Seven killed in synagogue attack as West Bank violence spirals
Seven killed in synagogue attack as West Bank violence spirals/node/2240156/middle-east
Seven killed in synagogue attack as West Bank violence spirals
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Israeli emergency personnel help victims at the site of a gun attack in a settler neighborhood in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem on Jan. 27, 2023. (AFP)
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Israeli emergency service personnel and security forces stand near a covered body at the site of a reported attack in a settler neighborhood of Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, on Jan. 27, 2023. (AFP)
Seven killed in synagogue attack as West Bank violence spirals
Gunman identified as a 21-year-old Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem who appeared to have acted alone
Attack comes amid escalating violence in occupied West Bank, including the shooting of 3 Palestinians by an Israeli land-grabber in Nablus
Updated 28 January 2023
AP
JERUSALEM: A Palestinian gunman opened fire outside an east Jerusalem synagogue Friday night, killing seven people, including a 70-year-old woman, and wounding three others before he was shot and killed by police, officials said. It was the deadliest attack on Israelis in years and raised the likelihood of more bloodshed.
The attack, which occurred as residents were observing the Jewish sabbath, came a day after an Israeli military raid killed nine people in the West Bank. The shooting set off celebrations in both the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, where people fired guns into the air, honked horns and distributed sweets.
The burst of violence, which also included a rocket barrage from Gaza and retaliatory Israeli airstrikes, has posed an early challenge for Israel’s new government, which is dominated by ultranationalists who have pushed for a hard line against Palestinian violence. It also cast a cloud over a visit by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the region Sunday.
Addressing reporters at Israel’s national police headquarters, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had held a security assessment and decided on “immediate actions.” He said he would convene his Security Cabinet on Saturday night, after the end of the sabbath, to discuss a further response.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (C) visits the site of an attack in a settler neighborhood of Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem on Jan. 27, 2023. (Ahmad Gharabli/AFP)
Netanyahu declined to elaborate but said Israel would act with “determination and composure.” He called on the public not to take the law into their own hands.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the US strongly condemned the attack and was “shocked and saddened by the loss of life,” noting it came on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
US officials said later Friday that President Joe Biden spoke with Netanyahu to offer US support to the government and people of Israel, calling the shootings “an attack against the civilized world.” “The President stressed the iron-clad US commitment to Israel’s security,” the White House said of the call.
Israeli police said the shootings occurred in Neve Yaakov, a neighborhood with a large ultra-Orthodox population, and that the gunman fled in a car. Police said they chased after him and after an exchange of fire, killed him.
Jerusalem police chief Doron Turjeman confirmed seven deaths, in addition to the shooter, and said three people were wounded.
Police identified the attacker as a 21-year-old east Jerusalem resident who apparently acted alone. Turjeman promised an “aggressive and significant” effort to track down anyone who helped him.
Police also released a photo of the pistol it said was used by the attacker.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant huddled with Israel’s military chief and other top security officials and instructed them to assist police and strengthen defenses near Jerusalem and for Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
“Israel’s defense establishment will operate decisively and forcefully against terror and will reach anyone involved in the attack,” Gallant said.
Israel’s MADA rescue service said the dead victims were five men and two women, including several who were 60 or older. Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital said a 15-year-old boy was recovering from surgery.
The attack was the deadliest on Israelis since a 2008 shooting killed eight people in a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem, according to the Foreign Ministry. Given the location and timing, it threatened to trigger a tough response from Israel.
Overnight Thursday, Gaza militants fired a barrage of rockets into southern Israel, with all of them either intercepted or landing in open areas. Israel responded with airstrikes on targets in Gaza. No casualties were reported, and calm had appeared to be taking hold before Friday night’s shooting.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility. In Gaza, Hazem Qassem, spokesman for the ruling Hamas militant group, said the attack was “a revenge and natural response” to the deadly military raid Thursday.
