A Hamas official said today that the Gaza truce negotiation process with Israel "will not be open indefinitely" as mediators try to reach a compromise on a pause in fighting before the start of Ramadan.
"We will not allow the path of negotiations to be open indefinitely while organized aggression and hunger against our people continue," Osama Hamdan said at a press conference in Beirut.
Mediators Egypt, Qatar and the US have been trying for weeks to broker a truce in the war that began on October 7 after the Hamas attack on Israel.
The truce would allow the release of Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip in exchange for Palestinians jailed in Israel.
"The enemy will not get through the negotiating table what they failed to get on the battlefield," Hamdan said.
"The safety and security of our people will only be ensured by a permanent ceasefire, an end to aggression and a withdrawal from every square centimeter of the Gaza Strip... before that there can be no hostage exchange process," he said.
Washington today called on Palestinian Hamas to "immediately accept a truce" with Israel, as negotiations in Cairo to reach a truce continue for the third consecutive day.
US President Joseph Biden said today that the matter is in the hands of Hamas.
As part of the negotiations, Hamas is demanding the withdrawal of the Israeli army from the Gaza Strip, the return of displaced Gazans to the north of the territory, and the entry of humanitarian aid for the population threatened by hunger in the besieged Palestinian territory, said a source close to the Palestinian Islamist movement.
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In today's Israeli aerial attack, at least 17 people were killed in the city of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, Palestinian officials announced.
Ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas ended without progress. A nearby European hospital said it had received 17 bodies overnight.
The Israeli military said in a statement that it carried out targeted attacks on militant infrastructure in Khan Yunis while trying to evacuate civilians from the area.
The total number of Palestinians killed in the war has risen to 30.631, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. More than 72.000 people were wounded.
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The President of the United States of America (USA) Joseph Biden assessed today that it is necessary to establish a ceasefire in Gaza because the situation will become "very dangerous" in Israel if hostilities continue during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which will begin on March 10 or 11 .
"It's in the hands of Hamas," Biden said in a brief address to reporters, answering just a few questions before boarding the plane.
Biden added that the Israelis were cooperative and that a "reasonable" proposal was on the table to allow for the release of the hostages followed by a cessation of hostilities.
The talks held in Cairo on a cease-fire were interrupted without results, but the Hamas delegation announced that they would stay one more day at the request of the negotiators, in order to continue. There are only a few days left to end hostilities before the start of Ramadan.
The US president also reiterated that more aid needs to reach Gaza, which is affected by a serious humanitarian crisis, and added that there is "no excuse" why aid cannot arrive, in remarks aimed at Israel.
He added that he is working very hard on this with the Israeli authorities.
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The exchange of prisoners can only take place after a ceasefire, senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan said today, Reuters reports.
"We say to Washington, what is more important than sending aid (to Gaza) is stopping the delivery of weapons to Israel," he said at a press conference in Beirut.
US President Joseph Biden said today that the ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip is in exchange for the release of Israeli hostages in the hands of Hamas and that the ceasefire is necessary to get more aid to Gaza, reports Reuters.
"We need to get more aid to Gaza," Biden told reporters.
The United Nations (UN) called today for humanitarian aid to "flood" the Gaza Strip in order to save the children there who are on the brink of starvation.
The appeal came after representatives of the UN recently visited the two hospitals there, for the first time since the beginning of the war in the Middle East.
"Children are dying of hunger... This should be an alarm like no other," Jens Lerke, spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said today.
"If not now, when is the time ... to flood Gaza with the aid it needs? That's what needs to happen," Lerke said.
The World Health Organization said it had seen "horrific scenes" of starving children after delivering aid to two hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip last weekend, for the first time since the war broke out in October 2023.
Doctors at Kamal Advan Hospital, the only pediatric hospital in northern Gaza, said so far "at least 10 children have died of starvation," said Ahmed Dahir, who led the mission.
US cargo planes dropped more than 36.000 meals today in northern Gaza, as part of a joint operation with Jordan, the US military announced.
US cargo planes today dropped more than 36.000 meals to the Gaza area, during a joint operation with Jordan, the US military announced at a time when the international community is trying to ease the humanitarian crisis.
"US Central Command and the Jordanian Air Force conducted a combined humanitarian aid drop into northern Gaza on March 5, 2024 at 14.30:XNUMX p.m. local time to provide relief to civilians affected by the ongoing conflict," the US military's Middle East Command said ( Centcom).
The UN has said famine is "almost inevitable" in the Gaza Strip, while the World Health Organization said it saw horrific scenes of starving children in the north of the territory during a recent aid mission to two hospitals.
"We continue to plan aid delivery missions," the US command said, as Gazans face severe shortages of food, water and medicine.
