Israel was preparing to receive the bodies of four hostages from Gaza on Thursday and was working on bringing back six living captives on Saturday, said an Israeli security official on Monday.
Israel on Monday killed a Hamas leader in southern Lebanon’s Sidon area, said the Israeli military and a Hamas official.
Israel would keep troops in several posts in southern Lebanon past an 18 February deadline for them to withdraw, said a military spokesperson on Monday, as Israeli leaders sought to reassure northern residents that they could return home safely.
Israel preparing to receive bodies of four hostages on Thursday
Israel was preparing to receive the bodies of four hostages from Gaza on Thursday and was working on bringing back six living captives on Saturday, said an Israeli security official on Monday.
If the two handovers are successful, only four hostages, all presumed dead, would remain in Gaza of the 33 due to be released in the first phase of a ceasefire agreement reached last month to halt the war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
The ceasefire deal, reached with the help of Qatari and Egyptian mediators, has remained on track despite a series of temporary setbacks and accusations on both sides of violations of the agreement that have threatened to derail it.
Hamas has accused Israel of blocking the delivery of housing materials for the tens of thousands of Gazans forced to shelter from the winter weather among the ruins left by 15 months of Israeli bombardment.
Israel has denied the accusation but Zeev Elkin, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security Cabinet, confirmed that a number of mobile homes were standing at the border.
He said Israel would use “any leverage” it had over Hamas to secure the return of the 33 hostages due to come out in the first phase of the deal, which includes the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees and the withdrawal of Israeli troops.
“Israel has a goal of bringing forward the release of the first phase hostages, certainly the living ones,” he told public broadcaster Kan.
So far, 19 Israeli hostages have been returned, as well as five Thais, who were handed over in an unscheduled release. Hamas has said 25 of the 33 hostages due for release in the first phase are alive.
The ceasefire deal has been overshadowed by US President Donald Trump’s call for Palestinians to be moved out and for Gaza to be taken over as a waterfront development under US control.
But officials say work has begun on the second phase of the deal, which would address the return of the remaining hostages and the Israeli withdrawal.
An Israeli team has already travelled to Cairo and the security Cabinet also cleared a high-level Israeli delegation to travel to Qatar for talks on the second phase.
“We all want to proceed to phase two and release the hostages; the question is under what conditions is the war ended,” said Elkin. “This is the main issue for the negotiations of the second phase.”
The hostages were taken in the Hamas-led cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, which also killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s retaliatory assault on Gaza has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, according to Palestinian health officials, laid waste to much of the enclave, and displaced hundreds of thousands.
Israel kills Hamas official in southern Lebanon
Israel on Monday killed a Hamas leader in southern Lebanon’s Sidon area, said the Israeli military and a Hamas official.
The military said Muhammad Shaheen was the head of the operations department of Hamas in Lebanon and that he had recently been involved in promoting “terrorist plots” with Iranian direction and funding from Lebanese territory against Israeli citizens.
A Hamas official confirmed Shaheen’s killing to Reuters.
An Israeli strike on a car in Lebanon’s southern port city of Sidon targeted an official in the Palestinian militant group, two Lebanese security sources told Reuters earlier.
Lebanon’s state news agency said rescuers had removed one body from the car but did not identify the victim.
The Israeli military has been carrying out strikes against members of Hamas, allied Lebanese armed group Hezbollah and other factions in Lebanon, in parallel with the war in Gaza.
Those armed groups have launched rockets, drones and artillery attacks across the border into northern Israel.
Israel will leave troops in Lebanon after February 18 deadline
Israel would keep troops in several posts in southern Lebanon past an 18 February deadline for them to withdraw, said a military spokesperson on Monday, as Israeli leaders sought to reassure northern residents that they could return home safely.
Under a truce deal brokered by Washington in November, Israeli troops were granted 60 days to withdraw from southern Lebanon where they had waged a ground offensive against fighters from Lebanon’s armed group Hezbollah since early October.
That deadline was extended to 18 February, but Israeli and Lebanese officials as well as foreign diplomats had anticipated that the military would retain some troops on parts of the Lebanese side of the border.
“We need to remain at those points at the moment to defend Israeli citizens, to make sure this process is complete and eventually hand it over to the Lebanese armed forces,” military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani told a briefing with reporters, adding that the move was in accordance with the mechanism of the ceasefire agreement.
