Israel-Palestine category, Page 9
Desperate families await return of 4 female soldiers held by Hamas for 15 months
TEL AVIV, Israel — Hamas announced Friday that it would release four female soldiers held hostage for 15 months in Gaza, as part of an exchange for dozens of Palestinian prisoners laid out in its ceasefire agreement with Israel. An advocacy group representing the families of hostages confirmed the identities...
Why is Israel launching a crackdown in the West Bank after the Gaza ceasefire?
In the days since a fragile ceasefire took hold in the Gaza Strip, Israel has launched a major military operation in the occupied West Bank and suspected Jewish settlers have rampaged through two Palestinian towns. The violence comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces domestic pressure from his far-right...
Palestinians confront a landscape of destruction in Gaza’s ‘ghost towns’
RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinians in Gaza are confronting an apocalyptic landscape of devastation after a ceasefire paused more than 15 months of fighting between Israel and Hamas. Across the tiny coastal enclave, where built-up refugee camps are interspersed between cities, drone footage captured by The Associated Press shows mounds...
Israel’s top general resigns over Oct. 7 attack as it launches major military operation in West Bank
JERUSALEM — Israel’s top general resigned Tuesday, citing the security and intelligence failures related to Hamas’ surprise attack that triggered the war in the Gaza Strip. Israel meanwhile launched a large military operation in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin on Tuesday that the Palestinian Health Ministry said had...
Israeli troops kill 6 and wound 35 in West Bank operation, Palestinian officials say
RAMALLAH, West Bank — Israel launched a large military operation in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin on Tuesday that the Palestinian Health Ministry said had killed at least six people and wounded 35. Israel announced a “significant and broad military operation” against Palestinian militants in the city. Jenin...
Ceasefire between Israel and Hamas will go into effect Sunday morning, officials say
CAIRO — The ceasefire between Hamas and Israel will go into effect at 8:30 a.m. local time Sunday (1:30 a.m. EST), mediator Qatar announced Saturday, as families of hostages held in Gaza braced for news of loved ones, Palestinians prepared to receive freed detainees and humanitarian groups rushed to set...
Mediators tout a Gaza ceasefire deal and plan to free hostages. Israel says details still in flux
DOHA, Qatar — Israel and Hamas agreed to pause the devastating war in the Gaza Strip, mediators announced Wednesday, raising the possibility of winding down the deadliest and most destructive fighting between the bitter enemies. The three-phase ceasefire deal promises the release of dozens of hostages held by militants in...
Hope and dread as Israelis and Palestinians await a Gaza truce that may not end their suffering
TEL AVIV, Israel — With a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas tantalizingly close, families of hostages in the Gaza Strip are afraid to get their hopes up and agonizing over the unknown. “These days are horrible for us,” Yafit Zailer said Wednesday, breaking down into sobs over the thought of...
A look at the terms — and tensions — in the Israel-Hamas draft ceasefire deal
CAIRO — If the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal goes according to the current draft, then fighting will stop in Gaza for 42 days, and dozens of Israeli hostages and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners will be freed. In this first phase Israeli troops will pull back to the edges of Gaza, and...
Blinken will make a case for post-war reconstruction and governance of Gaza
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to make a last-minute case Tuesday for a plan for the post-war reconstruction and governance of Gaza as a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas appears tantalizingly close to completion. Blinken will tout the proposal, which has been in the works for...
Some Israeli soldiers refuse to keep fighting in Gaza
JERUSALEM — Yotam Vilk says the image of Israeli soldiers killing an unarmed Palestinian teenager in the Gaza Strip is seared in his mind. An officer in the armored corps, Vilk said the instructions were to shoot any unauthorized person who entered an Israeli-controlled buffer zone in Gaza. He saw...
More than 46,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war, officials say
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — More than 46,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war, Gaza’s Health Ministry said Thursday, with no end in sight to the 15-month conflict. The ministry said a total of 46,006 Palestinians have been killed and 109,378 wounded. It has said women and children...
