Due to a drafting error, an earlier edition of this article made vague reference to South Africa’s allegations. South Africa said Israel’s anti-Palestinian moves in Gaza were “genocidal in nature,” its moves anti-Hamas.
How we handle corrections
— Roni Rabin
The United States and a handful of its allies carried out military moves Thursday against more than a dozen targets in Yemen controlled through the Iran-backed Houthi militia, U. S. officials said, amid an expansion of the Middle East war. that the Biden administration declared. . had been looking for him for 3 months.
The American-led air and naval strikes came in response to more than two dozen Houthi drone and missile attacks against commercial shipping in the Red Sea since November, and after warnings to the Houthis in the past week from the Biden administration and several international allies of serious “consequences” if the salvos did not stop.
But the Houthis have defied that ultimatum and vowed to continue their attacks in what they see as a protest against the Israeli army’s crusade in Gaza. On Tuesday, U. S. and British warships intercepted one of the largest Houthi drone and missile attacks to date. an attack that the U. S. and other Western military officials said was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Britain joined the United States in cracking down on Houthi targets, U. S. officials said, while attack aircraft from bases in the region and the aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower was bombing targets. A Navy submarine fired Tomahawk cruise missiles, officials said.
The Netherlands, Australia, Canada and Bahrain are also expected to participate, offering logistics, intelligence and other support, according to U. S. officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.
The American-led strikes on Thursday hit radars, missiles and drone launch sites, and weapons storage areas, according to a U.S. official, who said President Biden had approved the retaliatory assault.
It is unclear that the allied measures will deter the Houthis from continuing their attacks, which have forced some of the world’s largest shipping corporations to divert their ships from the Red Sea, creating delays and higher prices felt around the world due to emerging oil and oil prices. . other imported goods.
The Houthis — whose military capabilities were honed by more than eight years of fighting against a Saudi-led coalition — have greeted the prospect of war with the United States with open delight. On Wednesday, before the strike, Abdulmalik al-Houthi, the militia’s leader, threatened to meet an American attack with a fierce response.
“We, the Yemeni people, are not among those who fear the United States,” he said in a televised address. “We’re comfortable with a direct conversation with Americans. “
The strikes on Thursday night were the biggest U.S. attack against the Houthis in nearly a decade. In 2016, the United States struck three Houthi missile sites with Tomahawk cruise missiles after the Houthis fired on Navy and commercial vessels. The Houthis’ attacks stopped afterward.
Vivian Nereim contributed reporting from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
— Eric Schmitt and Helene Cooper reporting from Washington
The violence in the Middle East has morphed into a broader conflict. See the attacks that took place.
President Biden, who has sought for three months to avoid escalating the war in the Middle East, said on Thursday night that he ordered the strikes in Yemen only after being provoked by “reckless attacks” that have endangered American and other mariners and threatened freedom of navigation in an important part of the world.
In a letter issued after the attacks, Biden detailed the “unprecedented Houthi attacks” that have damaged the interests of 50 countries and endangered crews from more than 20 countries since the Hamas terror attack on Oct. 7, he said.
“These targeted measures send a clear message that the United States and our partners will not tolerate attacks on our workforce or allow hostile actors to jeopardize freedom of navigation on one of the world’s most critical industrial lanes,” the president said of the Allies. retaliation, which included Britain, the Netherlands, Australia, Canada, and Bahrain. “I will not hesitate to take additional measures to protect our other peoples and those dispersed from foreign industry if necessary. “
Biden expected any action that could widen the war and has tried to deter attacks through Iranian proxies by sending two aircraft carriers to the region. While U. S. forces have thwarted Houthi attacks and worked to build a foreign coalition to protect shipping in the Red Sea, the president had so far resisted measures contrary to the Houthis’ goals in Yemen, the scene of years of civil war on which Biden’s leadership had worked.
The Houthi attack on American ships on Tuesday proved to be the final provocation. “The response of the international community to these reckless attacks has been united and resolute,” Mr. Biden said.
