No progress made at Cairo ceasefire talks, says Hamas official
A Hamas official told Reuters on Monday that no progress was made at a new round of Gaza ceasefire talks in Cairo also attended by delegations from Israel, Qatar and the United States.
“There is no progress yet,” he added.
Earlier on Monday, Egypt’s state-affiliated Al-Qahera News TV channel quoted a senior Egyptian source as saying progress had been made in the talks, after a deal was reached among participating delegations on issues under discussion.
Israel and Hamas sent teams to Egypt on Sunday after the arrival on Saturday of CIA Director William Burns, whose presence underlined U.S. pressure for a deal that would free hostages held in Gaza and ease the humanitarian crisis there.
Israel and Hamas, at war in the Gaza Strip since October, have failed so far to resolve disagreements over their main demands.
A Hamas official told Reuters on Monday that no progress was made at a new round of Gaza ceasefire talks in Cairo also attended by delegations from Israel, Qatar and the United States. “There is no progress yet,” he added. Earlier on Monday, Egypt’s state-affiliated Al-Qahera News TV channel quoted a senior Egyptian source as saying progress had been made in the talks, after a deal was reached among participating delegations on issues under discussion.
An Israeli strike on southern Lebanon early on Monday killed a field commander in the heavily-armed Lebanese group Hezbollah, as the United Nations warned that shelling was spreading and urged a halt to the violence. Hezbollah and the Israeli military have been exchanging fire across Lebanon’s southern frontier in parallel with the Gaza war, adding to fears of a wider regional conflict.
Nicaragua has called on the United Nations’ top court to halt German military and other aid to Israel, arguing that Berlin’s support was enabling acts of genocide and breaches of international humanitarian law in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. While the case brought by Nicaragua centres on Germany, it indirectly takes aim at Israel’s military campaign in Gaza following the deadly attacks when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, AP reports.
Israel is yet to provide a satisfactory explanation for the death of seven aid workers last week, prime minister Anthony Albanese said on Monday as Australia appointed a senior former military official to study Israel’s inquiry into the incident. Israel said on Friday its soldiers mistakenly believed they were attacking Hamas gunmen when air strikes killed the mostly international group of World Central Kitchen staff, including Australian “Zomi” Frankcom. Two officers have been dismissed and others reprimanded, Reuters reported.
Palestinians have begun returning to the devastated city of Khan Younis, a day after Israel’s unexpected withdrawal of forces from southern Gaza. Those returning to the city, which has been under a relentless Israeli military assault for the past four months, described widespread destruction and the stench of death from under the rubble.
A Palestinian official close to mediation efforts told Reuters that deadlock continued to reign over Israel’s refusal to end the war, withdraw its forces from Gaza, allow hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians to return to their homes and lift a 17-year-old blockade to allow speedy reconstruction. These steps take precedence over Israel’s prime demand for a release of hostages in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Lebanon’s prime minister Najib Mikati and visiting Cypriot president Nikos Christodoulides on Monday discussed the Syrian refugee crisis, Beirut said, as Nicosia pushes the Lebanese authorities to stem boat departures. Cyprus says the Israel-Hamas war since October, which has triggered a flare-up on the Israel-Lebanon border, has weakened Lebanon’s efforts to monitor its territorial waters and prevent migrant vessel departures, reporting a surge in Syrian arrivals.
The commander of a European Union naval mission in the Red Sea wants to significantly increase its size to better defend against possible attacks by Houthi rebels based in Yemen, as just four warships are patrolling an area twice the size of the 27-nation bloc. The EU mission — dubbed Aspides, from the Greek for “shield” — has escorted 68 ships and repelled 11 attacks since it was established less than two months ago, AP reported. It only defends civilian vessels and does not take part in any military strikes. The southern part of the Red Sea is deemed a high-risk zone.
Israel “abides by the rule of law”, a UK cabinet minister insisted as the government continued to refuse to publish legal advice on whether the offensive in Gaza has broken international humanitarian rules. Mel Stride said advice from UK government lawyers to ministers on the situation will remain confidential but stressed the UK’s support for Israel is not “unconditional”, PA Media reported.
An all-female group of charity volunteers from Birmingham, England, have sent gender-specific products to the women in Gaza to “give a little bit of dignity” to those living in the war-torn region. The team of eight women, working with the charity ISRA-UK, arrived in Cairo, Egypt, on 1 April, where they spent a week in a warehouse packing and loading around 3,000 hygiene kits onto a lorry which will be driven across the Rafah border into Gaza.
