer zone. The Israeli military denies this and says it is fighting Hamas.
The military says it has killed hundreds of Hamas militants in that part of Gaza as it fights to stop the faction regrouping. It has also lost around 30 soldiers there in combat over the past two months, a relatively high death toll.
Hamas does not provide details on its fatalities.
Two Palestinian detainees from Gaza had died in Israeli custody, said prisoner advocacy groups on Sunday.
There was no immediate comment by Israeli authorities.
Trump picks Massad Boulos to serve as Middle East adviser
US President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday said Lebanese American businessman Massad Boulos would serve as a senior adviser on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs.
Trump made the announcement on Truth Social. Boulos, the father-in-law of Trump’s daughter Tiffany, met repeatedly with Arab American and Muslim leaders during the election campaign.
It was the second time in recent days that Trump chose the father-in-law of one of his children to serve in his administration.
On Saturday, Trump said that he had picked his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s father, real estate mogul Charles Kushner, to serve as US ambassador to France.
In recent months, Boulos campaigned for Trump to drum up Lebanese and Arab American support, even as the US backed Israel’s military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Boulos has powerful roots in both countries.
His father and grandfather were both figures in Lebanese politics and his father-in-law was a key funder of the Free Patriotic Movement, a Christian party aligned with Hezbollah.
His son Michael and Tiffany Trump were married in an elaborate ceremony at Trump’s Florida Mar-a-Lago Club in November 2022, after getting engaged in the White House Rose Garden during Trump’s first term.
Boulos has been in touch with interlocutors across Lebanon’s multipolar political world, say three sources who spoke to him in recent months, a rare feat in Lebanon, where decades-old rivalries between factions run deep.
Particularly notable is his ability to maintain relations with Hezbollah, they say. The Iranian-backed Shi’ite Muslim party has a large number of seats in Lebanon’s parliament and ministers in the government.
Boulos is a friend of Suleiman Frangieh, a Christian ally of Hezbollah and its candidate for Lebanon’s presidency. He is also in touch with the Lebanese Forces Party, a vehemently anti-Hezbollah Christian faction, say the sources, and has ties to independent legislators.
Russian, Syrian jets intensify bombing of Syria’s rebel-held northwest
Russian and Syrian jets struck the rebel-held city of Idlib in northern Syria on Sunday, said military sources, as President Bashar al-Assad vowed to crush insurgents who had swept into the city of Aleppo.
Residents said one attack on the second day of raids hit a crowded residential area in the centre of Idlib, the largest city in a rebel enclave near the Turkish border where about four million people live in makeshift tents and dwellings.
At least seven people were killed and dozens injured, according to rescuers at the scene. The Syrian army and its ally Russia say they target the hideouts of insurgent groups and deny attacking civilians.
On Saturday, Russian and Syrian jets bombed other towns in Idlib province, which had fallen completely under rebel control in the boldest rebel assault for years in a civil war where the frontlines had largely been frozen since 2020.
Insurgents swept into the city of Aleppo, east of Idlib province, on Friday night, forcing the army to redeploy in the biggest challenge to Assad in years.
In remarks published on state media, Assad said: “Terrorists only know the language of force and it is the language we will crush them with.”
The Syrian army said dozens of its soldiers had been killed in the attack on Aleppo.
On Sunday, the army said it had recaptured several towns that had been overrun in recent days by rebels. The insurgents are a coalition of Turkey-backed mainstream secular armed groups along with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamist group that is the opposition’s most formidable military force.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is designated a terrorist group by the US, Russia, Turkey and other states.
The war, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced many millions, has ground on since 2011 with no formal end. But most major fighting halted years ago after Iran and Russia helped Assad’s government win control of most land and all major cities.
Inside Aleppo city, streets were mostly empty and many shops were closed on Sunday as scared residents stayed at home. There was still a heavy flow of civilians leaving the city, said witnesses and residents.
Armed rebel fighters waving the opposition flag drove through the city, Yusuf Khatib, a resident, told Reuters by phone. Some rebels took up positions on street intersections, he added.
Syrian troops who had withdrawn from the city were now regrouping and reinforcements were also being sent to help in the counter-attack, said army sources.