— Peter Baker reporting from Washington
Since mid-November, the Houthis, a Yemeni rebel group backed by Iran, have launched dozens of attacks on ships sailing through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, a crucial shipping route through which 12 percent of world trade passes.
The United States and a handful of allies, including Britain, retaliated by launching missiles at Houthi targets in Yemen on Friday morning local time, with the rebels and their long-running armed struggle further in the spotlight.
The attack on Houthi bases came a day after the U. N. Security Council voted to condemn “in the strongest terms” at least two dozen Houthi attacks on merchant and advertising vessels, which it said hampered global industry and undermined freedom of navigation.
Here is a review of the Houthis, their meetings with Hamas and the attacks in the Red Sea.
The Houthis, led by Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, are an Iranian-backed Shiite rebel organization that has been fighting Yemen’s government for about two decades and now the country’s northwest and its capital, Sana’a.
They have built their ideology around opposition to Israel and the United States, seeing themselves as part of the Iranian-led “axis of resistance,” along with Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Its leaders draw parallels between the U. S. -made bombs used to attack its forces in Yemen and the weapons sent to Israel and used in Gaza.
In 2014, a Saudi-led military coalition intervened to try to repair the country’s original government after the Houthis took the capital, sparking a civil war that left hundreds of thousands dead.
Last April, talks between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia raised hopes of a peace deal that would potentially guarantee the Houthis’ right to govern northern Yemen.
The Houthis, once a poorly organized insurgent group, have beefed up their arsenal in recent years, now including ballistic and cruise missiles and long-range drones. Analysts highlight the expansion of Iran, which has provided militias across the Middle East to expand. their own influence.
When the war between Israel and Hamas began on Oct. 7, the Houthis declared their support for Hamas and said they would attack any shipment entering or leaving Israel.
Yahya Sarea, a spokesman for the Houthis, has said that the organization is attacking ships to protest the “killings, destruction and siege” in Gaza and to express explicit solidarity with the Palestinian people.
Gaza’s government says more than 23,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the Israeli bombing campaign and ground offensive that began after Hamas carried out cross-border raids and massacres; According to the Israeli government, around 1,200 people.
Since November, the Houthis have launched 27 drone and missile strikes on ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden that they say were headed for or departing from Israeli ports. The most recent occurred at 2 a. m. on Thursday, when a missile landed near an advertising ship, the U. S. military said.
Perhaps the Houthis’ most audacious operation took place on Nov. 19, when gunmen hijacked a ship called the Galaxy Leader and took it to a Yemeni port, holding the 25 members of its mostly Filipino team captive.
Speaking to reporters in Bahrain on Wednesday, U. S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken warned that continued Houthi attacks in the Red Sea could disrupt supply chains and, as a result, increase the prices of customer goods. The Houthi attacks hit ships connected to more than 40 countries, he said.
The world’s largest container companies, MSC and Maersk, have said they are avoiding the region and shipping lines face difficult choices.
Redirecting ships around Africa adds an additional 4,000 miles and 10 days to sea routes, and requires more fuel. But proceeding to use the Red Sea would increase insurance premiums. Either option would damage an already fragile global economy.
Biden’s leadership has condemned the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and created a naval task force to try to curb them.
The task force, called Operation Prosperity Guardian, brought together the United States, Britain and other allies and has been patrolling the Red Sea to, in Mr. Blinken’s words, “preserve freedom of navigation” and “freedom of shipping.”
Bahrain is the only country in the Middle East that has agreed to participate. Although many countries in the region rely on industry through the Red Sea, many do not need to be related to the United States, Israel’s closest ally, analysts say.
U. S. and British warships intercepted some Houthi missiles and drones before they reached their targets. On Wednesday, U. S. fighter jets from U. S. Army Dwight D. Eisenhower, along with 4 warships, intercepted 18 drones, two anti-ship cruise missiles, and one anti-ship missile. ship ballistic missile, Central Command said in a statement.
