No hostages-for-prisoners swap until war ends, says Hamas; US vetoes UN resolution on Gaza ceasefire

The US on Wednesday vetoed a UN Security Council resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza, drawing criticism of the Biden administration for once again blocking international action aimed at halting Israel’s war with Hamas.

US envoy Amos Hochstein said he would travel to Israel on Wednesday to try to secure a ceasefire ending the war with Lebanon’s Hezbollah group after declaring additional progress in talks in Beirut.

Hamas: No hostages-for-prisoners swap deal unless Gaza war ends

Hamas’ acting Gaza chief, Khalil al-Hayya, said in remarks broadcast on Wednesday that there would be no hostages-for-prisoners swap deal with Israel unless the war in the Palestinian enclave ended.

“Without an end to the war, there can be no prisoner swap,” said Hayya in a televised interview with the group’s Al-Aqsa television channel, reiterating the group’s position on how to bring the war to an end.

“If the aggression is not ended, why would the resistance and in particular Hamas, return the prisoners [hostages]?” he said. “How would a sane or an insane person lose a strong card he owns while the war is continuing?”

Hayya, who led the group’s negotiating team in talks with Qatari and Egyptian mediators, blamed the lack of progress on Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who in turn holds the Islamist group responsible for the stalled talks.

“There are contacts under way with some countries and mediators to revive this file [negotiation]. We are ready to continue with those efforts but it is more important to see a real will on the side of the occupation to end the aggression,” said Hayya.

“The reality proves that Netanyahu is the one who undermines it [negotiations],” he added.

Speaking during a visit to Gaza on Tuesday, Netanyahu said that Hamas would not rule the Palestinian enclave after the war had ended and that Israel had destroyed the Islamist group’s military capabilities.

Netanyahu also said Israel had not given up trying to locate the 101 remaining hostages believed to be still in the enclave, and he offered a $5-million reward for the return of each one.

Hamas wants a deal that ends the war and sees the release of Israeli and foreign hostages held captive in Gaza as well as Palestinians jailed by Israel, while Netanyahu vowed the war can only end once Hamas is eradicated.

Hamas’ 2023 attack on Israel, which shattered Israel’s aura of invincibility, marked the country’s bloodiest day in its history, with 1,200 people killed and more than 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel responded with its most destructive offensive in Gaza, killing nearly 44,000 people and wounding 103,898, according to the Gaza health ministry, and turning the enclave into a wasteland of rubble with millions desperate for food, fuel, water and sanitation.

US vetoes UN Security Council resolution on Gaza ceasefire

The US on Wednesday vetoed a UN Security Council resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza, drawing criticism of the Biden administration for once again blocking international action aimed at halting Israel’s war with Hamas.

The 15-member council voted on a resolution put forward by 10 non-permanent members that called for an “immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire” in the 13-month conflict and separately demanded the release of hostages.

Only the US voted against, using its veto as a permanent council member to block the resolution.

Robert Wood, deputy US ambassador to the UN, said Washington had made clear it would only support a resolution that explicitly called for the immediate release of hostages as part of a ceasefire.

“A durable end to the war must come with the release of the hostages. These two urgent goals are inextricably linked. This resolution abandoned that necessity, and for that reason, the United States could not support it,” he said.

Members roundly criticised the US for blocking the resolution put forward by the council’s 10 elected members: Algeria, Ecuador, Guyana, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, South Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia and Switzerland.

US envoy to travel to Israel in bid to seal Hezbollah ceasefire

US envoy Amos Hochstein said he would travel to Israel on Wednesday to try to secure a ceasefire ending the war with Lebanon’s Hezbollah group after declaring additional progress in talks in Beirut.

Hochstein arrived in Beirut on Tuesday, seeking to clinch a ceasefire agreement after the Lebanese government and Hezbollah agreed to a US ceasefire proposal, although with some comments.

“The meeting today built on the meeting yesterday, and made additional progress,” said Hochstein after his second meeting with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, endorsed by the heavily armed, Iran-backed Hezbollah to negotiate.

“So I will travel from here in a couple of hours to Israel to try to bring this to a close if we can,” said Hochstein.

Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Qassem said the group had given its feedback on the truce draft and that it was shared with Hochstein. He said whether a ceasefire was reached now depended on Israel and whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was serious about one. Hezbollah stood ready to keep on fighting for a long time, he said.

Israel’s Channel 12 reported late on Wednesday that most of the points of the deal had been agreed upon by both parties.

The diplomacy aims to end a conflict that has inflicted massive devastation in Lebanon since Israel went on the offensive against Hezbollah in September, mounting air strikes across wide parts of the country and sending in troops.

The casualty toll since October 2023 stands at 3,558 people killed in Lebanon, the Lebanese health ministry says, most killed during the Israeli offensive since September. The figures do not distinguish between combatants and civilians. The ministry said 14 fatalities were reported on Tuesday.

Hezbollah strikes have killed 43 civilians in northern Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, while 73 soldiers have been killed in strikes in northern Israel and the Golan Heights and in combat in southern Lebanon, according to Israel.

Israeli attack on Syria’s Palmyra kills 36 people

An Israeli attack on Syria’s historic city of Palmyra killed 36 people and wounded more than 50 on Wednesday after it hit residential buildings and an industrial zone, the Syrian state news agency Sana reported.

The Israeli military declined to comment when asked about the attack.

“At approximately 1.30pm today, the Israeli enemy launched an air attack from the direction of the al-Tanf area, targeting a number of buildings in the city of Palmyra in the Syrian desert, which led to the martyrdom of 36 people [and]) the injury of more than 50 others,” said Sana, quoting a military official.

It added that the attack also caused significant damage to the targeted buildings and surrounding area.

Palmyra’s ancient city is a Unesco World Heritage site. It was seized by Islamic State militants in 2015 and partially destroyed before it was recaptured by the Syrian army.

Israeli strikes kill 33 people in Gaza

Israeli forces killed at least 33 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, including a rescue worker, said health officials, as troops deepened an incursion along the territory’s northern edge, bombarding a hospital and blowing up homes.

Medics said at least 12 people were killed in an Israeli strike on a house in the area of Jabalia in northern Gaza earlier on Wednesday, and at least 10 people remained missing as rescue operations continued. Another man was killed in tank shelling nearby, they said.

Later on Wednesday, an Israeli air strike killed seven Palestinians, including a girl, in Al-Mawasi, a humanitarian-designated area in western Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, Gaza medics said. Palestinian and UN officials say no place in the enclave is safe.

Another air strike on a house in the Remal neighbourhood in Gaza City killed four people, while a strike killed three Palestinians and wounded at least 20 others at a school sheltering displaced families in central Gaza Strip, said medics.

Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, one of three medical facilities barely operational in the besieged northern area, said the hospital “was bombed across all its departments without warning, as we were trying to save an injured person in the intensive care unit” on Tuesday.

“Following the arrest of 45 members of the medical and surgical staff and the denial of entry to a replacement team, we are now losing wounded patients daily who could have survived if resources were available,” he told Reuters in a text message.

“Unfortunately, food and water are not allowed to enter, and not even a single ambulance is permitted access to the north.”

There were 85 injured people, including children and women, at the hospital, six in the ICU. Seventeen children had arrived with signs of malnutrition as a result of food shortages. One man died of dehydration a day ago, added Abu Safiya.

Israeli operations in Gaza have focused for weeks on the northern edge of the territory, where the military has laid siege to three major towns and ordered residents to flee.

Residents in the three towns — Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun — said forces had blown up dozens of houses. Palestinians say Israel appears determined to permanently depopulate the area to create a buffer zone along the northern edge of Gaza, which Israel denies.

Although Israel’s assaults have been focused on the towns on the northern edge since last month, its strikes have continued across the territory.

In the Sabra suburb of Gaza City, the Palestinian civil emergency service said an Israeli air strike targeted one of its teams during a rescue operation, killing one staff member and wounding three others. In the nearby Zeitoun neighbourhood, an Israeli strike on a house killed two people, said medics.

The death in Sabra raised the number of civil emergency service members killed since 7 October 2023 to 87, said the service.

In Rafah, in the south, medics said three men were killed and others wounded in two separate Israeli air strikes. DM

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