Aleppo had been firmly held by the government since a 2016 victory there, one of the war’s major turning points, when Russian-backed Syrian forces besieged and laid waste to rebel-held eastern areas of what had been the country’s largest city.
Rebels said on Sunday they had pushed further south of Aleppo city and captured the town of Khansir in an attempt to cut the army’s main supply route to Aleppo city.
Rebel sources said they had also captured Sheikh Najjar estate, one of the country’s major industrial zones.
Reuters could not independently confirm the battlefield accounts.
Iran sent thousands of Shi’ite militias to Syria during the Syrian war and, alongside Russia with its air power, enabled Assad to crush the insurgency and regain most of his territory.
A lack of that manpower to help thwart the rebel onslaught in recent days contributed to the speedy retreat of Syrian army forces, according to two army sources. Militias allied to Iran, led by Hezbollah, have a strong presence in the Aleppo area.
Israeli air strikes on Gaza kill two aid workers
Two aid workers were killed in Israeli air strikes in Gaza on Saturday, with Israel saying it had killed a militant who took part in the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel and who it said was employed by a US-based charity.
The first was a World Central Kitchen member, who was hit in a vehicle in Khan Younis in southern Gaza. The Israeli military said that he had taken part in the attack on Kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel and was under surveillance but did not offer any evidence.
Reuters could not independently verify whether he took part in the attack last year.
The family of the man, Ahed Azmi Qdeih, said the Israeli allegations were false and meant to justify his unlawful killing. They said he was an engineer who dedicated his life to charitable work.
World Central Kitchen confirmed the airstrike and said it had no knowledge of an employee involved in the 7 October 2023 attack.
The charity said it was pausing operations in Gaza, adding that it was working with incomplete information and was urgently seeking more details. Official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that three employees of the charity were killed in the strike, with medics saying a total of five people were killed.
Hamas did not immediately comment.
Later in the day, the international aid agency Save the Children said that a 39-year-old staff member, who it identified as Ahmad Faisal Isleem Al-Qadi, was killed in an airstrike in Khan Younis.
It was unclear if the two men were killed in the same strike. Israel has not immediately commented on Save the Children’s statement.
“There are not strong enough words to express the grief and outrage we feel at the loss of Ahmad in an Israeli airstrike. He was a valued member of our team and loved by all who met him,” said Inger Ashing, the Save the Children chief executive.
In another attack in Khan Younis, medics said at least nine Palestinians were killed when an Israeli airstrike hit a car near a crowd receiving flour, a vehicle that was used by security personnel tasked with overseeing aid deliveries into Gaza.
At least 32 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes across the enclave overnight and into Saturday, said Gaza medics, including seven killed in a strike on a house in central Gaza City, according to Gaza officials.
Hamas releases video of US-Israeli hostage in Gaza
Hamas released a video of an Israeli-American hostage on Saturday, in which he pleads for Trump to secure his release.
Yael Alexander, the mother of hostage Edan Alexander, said she was shaken by the video, which showed the 20-year-old captive looking pale, seated in a dark space against a wall. He identified himself and addressed his family, Netanyahu and Trump.
The video “gives us hope, but it also shows how difficult it is for Edan and for the other hostages, and how much they are crying out and praying for us to rescue them,” his mother said at a Tel Aviv rally calling for the hostages’ release.
“My dear, beloved Edan, we miss you painfully,” she said before she called on Israel’s leaders to end the war in Gaza and make a deal with Hamas to release the hostages.
Netanyahu said in a statement that the video was cruel psychological warfare and that he had told Alexander’s family in a phone call that Israel was working tirelessly to bring the hostages home. Trump’s transition team could not be immediately reached for comment.
Alexander, a soldier at the time of his abduction, was taken to Gaza during the 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas on southern Israel.
Around half of the 101 foreign and Israeli hostages still held incommunicado in Gaza are believed to be alive.
Israeli military says projectile launched from Yemen intercepted
The Israeli military said on Sunday that a projectile launched from Yemen was intercepted before it crossed into Israeli territory.
The military earlier said sirens had sounded in several areas in central Israel following a launch from Yemen.
The Houthis have fired missiles and drones at Israel repeatedly in what they say is solidarity with the Palestinians since the Gaza war began in 2023. DM
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