Photo: Kawnat Haju Agence Farnce-Presse Destruction at the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted a building in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre on October 28, 2024.
Posted at 12:56 PM Updated at 3:17 PM
Israel announced Monday that it had discussed with foreign negotiators meeting in Qatar a new draft agreement on the release of hostages held in Gaza, at a time when war rages against Hamas in the Palestinian territory and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The head of Israel's foreign intelligence agency, Mossad, David Barnea, met in Qatar with CIA chief Bill Burns and the Qatari prime minister to discuss this “new draft agreement,” the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced.
Discussions “will continue in the coming days between the mediators and Hamas” to study “the feasibility of the talks” and “try to move them towards an agreement,” the prime minister's office said.
The draft, according to this source, “integrates previous proposals and takes into account recent events in the region.”
The day before, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, whose country is one of the mediators with the United States and Qatar, had proposed a two-day ceasefire “during which four Israeli hostages held in Gaza would be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners” held by Israel.
This truce would be followed “within ten days” by negotiations with a view to a “complete ceasefire and the entry of humanitarian aid” in the territory.
“Stop” the war
US President Joe Biden said Monday that his teams were taking stock of ongoing efforts. “We have to stop this war. It has to stop, it has to stop, it has to stop,” he repeated, after casting an early ballot in the US election.
Despite international pressure, Israel is continuing its offensive against Hamas and Hezbollah, two Islamist movements supported by Iran, and carried out strikes on Saturday against military targets in Iranian territory.
Iran is seeking to build “stockpiles of nuclear bombs with the aim of destroying Israel” and “could threaten the entire world,” Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday.
Saturday’s strikes “changed the balance of power” between the two countries, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said, adding that “the enemy has been weakened, both in its ability to build missiles and in its ability to defend itself.”
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000Iran threatened Israel on Monday with “unimaginable” consequences after the strikes, which came in response to Iranian missile strikes on Israel on October 1.
In this tense context, the UN Security Council is due to meet urgently on Monday at 19:00 GMT, at Iran’s request, to discuss the situation in the Middle East.
In Lebanon, Israel is continuing its campaign of airstrikes launched on September 23 against the Shiite Islamist movement, which has vowed to fight the Israeli army until the end of the Gaza offensive against Hamas, its ally.
On Monday, Israeli aircraft repeatedly bombed the Mediterranean city of Tyre in southern Lebanon, killing seven people, according to authorities.
Israel says it wants to neutralize Hezbollah in the southern Lebanese areas bordering its territory, in order to allow the return to northern Israel of 60,000 residents displaced by incessant rocket fire since the start of the war in Gaza more than a year ago.
On September 30, the Israeli army launched a ground offensive in southern Lebanon, where it announced that it had lost 37 soldiers in the fighting against Hezbollah.
At least 1,672 people have been killed since September 23 in Lebanon, according to an AFP count based on official data and probably an underestimate.
The Shiite Islamist movement claimed responsibility for several rocket attacks and artillery fire near the Israeli border, as well as rocket fire on the Stella Maris naval base near Haifa, the major port in northern Israel.
According to the Israeli army, approximately 115 “projectiles” were fired by Hezbollah towards Israel on Monday.
Hezbollah also claimed to have “ambushed” Israeli soldiers near Kfar Kila, a border village in southern Lebanon, followed by “clashes with automatic weapons and rocket fire” which, it said, left “dead and wounded” Israeli ranks.
In the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army announced that it had killed “dozens of terrorists” in the Palestinian refugee camp of Jabalia, a sector in the north of the territory where it has been conducting an air and ground offensive since October 6, claiming that Hamas fighters are trying to regroup there.
“Our forces are in the center of the camp” and “we have to clean it up,” an Israeli military official said, adding that it would take “several weeks.”
The war in Gaza was triggered by an unprecedented attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data, including hostages killed or killed in captivity.
Of the 251 people kidnapped during the attack, 97 remain hostages in Gaza, 34 of whom were declared dead by the army.
In retaliation, Israel vowed to wipe out Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, and launched an offensive in the Palestinian territory that has killed at least 43,020 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to data from the Hamas government's Health Ministry, considered reliable by the UN.
The war has displaced nearly all of Gaza’s 2.4 million people, facing severe shortages in the territory under siege by Israel.
Walid Abu Shawish, a 40-year-old who fled the north to Khan Younis in the south, told AFP he “sold everything to buy a tent” for his family of nine.
“I have no income anymore, I spent everything on food and drinking water,” he said.
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