At several locations across the Gaza Strip, dozens of Palestinians gathered in spontaneous demonstrations to celebrate the Jerusalem attack, with some coming out of dessert shops with large trays of sweets to distribute.
In downtown Gaza City, celebratory gunfire could be heard, as cars honked and calls of “God is great!” wafted from mosque loudspeakers. In various West Bank towns, Palestinians launched fireworks.
The attack escalated tensions that were already heightened following Thursday’s raid in the town of Jenin, where nine people, including at least seven militants and a 61-year-old woman, were killed. It was the deadliest single raid in the West Bank in two decades. A 10th Palestinian was killed in separate fighting near Jerusalem.
Angry Palestinians marched Friday as they buried the last of those killed a day earlier.
Scuffles between Israeli forces and Palestinian protesters erupted after the funeral for a 22-year-old Palestinian north of Jerusalem and elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, but calm prevailed in the contested capital and in the blockaded Gaza Strip for most of the day.
That suddenly dissolved with the east Jerusalem shooting, described as “horrific and heartbreaking” by Yair Lapid, the opposition leader and former prime minister.
Neve Yaakov is a religious Jewish settlement that Israel considers to be a neighborhood of its capital. Israel claims all of Jerusalem as its undivided capital, while the Palestinians seek east Jerusalem as a capital of their future state.
Blinken’s trip will probably now focus heavily on lowering tensions. He is likely to discuss the underlying causes of the conflict, the agenda of Israel’s new far-right government and the Palestinian Authority’s decision to halt security coordination with Israel in retaliation for the raid.
The Biden administration has been deeply engaged with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in recent days, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said, underscoring the “urgent need here for all parties to deescalate to prevent the further loss of civilian life and to work together to improve the security situation in the West Bank.”
Israel and Hamas have fought four wars and several smaller skirmishes since the militant group seized power in Gaza from rival forces in 2007.
Tensions have soared since Israel stepped up raids in the West Bank last spring, following a series of Palestinian attacks.
Nearly 150 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and east Jerusalem in 2022, making it the deadliest year in those territories since 2004, according to leading Israeli rights group B’Tselem. Last year, 30 people were killed in Palestinian attacks against Israelis.
So far this year, 30 Palestinians have been killed, according to a count by The Associated Press.
Israel says most of the dead were militants. But youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in the confrontations also have been killed.
Israel says its raids are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart attacks. The Palestinians say they further entrench Israel’s 55-year, open-ended occupation of the West Bank, captured along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war.
Pause in fighting allows delivery of life-saving food assistance in Gaza, but more access is needed, says World Food Programme/node/2417266/middle-east
Pause in fighting allows delivery of life-saving food assistance in Gaza, but more access is needed, says World Food Programme
WFP regional director: Gaza at risk of famine as six days are ‘simply not enough’ to provide necessary assistance
Only operational WFP-run bakery is working ad-hoc on first day of pause in hostilities
Updated 29 November 2023
Arab News
GAZA: The UN World Food Programme delivered desperately needed food to more than 120,000 people in Gaza during the initial pause in fighting but has reiterated that the supplies it was able to provide were woefully inadequate to address the level of hunger seen by staff in the UN shelters and communities.
“Thanks to the pause, our teams have been in action on the ground, going into areas we haven’t reached for a long time. What we see is catastrophic. There’s a risk of famine and starvation on our watch and to prevent it, we need to be able to bring in food at scale and distribute it safely,” said Corinne Fleischer, WFP’s director for the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe. “Six days is simply not enough to provide all the assistance needed. The people of Gaza have to eat every day, not just for six days.”
Samer Abdeljaber, WFP Palestine representative and country director, said: “Our team recounted what they saw: hunger, desperation, and destruction. People who have not received any relief in weeks. The team could see the suffering in their eyes. This pause offered a window of relief that we hope paves the way for longer-term calm. Safe and unimpeded humanitarian access cannot stop now.”