Downing Street has insisted the UK government is “completely united” over the conflict in Gaza despite claims of a Cabinet split, PA Media reports. Divisions appeared to have emerged over the weekend with the foreign secretary, Lord Cameron, taking a more strident approach to criticism of Israel than some of his colleagues, including deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden.
Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian left Oman to visit Syria’s capital Damascus a week after Iran’s consulate there was targeted in a suspected Israeli attack, state media reported on Monday. Iran has vowed to avenge the death of seven of its Revolutionary Guards commanders who were killed in the attack, with a senior adviser to the Supreme Leader saying on Sunday that Israeli embassies were no longer safe, Reuters reported.
CIA director Bill Burns and Qatari prime minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani will join the negotiators from Egypt, Israel and Hamas in Cairo, according to some media reports. An Israeli delegation will also take part in the talks, an Israeli official said. However, the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, also said on Sunday that Israel would not agree to a ceasefire until the hostages being held in Gaza were released.
Three people were killed, including a field commander in Lebanon’s Hezbollah elite forces Al Radwan, in an Israeli strike on Al Sultanya village in southern Lebanon, two security sources told Reuters early on Monday.
None of Israel’s embassies was safe any more, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader said. Tehran viewed confrontation with Israel as a “legitimate and legal right”, Yahya Rahim Safavi was quoted by the semi-official Tasnim news agency saying on Sunday. He was speaking after a suspected Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus on 1 April for which Tehran has vowed retaliation.
That’s all from me, Tom Ambrose, and the Middle East crisis live blog for today. Thanks for following along.
The commander of a European Union naval mission in the Red Sea wants to significantly increase its size to better defend against possible attacks by Houthi rebels based in Yemen, as just four warships are patrolling an area twice the size of the 27-nation bloc.
The EU mission — dubbed Aspides, from the Greek for “shield” — has escorted 68 ships and repelled 11 attacks since it was established less than two months ago, AP reported. It only defends civilian vessels and does not take part in any military strikes. The southern part of the Red Sea is deemed a high-risk zone.
“Just a single transit of one of our ships between the two larger distances to the area might take about 10 days, and also to cross the high-risk area takes almost two days,” Greek navy rear admiral Vasilios Gryparis, the commander of the mission, told reporters in Brussels on Monday.
He said the high-risk zone “has seen multiple attacks in the past months” ranging from threats and intimidation to “complex attacks” using “shore, air and sea-based assets, drones and ballistic missiles.” No one has been hurt.
Nineteen of the 27 EU nations are involved in the mission but only four frigates are patrolling.
Downing Street has insisted the UK government is “completely united” over the conflict in Gaza despite claims of a Cabinet split, PA Media reports.
Divisions appeared to have emerged over the weekend with the foreign secretary, Lord Cameron, taking a more strident approach to criticism of Israel than some of his colleagues, including deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden.
Dowden suggested on Sunday that Israel is being held to an “incredibly high standard” compared with other nations and claimed there is “a bit of relish from some people about the way in which they are pushing this case against Israel”.
But on Monday, the prime minister’s official spokesman denied there is a split, saying Lord Cameron’s and Dowden’s words are “consistent” with Rishi Sunak’s statement on Sunday.
In that statement, marking six months since Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel, Sunak said:
We continue to stand by Israel’s right to defeat the threat from Hamas terrorists and defend their security.
But the whole of the UK is shocked by the bloodshed, and appalled by the killing of brave British heroes who were bringing food to those in need.
This terrible conflict must end. The hostages must be released. The aid - which we have been straining every sinew to deliver by land, air and sea - must be flooded in.
Palestinians have begun returning to the devastated city of Khan Younis, a day after Israel’s unexpected withdrawal of forces from southern Gaza.
Those returning to the city, which has been under a relentless Israeli military assault for the past four months, described widespread destruction and the stench of death from under the rubble.
The retreat of Israel’s 98th division from southern Gaza, on the day that marked the six-month anniversary of the war, baffled many Israeli commentators, who struggled to interpret official explanations for the previously unannounced move.
The departure of the forces leaves only two Israeli brigades inside tasked Gaza with maintaining the physical separation of the northern and southern halvesof the strip.
