CIA Director Bill Burns is expected to travel to Rome on Sunday to meet with Israeli, Egyptian and Qatari officials about the ongoing hostage and cease-fire negotiations, according to a U.S. official familiar with his travel plans. The official, who was not authorized to discuss the CIA director’s travel plans and requested anonymity, said Burns would be meeting with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Bin Abdul Rahman al-Thani, Egyptian spy chief Abbas Kamel ,and Mossad director David Barnea.
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- CIA Director Bill Burns will travel to Rome on Sunday to meet with Israeli, Egyptian, and Qatari officials about ongoing hostage and cease-fire negotiations.
- Burns will meet with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Bin Abdul Rahman al-Thani, Mossad director David Barnea, and Egyptian spy chief Abbas Kamel.
- This meeting follows separate meetings between President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, emphasizing the importance of reaching a hostage agreement.
- Brett McGurk, White House Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, will also head back to the Mideast next week for further talks on the issue.
- U.S. officials say Israel and Hamas agree on the basic framework of a three-phase deal proposed by Biden in late May, but there are still sticking points to resolve.
- Hamas demands that Israeli troops leave the Philadelphi corridor between Gaza and Egypt immediately, and there are differences over the number of Palestinian prisoners to be released and a vetting system for displaced Palestinians returning to northern Gaza.
- The White House announced that the U.S. will halt the deportation of Lebanese citizens due to the ongoing conflict on Lebanon’s border with Israel, with Biden citing deteriorated humanitarian conditions.
- An Israeli court extended the ban on Al-Jazeera in Israel for another 45 days, with Judge Hagai Brenner citing security threats from Al-Jazeera’s coverage.
- Netanyahu met with billionaire Elon Musk in Washington to discuss AI and technological cooperation with Israel.
- Israel’s far-right lawmakers criticized U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’ call for a cease-fire in Gaza.
- Canada, Australia, and New Zealand issued a joint statement calling for an urgent cease-fire in Gaza, condemning the humanitarian crisis.
- A Hamas leader in the West Bank, Sheikh Mustafa Abu Arra, died in Israeli custody after his health deteriorated.
The Associated Press has the story:
CIA director to meet with Israeli, Egyptian & Qatari officials in Rome to discuss Gaza cease-fire deal
Newslooks- WASHINGTON — (AP)
CIA Director Bill Burns is expected to travel to Rome on Sunday to meet with Israeli, Egyptian and Qatari officials about the ongoing hostage and cease-fire negotiations, according to a U.S. official familiar with his travel plans. The official, who was not authorized to discuss the CIA director’s travel plans and requested anonymity, said Burns would be meeting with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Bin Abdul Rahman al-Thani,Egyptian spy chief Abbas Kamel ,and Mossad director David Barnea.
The meeting comes after President Joe Biden and Kamala Harris separately met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday and underscored to him that it was critical for Israel and Hamas to come to agreement that will release remaining hostages and the remains of those who died in captivity.
Separately, Brett McGurk, the White House Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, is expected to head back to the Mideast next week for talks with regional leaders about the effort to reach a hostage agreement.
Israel and Hamas are in agreement on the basic framework of a deal, U.S. officials say
WASHINGTON — Israel and Hamas are in agreement on the basic framework of the three-phase deal as it was presented by President Joe Biden in late May, according to senior Biden administration officials. Top administration officials, including Biden, have repeatedly expressed cautious optimism for weeks that a deal is close to being sealed. And families of American hostage families said that Biden and Netanyahu also left them with the sense during a White House meeting on Thursday that a deal could potentially arrive in the coming days.
But there are some serious sticking points between the two sides that still need to be resolved, the officials said. Among the differences are Hamas’ demands that Israeli troops immediately leave the narrow strip of land between Gaza and Egypt known as the Philadelphi corridor, according to officials. Until May, Egypt had exercised full control of the roughly 14-kilometer (9-mile) strip.
Other kinks that still need to be worked out include differences on the number of Palestinian prisoners that would be released during the first phase and Israel’s push to establish a vetting system for displaced Palestinians returning to northern Gaza after a cease-fire is established, the officials said.
U.S. to halt deportation of Lebanese citizens due to conflict in Middle East
WASHINGTON — The White House announced Friday that U.S. officials will halt the deportation of Lebanese citizens who have run afoul of immigration laws because of the ongoing conflict on Lebanon’s border with Israel. President Joe Biden said in a statement that “humanitarian conditions in southern Lebanon have significantly deteriorated” and “many civilians remain in danger” due to the ongoing low-level fighting between Israeli forces and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
The two sides have engaged in near-daily clashes since October, which have killed around 500 people on the Lebanese side, most of them fighters with Hezbollah and allied groups, but also including some 90 civilians.
The White House statement said Biden had “determined that it is in the foreign policy interest of the United States to defer for 18 months the removal of any Lebanese national” with some exceptions, including anyone convicted of a felony or who the Secretary of Homeland Security determined “presents a danger to public safety.” The Lebanese citizens would be authorized to work during that period.
U.S. diplomats have been attempting to broker an end to the hostilities on the Lebanon-Israel border amid fears that the conflict might blow up into a full-on war that could become a regional conflagration. Hezbollah has said it will halt its fire only when there is a cease-fire in Gaza, while Israeli officials have threatened an invasion or expanded military operation in Lebanon in an attempt to drive the militant group back from the border.
