Israel threatens to seize parts of Gaza over fate of hostages

Palestinians walk amid the destruction caused by the Israeli air and ground offensive at Al-Shati camp, Gaza City on March 25, 2025. (AP)
Palestinians walk amid the destruction caused by the Israeli air and ground offensive at Al-Shati camp, Gaza City on March 25, 2025. (AP)
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Updated 26 March 2025
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Israel threatens to seize parts of Gaza over fate of hostages

Palestinians walk amid the destruction caused by the Israeli air and ground offensive at Al-Shati camp, Gaza City on March 25.
  • Netanyahu told parliament that “the more Hamas persists in its refusal to release our hostages, the stronger the pressure we will exert”
  • Hamas warned hostages would return “in coffins” if Israel does not stop bombing the Palestinian territory

JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened Wednesday to seize parts of Gaza if Hamas does not release hostages, while the militant group warned they would return “in coffins” if Israel does not stop bombing the Palestinian territory.
Just over a week since the military resumed operations following a January truce, Israel said two projectiles were fired from the Gaza Strip, with one intercepted and the other landing near the border, and with no immediate reports of any casualties or damage.
The rocket fire came a day after hundreds of Palestinians staged a rare protest against Hamas, chanting slogans against the movement and calling for an end to the war.
Shattering weeks of relative calm in the war brought by the fragile ceasefire, Israel last week resumed intense bombardment and ground operations across Gaza, while militants returned to launching rocket attacks.
According to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, 830 people have been killed in the territory since Israel resumed its strikes on March 18. No deaths have been reported on the Israeli side.
Israeli officials say the resumption of operations was meant to pressure Hamas into releasing the remaining hostages, after a stalemate in talks with mediators on extending the truce — which saw 33 Israeli captives freed in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
Israel wanted an extension of the truce’s initial phase, while Hamas demanded talks on a second stage that was meant to lead to a permanent ceasefire.
Netanyahu told parliament that “the more Hamas persists in its refusal to release our hostages, the stronger the pressure we will exert.”
“This includes the seizure of territories, along with other measures I will not elaborate here,” he added, days after his Defense Minister Israel Katz had warned: “The more Hamas refuses to free the hostages, the more territory it will lose, which will be annexed by Israel.”
Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which triggered the war, 58 are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
“Every time the occupation attempts to retrieve its captives by force, it ends up bringing them back in coffins,” Hamas said in a statement.
The group said it was “doing everything possible to keep the (Israeli) occupation’s captives alive, but the random Zionist bombardment is endangering their lives.”
Gal Gilboa-Dalal, an Israeli survivor of the 2023 attack whose brother was taken hostage, has told AFP he can “constantly imagine our reunion.”
“This moment felt closer than ever and unfortunately, it’s drifting away from me again,” he said of his brother Guy Gilboa-Dalal, taken from a music festival near the Gaza border and last seen in a video shared by Hamas last month.
“We are fighting here against a terrorist organization that only understands force,” said Gal.
“On the other hand, I am terrified that these bombings and this operation... will endanger the hostages there. There’s no way to know what the terrorists might do to them or if a missile might accidentally hit them,” he added
The Hamas attack that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 50,183 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry.
In northern Gaza on Tuesday, Palestinians gathered for the biggest anti-Hamas rally since the start of the war, chanting “Hamas out” and “Hamas terrorists.”
Majdi, a protester who did not wish to give his full name, said the “people are tired.”
“If Hamas leaving power in Gaza is the solution, why doesn’t Hamas give up power to protect the people?“
Hamas seized power in Gaza in 2007 after winning a Palestinian election the year before. No vote has been held since.
Levels of discontent toward Hamas in Gaza are difficult to gauge, in part because of its intolerance for public expressions of dissent.
Fatah, the Palestinian movement of president Mahmud Abbas, has called on Hamas to “step aside from governing” Gaza to safeguard the “existence” of Palestinians in the war-battered territory.