On Dec. 31, U.S. Navy helicopters sank three Houthi boats that were attacking a commercial freighter.
Ben Hubbard, Peter Eavis, Helene Cooper, Eric Schmitt and Keith Bradsher contributed reporting.
-Gaya Gupta
South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague accuses Israel of movements in Gaza that are “genocidal in nature. “More than 23,000 people have been killed, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, since Israel announced airstrikes and a ground invasion in reaction to Hamas terror attacks on Oct. 7, which Israel said killed an estimated 1,200 more people.
The IDF insists that it is waging a war against Hamas in Gaza in accordance with foreign law. The death toll in Gaza, according to Israeli officials, is partly attributable to Hamas’ use of residential spaces and civilian structures, adding schools and hospitals. to unleash attacks, buy weapons, and hide fighters.
To hear the Gaza case, the normal 15-member panel of the International Court was increased to 17, with an additional panel appointed by each side. To fill those seats, Israel has appointed Aharon Barak, a former chief justice of its Supreme Court, who fled Nazi-occupied Lithuania as a child, and South Africa has appointed Dikgang Moseneke, a former deputy chairman of its Constitutional Court.
Israel’s legal team at The Hague is led by Malcolm Shaw, a British expert chosen for his experience in litigation at the World Court. The South African team is led by John Dugard, a highly regarded scholar of international law and a former United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories.
In a statement on Thursday, Hamas welcomed South Africa’s decision to file a complaint and said it hoped for “a resolution that brings justice to the victims” and called on Israel to “put an end to the aggression. “
The United States, Israel’s top ally, denounced South Africa’s request. National Security Council spokesman John F. Kirby called it “baseless, counterproductive, utterly devoid of any factual basis. “
The court’s decisions are sometimes binding, even if it has little means of enforcing them. In 2004, the court issued a non-binding opinion that Israel’s security fence structure inside the occupied West Bank was illegal and should be dismantled. Twenty years later, the formula of walls and fences still stands.
Due to an editorial error, an earlier edition of this article incorrectly referred to South Africa’s allegations. South Africa said Israel’s anti-Palestinian moves in Gaza were “genocidal in character,” its moves anti-Hamas.
How We Deal with Corrections
—Isabel Kershner and John Eligon
transcription
“Netanyahu, look, Palestine will be free. ” No more occupation. “”I’m here today to help Palestina. Se genocide is taking place, and the U. N. deserves to act on it and the world deserves to act on it. “Take them home, take them home. Bring them home, bring them home, bring them home, bring them home, bring them home, bring them home, bring them home, bring them home, bring them home, bring them home, bring them home,
Rival protesters carried their messages through the frigid streets in front of the International Court of Justice in The Hague on Thursday, some speaking on behalf of Israel and others supporting the Palestinian cause.
The demonstrations, which took place as the United Nations’ highest court held hearings in a case brought in South Africa accusing Israel of genocide, echoed protests around the world since Israel announced its attack on Hamas in Gaza. On both sides of the conflict, supporters of Palestine have tended to draw giant crowds in Europe, among other regions.
On Thursday, protesters piled up at other locations near the courthouse for several hours, making it difficult to estimate the full length of the crowd. It appeared that a few thousand more people had turned to the Palestinians, slightly more than those who had fled Israel.
“Ceasefire now and ‘Liberation of Palestine,'” some protesters chanted, waving Palestinian flags.
Leila Aridi, 20, said she had come all the way from Prague to take part in the protest and argued that even if the court does not convict Israel of genocide, it at least punishes it for war crimes. “Genocide is taking place in Gaza and Palestine,” she said.
Ms. Aridi was one of many protesters who said they were there for the sake of humanity, rather than out of express sympathy for the rest of the people of Gaza.
The war began on October 7, when Hamas carried out an attack on Israel in which, according to Israeli authorities, around 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 were taken hostage.
Health officials in Gaza say Israel has killed more than 23,000 Palestinians since the attack began. The United Nations says tens of thousands more people have been injured and the vast majority of the territory’s population has been forced to flee their homes.