Body of Israeli hostage found in Gaza, possibly alongside his son’s remains, army says
JERUSALEM — Israeli soldiers recovered the body of a 53-year-old hostage in an underground tunnel in southern Gaza, the military said Wednesday, and the army was determining if another set of remains belongs to the man’s son. The discovery of Yosef AlZayadni’s body comes as Israel and Hamas are considering...
Israeli strikes kill at least 42 in Gaza as ceasefire talks set to resume in Qatar
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli strikes killed at least 42 people in Gaza, including children, overnight and into Friday, hospital and emergency response workers said, as health workers and Israel’s military traded claims over reported evacuation orders for two hospitals in the territory’s largely isolated north. The assertions over...
Israeli airstrike hits Gaza humanitarian zone as Netanyahu OKs delegation to talks in Qatar
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli airstrikes killed at least 26 people across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, hitting Hamas security officers and an Israeli-declared humanitarian zone. As the daily bombardment continued, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he had authorized a delegation from the Mossad intelligence agency, the...
Israeli strikes kill 12 in Gaza including children as war grinds into the new year
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli strikes killed at least 12 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, mostly women and children, officials said Wednesday, as the nearly 15-month war ground on into the new year. One strike hit a home in the Jabaliya area of northern Gaza, the most isolated and...
Israel detains the director of one of northern Gaza’s last functioning hospitals during a raid
DEIR AL BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israel’s army detained the director of one of northern Gaza ‘s last functioning hospitals as overnight strikes elsewhere in the territory killed nine people, including children, Palestinian medical officials said Saturday. Israel’s military alleged that Hamas militants were using the facility and said over...
Israeli troops burn northern Gaza hospital after forcibly removing staff and patients, officials say
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli troops stormed one of the last hospitals operating in northern Gaza on Friday, igniting fires and forcing many staff and patients outside to strip in winter weather, the territory’s health ministry said. Kamal Adwan Hospital has been hit multiple times over the past three...
Israel strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen’s capital, and WHO chief says he was ‘meters’ away
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli airstrikes in Yemen on Thursday targeted the Houthi rebel-held capital of Sanaa and the port city of Hodeida, and the World Health Organization’s director-general said the bombardment occurred as he was about to board a flight in Sanaa, injuring a crew member. “The air...
Israel’s plan to double number of settlers in Golan Heights met with conflicting emotions
EIN ZIVAN, Golan Heights — A dry mountain wind whipped through a cluster of Israeli flags at the entrance of a kibbutz in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, where the tranquility belies the tumultuous events unfolding nearby. Earlier this month, Syrian President Bashar Assad was ousted after nearly 25 years in...
Bethlehem marks a second subdued Christmas Eve during the war in Gaza
BETHLEHEM, West Bank — Bethlehem marked another somber Christmas Eve on Tuesday in the traditional birthplace of Jesus under the shadow of war in Gaza. The excitement and cheer that typically descends on the West Bank during Christmas week were nowhere to be found. The festive lights and giant tree...
For thousands of Jews, Israel still doesn’t feel safe after the Oct. 7 attacks. So they’re leaving
LONDON — Leaving Israel is easier, Shira Z. Carmel thinks, by saying it’s just for now. But she knows better. For the Israeli-born singer and an increasing number of relatively well-off Israelis, the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack shattered any sense of safety and along with it, Israel’s founding promise:...
Lawsuit accuses State Dept. of creating loopholes for Israel on military aid and human rights
WASHINGTON — The State Department has carved out loopholes for Israel that give the close American ally a pass on U.S. law that restricts aid to foreign militaries over human rights abuses, a lawsuit from a group of Palestinians in Gaza and American relatives asserts Tuesday. Former State Department officials...
Israel’s Netanyahu tours buffer zone inside Syria
JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu entered Syrian territory on Tuesday during a security tour of the buffer zone seized by Israel in the days since the fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad. It was apparently the first time a sitting Israeli leader entered Syrian territory. Israel seized a...
Israel sees signs of breakthrough in talks over ceasefire with Hamas
Israeli officials say a ceasefire in Gaza is a more realistic prospect than at any time in the past year, suggesting a long-awaited deal to free hostages and boost aid to the beleaguered territory could be close. A working group from Israel is in the Qatari capital of Doha this...