Israel says it will allow a limited amount of aid into Gaza after nearly 3 months of blockade

Israel says it will allow a limited amount of aid into Gaza after nearly 3 months of blockade
Updated 10 sec ago
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Israel says it will allow a limited amount of aid into Gaza after nearly 3 months of blockade

Israel says it will allow a limited amount of aid into Gaza after nearly 3 months of blockade
  • Israel is pressuring Hamas to agree to a temporary ceasefire that would free hostages from Gaza but not necessarily end the war

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: Israel says it will allow a limited amount of humanitarian aid into Gaza after a nearly three-month blockade to avoid a “hunger crisis,” after global experts on food crises warned of famine.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday his Cabinet approved a decision to allow a “basic” amount of food into the territory of over 2 million people. Israel imposed a complete blockade on humanitarian aid starting March 2.
Netanyahu said allowing some aid in would enable Israel to expand its new military operation, which began Saturday.
It was not immediately clear when aid would enter Gaza, or how. Netanyahu said Israel would work to ensure that Hamas will not control aid distribution and ensure the aid does not reach Hamas militants.
Earlier on Sunday, Israel launched “extensive” new ground operations in Gaza. Airstrikes in its new offensive killed at least 103 people, including dozens of children, overnight and into Sunday, hospitals and medics said. The bombardment forced northern Gaza’s main hospital to close as it reported direct strikes.
Israel began the offensive — the largest since it shattered a ceasefire in March — with the aim of seizing territory and displacing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
Israel is pressuring Hamas to agree to a temporary ceasefire that would free hostages from Gaza but not necessarily end the war. Hamas says it wants a full withdrawal of Israeli forces and a path to ending the war as part of any deal.
“When the Jews want a truce, Hamas refuses, and when Hamas wants a truce, the Jews refuse it. Both sides agree to exterminate the Palestinian people,” said Jabaliya resident Abu Mohammad Yassin, who was among those fleeing the new offensive on foot or in donkey carts. “For God’s sake, have mercy on us. We are tired of displacement.”
Israel’s military, which recently called up tens of thousands of reservists, said the ground operations are throughout the Palestinian territory’s north and south. Israel’s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, said that plans include “dissecting” the strip.
Before the announcement, airstrikes killed more than 48 people — including 18 children and 13 women — in and around the southern city of Khan Younis, according to Nasser Hospital, which said it struggled to count the dead because of the condition of bodies.
In northern Gaza, a strike on a home in Jabaliya killed nine members of a family, according to the Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency services. Another strike on a residence there killed 10, including seven children and a woman, according to the civil defense, which operates under the Hamas-run government.
Israel’s military had no immediate comment. Its statement announcing the ground operations said preliminary strikes over the past week killed dozens of militants and struck more than 670 targets. Israel blames civilian casualties on Hamas because the militant group operates from civilian areas.
Shortly afterward, Israel’s military said that it intercepted a projectile from central Gaza and another fell in an open area, with no injuries reported.
Talks in Qatar
Israel had said it would wait until the end of US President Donald Trump’s visit to the Middle East before launching its offensive, saying it was giving ceasefire efforts a chance. Trump didn’t visit Israel on his trip that ended Friday.
Netanyahu’s office said his negotiating team in Qatar was “working to realize every chance for a deal,” including one that would end fighting in exchange for the release of all remaining 58 hostages, Hamas’ exile from Gaza and the disarmament of the territory.
Hamas has refused to leave Gaza or disarm.
Israel ended the previous eight-week ceasefire in March. Gaza’s Health Ministry has said almost 3,000 people have been killed since then.
Days before resuming the war, Israel cut off all food, medicine and other supplies to Gaza. The blockade is now in its third month, with global food security experts warning of famine across the territory.
Frustration in Israel has been rising. A small but growing number of Israelis are refusing to show up for military service, even risking imprisonment. Other Israelis have been displaying photos of children killed in Gaza during weekly rallies demanding a deal to free all hostages and end the war.
The war in Gaza began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and abducting 251 others. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, many of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.
Hospital cites Israeli ‘siege’
Health officials said fighting around the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza and an Israeli military “siege” prompted it to shut down. It was the main medical facility in the north after Israeli strikes last year forced the Kamal Adwan and Beit Hanoun hospitals to stop offering services.
“There is direct targeting on the hospital, including the intensive care unit,” Indonesian Hospital director Dr. Marwan Al-Sultan said in a statement, adding that no one could reach the facility that had about 30 patients and 15 medical staff inside.
Israel’s military said that troops were operating against militant infrastructure sites in northern Gaza, including the area “directly adjacent” to the hospital.
Israel has repeatedly targeted hospitals, accusing Hamas of being active in and around the facilities. Human rights groups and UN-backed experts have accused Israel of systematically destroying Gaza’s health care system.
In northern Gaza, at least 43 people were killed in strikes, according to first responders from the Health Ministry and civil defense. Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital said 15 children and 12 women were among the dead.
A drone strike Sunday afternoon killed at least seven Palestinians near a school sheltering displaced people northwest of Gaza City, according to the Health Ministry’s emergency service.
Other strikes in central Gaza killed at least 12 people, hospitals said. One in Zweida town killed seven people, including two children and four women, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir Al-Balah.
In Gaza City, Um Mahmoud Al-Aloul lay across the shrouded body of her daughter, Nour Al-Aloul.
“You took my soul with you,” she cried. “I used to turn off my phone from how much you called.”