Although senior Israeli military and political officials insisted the withdrawal did not mark the end of the conflict or the postponement of Israel’s threatened assault on the city of Rafah, it came alongside conflicting messages of progress from ceasefire talks in Cairo over the weekend, with some describing significant progress.
Iranian foreign minister visits Syria after consulate strike
Iran’s foreign minister visited the Syrian capital on Monday, local media reported, a week after a deadly strike blamed on Israel destroyed Tehran’s Damascus consulate, sending regional tensions skyrocketing.
Tehran, a key Damascus ally, has vowed to avenge last Monday’s airstrike on the Iranian embassy’s consular section that killed seven Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) members, including two generals.
The strike came against the backdrop of Israel and Hamas’s ongoing war, which began with the Iran-backed Palestinian militant group’s unprecedented 7 October attack on Israel.
Damascus and Tehran have blamed Israel, which has not commented on the raid.
Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian began a regional tour a day earlier in Oman, long a mediator between Tehran and the west, where Muscat’s foreign minister called for de-escalation.
Amir-Abdollahian is to meet Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and foreign minister Faisal Mekdad during the visit, while Syria’s information ministry said he was to inaugurate a new Iranian consular section.
Syria’s pro-government newspaper Al-Watan said the officials’ talks would be “mainly focused” on repercussions of last week’s strike.
Lebanon’s prime minister Najib Mikati and visiting Cypriot president Nikos Christodoulides on Monday discussed the Syrian refugee crisis, Beirut said, as Nicosia pushes the Lebanese authorities to stem boat departures.
Cyprus says the Israel-Hamas war since October, which has triggered a flare-up on the Israel-Lebanon border, has weakened Lebanon’s efforts to monitor its territorial waters and prevent migrant vessel departures, reporting a surge in Syrian arrivals.
Lebanon hosts two million Syrians, with 800,000 registered with the United Nations – the world’s highest number of refugees per capita.
In Beirut, Mikati and Christodoulides emphasised “the importance of finding a comprehensive and sustainable solution to the Syria displacement crisis”, a statement from the Lebanese premier’s office said.
“Lebanon’s army and security forces are doing their best to stop illegal immigration,” Mikati said in the statement. “But this cannot be achieved without the return of those seeking safety to safe areas in Syria or securing their residency in third countries,.”
In its regular update on casualty figures, the Gazan health ministry reports today that at least 33,207 Palestinians have been killed and 75,933 wounded in Israel’s military offensive since 7 October.
The UK opposition leader Keir Starmer has once again called on the government to publish legal advice it has had on whether Israel’s actions in Gaza have violated international law.
The Labour leader said:
Yesterday was the six-month anniversary of this awful conflict, and we’ve seen the continual withholding of hostages, we’ve seen 33,000 people killed in this conflict, many of them women and children, so we need the conflict to end. We need that ceasefire.
On the question of arms sales, there’s a legal test for when sales should be suspended.
The government’s got advice on that and so what the government should do is to publish that legal advice, or at least a summary of it.
They’ve published summaries before in response to the Houthi attacks, to publish that so we can all see it and that appropriate action can then be taken in relation to the sale of arms.”
A Hamas official told Reuters on Monday that no progress was made at a new round of Gaza ceasefire talks in Cairo also attended by delegations from Israel, Qatar and the United States. “There is no progress yet,” he added. Earlier on Monday, Egypt’s state-affiliated Al-Qahera News TV channel quoted a senior Egyptian source as saying progress had been made in the talks, after a deal was reached among participating delegations on issues under discussion.
An Israeli strike on southern Lebanon early on Monday killed a field commander in the heavily-armed Lebanese group Hezbollah, as the United Nations warned that shelling was spreading and urged a halt to the violence. Hezbollah and the Israeli military have been exchanging fire across Lebanon’s southern frontier in parallel with the Gaza war, adding to fears of a wider regional conflict.
Nicaragua has called on the United Nations’ top court to halt German military and other aid to Israel, arguing that Berlin’s support was enabling acts of genocide and breaches of international humanitarian law in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. While the case brought by Nicaragua centres on Germany, it indirectly takes aim at Israel’s military campaign in Gaza following the deadly attacks when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, AP reports.