Israeli officials, adding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have continually said that the military has tried to mitigate the harm to civilians. They argue that Hamas is ultimately to blame for the dead, wounded or displaced, because it hides its forces among the civilian population.
At a protest near The Hague, others waved Israeli flags and held up photographs of hostages held captive in Gaza.
“I am here to support Israel,” said Judith de Jonge 58, who is from The Hague. “They are not doing a genocide. They are not against all the Arabs. They are against Hamas.”
She said that she mourned for innocent victims on both sides, but that Israel needed to defend itself.
— Abu Bakr Bashir and Matthew Mpoke Bigg
Antony J. Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, met on Thursday with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt in Cairo to discuss the dire situation of Palestinian civilians in the Israel-Hamas war and what will happen in Gaza when the conflict ends.
Mr. Blinken also planned to speak with Mr. Blinken. El-Sisi is discussing how to avoid further escalation of the conflict in the region, U. S. officials said. Iranian-backed militias are attacking U. S. and Israeli forces, and the most urgent challenge for the U. S. is Yemen’s Houthis.
The U. S. says the Houthis have used Iranian-supplied drones, rockets and missiles to fire on U. S. advertising ships and warships in the Red Sea, prompting Blinken to say Wednesday there would be “consequences. “
On Thursday, U. S. -led efforts hit several targets in Yemen linked to the Houthis, an Iranian-backed militant group.
Blinken met with El-Sisi at the presidential palace after landing aboard a U. S. C-17 army from Tel Aviv.
El-Sisi has insisted since the start of the war that Israel not permanently displace the Palestinians. On Wednesday he traveled to Aqaba, Jordan, to participate in a war summit convened by King Abdullah II. Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority, which administers the Israeli-occupied West Bank, also attended the summit, just hours after meeting Abbas. Blinken in Ramallah.
Arab leaders issued a message rejecting “any attempt to reoccupy parts of Gaza” through Israel, and under pressure that displaced Palestinians should be allowed to return to their homes.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel tried last October to get Mr. Blinken to ask Mr. el-Sisi to take Palestinian refugees, since Egypt shares a border with Gaza. Since then, the Israeli military has killed more than 23,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to the Gazan health ministry. And it has destroyed many of the buildings in the tiny coastal strip and issued evacuation orders, forcing most of the two million people there to seek temporary shelter within Gaza.
Some Israeli officials have suggested that Palestinians should not be allowed to live near Gaza’s border with Israel, in order to create a security buffer zone that could help prevent another attack like the one on Oct. 7, when Israeli authorities say Hamas killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel.
Last week, two far-right ministerial officials proposed a mass resettlement of Palestinians out of Gaza. All neighboring countries have refused to allow Israel to push refugees into its territory.
After a full day of meetings with Israeli officials in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, Blinken said at a news conference that he had pressed Netanyahu to allow Palestinian civilians to return to their homes as soon as the situation permitted. He added that U. S. policy is to ensure that Palestinians are not resettled outside Gaza.
He told reporters that Netanyahu had assured him that the Israeli government did not have a policy toward the Palestinians.
— Cairo Report by Edward Wong
Qatar is engaged in high-level talks with Hamas to supply prescription medicine to Israeli hostages in the Gaza Strip, while moving forward with Israel to allow more medicine in the enclave for Gaza civilians, officials said.
More than 120 hostages have been held in Gaza for just 100 days, and many are suffering from health conditions that require normal medical care, as well as cancer and diabetes. Their families are worried as the war enters its fourth month and hostages are released at the last minute. In November, harrowing accounts of their captivity are presented.
Family members of the hostages raised the need for medicines during a meeting in Doha with the prime minister of Qatar, Mohammed bin Adbdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, according to Daniel Lifshitz, the grandson of one of the hostages.
An official familiar with the talks, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of his sensitivity, showed the meeting. He said negotiators were discussing the types of drugs needed, in what quantity and how to deliver them. Discussions are underway with foreign organizations that may simply contribute to its implementation, he added.