Egypt recovers antiquities smuggled to Australia: ministry

Egypt recovers antiquities smuggled to Australia: ministry
Updated 23 min 27 sec ago
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Egypt recovers antiquities smuggled to Australia: ministry

Egypt recovers antiquities smuggled to Australia: ministry
  • Officials say Egypt has successfully retrieved around 30,000 smuggled artefacts over the past decade

CAIRO: Egypt’s antiquities ministry said Sunday it had retrieved 21 artefacts, including a funerary figurine and an eye of Horus amulet, that had been smuggled illegally to Australia.
Most of the items had been “on display at a renowned auction house in Australia, before it became clear that there were no proper ownership documents,” Supreme Council of Antiquities chief Mohamed Ismail Khaled said.
The collection, which also included a fragment of a wooden sarcophagus, was handed over to the Egyptian embassy in Canberra.
Officials did not say how or when the pieces had been smuggled out of the country.
Such thefts are not uncommon, however.
During the 2011 uprising that ousted Egypt’s longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak, looters ransacked museums and archaeological sites, spiriting away thousands of priceless pieces.
Many of the stolen artefacts later appeared on the international market or ended up in private collections.
Officials say Egypt has successfully retrieved around 30,000 smuggled artefacts over the past decade.
Six years ago, the country’s embassy in Australia also received a long-lost fourth and final part of a stone stela dating back to the fourth century BC.
The stela, or information slab, disappeared from an excavation site in Luxor in 1995.
Known as the Sheshn Nerfertem stela, it was smuggled in pieces to Switzerland, from where three pieces were repatriated in 2017.
The now-complete stela, and the artefacts repatriated from Australia, are now “at the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir for restoration in preparation for display in a temporary exhibition,” the antiquities ministry said.


Beirut’s choice: Prime minister urges citizens to shape their city’s future

PM Nawaf Salam inspected the central operations room overseeing the electoral process at the Ministry of Interior.
PM Nawaf Salam inspected the central operations room overseeing the electoral process at the Ministry of Interior.
Updated 18 May 2025
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Beirut’s choice: Prime minister urges citizens to shape their city’s future

PM Nawaf Salam inspected the central operations room overseeing the electoral process at the Ministry of Interior.
  • Fierce contest as Lebanon holds the third round of municipal and mayoral elections

BEIRUT: Lebanon held the third round of municipal and mayoral elections on Sunday.

