Hamas meets with Gaza truce mediators in Cairo

Hamas meets with Gaza truce mediators in Cairo
Palestinians inspect the damage around their homes after an Israeli strike targeted the previous day the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on Oct. 20, 2025. (AFP)
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Updated 20 October 2025
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Hamas meets with Gaza truce mediators in Cairo

Hamas meets with Gaza truce mediators in Cairo
  • Hamas delegation would discuss ‘the dozens of airstrikes that killed dozens in the Gaza Strip’ on Sunday
  • Egypt and Qatar have long played a mediating role in indirect talks between Israel and Hamas

CAIRO: A Hamas delegation was to meet Qatari and Egyptian officials in Cairo on Monday to discuss the continuation of a fragile Gaza ceasefire, a source close to negotiations said.
The Israeli military struck dozens of Hamas positions across Gaza on Sunday after the militants killed two of its soldiers and Israel accused the group of “a blatant violation” of the truce.
Hamas denied any knowledge of an attack and in turn asserted Israel had broken the ceasefire deal in place since 10 October.
The source said that the delegation, headed by Hamas official Khalil Al-Hayya, would discuss “the dozens of airstrikes that killed dozens in the Gaza Strip” on Sunday.
Egypt and Qatar have long played a mediating role in indirect talks between Israel and Hamas, aiming to bring about an end to the war sparked by Hamas’ unprecedented attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Hamas’ delegation will also meet Egyptian officials to discuss an upcoming intra-Palestinian dialogue hosted by Egypt and aiming “to unify the Palestinian factions,” the source said.
Egypt has hosted several such meetings between Palestinian factions, notably including the two main rival political movements, Islamist movement Hamas and Fatah, whose leader Mahmud Abbas is also president of the Palestinian Authority.
Hamas and Fatah have been opposed for decades, all the more so since the former’s violent ousting of the latter from the Gaza Strip in 2007.
“The dialogue aims to unify the Palestinian factions and discuss key issues, including the future of the Gaza Strip and the formation of the independent committee of experts that will assume management of the Strip,” the source said.
Under the US-brokered ceasefire deal an independent transitional authority, run by technocrats, has been proposed to administer Gaza.
Hamas said it did not wish to govern Gaza after two years of war, but its forces have moved back into areas from which Israel has withdrawn since the ceasefire.
Several Palestinian political officials recently raised the possibility of a group of unaffiliated Palestinian managers to run the Palestinian territory.
Another informed source said that “mediators’ contacts and efforts succeeded last night in restoring calm and implementing the ceasefire agreement in Gaza.”


West Bank’s ancient olive tree a ‘symbol of Palestinian endurance’

West Bank’s ancient olive tree a ‘symbol of Palestinian endurance’
Updated 07 November 2025
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West Bank’s ancient olive tree a ‘symbol of Palestinian endurance’

West Bank’s ancient olive tree a ‘symbol of Palestinian endurance’
  • The Palestinian Authority’s agriculture ministry recognized the tree as a Palestinian natural landmark

AL WALAJAH: As guardian of the occupied West Bank’s oldest olive tree, Salah Abu Ali prunes its branches and gathers its fruit even as violence plagues the Palestinian territory during this year’s harvest.
“This is no ordinary tree. We’re talking about history, about civilization, about a symbol,” the 52-year-old said proudly, smiling behind his thick beard in the village of Al-Walajah, south of Jerusalem.
Abu Ali said experts had estimated the tree to be between 3,000 and 5,500 years old. It has endured millennia of drought and war in this parched land scarred by conflict.
Around the tree’s vast trunk and its dozen offshoots — some named after his family members — Abu Ali has cultivated a small oasis of calm.
A few steps away, the Israeli separation wall cutting off the West Bank stands five meters (16 feet) high, crowned with razor wire.
More than half of Al-Walajah’s original land now lies on the far side of the Israeli security wall.
Yet so far the village has been spared the settler assaults that have marred this year’s olive harvest, leaving many Palestinians injured.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, and some of the 500,000 Israelis living in the Palestinian territory have attacked farmers trying to access their trees almost every day this year since the season began in mid-October.
The Palestinian Authority’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, based in Ramallah, documented 2,350 such attacks in the West Bank in October.

- ‘Rooted in this land’ -

Almost none of the perpetrators have been held to account by the Israeli authorities.
Israeli forces often disperse Palestinians with tear gas or block access to their own land, AFP journalists witnessed on several occasions.
But in Al-Walajah for now, Abu Ali is free to care for the tree. In a good year, he said, it can yield from 500 to 600 kilograms (1,100 to 1,300 pounds) of olives.
This year, low rainfall led to slim pickings in the West Bank, including for the tree whose many nicknames include the Elder, the Bedouin Tree and Mother of Olives.
“It has become a symbol of Palestinian endurance. The olive tree represents the Palestinian people themselves, rooted in this land for thousands of years,” said Al-Walajah mayor Khader Al-Araj.
The Palestinian Authority’s agriculture ministry even recognized the tree as a Palestinian natural landmark and appointed Abu Ali as its official caretaker.
Most olive trees reach about three meters in height when mature. This one towers above the rest, its main trunk nearly two meters wide, flanked by a dozen offshoots as large as regular olive trees.

- ‘Green gold’ -

“The oil from this tree is exceptional. The older the tree, the richer the oil,” said Abu Ali.
He noted that the precious resource, which he called “green gold,” costs four to five times more than regular oil.
Tourists once came in droves to see the tree, but numbers have dwindled since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023, Abu Ali said, with checkpoints tightening across the West Bank.
The village of Al-Walajah is not fully immune from the issues facing other West Bank communities.
In 1949, after the creation of Israel, a large portion of the village’s land was taken, and many Palestinian families had to leave their homes to settle on the other side of the so-called armistice line.
After Israel’s 1967 occupation, most of what remained was designated Area C — under full Israeli control — under the 1993 Oslo Accords, which were meant to lead to peace between Palestinians and Israelis.
But the designation left many homes facing demolition orders for lacking Israeli permits, a common problem in Area C, which covers 66 percent of the West Bank.
“Today, Al-Walajah embodies almost every Israeli policy in the West Bank: settlements, the wall, home demolitions, land confiscations and closures,” mayor Al-Araj told AFP.
For now, Abu Ali continues to nurture the tree. He plants herbs and fruit trees around it, and keeps a guest book with messages from visitors in dozens of languages.
“I’ve become part of the tree. I can’t live without it,” he said.