Israel extends its ban on Al-Jazeera
JERUSALEM — An Israeli court decided Friday to extend the ban on Al-Jazeera in Israel for over a month, bolstering the far-right government’s attempt to permanently bar the news agency from operating in the country. With the decision, the state’s order to bar Al-Jazeera from operating in Israel is valid for another 45 days. It’s the third extension since the order was enacted in May, confiscating the channel’s broadcast equipment, preventing the broadcast of the channel’s reports and blocking its websites. It’s believed to be the first time Israel has shuttered a foreign news outlet operating in country.
In the Friday decision, obtained by the AP, Judge Hagai Brenner wrote that the state had provided convincing evidence — which he did not make public — that Al-Jazeera’s coverage posed a security threat to Israel, including confidential information indicating that Al-Jazeera’s journalists in the Gaza Strip were embedded with militant organizations. He argued that Al-Jazeera’s coverage has incited specific acts of violence against Israelis and revealed activities of the Israeli military in Gaza.
“I did not determine that these broadcasts are made with the intention of deliberately harming the security of the state, and there is certainly a lot of journalistic interest in them,” he wrote in the decision, “But their harm is bad and risks the lives of the IDF fighters and the home front.” Since the ban began in May, Al-Jazeera has moved many of its English-language service correspondents operating in Israel to Amman, Jordan. Others still operate from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
Netanyahu says he met with billionaire Elon Musk in Washington after his speech to Congress
JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he has met with billionaire Elon Musk in Washington following his speech to the U.S. Congress. Writing on the social media platform X, Netanyahu said Friday he and Musk discussed Artificial Intelligence and “technological cooperation with Israel” during their meeting Wednesday. He posted a picture of the two men shaking hands.
Musk was present at Netanyahu’s address to Congress and has been an ally of Israel throughout the war. The Tesla CEO did not make any public statement about the meeting with Netanyahu. Musk announced Wednesday that his satellite internet service Starlink was active for a hospital in Gaza, a move made in coordination with Israel. Gaza has experienced frequent communications blackouts as the infrastructure crumbles with months of fighting and a lack of fuel.
Israel’s far-right lawmakers criticize US Vice President Kamala Harris’ call for a cease-fire deal
JERUSALEM — Israel’s far-right lawmakers criticized United States Vice President Kamala Harris’ call for a cease-fire deal to end the war in Gaza.
“There will be no end to the war, Mrs candidate,” Israeli National Security Adviser Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote Friday on X. Ben-Gvir is one of the most visible right-wing ministers and a key ultranationalist ally to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Harris, who is backed by enough delegates to become Democratic nominee in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, met Thursday with Netanyahu in Washington, saying that bringing home hostages was imperative and describing widespread suffering among Gaza’s civilian population as fighting continues.
Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister, claimed Harris had “revealed” that a cease-fire deal amounted to surrendering to Hamas. “It is forbidden to fall into this trap!” he wrote. Ben-Gvir and Smotrich are opposed to a cease-fire deal in Gaza and say Israel should continue fighting until Hamas is vanquished. Netanyahu is accused by many in Israel of drawing out the war, partially to appease them. Their combined resignations would be enough to topple the Prime Minister’s coalition government and prompt new elections.
Militants in Gaza hold about 115 hostages taken from Israel on Oct. 7. Many of the hostages are believed to be dead.
‘The human suffering is unacceptable,’ Canada, New Zealand and Australia say in a joint call for an urgent cease-fire in Gaza
CANBERRA, Australia — Canada, Australia and New Zealand issued a joint statement Friday on the need for an urgent cease-fire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hezbollah and Israel.
“The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue,” the statement from the three prime ministers said. “Israel must listen to the concerns of the international community. The protection of civilians is paramount and a requirement under international humanitarian law. Palestinian civilians cannot be made to pay the price of defeating Hamas. It must end,” the statement said.
The prime ministers said they were “gravely concerned” about the prospect of further escalation across the region and condemned Iran’s mid-April attack on Israel. They also called on Iran to refrain from further destabilizing actions in the Middle East and demanded that Iran and its affiliated groups, including Hezbollah, cease their attacks. Hezbollah began firing rockets shortly after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, saying it aimed to ease pressure on Gaza. The exchange of fire and airstrikes, which has been limited to a few kilometers (miles) on each side of the border, has displaced tens of thousands of people in both countries.
A West Bank Hamas leader dies in Israeli custody
RAMALLAH, West Bank — A Hamas leader in the occupied West Bank died in Israeli custody Thursday evening after a deterioration in his health, according to a Palestinian prisoners rights group. Sheikh Mustafa Abu Arra, 63, was arrested in October and was recently transferred from Ramon Prison to Soroka hospital where he died, the Palestinian Prisoners Club said.
The rights group said Abu Ara was subjected to “torture and starvation” during his detention, and did not receive adequate medical treatment. The group did not elaborate further. Israel’s prison authorities have not commented on the circumstances of Abu Ara’s death, and could not immediately be reached.
Abu Ara was arrested shortly after the start of the latest Israel-Hamas war under a process known as administrative detention, the group said, whereby detainees can be held indefinitely for security reasons without trial and charge. Rights groups and recently released Palestinian detainees say conditions in Israeli-run prisons have deteriorated since the Israel-Hamas war broke out. Since the early 1990s, Abu Ara was arrested several times and spent roughly 12 years in Israeli-run prisons, the prisoners group and Hamas said.