Qatar has a key mediator between Hamas and Israel (who do not speak directly) in the hostage negotiations. The negotiations on medical aid are separate from the broader negotiations on a new release of hostages, which have not resulted in an agreement.
A senior Israeli official, who was not authorized to speak to the media and spoke on condition of anonymity, demonstrated that negotiations on medicines for hostages and civilians in Gaza had progressed. Husam Badran, a senior Hamas figure, said in a text message that the organization was actively discussing efforts similar to the delivery of medicines “with wonderful positivity. “
The official briefed on the discussions said Israel is willing to allow the delivery of medicine to Palestinian civilians in Gaza. According to the United Nations, only 15 hospitals in Gaza are still at least partially functioning despite the Israeli army’s attacks on the enclave, and shortages of medical supplies are severe.
Israel has allowed trucks carrying medicine into Gaza, but U. N. officials say the materials have not met residents’ wishes.
Waleed Abu Hatab, director of maternal medicine at the Nasser Medical Center in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, said he is facing severe shortages of formula, anesthetics and vaccines, making it difficult to provide good enough care for newborns.
“If this scenario persists, I’m worried that many won’t survive,” he said in a telephone interview. “We’re looking at a scenario. “
Since the start of the conflict, the Red Cross has not been able to stop at the hostages. The organization said it did not know where the hostages were being held and might not stop without guarantees of passage for Hamas and the Israeli military. due to active fighting.
“As part of a humanitarian initiative, ICRC groups have suggested to constituents and those with influence that they send medicine to the hostages,” said Jason Straziuso, spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross. “The ultimate step is to get medicines to those who need them. We probably won’t rejoice until they do.
Israelis advocating for the return of the hostages have said they would be incredibly relieved if Hamas allowed the delivery of medicines. The lives of all hostages are in danger, especially those in need of medical treatment,” said Dr. Hagai Levine. Chairman of the medical team of the Forum of Hostages and Missing Families, an Israeli group. ” I hope that, in spite of everything, they will receive the cure they deserve. “
Lifshitz, the grandson of Oded Lifshitz, an 83-year-old Israeli journalist and peace activist detained in Gaza, said he had participated in recent conversations in Qatar where families raised the issues. He said that he had been involved in his grandfather’s health since he was taken hostage.
“The fact that so many hostages are being denied the medicine they want is a death sentence,” he said. “They’ve won what they wanted from day one. “
— Adam Rasgon, reporting from Jerusalem
As South Africa opened its case before the International Court of Justice on Thursday, accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, Palestinians in the West Bank welcomed the decision, which many saw as an extension of South Africa’s long struggle. But some in Gaza doubted the procedure would end their suffering.
Hundreds of Palestinians gathered Thursday to mark the occasion in some Israeli-occupied West Bank towns, the Palestinian Authority’s Wafa news agency reported. Some carried signs that read “Thank you, South Africa. “
In Ramallah, the authority’s administrative capital, dozens of people gathered in Mandela Square on Wednesday night. Footage released by Palestinian media showed a crowd singing the South African national anthem while waving Palestinian and South African flags in front of a 20-foot statue of Nelson Mandela: a gift from Johannesburg and a symbol of the South African people’s solidarity with the Palestinian cause.
“It is very harsh that it comes from South Africans opposed to the State of Israel, from a country that in the past had an apartheid regime opposed to a country that lately practices apartheid,” said Diana Buttu, a Palestinian lawyer who was previously legal adviser to the organization. Palestine Liberation Organization.
Palestinians have long believed what some foreign human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have said in recent years: that Israel is perpetuating a form of apartheid, the racist legal formula that prevailed in South Africa until the early 1990s, an assessment that the Israeli government has condemned as a baseless attack.