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The delegation of Hamas will stay in Cairo for one more day at the request of the negotiators, and the talks on the cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, in which there have been no results so far, will be continued, said an official of the Palestinian extremist organization.
Meanwhile, Israel has denied that it has received a counteroffer from Hamas and that it is trying to "mine" those talks.
A Hamas official told Reuters that a Hamas delegation remains in Cairo for further talks and expects them to conclude later today, Israeli media reported.
The Egyptian television Cairo also reported that the talks are being extended, but that they are facing difficulties.
A little earlier, a senior official of Hamas, Bassem Naim, said that the organization presented its proposal for a ceasefire to negotiators from Egypt and Qatar and that it was waiting for a response from the Israelis, who did not come to Cairo.
Responding to Naim's claim that Israel is preventing an agreement from being reached, a senior Israeli official said that this is not true and that the country is making every possible effort to reach a truce, and that a response from Hamas is awaited.
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The Health Ministry of Hamas announced today a new balance of victims, that 30.631 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the beginning of the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist organization.
As reported in the past 24 hours, 97 people were killed and 123 wounded. Since October 7, when the war began, a total of 72.043 have been wounded.
Most of the victims are women and children, the Ministry said, and thousands of bodies are believed to be under the rubble across Gaza and are not counted among the victims.
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Gaza ceasefire talks between Palestinian Hamas and mediators in Cairo broke down today.
There are no results, although there are only a few days left to end the fight before the start of the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, the British newspaper Guardian reported.
Senior Hamas official Bassem Naim told Reuters that the extremist organization presented its proposal for a ceasefire agreement to mediators during two days of talks and was awaiting a response from the Israelis, who did not come to Cairo.
"(Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu does not want to reach an agreement and the ball is now in America's court to put pressure on him," Naim said.
Israel has refused to comment publicly on the Cairo talks.
Officials said, however, that Israel did not send the delegation because it is demanding that Hamas present a list of 40 elderly, sick and female hostages to be released first under the ceasefire, which would initially last for six weeks.
Hamas, meanwhile, is demanding that large-scale humanitarian aid be allowed to flow into Gaza and that Palestinians displaced from their homes in the south be allowed to return.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) warned today that malnutrition in northern Gaza is extreme.
Richard Piperkorn, the WHO representative for Gaza and the West Bank, said that one in six children under the age of two were acutely malnourished in January in that part of Gaza, the agencies reported.
He added that the situation is probably even worse now.
The war in Gaza displaced 85 percent of the population from their homes and civilians faced shortages of food, water and medicine in cold and wet conditions.
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US officials told NBC that US Vice President Kamala Harris's speech to the US National Security Council on Sunday was toned down when she called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and for Hamas to accept a deal to release hostages in exchange for a six-week cessation of hostilities.
Harris has openly criticized Israel for not doing enough to alleviate the humanitarian disaster in Gaza, in what was seen as the sharpest criticism by US officials of conditions in the tiny Palestinian enclave.
An initial draft of her speech, when it was sent to the US National Security Council for review, was harsher on Israel because of the dire humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip and the need for more aid, but her speech was later moderated, one current and one former official said. of that body.
One of them said that the draft contained a more direct call for Israel to immediately allow more aid trucks to enter Gaza.
That official described the original speech as strong but not controversial.
The softening of the speech shows that the White House is still reluctant to criticize Israel publicly as US President Joseph Biden tries to maintain influence over the Israeli government and secure a hostage deal.
The current official said that the changes were made more in the tone of the speech than in the political content and that Harris, speaking about the ceasefire, repeated Biden's statement about the position of the US administration in the war.
When asked by reporters if the speech was toned down and made less aggressive, Kirsten Allen, director of communications for Kamala Harris, replied that this was not true.
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Israeli War Cabinet member Benny Gantz told US officials that, despite the difficulties and pressures, ending the war in Gaza without a military operation in Rafah is not acceptable to Israel.
Gantz, former Minister of Defense and Chief of the General Staff, said last night in Washington that Israel will decimate the leadership of Hamas in Rafah, as part of the goals of the war, Israeli media reported today.
In a meeting with White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Gantz said that ending the war without an operation in Rafah is like sending a fireman to put out 80 percent of a fire, Israel Hayom reported.
Gantz also met with US Vice President Kamala Harris and White House Middle East and North Africa Coordinator Brett Megurk, senators and members of Congress.
According to Israeli media, some discussions on humanitarian issues were difficult and the administration of US President Joseph Biden expressed great doubts about Israel's ability to evacuate the 1,2 million residents of Gaza, who are currently in Rafah, before the start of the military operation.
Gantz rejected those assessments, stressing the importance of the operation in Rafah. Speaking about humanitarian aid, he said the difficulty is not getting aid to Gaza but distributing it to civilians, as Hamas is taking it over in an effort to maintain control over them.
