Hamas on Tuesday stood by its demand that Israel fully end its assault on Gaza under any deal to release hostages and said US president-elect Donald Trump was rash to say there would be ’hell to pay’ unless they go free by his 20 January inauguration.
The foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, has held talks with his Israeli counterpart Gideon Saar in the Gulf nation, the UAE state news agency WAM reported on Tuesday. The two men discussed the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, it said.
Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, said on Tuesday he hoped to have good things to report about hostages held by Hamas in Gaza by the time Trump is sworn in as US president on 20 January.
Hamas stands by demand for end to Gaza war before any hostage deal
Hamas on Tuesday stood by its demand that Israel fully end its assault on Gaza under any deal to release hostages and said US president-elect Donald Trump was rash to say there would be “hell to pay” unless they go free by his 20 January inauguration.
Officials from the Islamist group and Israel have been holding talks with Qatari and Egyptian mediators in the most intensive effort for months to reach a ceasefire in Gaza.
The outgoing US administration has called for a final push for a deal before Joe Biden leaves office, and many in the region now view Trump’s inauguration as an unofficial deadline.
But with the clock ticking, both sides accuse the other of blocking a deal by adhering to conditions that torpedoed all previous peace efforts for more than a year.
Hamas says it will free its remaining hostages only if Israel agrees to end the war and withdraw all its troops from Gaza. Israel says it will not end the war until Hamas is dismantled and all hostages are free.
“Hamas is the only obstacle to the release of the hostages,” the director-general of Israel’s foreign ministry, Eden Bar Tal, told a briefing with reporters, saying Israel was fully committed to reaching a deal.
Hamas official Osama Hamdan, who held a news conference in Algiers, said Israel was to blame for undermining all efforts to reach a deal.
While he said he would not give details about the latest round of negotiations, he reiterated the Hamas conditions of “a complete end to the aggression and a full withdrawal from lands the occupation invaded”.
Commenting on Trump’s threat that there would be “hell to pay” unless all hostages were freed before the inauguration, Hamdan said: “I think the US president must make more disciplined and diplomatic statements.”
Israel has sent a team of mid-ranking officials to Qatar for talks brokered by Qatari and Egyptian mediators. Some Arabic media reports said David Barnea, the head of Mossad, who has been leading negotiations, was expected to join them. The Israeli prime minister’s office did not comment.
In one notable step towards a deal, a Hamas official told Reuters on Sunday the group had cleared a list submitted by Israel of 34 hostages who could be freed in the initial phase of a truce, alongside Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
The list included female Israeli soldiers, plus elderly, female and minor-aged civilians. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel had so far received no confirmation about whether those on its list were still alive.
Nearly 46,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s assault on Gaza, according to health officials in the enclave. The assault was launched after Hamas fighters stormed Israeli territory on 7 October 2023, killing 1,200 people and capturing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israeli military strikes killed at least 22 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, said medics, as the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory urged international donors to immediately provide fuel to run generators and maintain medical services.
One of those strikes killed four people in a house in Gaza City and six were killed in separate strikes across the enclave, said medics.
Later on Tuesday, an Israeli strike on a tent in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip killed four children and eight Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house in Jabalia in the north, said medics.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on those strikes.
It said 240 Palestinians its forces had detained in a raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza last month had provided “substantial intelligence”.
The military released footage of the interrogation of a purported Hamas militant who detailed how militants “operated from the hospital area” and transferred weapons to and from it.
Hamas and the Gaza health ministry deny any armed presence at the hospital.
UAE, Israeli foreign ministers meet to discuss Gaza humanitarian crisis
The foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, has held talks with his Israeli counterpart Gideon Saar in the Gulf nation, the UAE state news agency WAM reported on Tuesday.
The two men discussed the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and regional and international efforts to reach a lasting ceasefire in Gaza, it said.
Trump envoy predicts ’good things’ to announce on Gaza hostages
Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, said on Tuesday he hoped to have good things to report about hostages held by Hamas in Gaza by the time Trump is sworn in as US president on 20 January.