Buttu said he wanted the case to have been heard faster “just because it could have stopped Israel from killing so many more people. “But he added that “it’s not coming too late, because to me it’s transparent that Israel intends to continue this for as long as possible. “
The Palestinian Authority’s Foreign Ministry thanked South Africa in a statement on Thursday, calling the process “a historic occasion in the development of the joint Palestinian and South African struggle against injustice and genocide. “
Nour Odeh, a Palestinian political analyst and former PA spokesman, said listening to Thursday’s hearing “made me cry repeatedly,” adding in a message on X that she was “eternally grateful” to South Africa for “standing up for our humanity.
But in Gaza, where Israeli bombardments have killed more than 23,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, and displaced 1. 9 million more, according to the United Nations, some fear the procedures won’t stop the rising death toll and dire humanitarian crisis.
“I hope this case will put an end to this war,” said Alaa Essam, a 36-year-old man from central Gaza. “But I’m afraid Israel may not listen. “
Abdul Qader Al-Atrash, a 32-year-old Gaza resident, said that while most Gazans were aware of the process, many did not follow the case with much hope that it would improve their situation. “It’s been more than 90 days and we’re just hearing words,” he said in a phone interview Thursday.
“Nothing will change,” Al-Atrash said. The only thing we are worried about now is how we are going to get water for our family, where we are going to rate our phones and whether we are going to have something to eat tomorrow. “
Ameera Harouda contributed reporting from Doha, Qatar, Abu Bakr Bashir and Anushka Patil from London and Rawan Sheikh Ahmad from Haifa, Israel.
— Hiba Yazbek reporting from Jerusalem
As part of the International Criminal Court’s investigation into allegations of crimes in the Gaza Strip, its chief prosecutor will review attacks that killed journalists in the Israel-Hamas war, his office said in a statement on Wednesday.
The tribunal, which was established by the Rome Statute two decades ago to investigate, prosecute and examine those accused of war crimes, genocide and other atrocities, is more broadly investigating allegations of war crimes committed through Israel and Palestinian militant teams in Gaza. and the United States. Bank of the West.
Under foreign humanitarian law and the Rome Statute, bloodhounds are protected as civilians. Israel is not a member of the Court and does not recognize its jurisdiction; Therefore, the effect of the ICC investigation is unclear.
“In the past, the prosecutor has expressed fear about the increasing number of attacks on journalists around the world and under pressure that such attacks could constitute crimes under the Rome Statute,” said the representative of the Prosecutor’s Office, Karim Khan.
Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders has filed two court cases in court in the past 10 weeks, asking the court to investigate and prosecute cases of bloodhounds who killed the war.
In the group’s first complaint, filed last October, it claimed that eight Palestinian journalists had been killed in attacks that caused “disproportionate harm” to civilians. He also called the death of an Israeli journalist covering the October 7 attacks “a deliberate killing of a user. ” through the Geneva Conventions”, which would amount to a war crime.
The group’s second complaint, filed late last month, said seven Palestinian journalists who were killed may have been targeted.
The Israeli army insisted that it act in accordance with foreign humanitarian law. The Israeli military also said it had never attacked the hounds and that operating in war zones carried risks.
“Israel is fighting Hamas terrorists, not the Palestinian population. And we are doing so in full compliance with international law,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday in a video posted on social media.
Speaking from Ramallah in the West Bank in early December, Khan said the court’s investigation was moving forward.
Since the start of the war, which began after Hamas invaded southern Israel on Oct. 7 and Israel invaded Gaza in retaliation, 79 journalists and media employees have been killed, according to data from the Committee to Protect Journalists and another media watchdog. group. Of those, 72 were known to be Palestinians.
Traci Carl contributed reporting.
— Gaya Gupta
Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip “will be returned alive” unless Israeli forces leave, a Hamas spokesman said on Wednesday, underscoring the complicated scenario in which the Israeli government finds itself: it is committed to freeing the hostages, continuing the war and defeating Hamas. . Formation
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under significant pressure to do whatever it takes to safely bring home the remaining hostages who are still alive (more than a hundred of them, according to the government). However, public opinion polls show that the top of Israelis also fulfills their stated purpose of getting rid of Hamas, which carried out the deadly October 7 attack on Israel, as a military force.
