Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has instructed a delegation of senior officials to join ongoing negotiations in Qatar for a ceasefire and the release of hostages held in the Palestinian territory, which remains gripped by deadly clashes.
According to his office, Netanyahu held a meeting in Jerusalem in the presence of US President-elect Donald Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, a representative of the outgoing US administration, the Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz and Israeli security officials.
“At the end of the meeting, the Prime Minister instructed the head of Mossad (foreign intelligence), the head of Shin Bet (domestic intelligence), reserve general Nitzan Alon and his foreign policy advisor Ophir Falk to visit in Doha to continue promoting an agreement for the release of our hostages,” his office said in a statement.
A decision welcomed by the Families Forum, the main association of relatives of hostages, while rallies take place like every Saturday evening in the country’s major cities to demand their release.
“We call on the delegation to seize this historic opportunity to obtain the release of all our loved ones,” responded the Forum in a press release. “May she do everything possible to come back with an agreement allowing the return of all the hostages, down to the last one.”
Indirect negotiations
Indirect negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian movement Hamas resumed last weekend in Qatar with a view to a ceasefire in Gaza, but Israel was not represented by senior officials.
These discussions focus on the release of hostages kidnapped during the unprecedented attack by the Islamist group Hamas on Israeli territory on October 7, 2023, according to several Israeli sources.
As Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20 approaches, outgoing US President Joe Biden reported Thursday “real progress” in the negotiations.
For his part, Donald Trump recently promised “hell” to the region if the hostages were not released before his return to power.
Deadly strike in Jabalia
In Gaza, Civil Defense reported on Saturday eight deaths, including two children, in an Israeli strike on a school building in the north of the Palestinian territory, where the army claimed to have targeted Hamas fighters.
Eight people, including two children and two women, were killed in “an Israeli strike on the Halwa school, which shelters thousands of displaced people in the town of Jabalia,” said Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal.
“Thirty people were injured, including 19 children,” he added.
The Israeli army, for its part, indicated that it had targeted “terrorists in a command center which formerly served as a school”, stressing that it had taken all necessary measures “to limit the risk of civilians being affected”.
The war in Gaza was triggered by the attack on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the death of 1,208 people, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.
That day, 251 people were kidnapped. Among them, 94 remain hostages in Gaza, 34 of whom were declared dead by the army.
More than 46,000 people, mainly civilians, were killed in the Israeli military campaign of reprisals in Gaza, according to data from the enclave’s Health Ministry, deemed reliable by the UN.
Israeli losses
The Israeli army announced on Saturday the death in combat of four soldiers, aged 19 to 37, in the north of the Gaza Strip, scene of more than 15 months of war between the Palestinian movement Hamas and Israel.
This brings to 403 the number of Israeli soldiers killed in the Palestinian territory since the start of the Israeli military offensive in retaliation for the unprecedented Hamas attack in Israel on October 7, 2023.
An officer and a reservist soldier were also “seriously injured” during the same incident and taken to hospital, the Israeli army said in a statement.
The latter has been leading an intense land and air offensive in northern Gaza since the beginning of October, claiming to want to prevent Hamas fighters from regrouping there.
She said on Saturday that she had killed three “terrorists” during a ground operation near Jabalia.
With AFP
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