Israel ‘open to negotiating Gaza-Egypt border’ after war; US charges Hamas leaders with terrorism

The US Justice Department announced on Tuesday that it had charged six senior leaders of Hamas with terrorism and conspiracy to kill Americans, days after six hostages including an Israeli-US citizen were slain in the Gaza Strip.

Israel planned to wrest control over food distribution in the Gaza Strip from Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday, in what he described as an effort to block what he said was the militant group’s practice of commandeering humanitarian aid.

Israel open to negotiating Gaza-Egypt border area at war end

Israel was open to negotiating control of Gaza’s border with Egypt after the end of the war with Hamas, said Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, though it must maintain troops there for now to prevent the group from re-arming during a proposed truce.

In an interview with Bloomberg TV, Dermer said the question of Israel’s grip on the so-called Philadelphi Corridor was among around a half-dozen disputes holding up a ceasefire agreement with Hamas. The US, Qatar and Egypt have been attempting to broker a deal between the two sides for several months without success.

“Believe me, Israel’s government wants to get to a deal,” said Dermer, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision-making security Cabinet. “What we are not willing to do is go to a deal that is going to endanger the security of 10 million Israelis.”

Netanyahu planned to attend the UN General Assembly in New York later this month to argue Israel’s case, said Dermer. The almost 11-month-old war has ignited hostilities on other Middle East fronts and become a divisive issue in the US ahead of November’s elections.

Hamas wants Israeli troops to withdraw from Philadelphi and other parts of Gaza as part of any ceasefire deal. Gulf countries including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have in recent days criticised Netanyahu’s stance on the 14km-long corridor, expressing solidarity with Egypt.

Dermer accused Cairo of failing to prevent the cross-border smuggling of arms to Hamas militants in Gaza following Israel’s exit from the Palestinian territory in 2005. Contraband weaponry, he said, enabled Hamas to carry out the 7 October attack.

“Until we have an actual practical solution on the ground for the Philadelphi Corridor, Israeli forces cannot leave, and for the last 20 years we haven’t had that,” said Dermer. “We’ve had Egyptian presidents, and they announced that their policy was to stop the smuggling that would go into Gaza. What happened on the ground was a different matter.”

Egypt has denied there has been illegal transportation of arms across its border with the territory.

The UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on Israel to “end the escalation and refrain from taking steps that would exacerbate tensions and instability in the region”. The Arab country is among those that agreed to diplomatic ties with Israel as part of the 2020 Abraham Accords.

Israel has vowed to ultimately destroy Hamas — whether or not a pause in hostilities is agreed on — and argued that to do otherwise would invite more bloodshed and empower other Iran-backed forces in the region.

US unseals charges against Hamas days after death of American

The US Justice Department announced on Tuesday that it had charged six senior leaders of Hamas with terrorism and conspiracy to kill Americans, days after six hostages including an Israeli-US citizen were slain in the Gaza Strip.

The charges against Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and other top Hamas operatives were filed in February and include counts linked to Hamas’ 7 October assault on Israel as well as a string of other attacks over more than a decade. In a statement, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Hamas leaders had financed and directed a decades-long campaign to murder Americans and endanger US national security.

“The charges unsealed today are just one part of our effort to target every aspect of Hamas’ operations,” Garland said. “These actions will not be our last. The Justice Department has a long memory.”

Garland cited the death of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, the 23-year-old Israeli-American who was captured in the 7 October attack and who was killed with five other hostages over the weekend, in his statement. He said the department was investigating Goldberg-Polin’s killing as an act of terrorism.

The Justice Department didn’t say why it waited until Tuesday to unseal the charges. As the US presidential election campaign has heated up, Republicans have accused President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, of not doing enough to secure the hostages’ release or support Israeli forces’ campaign against Hamas.

Read more: Netanyahu won’t budge on war despite protests over hostages

The Biden administration has worked for months to forge a ceasefire accord that would end the fighting in the Gaza Strip and lead to the release of the hostages. Israel and Hamas have so far failed to agree on a proposal put forward by the US, Qatar and Egypt. On Tuesday, White House spokesperson John Kirby said, “The killing over the weekend just underscores the sense of urgency that we have to have.”

Among those charged was Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader who was killed in a bomb blast in Iran in July, an attack that Iran blamed on Israel. Israel has so far declined to take responsibility for Haniyeh’s death, though the killing has sparked fears that Iran, and its allies Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas might retaliate and plunge the region into fresh conflict.

Netanyahu calls for Israeli control over Gaza food distribution

Israel planned to wrest control over food distribution in the Gaza Strip from Hamas, Netanyahu said on Wednesday, in what he described as an effort to block what he said was the militant group’s practice of commandeering humanitarian aid.

“They steal the food, charge exorbitant prices for it from the Gaza population and that’s how they hope to continue to survive,” Netanyahu told reporters in Jerusalem. “We have to take that away from them. I don’t want to run Gaza. I don’t want to administer Gaza. But I want to take this away from them.”

It wasn’t immediately clear whether Netanyahu envisioned Israeli forces distributing food and essential items to Palestinians or international aid groups continuing to do so but under Israeli supervision.

Israel’s resistance to allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza in the early days of the war drew worldwide condemnation and pressure from the US. Any direct involvement by the Israeli army in distributing aid to Palestinians would risk angering Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners, who opposed letting humanitarian supplies into Gaza.

Norway wealth fund adviser weighs more Israel exclusions

The ethics council for Norway’s $1.7-trillion sovereign wealth fund said it may recommend widening the list of companies to exclude over their links with Israel, which is fighting a war in Gaza and operating militarily in the West Bank.

Over the years, nine companies have been excluded from the fund for activities in the West Bank, ranging from the construction of roads to the leasing of buildings. An exclusion means the fund, Norges Bank Investment Management, sheds its holdings and refrains from buying more.

This year, the ethics council has advised the fund to remove one more company and could recommend excluding “a few more,” according to a 30 August letter sent to the Finance Ministry, which oversees the fund. The fund is not obligated to comply.

NBIM holds shares in about 8,700 companies worldwide. It owned stock in 77 Israeli companies as of the end of June, valued at about $1.5-billion and corresponding to 0.1% of its total investments.

The questions over NBIM’s holdings have come to the fore after an attack on Israel by Hamas in October led Israel to launch a war on the militant organisation centring on Gaza. The struggle dates back more than a century, including in the West Bank, where Israeli security forces have a fixed presence.

The Norwegian government officially recognised Palestinian statehood in May, leading to Israel pulling its ambassador from the Nordic nation.

In its letter last week, the ethics council referred to a July opinion from the International Court of Justice as a reason for potentially excluding more companies. The court called on Israel to end its “unlawful” occupation of large parts of the Palestinian territory and held Israel responsible for compensating Palestinians who had been evicted from their homes.

The ICJ ruling “indicates that the size and scope of exclusions of companies with connections to the West Bank can be expected to gradually increase” Svein Richard Brandtzaeg, council chairperson and former chief executive officer of Norsk Hydro, wrote in the letter.

While the fund is not required to follow the advice of the ethics council, it generally does so. Companies previously cut include Aircraft manufacturer Boeing and British defence company BAE Systems, both for making components associated with nuclear weapons. Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone was cut earlier this year for transparency concerns related to a port sale in Myanmar. DM

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