After weeks of very limited humanitarian aid deliveries through the Rafah border, WFP joined on Nov. 26 an inter-agency convoy that delivered 7.6 metric tons of food assistance to around 23,616 people in Al-Ahli hospital and surrounding hard-to-reach areas.
Since Nov. 24, WFP has reached 121,161 people in UN shelters and host communities with food, including bread, food parcels, and e-vouchers.
During the pause in fighting, the convoy also conducted wider-reaching assessments to inform its response, expanded logistics capacities by setting up storage units and safely transported food items across Gaza.
Around 90,000 displaced residents in UN shelters received fresh bread sourced from the only currently operational WFP-run bakery, which is working on an ad-hoc basis on the first day of the pause in hostilities.
A further 7,545 people received food parcels in host communities during this time.
WFP and other partners continue to test the delivery of aid from Jordan as a complementary supply corridor for the Gaza emergency. The UN agency dispatched 51 metric tons of food supplies, including 14 metric tons of ready-to-eat food and 37 metric tons of date bars, via seven trucks departing from Amman to Rafah, Egypt, as part of a joint convoy with the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA.
WFP has reiterated that a six-day-long pause was not enough to make any meaningful impact. Operations on the ground need uninterrupted and regular supplies of adequate quantities of food and other essential commodities into Gaza, WFP said.
WFP has reached a total of 825,858 people with emergency food and electronic food vouchers across Gaza and the West Bank since the start of the crisis.
Kuwait’s emir admitted to hospital, condition stable - KUNA
Updated 29 November 2023
Arab News
DUBAI: Kuwait’s ruling Emir Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah was admitted to hospital on Wednesday due to an emergency health problem and his condition is stable, the state news agency KUNA reported.
“His highness was admitted to hospital this morning due to an emergency health problem that has prompted His Highness to receive the necessary treatment and to seek medical check. He is in stable condition,” said KUNA, citing the Kuwaiti royal court.
Hostage-prisoner swap brings Israeli practice of detaining Palestinian children out of the shadows
Israel has made efforts to keep news crews away from released Palestinian prisoners and their families, but with only limited success
Children released this week have spoken of beatings and starvation, and increasingly aggressive treatment following the Oct. 7 attack
Updated 29 November 2023
Jonathan Gornall
A mother, weeping with joy and relief, holds her teenage son tight, as if determined never to let him go again.
“I can’t describe to you how I’m feeling right now,” she said, her face and voice reaching millions around the world through the cameras of international news organizations such as CNN.
“I honestly can’t believe it. I feel like I am in a dream. My son is finally with me. I thank God and pray that every mother will be able to feel this joy,” she added.
In the unfolding drama of hostage releases that began on Friday, such globally televised scenes of joy have become almost commonplace as Israeli families have been reunited with their loved ones, including children, held captive by Hamas since Oct. 7.
But Hunaida Tamimi is not an Israeli. She is a mother from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
Until his sudden release on Saturday, as part of the reciprocal deal struck between Hamas and Israel, her 17-year-old son Wissam was one of thousands of Palestinians imprisoned by the Israelis, many without charge or trial and some of whom have been locked up for years.
Newly released Palestinian prisoner Rouba Assi is carried by supporters during a welcome ceremony following the release of prisoners from Israeli jails in exchange for Israeli hostages held in Gaza by Hamas since the October 7 attacks, in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on November 28, 2023. (AFP)
In a breaking-news report screened by CNN on Saturday, the American reporter was unable to keep the sense of surprise out of her voice as she reported that “over 3,000 Palestinians are held now under administrative detention, meaning no charges have been laid against them, and no ongoing legal process.”
Suddenly, a world accustomed to hearing only Israel’s side of the complex story of the conflict between Israel and the frequently demonized Palestinians, is seeing Palestinian families for what they really are – normal mothers and fathers, just like them, trying to do their best for their sons and daughters in abnormal circumstances.
