GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Wednesday urged Hamas to free all hostages, saying their captivity provided Israel with “excuses” to attack Gaza, as rescuers recovered charred bodies from an Israeli strike.
Israeli strikes killed at least 25 people across the besieged territory, while Germany, France and Britain urged Israel to end its blockade on aid entering.
Israel resumed its military campaign in Gaza on March 18, ending the ceasefire that had largely paused hostilities and resulted in the release of 33 hostages from Gaza and approximately 1,800 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.
Talks on a new ceasefire have so far failed to produce any breakthroughs, and a Hamas delegation is currently in Cairo for renewed negotiations with Egyptian and Qatari mediators.
“Hamas has given the criminal occupation excuses to commit its crimes in the Gaza Strip, the most prominent being the holding of hostages,” Abbas said in Ramallah, seat of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
“I’m the one paying the price, our people are paying the price, not Israel. My brother, just hand them over.”
“Every day there are deaths. Why? Because they (Hamas) refuse to hand over the American hostage,” Abbas said of Edan Alexander, who was reportedly on a list of hostages Israel had asked to be freed in a proposal that was recently rejected by Hamas.
“You sons of dogs, hand over what you have and get us out of this” ordeal, he added, levelling a harsh Arabic epithet at Hamas.
Senior Hamas official Bassem Naim called Abbas’s remarks “insulting.”
“Abbas repeatedly and suspiciously lays the blame for the crimes of the occupation and its ongoing aggression on our people,” he said.
Hamas’s armed wing the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades later issued footage it said was of an Israeli hostage alive in a Gaza tunnel. He identified himself as 48-year-old Omri Miran.
Ties between Abbas’ Fatah party and Hamas have been tense, with deep political and ideological divisions for nearly two decades.
Abbas and the PA have often accused Hamas of undermining Palestinian unity, while Hamas has criticized the former for collaborating with Israel and cracking down on dissent in the West Bank.
Israel continued to pound Gaza on Wednesday, with rescuers saying at least 25 people had been killed since dawn, including 11 in a strike on a school-turned-shelter.
“The school was housing displaced people. The bombing sparked a massive blaze, and several charred bodies have since been recovered,” civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said, describing the attack on Yaffa school in Gaza City’s Al-Tuffa neighborhood.
An AFP journalist reported seeing several bodies in white shrouds at Al-Shifa hospital’s morgue, where women wept over the body of a child.
“We want nothing more than for the war to end, so we can live like people in the rest of the world,” said Khan Yunis resident Walid Al-Najjar.
“We are a people who are poor, devastated — our lives are lost.”
Since the war began following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, tens of thousands of displaced Gazans have sought refuge in schools.
Aid agencies estimate that the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.4 million residents have been displaced at least once.
“We lack the necessary tools and equipment to carry out effective rescue operations or recover the bodies of martyrs,” Bassal said.
On Tuesday, Israel’s military said it had targeted approximately 40 “engineering vehicles,” alleging they were used for “terror purposes.”
Elsewhere in Gaza, further fatalities were reported Wednesday, including four killed in Israeli shelling of homes in eastern Gaza City, Bassal said.
The military did not immediately comment on the latest strikes.
Since Israel’s campaign resumed, at least 1,928 people have been killed in Gaza, bringing the total death toll since the war erupted to at least 51,305, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
Hamas’s attack on Israel that ignited the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Germany, France, and Britain on Wednesday called on Israel to stop blocking humanitarian aid into Gaza, warning of “an acute risk of starvation, epidemic disease and death.”
“We urge Israel to immediately restart a rapid and unimpeded flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza in order to meet the needs of all civilians,” their foreign ministers said in a joint statement.
Abbas urges Hamas to free Gaza hostages as Israeli strikes kill 25
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Abbas urges Hamas to free Gaza hostages as Israeli strikes kill 25
- “Hamas has given the criminal occupation excuses to commit its crimes in the Gaza Strip, the most prominent being the holding of hostages,” Abbas said
- “Every day there are deaths. Why? Because they (Hamas) refuse to hand over the American hostage,” Abbas said of Edan Alexander
Abbas tells Macron supports demilitarization of Hamas
PARIS: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has said that Hamas “must hand over its weapons” and called for the deployment of international forces to protect “the Palestinian people,” France announced on Tuesday.
In a letter addressed on Monday to French President Emmanuel Macron and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who this month will co-chair a conference on a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians, Abbas outlined the main steps that he thinks must be taken to end the war in Gaza and achieve peace in the Middle East.
“Hamas will no longer rule Gaza and must hand over its weapons and military capabilities to the Palestinian Security Forces,” wrote Abbas.
He said he was “ready to invite Arab and international forces to be deployed as part of a stabilization/protection mission with a (UN) Security Council mandate.”
The conference at UN headquarters later this month will aim to resurrect the idea of a two-state solution — Israel currently controls large parts of the Palestinian territories.
“We are ready to conclude within a clear and binding timeline, and with international support, supervision and guarantees, a peace agreement that ends the Israeli occupation and resolves all outstanding and final status issues,” Abbas wrote.
“Hamas has to immediately release all hostages and captives,” Abbas added.
In a statement, the Elysee Palace welcomed “concrete and unprecedented commitments, demonstrating a real willingness to move toward the implementation of the two-state solution.”
Macron has said he is “determined” to recognize a Palestinian state, but also set out several conditions, including the “demilitarization” of Hamas.