“We affirm that enemy prisoners will be returned alive to their families,” Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan told a news conference in Beirut, Lebanon, unless Israel complies with the situations established through Hamas, “the first of which is a total cessation of aggression against Gaza.
Parsing the meaning of such statements is a challenge, in part because Hamas has not always followed through on previous threats. Shortly after its incursion into Israel, Hamas said it would kill its captives taken to Gaza unless Israel halted its retaliatory bombing campaign; it did not carry out that threat, though the bombing continued, and later set free more than 100 hostages, mostly in return for the release of Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
It was also unclear whether Mr. Hamdan was saying the hostages, who have been in captivity more than three months, would be killed, or that they would be held indefinitely. It has kept some of its kidnap victims for years.
Hamdan rejected any communication about a deal that would safely exile Hamas leaders in Gaza, release hostages and withdraw Israeli forces from the territory. Israeli media reported that discussions were underway between the governments of Qatar and Egypt.
“There is no initiative, like Qatar’s, of an Israeli withdrawal and of the Hamas leadership,” Hamdan said, calling it Israeli to deceive the people.
He also snubbed Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, who met with Middle Eastern leaders to draw up a plan to govern and rebuild Gaza after the war. The plan calls for the Palestinian Authority, which wields limited force in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, to rule Gaza as well, toppling Hamas, which took control of Gaza in 2007.
“After Blinken said that many countries in the region have shown a willingness to invest in the long-term Gaza, we affirm that the other Palestinians are the only ones who can make a long-term decision without interference from anyone,” Array said Mr. Hamdan. .
— Hwaida Saad Reporting from Beirut, Lebanon
The Palestinian Red Crescent said a missile introduced through an Israeli drone destroyed one of its ambulances in central Gaza on Wednesday, killing four team members and the two patients it was carrying.
The ambulance arrived at 3:35 p. m. local time as it approached the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah, the Red Crescent said.
“Our colleagues were deliberately targeted while on board an ambulance clearly marked with the Red Crescent emblem,” the humanitarian organization said.
The Israeli military denied carrying out an attack in the area on Thursday and declined to answer further questions.
Another Israeli airstrike landed in the vicinity of Al-Aqsa Hospital on Wednesday, killing several people, Al Jazeera reported. The measures have deepened the crisis in what the United Nations has called the remaining functioning hospital in central Gaza.
The Red Crescent said the team members killed Wednesday were Yusuf Abu Ma’mar, the ambulance driver; Fadi Al-Maani, physician; Islam Abu Riyala, medical paramedic; and Fuad Abu Khamash, volunteer photographer. The two wounded men were also killed, the aid company said.
Footage captured by Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza shows the harrowing aftermath of the attack on the ambulance, as friends and colleagues of those affected cried out in pain. On top of his mutilated remains were placed tattered remains of the Red Crescent trademarks worn by the paramedics.
The ambulance crew had responded to a call to help two people who had gunshot wounds, said Nebal Farsakh, a spokeswoman for the Red Crescent. The crew had treated their injuries and were moving to transfer them to the hospital. The ambulance had just turned off a main thoroughfare, Salah al-Din Street, and onto a back road toward the hospital when it was hit, she said.
Ms. Farsakh said the slain photographer, Mr. Abu Khamash, had volunteered to document the humanitarian group’s efforts to provide medical care to Gazans during the Israeli bombardments.
Farsakh said Abu Khamash was the first user she tried to touch on Wednesday when she heard that one of the group’s ambulances had been hit, hoping he could help her discover the news.
“Then I understood that he was among those who had been killed,” she said. “It’s just heartbreaking. “
The U. N. human rights office said on Wednesday it was “deeply concerned” that the Israeli military had “gravely endangered the lives of civilians” by striking targets in Deir al-Balah, after advising thousands of displaced Gazans to resettle in the area. for your safety.
-Anushka Patil
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