And, equally importantly, as details begin to emerge of the treatment of the thousands of Palestinians held for years in Israeli jails without any form of judicial process, the world is also seeing Israel in a new, darker light – as a state that abuses the rights of children, imprisoning them, often for years, without charge or trial.
Israel, caught flat-footed by the sudden media interest in the other side of the story, has made efforts to keep news crews away from released Palestinian prisoners and their families, but with only limited success.
In East Jerusalem, where Palestinians have been ordered not to celebrate the homecomings publicly and threatened with hefty fines, a Sky News team was turned away by police officers as detained minors returned home at the weekend.
Eventually, though, the news crew found a way through the narrow streets to talk to Ghannam Abu Ghannam, 17, who had been held for a year, without charge, for allegedly throwing stones.
He said: “Prison was humiliating. They came in and beat us ever since the war began. We were treated like dogs.”
Newly released Palestinian prisoner Rouba Assi (R) hugs a relative during a welcome ceremony following the release of prisoners from Israeli jails in exchange for Israeli hostages held in Gaza by Hamas since the October 7 attacks, in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on November 28, 2023.(AFP)
“Prison was humiliating. They came in and beat us ever since the war began. We were treated like dogs.”
The disgraceful treatment of Palestinian children detained by Israel may be coming as a surprise to many in the West, but not to international NGOs such as UK-based charity Save the Children, which has been providing support to Palestinian children affected by the ongoing conflict since 1953.
The charity, which is currently running a Gaza appeal to raise money for emergency medical supplies, food baskets, family hygiene packs, and school-in-a-bag kits, has been attempting for years to highlight the systemic abuse of children’s rights by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories.
In July, the charity published its latest damning report, titled “Injustice: Palestinian children’s experience of the Israeli military detention system.” It was a shocking indictment of Israel’s treatment of underage detainees, but when it was published it garnered very little international coverage.
In the light of the current releases of under-age prisoners, however, it makes sobering reading.
The report shares the experiences and voices of children, mainly boys, who were aged between 12 and 17 when they were detained over the previous three years.
Kahlil, who was 13 when he was taken, told the report’s authors that “a soldier threatened to kill me when he arrested me for the second time. He asked me, ‘Do you want the same fate as your cousin?’ as he had been killed.
“He promised me that I would have the same fate and die, but that he would send me to prison first. He told me that he’s coming back for me — and every day, I wait for that day to come.”
Other children released this week have spoken of suffering beatings and starvation, and increasingly aggressive treatment following the Oct. 7 attack.
“The conditions of our detention in the occupation prison were very harsh,” one of the released prisoners told the media on Monday.
“When the occupation authorities arrested me, I was 15 years old, and the detention room had 12 prisoners, even though it was intended for only six,” Omar Al-Shwaiki said.
“It was very harsh, and there are many children aged between 13 and 15 being held by the occupation.”
Save the Children’s investigation unearthed a catalogue of abuse, including that 42 percent of detained Palestinian children had suffered injuries during arrest, “including gunshot wounds and broken bones,” suffocation, and dislocated shoulders.
Nearly all had experienced “appalling levels of physical and emotional abuse, including being beaten (86 percent), being threatened with harm (70 percent), and hit with sticks or guns (60 percent).”
Three out of every five had endured periods of solitary confinement, ranging from 24 hours to 48 days, while during their arrest and detention 92 percent of children reported having been blindfolded and 93 percent were handcuffed.
Children were also regularly denied food and healthcare: 70 percent said they suffered from hunger and 68 percent did not receive any healthcare.
More than half (58 percent) were denied visits from or communication with their family while they were detained.
Unsurprisingly, concluded the report, the “enormous toll on children, including on their mental health and emotional wellbeing, continued to present after children were released.”
It said 73 percent reported suffering from insomnia, 53 percent had nightmares, 62 percent frequently felt angry, and 48 percent felt like they always needed to be alone.