In his letter, Abbas reaffirmed his commitment to reform the Palestinian Authority and confirmed his intention to hold presidential and general elections “within a year” under international auspices.
“The Palestinian State should be the sole provider of security on its territory, but has no intention to be a militarised State.”
France has long championed a two-state solution, including after the October 7, 2023 attack by Palestinian militants Hamas on Israel.
But formal recognition by Paris of a Palestinian state would mark a major policy shift and risk antagonizing Israel, which insists that such moves by foreign states are premature.
Lebanon says two dead in Israel strike
BEIRUT: An Israeli strike killed a Lebanese father and son Tuesday in a southern village, the Lebanese health ministry and state media said, the latest deaths despite a November ceasefire.
A second son was also wounded in the strike in Shebaa, the state-run National News Agency reported. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
“An Israeli enemy drone carried out a strike in the village of Shebaa, killing two people and wounding one,” a health ministry statement said.
Israel had warned on Friday that it would keep up its strikes on Hezbollah targets across Lebanon despite the condemnation expressed by the Lebanese government after a massive strike on south Beirut the previous night on the eve of the Eid Al-Adha holiday.
Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah said the strikes levelled nine residential blocks. The Israeli military said they targeted underground drone factories.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned the strikes as a “a flagrant violation” of the November 27 ceasefire agreement, which was supposed to end more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah that culminated in two months of full-blown war.
Israel commits ‘extermination’ in Gaza by killing in schools, UN experts say
- In its latest report, the commission said Israel had destroyed more than 90 percent of the school and university buildings and more than half of all religious and cultural sites in Gaza
VIENNA: UN experts said in a report on Tuesday that Israel committed the crime against humanity of “extermination” by killing civilians sheltering in schools and religious sites in Gaza, part of a “concerted campaign to obliterate Palestinian life.”
The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel was due to present the report to Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council on June 17.
“We are seeing more and more indications that Israel is carrying out a concerted campaign to obliterate Palestinian life in Gaza,” former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, who chairs the commission, said in a statement.
“Israel’s targeting of the educational, cultural and religious life of the Palestinian people will harm the present generations and generations to come, hindering their right to self-determination,” she added.
The commission examined attacks on educational facilities and religious and cultural sites to assess if international law was breached.
Israel disengaged from the Human Rights Council in February, alleging it was biased.
When the commission’s last report in March found Israel carried out “genocidal acts” against Palestinians by systematically destroying women’s health care facilities during the conflict in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the findings were biased and antisemitic.
In its latest report, the commission said Israel had destroyed more than 90 percent of the school and university buildings and more than half of all religious and cultural sites in Gaza.
“Israeli forces committed war crimes, including directing attacks against civilians and wilful killing, in their attacks on educational facilities ... In killing civilians sheltering in schools and religious sites, Israeli security forces committed the crime against humanity of extermination,” it said.
The war was triggered when Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people in Israel in a surprise attack in October 2023, and took 251 hostages back to the enclave, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel responded with a military campaign that has killed over 54,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.
Harm done to the Palestinian education system was not confined to Gaza, the report found, citing increased Israeli military operations in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as well as harassment of students and settler attacks there.
“Israeli authorities have also targeted Israeli and Palestinian educational personnel and students inside Israel who expressed concern or solidarity with the civilian population in Gaza, resulting in their harassment, dismissal or suspension and in some cases humiliating arrests and detention,” it said.
“Israeli authorities have particularly targeted female educators and students, intending to deter women and girls from activism in public places,” the commission added.
Israel says activist Greta Thunberg leaving on flight to France
- Israel says Greta Thunberg is being deported after Gaza-bound ship she was on was seized
PARIS: Israel on Tuesday said Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was leaving the country on a flight to France, after she was detained along with other activists aboard a Gaza-bound aid boat and taken to a Tel Aviv airport for deportation.
“Greta Thunberg is departing Israel on a flight to France,” Israel’s foreign ministry said on its official X account, along with two photos of the activist on board a plane.
Five French activists aboard the boat for Gaza were set to face an Israeli judge, the French foreign minister said on Tuesday.
“Our consul was able to see the six French nationals arrested by the Israeli authorities last night,” Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on X. “One of them has agreed to leave voluntarily and should return today. The other five will be subject to forced deportation proceedings.”
Israel strikes Hodeidah port, threatens naval, air blockade
DUBAI: Israel’s navy said it struck Houthi targets in the Yemen Red Sea port of Hodeidah on Tuesday and Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz threatened the Iran-aligned Houthis with a naval and air blockade if attacks on Israel continue.
Houthi-run Al Masirah TV said Israel targeted the docks of Al Hodeidah port with two strikes. The Israeli army said in a statement that Israel’s navy struck Houthi targets, adding the port is used by the Houthis to transfer weapons.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
The strikes come after the Israeli military on Monday urged the evacuation of the Houthi-controlled ports of Ras Isa, Hodeidah and Salif.
“We warned the Houthi terror organization that if they continue to fire toward Israel, they will face a powerful response and will be subjected to a naval and aerial blockade,” Katz said in a statement on X.
Since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023, the Iran-aligned Houthis have fired at Israel and at shipping in the Red Sea, disrupting global trade, in what it says are acts of solidarity with the Palestinians.
Most of the dozens of missiles and drones fired toward Israel have been intercepted or fallen short. Israel has carried out a series of retaliatory strikes.
Israel has severely weakened other allies of Iran in the region — Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
The Tehran-backed Houthis and pro-Iranian armed groups in Iraq are still standing.