He said the locations were close to Israeli communities or occupying strategic vantage points overlooking Israeli towns like Metula, at the northernmost point of Israel.
A Lebanese official and two foreign diplomats said Israeli troops would probably leave villages in south Lebanon but stay in overlook points to reassure residents of northern Israel who are set to return home on 1 March.
Tens of thousands of people were displaced from northern Israel by Hezbollah rocket fire and more than a million people in Lebanon fled Israeli air strikes in the year-long war conflict playing out in parallel with the Gaza war.
The fighting ended in late November with a truce ordering Israeli troops to withdraw from south Lebanon, Hezbollah fighters and arms to leave and Lebanese troops to deploy.
The ceasefire deal stipulates that only “official military and security forces” in Lebanon can carry arms and that the Lebanese government must prevent any transfers of arms or related material to non-state armed groups.
Its language — sharper than previous United Nations Security Council Resolutions — appeared to spell out ways that the Lebanese state would be expected to constrain Hezbollah, said diplomats and analysts.
The deal’s implementation is being overseen by a committee chaired by the US and France.
Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun, who has said Israeli troops should leave by the 18 February deadline, said on Monday he was “afraid that the complete [Israeli] withdrawal will not be achieved tomorrow”.
Hezbollah said on Sunday that Israeli forces still in Lebanon after Tuesday would be considered an occupying force.
Palestinian detainee says he was tortured in Israeli detention centre
Palestinian medic and ambulance worker Tarek Rabie Safi, freed from an Israeli jail as part of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, said he was underfed and abused during almost a year in captivity.
Safi, a 39-year-old father of two, was released along with 368 other Palestinian detainees on Saturday, after Hamas freed three Israeli hostages from Gaza.
Palestinian prisoners and Israeli hostages have both complained of harsh treatment at the hands of their captors.
“I was held by the Israeli army in the Gaza ‘envelope’, which is Sde Teiman where I stayed for four months [and I was subjected to] torture of our bodies [physical torture] and hunger,” said a gaunt Safi.
“[There was] no [decent] food, or drinks, or [medical] treatment. My arm was broken, and they did not treat me, and they did not get me checked by a doctor.”
The Israeli military rejected the claims in an emailed response to Reuters’ queries, saying detainees were given food and drink regularly and had access to medical care, and that if necessary, they were transferred to a medical facility with advanced capabilities.
Safi, who was detained in March last year near Khan Younis in southern Gaza, said a detainee who was in the same room with him had died as a result of his treatment.
“A young man who was with me was martyred, Mussab Haniyeh, may God have mercy on him, in the same room. This young man was strong, but due to the lack of food, lack of drinks and frequent torture, he was martyred in front of our eyes,” said Safi.
After four months in the detention centre, Safi was moved to other Israeli jails until his release in Khan Younis, where he was reunited with his family in emotional scenes.
The Palestinian Prisoner Association, which documents Israeli detentions of Palestinians, said that Israel was carrying out “systematic crimes and revenge attacks” against prisoners, most recently in the Israeli-occupied West Bank’s Ofer prison.
Abdullah al-Zaghari, head of the association, said that the group had documented horrific testimonies, including severe beatings and shackling of prisoners for days and weeks without food or water.
Reuters is unable to independently confirm the reports.
Human rights group Amnesty International said last year that 27 released detainees it had interviewed consistently described being subjected to torture on at least one occasion during their arrest.
Israel, US ‘cannot do a damn thing’ against Tehran, says Iran
Iran said on Monday that US and Israeli threats against it were a blatant violation of international law and that they could not “do a damn thing” to hurt Tehran.
The comments came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Jerusalem on Sunday and said their countries were determined to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions and its influence in the Middle East.
Netanyahu said Israel had dealt a “mighty blow” to Iran since the start of the war in Gaza and that with the support of Trump, “I have no doubt we can and will finish the job”.
Speaking at a weekly press conference on Monday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Esmaeil Baghaei, responded: “When it comes to a country like Iran, they cannot do a damn thing. You cannot threaten Iran on the one hand and claim to support dialogue on the other hand."
Trump has expressed an openness to a deal with Tehran while also reinstating the “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran that was applied during his first term to stop Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Despite Baghaei’s defiant words, Tehran’s influence throughout the region has weakened severely with its regional allies — known as the “Axis of Resistance” — either dismantled or badly hurt since the start of the Hamas-Israel conflict in Gaza and the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria in December.