On Sept. 21, just under two weeks before the Hamas attack on Israel, Amnesty International’s campaigner on Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories reported the case of a 21-year-old Palestinian who was struggling with mental health issues after having spent almost two years in solitary confinement.
Khulood Badawi said the Israel Prison Service had requested an extension of Ahmad Manasra’s isolation for another six months, “in brazen violation of international law — prolonged solitary confinement lasting more than 15 days violates the absolute prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.”
Manasra was 13 when he and a cousin were attacked by settlers. His cousin was killed but in circumstances that remain unclear it was Manasra, and not his attackers, who ended up in prison, where he has been ever since.
Ahmed Manasra (C), a 13-year old Palestinian boy is escorted by Israeli security during a hearing at a Jerusalem court on October 30, 2015. (AFP/File)
Israel’s Lod District Court postponed the scheduled hearing because Manasra, diagnosed with serious mental health conditions, including schizophrenia and severe depression, had been taken to the mental health unit at Ayalon prison.
“Israeli authorities have treated Ahmad Manasra with inhuman cruelty, intent on pushing him past breaking point,” Badawi added.
“He is now so gravely unwell that he could not attend his own hearing.
“Yet when Ahmad is discharged from the clinic, prison authorities will return him to solitary confinement and reschedule the court hearing. Ahmad’s nightmare goes on and on.”
He is not alone.
On Nov. 20, while negotiations for the release of prisoners in exchange for Hamas hostages were still underway, B’Tselem — the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories — reported that, as of the end of September 2023, among the 4,764 Palestinians being held in detention or prison on what Israel defined as “security” grounds were 146 minors.
Although Israel’s secretive military courts system makes facts hard to come by, some agencies believe at least one in 10 minors, held for months or years, are never charged or tried.
On Sunday, Save the Children revealed that “prior to the ongoing escalation, about 500 to 700 Palestinian children were subjected to the Israeli military detention system every year.”
Since Oct. 7 alone, around 145 Palestinian children had been detained by Israeli military authorities.
“A large number are being held without charge, trial, or due process guarantees, which does not meet international juvenile justice standards,” the organization said.
“Palestinian children are the only children in the world who are systematically prosecuted in military courts, with an estimated 10,000 Palestinian children held in the Israeli military detention system over the past 20 years.
“Denying children access to legal representation and to see their family, are both longstanding measures imposed by Israeli authorities,” it added.
In July, the UN Human Rights Council received a report on Israel’s behavior from Francesca Albanese, special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian occupied territories.
Albanese told the council that since 1967, Israel had detained approximately 1 million Palestinians in the occupied territories, “including tens of thousands of children.” Currently, she added, there were 5,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons, including 160 children, of whom more than 1,000 had been detained without charge or trial.
In short, she noted, the occupied territories “had been transformed as a whole into a constantly surveiled open-air prison,” and Israel’s unlawful imprisonment practices were “tantamount to international crimes,” warranting an urgent investigation by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.
More than eight years ago, on April 17, 2015, a day designated Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, the UN received and published a report on conditions of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails from the permanent observer of the State of Palestine to the UN.
The report sought to highlight “the tragic reality of the thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children who have been living under the Israeli occupation for nearly 50 years and have been subjected to arrest, detention, and grave abuses at the hands of the occupying power.”
It added: “The threat of arbitrary detention and imprisonment is constant and consistent … and the impact on the Palestinian people and society has been devastating.”
Palestinian children had been “increasingly targeted by Israeli detention,” with more than 200 detained in the first quarter of 2015 alone. Many “are abducted under terrifying conditions, most often in the darkness of night, by the Israeli occupying forces.”
Denied “basic human rights,” those that face trial are tried before a military court. More than 90 percent of children released from Israeli jails “reported suffering from torture and ill-treatment during interrogation and detention.”
Yet the illegal treatment of children by Israel has been an open secret for years, to which the world has turned a blind eye.