Sunday’s vote was held in the governorates of Beirut, Bekaa, and Baalbek-Hermel.

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam inspected the central operations room overseeing the electoral process at the Ministry of Interior and across various electoral centers in Beirut.

Defense Minister Michel Menassa and Interior Minister Ahmad Hajjar accompanied him.

After casting his ballot in Beirut, Salam said that the elections provided an opportunity for citizens to express their true wishes for the city and voiced hope for a high voter turnout.

He stated that the people of Beirut should not miss the chance to decide what kind of city they want.

“I urge them to participate in the elections in large numbers.”

Salam affirmed that the people of Beirut “are capable of ensuring representation for everyone in the municipal council.”

He said that the new municipal council is not obligated to support the government’s efforts; instead, it is the government’s responsibility to meet all the needs of the people of Beirut.

He added: “This is a developmental choice par excellence.”

In an afternoon appeal, Salam repeated his call for voters to cast their ballots, stating that the voter turnout in Beirut remained low.

MPs supporting the parties’ list in Beirut expressed concern about the low turnout during the day.

Security and military forces deployed personnel to assure the safety of polling stations and the routes leading to them.

The Lebanese Army Command announced that an army unit in Baalbek and the Douris area arrested four people found in possession of combat pistols, a quantity of hashish, and captagon pills.

In an official statement, the Army Command warned citizens “against creating trouble, firing guns, and endangering the lives of others.”

It also suspended “all gun licenses in the governorates where elections are being held for 48 hours,” stressing that it “will not hesitate to pursue and arrest all those who disrupt security across all Lebanese territory.”

During the voting process, Israeli reconnaissance planes flew over Beirut.

As the southern governorates and Nabatieh prepare for the final round of parliamentary elections on Sunday, an Israeli drone targeted a Rapid car on Sunday on Beit Yahoun Road near a Lebanese army checkpoint, wounding the driver and a soldier manning the checkpoint.

Sunday’s elections were described as “fierce,” with intense competition between political party lists and civil society.

Voters extensively crossing out party candidates cast doubt on the parties’ ability to maintain public support and raised concerns over Beirut’s ability to uphold its model of coexistence.

For example, Sunni voters were striking off Shiite candidates affiliated with Hezbollah and the Amal Movement, as well as Christian candidates affiliated with the Lebanese Forces and their allies.

The capital experienced intense competition between two main lists: the “Beirut Unites Us” list, which includes candidates from political parties with significant discord, under the slogan “Preserving Equal Representation of Muslims and Christians,” and the “Beirut Madinati” list, supported by Change deputies.

The Forces of Change is a parliamentary bloc that comprises multiple reformist parties and independent MPs.

Other lists were also running in the electoral race.

They include a list of candidates affiliated with the Future Movement, which suspended its political activity, and candidates of the Islamic Group, as well as other civilian lists.

The civilian voter turnout remained low until 2 p.m., not exceeding 13 percent.

Voters affiliated with Hezbollah, the Amal Movement, and the Al-Ahbash Association were expected to arrive at polling centers in groups before voting concluded at 7 p.m., aiming to tip the balance in favor of their party list.

Abu Al-Abed Al-Nuri, a voter in one of the Al-Mazraa electoral centers, said that “he composed his list by himself, choosing only Sunni candidates.

“All parties have wronged Beirut and caused disastrous consequences; however, they have now united and insist on sharing the benefits while ignoring our demands and problems,” he added.

MP Fouad Makhzoumi said: “We are trying to impose equal representation in voting.”

MP Hagop Terzian from the Free Patriotic Movement bloc stated: “Parties are not from Mars; they are part of Beirut and have allied to ensure equal representation.”

Hezbollah MP Amin Sherri said: “We insist on equal representation. Cross-outs are Beirut’s enemy.”

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea urged voters in Beirut to support the parties’ list “because the elections in Beirut reflect on coexistence in Lebanon, as it is the capital that represents the country’s main face.”