The Axis includes not only Hamas but also Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and various Shi’ite armed groups in Iraq and Syria.
Over the 16 months since the Gaza war erupted, Israel has assassinated leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, and Israel and Iran have carried out limited attacks against each other.
Gazans must return home, EU plans to tell Israel
The European Union (EU) plans to tell Israel next week that Palestinians uprooted from their Gaza homes should be ensured a dignified return and that Europe will contribute to rebuilding the shattered territory, according to a document seen by Reuters.
That echoes Arab positions but conflicts with Trump’s stated aim for the US to take over the shattered coastal strip and rebuild it into a “Riviera of the Middle East” while Gazans emigrate to other nations.
The EU, which has been a major aid provider to Palestinians, is to outline its position to Israeli officials in talks in Brussels on 24 February as part of the EU-Israel Association Council, the first such session since 2022.
A document outlining the draft EU position emphasises Europe’s commitment to Israel’s security and its view that “displaced Gazans should be ensured a safe and dignified return to their homes in Gaza”.
“The EU will actively contribute to a coordinated international effort to early recovery and reconstruction in Gaza,” it said, also calling for full humanitarian access.
“The EU deeply deplores the unacceptable number of civilians, especially women and children, who have lost their lives, and the catastrophic humanitarian situation notably caused by the insufficient entry of aid into Gaza, in particular in the north.
“The EU strongly opposes all actions that undermine the viability of the two-state solution,” the document added, referring to its position that Palestinians should have an independent homeland alongside Israel.
Freed hostages bring signs of life from depths of Gaza tunnels
Families of some Israeli hostages in Gaza have received signs of life from their loved ones for the first time in more than a year via captives who have been freed over the past weeks in the ceasefire deal with Hamas.
The messages, along with reports of their harsh conditions in captivity, have been carried by some of the 19 Israeli hostages freed so far in the ceasefire that took effect on 19 January.
While the reports have strengthened the families’ hope to reunite with their relatives, they have also filled them with dread over their wellbeing. The emaciated appearance of three of the hostages freed on 8 February has only added to their fears.
Signs of life have come so far from at least 10 hostages who were among the 251 kidnapped during Hamas’ 7 October attack on southern Israel.
Among them is Elkana Bohbut (35), seized from the Nova music festival. A video of him bound and with a bloody face circulated on social media within hours of his abduction.
Almost 500 days after, through a freed hostage with whom he was being held in a Gaza tunnel, he asked his wife Rivka to listen every day to an Israeli pop song called Warrior and draw strength from it.
“Five hundred terrible days have passed, and this week, thank God, we received a sign of life. Elkana is alive but suffering in inhuman conditions,” said Rivka Bohbot, before she quoted the song back to him on Saturday.
“I promise you that we will not stop until you come back. We will never give up on you. Don’t break, my beloved. Soon you will be home. Soon the nightmare will be over,” she said, crying and smiling on the stage of a weekly hostage rally in Tel Aviv.
Another hostage who got a message out was 24-year-old pianist Alon Ohel, seized from a roadside bomb shelter where he had fled from the Nova festival.
His mother Idit said he was being held injured and shackled in a tunnel, living off one piece of bread a day. But he still managed to send his sister a happy birthday message through one of the freed hostages, she said on Tuesday.
“It was wonderful,” she said as she broke into tears. “To hear from her brother, which is incredible to have that on her birthday.”
Marking 500 days of captivity hostage families and their supporters held a day of protests across Israel on Monday, calling for the release of the 73 captives still in Gaza.
Two of them are Gali and Ziv Berman (27), twin brothers kidnapped from Kibbutz Kfar Aza, who are not among the 14 hostages slated for release in the first and ongoing phase of the ceasefire.
Their family recently received confirmation that they are still alive, after last hearing that in November 2023, from hostages freed in a brief truce, their aunt Makabit Mayer told Reuters on Monday at Israel’s parliament where she was speaking to legislators as part of the 500-day protests.
“The difficulty is unbearable. It’s an ongoing nightmare, but the sign of life certainly breathed life into our lungs, it has given us air to breathe. But since we know whose hands they are in, we know it can change at any moment,” said Mayer. DM
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