“The West has granted immunity to Israel for decades,” Salwa Duaibis, co-founder of Israel-based NGO Military Court Watch, told Arab News.
MCW was set up in 2013 by a small group of lawyers and other professionals to campaign for all children detained by the Israeli military authorities to be granted all the rights and protections to which they were entitled under international law.
“Look at the response of the West to Russia when it invaded Ukraine, or when it annexed Crimea,” Duaibis said.
“Immediate sanctions were imposed when Crimea was annexed and within about 12 months the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for (Russian President) Vladimir Putin, for his involvement in transferring children from Ukraine to the Russian Federation.
“What Israel has been doing with Palestinian children is a violation of international law and an exact mirror image of what Russia has been doing, transferring children against their will and without the consent of a guardian.
“What Israel has been doing with Palestinian children is a violation of international law and an exact mirror image of what Russia has been doing, transferring children against their will and without the consent of a guardian.
- Salwa Duaibis, co-founder of Israel-based NGO Military Court Watch
“Israel has been doing the same for over 56 years, and thousands of children have been illegally transferred.
“When it is Russia violating international law, there’s an immediate response because Russia is an adversary to the West. But when Israel is suspected of committing very grave crimes, over many years, there’s reluctance, to say the least, if not active obstruction to legal remedies because of vested interest in Israel.”
There was, she pointed out, a clear motive behind Israel’s persecution of Palestinian minors.
“Our evidence tells us that the overwhelming majority of detained children, up to 90 percent, and maybe more in some years, live within a few kilometers of a settlement.
“If you are the Israeli military commander in the West Bank, your job is to make sure that the thousands of settlers are free and safe to wander around in the occupied territory, so what you do is harass the nearby Palestinians and subject them to measures that will affect every aspect of their lives.
“So, these child arrests are part of a system designed basically to protect the settlers, which enables Israel to continue to occupy this territory and move settlers illegally into the occupied territory, at a minimum risk to their lives.”
Thousands of Palestinian children, she noted, had experienced the familiar routine.
“If Israel wanted to arrest a settler child, they would have to present an arrest warrant to the family. In the case of Palestinians, there is no obligation for an arrest warrant, they can just raid the house in the middle of the night and take whoever they want, including children.
“From there on, the child is subjected to severe ill-treatment. He or she is immediately zip-tied painfully behind their back, blindfolded, dumped into the back of a military Jeep, and then taken to a nearby military base or settlement where they are dumped for hours and hours until the interrogation center is open for business.
“That softens the child up for questioning. They are sleep-deprived, probably physically and verbally abused, did not have access to a lawyer, are not informed of their right to silence, and then are interrogated without the presence of an adult guardian.
“So, it is not a surprise that many of these children, who are denied their protective rights, confess.”
Some activists working to protect the rights of Palestinian children are cautiously hopeful that the revelations of the past few days could lead to change — Save the Children has called for an immediate moratorium on Israeli military authorities arresting, detaining, and prosecuting children until comprehensive reforms to the system are made.
“We welcome the news of the release of some of the Israeli children held hostage in Gaza, and those Palestinian children held in Israeli military detention so far,” Jason Lee, the charity’s country director in the occupied Palestinian territory, said in a statement on Sunday.
“They have experienced horrors no child should ever endure and must be provided with support to help them start the long road to recovery.
“However, this exchange is just the first step needed in addressing the decades-old protection crisis of children, which can no longer be ignored.
“A lasting ceasefire must be agreed immediately, all hostages in Gaza must be released, and the appalling emotional and physical abuse of Palestinian children in detention must end.”
Israeli, US spy chiefs meet Qatari PM to discuss ‘building on’ Gaza truce — source
Qatar spoke to Hamas before the meeting to get a sense of what the group might agree to. The Israelis and Hamas are now internally discussing the ideas explored at the meeting, the source added
Updated 29 November 2023
Reuters
DOHA/WASHINGTON: The leaders of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Israel’s Mossad met Qatar’s prime minister in Doha on Tuesday to build on the two-day extension of a truce between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, a source briefed on the visit said.
