Israeli sovereignty rejects any Palestinian sovereign post-war, rebuffing biden: A Gaza Strip displaced refugee camp in the outskirts of Khan Younis
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, meanwhile, mourners gathered for the funeral of Tawfiq Ajaq, a 17-year-old American Palestinian shot and killed a day earlier near Ramallah. The circumstances of the shooting were not known and police said their investigation was under way.
A car was apparently struck by a drone in Rafah, killing four, according to an Associated Press cameraman at a local morgue. Israel’s military didn’t comment immediately.
The fighting has forced many families to leave their homes, many of which were reduced to rubble, said Halima Abdel-Rahman, a woman displaced from northern Gaza who now shelters in Bani Suheila on the outskirts of Khan Younis.
After a seven-day communications cutoff, residents of the Gaza Strip are reporting heavy bombardment and fighting between Israeli troops and militant groups in and around Khan Younis and the northern refugee camp of the same name.
On Saturday, an Israeli strike on Syria’s capital destroyed a building used by the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, killing at least five Iranians, Syrian and Iranian state media reported. The National News Agency said that an Israeli drone strike in Lebanon killed two people. It was not immediately clear who the target was.
The war has spread across the Middle East, with Iranian-backed groups attacking Americans and Israelis. Fighting between Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon threatens to erupt into all-out war, and Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen are targeting international shipping in the Red Sea despite U.S.-led airstrikes.
The Israeli embassy in Gaza refused to answer the Palestinians’ pleas for a peace deal with the State of the People’s Internal Security Force
Hours later, Al-Majd al-Amni, a media outlet linked to the Hamas internal security force, warned Palestinians against supplying any information about Israeli soldiers held hostage in Gaza.
As part of its search for the hostages, Israel’s military dropped leaflets over the southernmost town of Rafah. The benefits for anyone who spoke up were carried in the leaflets.
Dozens of anti-war protesters in Israel gathered in the city of Haifa and carried signs that read “Stop genocide” and fought with police who tried to take their placards. Police made one arrest.
The Israeli military does not carry out attacks in areas where it knows or thinks that hostages are, according to Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari.
At a Tel Aviv protest, a former hostage said that “if we as a society, as a state, don’t do everything, I mean everything, to return the abductees, the living and the dead, we have no right to exist.”
The protest began on Friday when the father of a 28-year-old held by Hamas started a hunger strike. Eli Shtivi promised to only eat a quarter of a pita a day until the prime minister agreed to meet with him.
“We can’t take it anymore. We were told to let the government do it’s job. “It hasn’t brought any results for the last two months,” said Yuval Bar. My father-in-law is among the hostages.
Over the past week, several current and former Israeli security officials have suggested that making a deal with Hamas was the only way to bring the hostages back to Israel safely. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, has continued to speak of both eliminating Hamas in Gaza and returning the hostages.
Israel launched its war against Hamas after the militant group’s unprecedented Oct. 7 attack that killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in Israel and saw about 250 others taken hostage. The health authorities in Gaza say that Israel’s campaign has killed more than 25,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children.
Critics have accused Netanyahu of preventing a Cabinet-level debate about a post-war scenario for Gaza. They say he is stalling to prevent conflict within his coalition. Netanyahu’s office called the claim that he was unnecessarily prolonging the war “utter nonsense.”
Netanyahu is also under heat to appease members of his right-wing ruling coalition by intensifying the war against Hamas, which governs Gaza, while contending with calls for restraint from the United States, its closest ally.
A spokesman for the Palestinian President called on the United States to go further. “It is time for the United States to recognize the state of Palestine, not just talk about a two-state solution,” Nabil Abu Rudeineh said in a statement.
The Secretary-General said the refusal to accept the two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians was unacceptable. He said that the refusal would prolong the conflict.
Netanyahu has said Israel must fight until it achieves “complete victory” and Hamas no longer poses a threat but has not outlined how this will be accomplished.
But a member of Israel’s War Cabinet, former Israeli army chief Gadi Eisenkot, has called a cease-fire the only way to secure the hostages’ release, a comment that implied criticism of Israel’s current strategy.
Supporters and relatives of hostages captured in the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks burst into a meeting at Israel’s Parliament on Monday to demand that lawmakers take greater action to secure the captives’ release from Gaza.
The protest reflected the growing frustration of hostage families who have become increasingly concerned about the fate of their family members as the war, already well into its fourth month, continues.
Some of the demonstrators held up signs that said “you won’t sit here while they’re dying there.”
Israel has not yet offered to let Hamas go – a U.S. official in Cairo and Doha tells McGurk
The statement from his office said that on Monday Mr Netanyahu told representatives of hostage families there was no real offer from Hamas, but that Israel had put forward its own offer.
Brett McGurk, a senior Biden administration official, was scheduled to travel to Cairo and Doha, Qatar, this week in hopes of making progress toward an agreement that would result in the release of more hostages in exchange for a pause in Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, two American officials said on Sunday.