He also reportedly said it was best for Gaza to go through occasional chaos to make it impossible for Hamas to rule.
Ganz rejected the idea of restoring the rule of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza, which now rules parts of another Palestinian territory, the West Bank, because, as he said, it has not been sufficiently reformed so far, and reforms were also sought by the US.
A political rival of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Gantz, leader of the centrist National Unity party, traveled to the US despite Netanyahu's opposition as the country ramps up efforts to deliver more humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Although Gantz shares many of Netanyahu's hardline views, he is seen as more open to compromise on critical issues, including increased delivery of humanitarian aid, the Associated Press reports.
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US Vice President Kamala Harris is putting pressure on US President Joseph Biden and other high-ranking officials of the administration to toughen the rhetoric on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, writes the New York Times today.
The report, which cited four people familiar with Kamala Harris' appeals, said she repeatedly told Biden and other White House officials "that the administration needs to show more empathy for Palestinian civilians by speaking publicly about the death toll in Gaza and the suffering survivors".
Biden supported her position, according to the US paper, but also said officials should continue to condemn the October 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel.
Harris accused Israel of not doing enough to ease the humanitarian disaster in Gaza in a speech on Sunday that marked a shift in rhetoric from the US administration.
She met with Israeli War Cabinet member Benny Gantz on Monday in Washington.
In a statement after the meeting, the White House said Harris and Gantz discussed the urgency of ending the hostage deal to free more than 100 people believed to be still being held in Gaza after Palestinian extremists attacked southern Israel on the first day of the war.
She also reiterated the administration's support for a temporary ceasefire that would allow for the release of hostages and an increase in humanitarian aid to Gaza, the Associated Press reported.
The New York Times states that Kamala Harris's statement on the escalation of rhetoric is intended to respond to complaints from members of the Democratic Party who oppose US support for Israel in the war against Hamas, and to demonstrate her foreign policy credibility and that she could be a replacement for the president if needed.
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International negotiators and a Hamas delegation are holding talks in Cairo today in an attempt to broker a pause in the war in Gaza ahead of the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Envoys of the Palestinian extremist organization and the US are expected to meet with Qatari and Egyptian mediators on the third day of negotiations on a six-week truce in exchange for the release of Hamas hostages and Palestinians from Israeli prisons, and the delivery of aid to Gaza.
Israeli envoys have so far not joined the talks, despite growing diplomatic pressure to declare a truce before Ramadan early next week.
Israeli media announced that mediators from that country were boycotting the talks, because Hamas did not show a list of live hostages.
One of the leaders of Hamas, Bassem Naim, told AFP that the details of the prisoners were not mentioned in any of the documents or proposals circulated during the negotiations.
As the situation in the besieged Palestinian territory worsens and famine threatens, Israel is facing sharp criticism from its main ally the US.
US Vice President Kamala Harris expressed her deep concern for the humanitarian conditions in Gaza during a meeting last night in Washington with a member of the Israeli war cabinet, Benny Gantz.
On the same day, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that an aid mission to two hospitals in northern Gaza had seen children starving to death due to shortages of food, fuel and medicine.
The head of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, later said that ten children had died of starvation.
In Khan Yunis in the south of Gaza, where fierce fighting took place, people said that the bodies of those killed lay in the streets, that homes and shops were destroyed.
About 7 people, most of them civilians, were killed in the attack by Hamas, the ruling party in Gaza, on the south of Israel on October 1.160, according to France Press.
In the Israeli revenge offensive, 30.534 people were killed, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.
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US Vice President Kamala Harris urged Israel to take additional measures to increase aid flows to Gaza and called for a "credible" humanitarian plan before any military operation in Rafah, during a meeting with Israeli War Cabinet member Benny Gantz on Monday, the White House said.
"Vice President and Secretary Gantz discussed the situation in Rafah and the need for a credible and feasible humanitarian plan before any major military operation is considered there given the risks to civilians," the White House said in a statement about the meeting.
"She called on Israel to take additional measures in cooperation with the United States and international partners to increase the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza and ensure its safe distribution to those in need," the statement said, as reported by Reuters.
Belgium has decided that due to the difficulties on the ground, it will deliver humanitarian aid to the population of Gaza by parachute from the plane - announced its Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Over the weekend, food aid was parachuted into Gaza by American military cargo planes.
Belgian Defense Minister Ludivine Dedonder said that 40 members of the Armed Forces will carry out several deliveries of humanitarian aid from the air in the coming days.
The Airbus A400M transport plane from the base in Jordan, which coordinates the delivery of humanitarian aid from the air, will transport food and hygiene goods to the population of Gaza.
United Nations data show that 2,3 million Gazans are starving.