“Well, I think we’re making a lot of progress, and I don’t want to say too much because I think they’re doing a really good job back in Doha,” said Witkoff at a Trump press conference in Palm Beach, Florida.
Doha has been hosting negotiations on a ceasefire in the Gaza war that would include freeing hostages that Hamas abducted in its 7 October 2023, attack on Israel. Doha is the capital of the Gulf state of Qatar, which along with Egypt and the US has been mediating negotiations between Israel and Hamas.
Witkoff said that he if did not travel back to Doha on Tuesday night, he would head there on Wednesday night.
“I think that we’ve had some really great progress, and I’m really hopeful that by the inaugural, we’ll have some good things to announce on behalf of the president,” said Witkoff.
Trump repeated his threat that “all hell will break out in the Middle East” if Hamas does not release the hostages by the time he takes office.
“It will not be good for Hamas, and it will not be good, frankly, for anyone,” he said.
Syria to take time organising national dialogue - foreign minister
Syria would take its time to organise a landmark national dialogue conference to ensure that the preparations included all segments of Syrian society, said Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani on Tuesday, according to state media.
The conference is meant to bring together Syrians from across society to chart a new path for the nation after Islamist rebels ousted autocratic President Bashar al-Assad. Assad, whose family had ruled Syria for 54 years, fled to Russia.
“We will take our time with the national dialogue conference to have the opportunity to form a preparatory committee that can accommodate the comprehensive representation of Syria from all segments and governments,” said Shibani.
Diplomats and visiting envoys had in recent days told Syria’s new rulers it would be better not to rush the conference to improve its chances of success, rather than yield mixed results, said two diplomats.
The new government had not yet decided on a date for the conference, sources previously told Reuters, and several members of opposition groups have recently said that they had not received invitations.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan said on Tuesday time was needed for Syria to pick itself up again and rebuild following Assad’s overthrow, and that the damage to infrastructure from 13 years of civil war looked worse than anticipated.
Israel says no foreign courts have warrants issued against reservists
Israel said on Tuesday that pressure groups were pushing foreign courts to take action against Israelis over alleged war crimes in Gaza but described the actions as “propaganda activity” and said no warrants had been issued.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as a Hamas leader, Ibrahim Al-Masri, over alleged war crimes in Gaza.
The warrants sparked outrage in Israel but also drew fears that similar warrants could be issued against Israelis who served in the military in Gaza.
On Sunday, an Israeli reservist on holiday in Brazil left the country after a Brazilian federal judge in Salvador ordered police to open an investigation into allegations that he had committed war crimes while serving with the military in Gaza.
The Hind Rajab Foundation, the pro-Palestinian group which brought the action, says on its website it “focuses on offensive legal action against perpetrators, accomplices and inciters of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Palestine”.
The Belgium-based group, named after a Palestinian girl killed in Gaza last year, also said it had filed evidence of alleged war crimes with the ICC against 1,000 Israelis, including video and audio reports, forensic reports and other documentation. The ICC confirmed it had received a filing and said it would “analyse the materials submitted, as appropriate”.
Israel’s foreign ministry offered assistance to the reservist singled out by the action but officials said the issue was not widespread.
“This is a phenomenon of very limited scope in numbers,” foreign ministry director general Eden Bar Tal told reporters in Jerusalem, saying there had been no more than 10-12 cases since the beginning of Israel’s campaign in Gaza 15 months ago.
“There was no warrant issued in any of these cases. So it was, I would say, a relatively strong PR activity but with very low, very, very low — zero — in judicial results,” he said.
“We believe it’s a lot of propaganda activity in general and it’s sponsored by entities, a very low number of entities, that have direct connections to terrorist organisations,” he said.
Hind Rajab Foundation founder, Dyab Abou Jahjah, posts messages on the social media platform X promising to file legal action against Israeli soldiers and asking for help identifying them. He has also posted messages in support of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement, designated as a terrorist organisation by many Western countries.
The group did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The case in Brazil attracted wide attention in Israel, underscoring fears that individuals beyond the government and military leadership could be drawn into the war crimes issue, particularly through social media posts.