Competition for municipal seats was also fierce in the Bekaa, particularly in Zahle and Baalbek, raising voter turnout to 30 and 40 percent during the day.

Several people, including two members of the Internal Security Forces’ Information Branch, were injured in Zahle during a raid conducted by a patrol from the branch, supported by a Lebanese Army unit, on a Hezbollah electoral office in the area on suspicion of bribery.

Around 15 young men were present at the site during the raid.

The permits of several representatives for the non-partisan Change list in the city of Baalbek disappeared.

It was revealed that the person who hid the permits — and who was arrested by the security forces — was working for the Hezbollah list in the area.


At least 3 killed in blast targeting police station in eastern Syria

At least 3 killed in blast targeting police station in eastern Syria
Updated 18 May 2025
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At least 3 killed in blast targeting police station in eastern Syria

At least 3 killed in blast targeting police station in eastern Syria

CAIRO: At least three people were killed when a blast targeted a police station in the eastern Syrian town of Al-Mayadeen on Sunday, the state news agency said, citing a security source.
The explosion also injured several people, the report said, without providing further details.


Israel says retrieved official Syrian archive on executed spy Eli Cohen

Israel says retrieved official Syrian archive on executed spy Eli Cohen
Updated 18 May 2025
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Israel says retrieved official Syrian archive on executed spy Eli Cohen

Israel says retrieved official Syrian archive on executed spy Eli Cohen
  • Eli Cohen was discovered by Syrian intelligence and publically hanged in Damascus on May 18, 1965
  • Among the items recovered are a handwritten will penned by Cohen hours before his execution, audio recordings and files from his interrogations

JERUSALEM: Israel announced on Sunday that it had retrieved the official Syrian archive on famed spy Eli Cohen — a cache of 2,500 documents, photographs and personal effects linked to the Mossad agent executed in Damascus in 1965.
“In a complex covert operation by the Mossad, in cooperation with a strategic partner service, the official Syrian archive on Eli Cohen was brought to Israel,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement, referring to the country’s external intelligence agency.
“The trove contains thousands of items that had been kept under tight security by Syrian intelligence for decades,” the statement added.
Cohen, who developed close ties with high-level political and military figures in Syria as part of a four-year espionage operation, was eventually discovered by Syrian intelligence.
He was publically hanged in Damascus on May 18, 1965.
Cohen’s story was dramatized in the Netflix minizeries “The Spy,” starring the British actor Sacha Baron Cohen.
The prime minister added that retrieving the archive reflected Israel’s “unwavering commitment to bringing back all our missing, prisoners, and hostages.”
The statement was an apparent reference both to the 58 captives, dead and alive, being held by Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, as well as the announcement last week that Israel had retrieved from Syria the body of a soldier missing for 43 years, also in a covert Mossad operation.
Sunday’s statement said that the recovery of the items came after “decades of Mossad intelligence, operational, and technological effort to find every scrap of information about Eli Cohen in the quest to shed light on his fate and discover the location of his burial.”
Over the years, multiple operations have been carried out to that end, the statement said, including “inside enemy states.”
Mossad director David Barnea said in the statement that recovering the archive was a “significant achievement,” and “another step toward locating our man in Damascus’ burial place.”
Among the items recovered are a handwritten will penned by Cohen hours before his execution, audio recordings and files from his interrogations and those of his sources, letters he wrote to family members in Israel and photographs from his clandestine mission in Syria.
Additionally, the cache included belongings taken from his home after his arrest, including forged passports and photographs of him with senior Syrian military and government officials, as well as notebooks and diaries listing Mossad tasks.
Also discovered was a file labelled “Nadia Cohen,” detailing Syrian intelligence monitoring of Cohen’s wife’s campaign to free her husband.
In a special meeting on Sunday, Netanyahu and Barnea shared the trove of items with Nadia Cohen, the statement said.