Since the war began, Israel has banned the delivery of food, medicine and other essentials to the small, densely populated Palestinian enclave. The exception is the very small amount of aid that reaches Gaza from the south, from Egypt, via the Rafah crossing.
Humanitarian officials say that delivering aid by parachute is ineffective, making it the last option in such situations.
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The United Nations envoy for sexual violence in wartime conflicts, Pramila Patten, stated in a report yesterday that there are "reasonable grounds" to believe that the Palestinian militant movement Hamas resorted to rape, "sexualized torture" and other forms of cruel and inhumane treatment of women during attacks on southern Israel on October 7 last year which started the war in the Gaza Strip.
There is also "reasonable grounds to believe that this violence may still be ongoing," said Pramila Patten, who visited Israel and the West Bank from January 19 to February 14 with a nine-member team of experts.
She said in the report that the team "obtained clear and convincing information" that among the hostages there were some who had been subjected to the same forms of sexual violence usually associated with conflict, including rape and "sexualized torture".
According to the report, the visit, by its very nature, "had no mandate to engage in research."
Patten said her team had not been able to meet with any victims of sexual violence "despite organized efforts to encourage them to tell what happened to them".
However, the team held 33 meetings with Israeli authorities and spoke with 34 people, including survivors and witnesses of the October 7 attacks, freed hostages, health workers and others.
Based on the data gathered, Patten said, "there are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred during the October 7 attacks at multiple locations along the Gaza Strip, including rapes and gang-rapes at at least three locations."
At several locations, she added, "several naked or partially naked bodies from the waist down - mostly female bodies - with their hands tied and multiple gunshot wounds, mostly to the head" were found.
The applied pattern of stripping and tying up the victims "may be an indication that some form of sexual violence took place," Patten said.
It is suspected that there were "multiple incidents of sexual violence" at the attacked Nova music festival in the south of Israel and in its surroundings, and that the victims were subjected to "rape and/or gang rape" and then killed or "killed during rape".
According to the team's credible sources, there were victims killed there, mostly women who were naked from the waist down, many shot in the head.
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The war between Israel and Hamas - 151th day.
US Vice President Kamala Harris and other top Biden administration officials spoke Monday with a member of Israel's War Cabinet who came to Washington in defiance of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
White House officials said Benny Gantz, Netanyahu's political rival, had requested the meeting and that the US government felt it was important for them to meet despite Netanyahu's objections.
The meeting came at a time when President Joe Biden, Harris and other senior administration officials are increasingly openly displeased with the rising death toll in Gaza and the suffering of innocent Palestinians as Israel's war approaches its fifth month.
"We're going to talk about a number of things in terms of the priorities that we certainly have, which includes getting a deal on the hostages, providing assistance and then getting that six-week ceasefire," Harris told reporters before meeting with Gantz.
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The US carried out the first of what is expected to be a series of airdrops of humanitarian aid into Gaza on Saturday.
The White House agreed to the meeting with Gantz even as an official in Netanyahu's nationalist Likud party said Gantz did not have the prime minister's approval for his meetings in Washington, and Netanyahu sharply criticized Gantz for showing a growing rift within Israel's wartime leadership.
In addition to his talks with Harris, Gantz is meeting Monday with National Security Council Middle East Coordinator Brett McGurk and White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. Gantz is also scheduled to meet Monday with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. On Tuesday, he will meet with Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.
Over the weekend, Harris strongly called for an interim cease-fire agreement in Gaza, which administration officials say would halt the fighting for at least six weeks, and she also stepped up pressure on Israel not to block aid. The White House has been pushing for that framework agreement for weeks.
Israel essentially agreed to the cease-fire deal, and the White House emphasized that the onus was on Hamas to join.
President Joseph Biden is under increasing political pressure at home over his administration's handling of the Israel-Hamas war.
There is coordinated pressure from voters on the left of the ruling Democratic Party before the November presidential elections in the USA, who are dissatisfied with the president's unwavering support for Israel in the operations of whose army in Gaza killed more than 30.000 Palestinians.
Gantz, who polls show could make an excellent candidate for Israel's prime minister, is considered a political moderate. But it is unclear how he views the creation of a Palestinian state, which Biden sees as essential to establishing a lasting peace once the war in Gaza ends, but which Netanyahu strongly opposes.
It is also assumed that Gantz, when the heavy fighting calms down, will leave the government, which would increase the pressure for early elections in Israel.
Since Gantz joined Netanyahu's three-ministered war cabinet in October, US officials have found him easier to deal with than Netanyahu or Defense Minister Yoav Galant. While Gantz has many of the same hardline views as Netanyahu and Galant, he is more open to compromise on key issues, including the increased delivery of humanitarian aid that will be the main topic of discussion at meetings in Washington this week.
Gantz is scheduled to head to London after visiting the US.
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