The Israeli military has warned reservists that they could face arrest abroad over alleged war crimes in Gaza, according to documents published by Israeli media. The left-wing Haaretz newspaper said complaints against IDF soldiers had been filed in South Africa, Belgium and France as well as Brazil.
Three Palestinian militants killed in West Bank
Israeli forces killed at least three Palestinian militants in stepped-up operations across the occupied West Bank on Tuesday following the killing of three Israelis near a Jewish settlement a day earlier, the Israeli military said.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said an 18-year-old was killed overnight in an Israeli airstrike in Tamun, a town northeast of Nablus city, while a 40-year-old was shot dead in the nearby village of Taluza.
The Israeli military said that after a clash with militants in the Tamun area, its warplanes struck and killed two fighters. The official Palestinian news agency Wafa also reported a second Palestinian killed in a strike in Tamun.
The Israeli military said a third militant was killed in a firefight in Taluza and several were arrested in various incidents. Hamas’ armed al-Qassam Brigades confirmed the man killed in Taluza was one of its fighters.
One Israeli soldier was severely wounded during an exchange of gunfire and was evacuated to hospital, said the military.
Wafa meanwhile reported revenge attacks by Jewish settlers, who it said had set fire to a vehicle overnight and attacked a Palestinian village.
Violence in the West Bank has intensified in parallel with the 15-month-long war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, with killings by Palestinian militants, increased Israeli military raids and airstrikes, and a rise in attacks by Jewish settlers.
Hundreds of Palestinians and dozens of Israelis have been killed.
Israel signs deals with defence firm to make bombs domestically
Israel’s Defence Ministry said on Tuesday it had signed deals worth around $275-million with the country’s largest domestic private arms maker Elbit to make heavy bombs and raw materials needed for defence, reducing dependence on imports.
“These strategic agreements are crucial for enhancing the Israel Defence Force’s operational endurance and force build-up capabilities,” it said, describing the need to reduce dependence on imports as “a central lesson” from the war in Gaza.
Under one agreement, Elbit will supply the military with thousands of heavy air munitions. The second deal would establish a plant to produce raw materials previously sourced mainly from abroad. The ministry did not specify the raw materials but suggested they were used to make munitions.
US shifts some military aid to Lebanon from Egypt
US President Joe Biden’s administration will divert $95-million in military aid allocated for Egypt to Lebanon, which faces threats from Hezbollah and other non-state actors and is enforcing a ceasefire with Israel, according to a document seen by Reuters on Monday.
The State Department notification to Congress of the planned shift calls the Lebanese armed forces “a key partner” in upholding the 27 November 2024, Israel-Lebanon agreement to cease hostilities and to prevent Hezbollah from threatening Israel.
The move comes after some of Biden’s fellow Democrats in Congress expressed deep concerns about Egypt’s human rights record, particularly the arrests of thousands of political prisoners.
The State Department and the Egyptian embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In September, State said the Biden administration was overriding human rights conditions on military aid to Egypt, granting Cairo its full allocation of $1.3-billion, including $95-million tied specifically to Egypt’s progress on the release of political prisoners.
The notification did not spell out that the $95-million was those funds specifically, but a congressional aide said he did not believe the amount was a coincidence.
Egypt has been a vital partner in Biden administration’s efforts to get more aid into Gaza and has helped mediate the efforts to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
The September decision on the money for Egypt prompted objections from within Congress, including from Democratic Senators Chris Murphy and Chris Coons, both senior members of the Foreign Relations Committee, who released a joint statement decrying the decision.
According to the State Department document, the funds would be made available to professionalise the Lebanese Armed Forces, strengthen border security, combat terrorism and address security requirements affected by the shift in power in Syria.
“The United States remains Lebanon’s security partner of choice, and US support to the LAF directly helps secure Lebanon and the wider Levant region,” said the notification.
Bolstering Lebanon’s army could also help ensure Syria’s transition is not disrupted by Iran-backed Shi’ite Islamist group Hezbollah, which previously played a major part in propping up Assad during Syria’s civil war. DM
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