Cairo, Egypt/Gaza/Jerusalem
Reuters
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared on Saturday to hint that new negotiations were under way to recover hostages held by Hamas, after his chief of Mossad intelligence met the Prime Minister of Qatar, a country mediating in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In a televised press conference a day after Israeli forces mistakenly killed three of more than 100 hostages held by Hamas, Netanyahu called the Gaza conflict an existential war that must be fought until victory, despite pressure and costs, and said the territory would be demilitarized and under Israeli security control.
A man uses a bullhorn as people protest following an announcement by Israel’s military that they had mistakenly killed three Israeli hostages being held in Gaza by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, at a demonstration in Tel Aviv, Israel, on 15th December, 2023. PICTURE: Reuters/Violeta Santos Moura
He said Israel’s offensive in Gaza had helped clinch a partial hostage-release deal in November. “The instruction I am giving the negotiating team is predicated on this pressure, without which we have nothing,” he said.
Netanyahu spoke after the head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency David Barnea met Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Europe late on Friday, according to a source with knowledge of the matter, and attention turned to a possible new Gaza truce and a prisoner and hostage deal.
Netanyahu sidestepped a question about the meeting, saying he wouldn’t divulge information to Hamas. He said Israel had requests for a ceasefire and to remove troops in Gaza talks, but would not do so.
Israel bombarded targets across Gaza on Saturday, but two Egyptian security sources said Israeli officials now appeared more willing to work towards a ceasefire and an exchange of Palestinian prisoners for Israeli hostages held by Hamas.
An Israeli military official said the three hostages who were killed had been holding a white flag, according to an initial inquiry. Their deaths have put increased pressure on Netanyahu to find a way to secure the release of those held.
As Netanyahu spoke, several hundred people staged a protest in Tel Aviv, with some holding placards, including one saying “get them out of hell.” A speaker shouted: “Bring them home now!”
The meeting in Europe was apparently the first between senior officials from Israel and Qatar, which has been acting as a mediator, since the collapse of a seven-day ceasefire in late November.
Combat has intensified in the past two weeks since the collapse of the truce, which had allowed dozens of Israeli hostages held in Gaza to be released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israel.
Israeli forces bombarded targets across Gaza on Saturday including a crowded YMCA building, with dozens of Palestinians reported killed or wounded, despite a renewed US call to scale down the campaign and focus on Hamas leaders.
Two Christian women who had taken refuge in a church complex in Gaza were shot dead by an Israeli soldier, Roman Catholic Church authorities said. Seven other people were shot and wounded. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
A Palestinian holds a child as they look on at the site of an Israeli strike on a house, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on 16th December, 2023. PICTURE: Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
In Khan Younis in Gaza’s south, Palestinian health officials said the Nasser Hospital had received 20 Palestinians killed in air strikes overnight, in addition to dozens of wounded, including women and children.
Palestinian health officials also said Israeli strikes on Gaza City in the north had hit the YMCA headquarters, which is sheltering hundreds of displaced people and reported several dead and wounded.
The Israeli military said it was “operating to dismantle Hamas military and administrative capabilities”.
The official WAFA news agency said at least three dozen people had been killed in strikes on three houses in the Jabalia refugee camp, which health officials were unable to confirm.
Rescue workers believed some casualties remained buried under the rubble in some of those areas.
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Gaza residents reported intense overnight fighting.
“We could hear explosions and gunshots echoing from all directions,” Ahmed, 45, an electrician and father of six, told Reuters from a shelter in central Gaza.
Mohammad, 40, a resident of Khan Younis who has moved to the southern city of Rafah following Israeli evacuation orders, told Reuters by phone: “We want a full ceasefire, an end to the war and not a humanitarian pause.”
US urges Israel to narrow its campaign
President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, has urged Israel to scale down its Gaza campaign and transition to more narrowly targeted operations against Hamas leaders, US officials said.
Israeli officials publicly emphasised that they would continue the war until they eradicate Hamas. Washington appeared to acknowledge disagreement, as Sullivan said the timing was under “intensive discussion” between the allies.
The three hostages were killed in an area of intense combat where Hamas militants operate in civilian attire and use deception tactics, the official said, but the hostages were fired upon against Israel’s rules of engagement.
Israel, which said it recovered the bodies of three other hostages killed by Hamas, believes around 20 of more than 130 hostages still held in Gaza are dead.
Israeli military operates in Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, as seen from southern Israel, on 16th December, 2023. PICTURE: Reuters/Clodagh Kilcoyne
The Israeli military said on Saturday that it had bombed a building in Jabalia from the air after its forces came under fire and Hamas militants were seen on the roof. It was unclear whether the building was one of those that WAFA said had been hit.
The military also said it had killed militants holed up in two school buildings in Gaza City, and raided apartments in Khan Younis stocked with weapons, uncovering what it described as underground infrastructure used by Hamas, the militant group that runs Gaza and that Israel has vowed to destroy.
“Every day the situation gets worse. Food gets less, water gets worse, only death, fear and destruction get greater,” said Samira, 40, a mother of four, who is displaced in Rafah, near the southern border with Egypt.
In a surprise cross-border attack on 7th October, Hamas militants rampaged through Israeli towns, killing 1,200 people and capturing 240 hostages. Israel’s counterattack has killed close to 19,000 people, according to Gaza health authorities, with thousands more feared buried under rubble.
In signs of the wider ramifications of the conflict, Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthis said they had attacked the Israeli Red Sea resort of Eilat with a swarm of drones, one of several drone incidents reported in the region on Saturday.
Two major freight firms said they would avoid the Suez Canal as the Houthis stepped up attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea.
The US Central Command said the destroyer Carney had shot down 14 Houthi drones in the Red Sea. Britain also said one of its warships had shot down a suspected attack drone targeting merchant shipping.
– Reporting by SHANI and FADI SHANA in Gaza; HENRIETTE CHACAR, ARI RABINOVITCH and FRANK JACK DANIEL in Jerusalem; ANDREA SHALAL, JEFF MASON, ERIC BEECH and DAVID BRUNNSTROM in Washington.