The meeting was “to build on the progress of the extended humanitarian pause agreement and to initiate further discussions about the next phase of a potential deal,” the source told Reuters.
The outcome of the talks, which were also attended by Egyptian officials, was unclear, the source added.
CIA Director William Burns was in Doha “for meetings on the Israel-Hamas conflict including discussions on hostages,” a US official said on condition of anonymity. The official did not elaborate.
Burns, David Barnea, head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani met one day after Qatar announced the two-day extension of an original four-day truce deal in Gaza that had been due to expire overnight.
Qatar, where several political leaders of Hamas are based, has been leading negotiations between the Palestinian militant group and Israel.
Officials in Tuesday’s meeting discussed possible parameters of a new phase of the truce deal including Hamas releasing hostages who are men or military personnel, not just women and children, the source said. They also considered what might be needed to reach a cease-fire lasting more than a handful of days.
Qatar spoke to Hamas before the meeting to get a sense of what the group might agree to. The Israelis and Hamas are now internally discussing the ideas explored at the meeting, the source added.
The truce has brought the first respite to the Gaza Strip in seven weeks during which Israel bombed the territory heavily in response to a violent rampage on Oct. 7 by Hamas gunmen who killed around 1,200 people and took 240 captives.
Israel has sworn to annihilate Hamas, which rules Gaza. Health authorities in Gaza say Israel’s bombardment of the tiny, densely populated territory has so far killed more than 15,000 people, around 40 percent of them children.
Barnea and Burns were previously in Qatar to meet Sheikh Mohammed on Nov 9.
During the first four days of the truce, Hamas fighters released 50 Israeli women and children who had been taken hostage. In return, Israel released 150 security detainees from its jails, all women and teenagers.
As part of the two-day truce extension Hamas has agreed to release an additional 10 Israeli women and children each day.
So far, there is no indication that Hamas is willing to release any Israeli men or military personnel among those taken captive.
The September 2022 protests were sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, after her arrest in Tehran for an alleged breach of the Islamic republic’s strict dress code for women
Updated 29 November 2023
AFP
GENEVA: The United Nations said Tuesday it deplored the executions of a 17-year-old and a 22-year old man in Iran and urged Tehran to immediately stop applying the death penalty.
The UN Human Rights Office said it was troubled by Friday’s executions.
“The execution of Hamidreza Azari, who was accused of murder, is the first reported execution of an alleged child offender in Iran this year,” spokeswoman Elizabeth Throssell said in a statement.
She reminded Tehran of its obligation under international conventions to prohibit death sentences and their implementation for crimes committed by individuals below the age of 18.
“We are also troubled by the execution, on the same day, of 22-year-old Milad Zohrevand — the eighth person to be executed in the context of the September 2022 protests,” said Throssell.
“Available information indicates that his trial lacked the basic requirements for due process under international human rights law. There are also troubling reports that Zohrevand’s parents were arrested following his execution.
“We deplore the executions.”
The September 2022 protests were sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, after her arrest in Tehran for an alleged breach of the Islamic republic’s strict dress code for women.
Iran launched a sweeping crackdown to snuff out the protests that saw hundreds killed and thousands arrested, according to rights groups.
Throssell said Iran was among the countries with the highest death penalty figures, particularly for drug-related offenses, while minorities are disproportionately sentenced to death.
She urged Iran to halt the application of the death penalty immediately and establish a moratorium on its use.
Until then, the death penalty may only be imposed for the most serious crimes: those of extreme gravity that result intentionally and directly in death, Throssell said.
“We also call on the government to stop using criminal procedures to punish political activists and others for exercising their rights to freedom of speech and peaceful assembly,” the spokeswoman added.