Israel is yet to provide a satisfactory explanation for the death of seven aid workers last week, prime minister Anthony Albanese said on Monday as Australia appointed a senior former military official to study Israel’s inquiry into the incident. Israel said on Friday its soldiers mistakenly believed they were attacking Hamas gunmen when air strikes killed the mostly international group of World Central Kitchen staff, including Australian “Zomi” Frankcom. Two officers have been dismissed and others reprimanded, Reuters reported.
A Palestinian official close to mediation efforts told Reuters that deadlock continued to reign over Israel’s refusal to end the war, withdraw its forces from Gaza, allow hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians to return to their homes and lift a 17-year-old blockade to allow speedy reconstruction. These steps take precedence over Israel’s prime demand for a release of hostages in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Israel “abides by the rule of law”, a UK cabinet minister insisted as the government continued to refuse to publish legal advice on whether the offensive in Gaza has broken international humanitarian rules. Mel Stride said advice from UK government lawyers to ministers on the situation will remain confidential but stressed the UK’s support for Israel is not “unconditional”, PA Media reported.
An all-female group of charity volunteers from Birmingham, England, have sent gender-specific products to the women in Gaza to “give a little bit of dignity” to those living in the war-torn region. The team of eight women, working with the charity ISRA-UK, arrived in Cairo, Egypt, on 1 April, where they spent a week in a warehouse packing and loading around 3,000 hygiene kits onto a lorry which will be driven across the Rafah border into Gaza.
Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian left Oman to visit Syria’s capital Damascus a week after Iran’s consulate there was targeted in a suspected Israeli attack, state media reported on Monday. Iran has vowed to avenge the death of seven of its Revolutionary Guards commanders who were killed in the attack, with a senior adviser to the Supreme Leader saying on Sunday that Israeli embassies were no longer safe, Reuters reported.
CIA director Bill Burns and Qatari prime minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani will join the negotiators from Egypt, Israel and Hamas in Cairo, according to some media reports. An Israeli delegation will also take part in the talks, an Israeli official said. However, the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, also said on Sunday that Israel would not agree to a ceasefire until the hostages being held in Gaza were released.
Three people were killed, including a field commander in Lebanon’s Hezbollah elite forces Al Radwan, in an Israeli strike on Al Sultanya village in southern Lebanon, two security sources told Reuters early on Monday.
None of Israel’s embassies was safe any more, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader said. Tehran viewed confrontation with Israel as a “legitimate and legal right”, Yahya Rahim Safavi was quoted by the semi-official Tasnim news agency saying on Sunday. He was speaking after a suspected Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus on 1 April for which Tehran has vowed retaliation.
Israel “abides by the rule of law”, a UK cabinet minister insisted as the government continued to refuse to publish legal advice on whether the offensive in Gaza has broken international humanitarian rules.
Mel Stride said advice from UK government lawyers to ministers on the situation will remain confidential but stressed the UK’s support for Israel is not “unconditional”, PA Media reported.
The government has come under increased pressure to suspend arms sales to Israel and to publish its legal advice following an attack which killed seven aid workers, including three Britons.
The Israeli military has withdrawn its forces from the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis but could still mount an offensive against Hamas’s last stronghold in Rafah - despite the UK and US leading international pleas for restraint.
Nicaragua has called on the United Nations’ top court to halt German military and other aid to Israel, arguing that Berlin’s support was enabling acts of genocide and breaches of international humanitarian law in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
While the case brought by Nicaragua centres on Germany, it indirectly takes aim at Israel’s military campaign in Gaza following the deadly attacks when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, AP reports.
More than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry. Its toll doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants, but it has said women and children make up the majority of the dead.
Israel strongly denies that its assault amounts to genocidal acts, saying it is acting in self defence. Israeli legal adviser Tal Becker told judges at the court earlier this year that the country is fighting a “war it did not start and did not want.”
But Nicaragua rejected that defence, in a reference to Germany’s support for Israel.
A Palestinian official close to mediation efforts told Reuters that deadlock continued to reign over Israel’s refusal to end the war, withdraw its forces from Gaza, allow hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians to return to their homes and lift a 17-year-old blockade to allow speedy reconstruction.
These steps take precedence over Israel’s prime demand for a release of hostages in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“Regarding the exchange of prisoners, Hamas was and is willing to be more flexible, but there is no flexibility over our...main demands,” he told Reuters.
Israel has ruled out winding up the war shortly or withdrawing from Gaza, saying its forces will not relent until Hamas no longer controls Gaza or threatens Israel militarily.
