A senior Hamas official says recent comments by Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu about only accepting a “partial” cease-fire deal have confirmed the Palestinian militant group’s concerns that the Israeli leader does not want a cease-fire or the release of hostages. Khalil al-Hayya said Netanyahu wants to free the hostages then resume Israel’s campaign in the Gaza Strip, but Hamas “is ready and serious” for real negotiations if Netanyahu abides by the truce outlines put forward late last month by U.S. President Joe Biden.
Quick Read
- Senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya says Netanyahu’s recent comments about only accepting a “partial” cease-fire deal confirm Hamas’s concerns that Netanyahu does not want a cease-fire or the release of hostages.
- Al-Hayya claims Netanyahu aims to free the hostages and then resume Israel’s campaign in Gaza, but Hamas is ready for real negotiations if Netanyahu follows Biden’s truce outlines.
- Al-Hayya reiterated Hamas’s conditions for any deal: a permanent cease-fire, full Israeli withdrawal, and return of displaced people to their homes.
- Biden administration unsure why Netanyahu is repeating claims that U.S. weapons deliveries have dropped.
- U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Biden has delayed only one shipment of heavy bombs and continues to provide other weapons to Israel.
- Netanyahu’s comments about a “dramatic drop” in arms shipments from the U.S. have been refuted by the White House, which calls them incorrect.
- Israel’s top court has ordered the government to provide information about conditions at the Sde Teiman military facility where Palestinians from Gaza are detained.
- Whistleblowers and detainees report harsh conditions at Sde Teiman, prompting a coalition of rights groups to petition the high court to shut it down.
- Israelis lay the cornerstone for a new neighborhood in Kibbutz Be’eri, which was badly damaged on Oct. 7.
- The new neighborhood will include 52 homes and take around two years to complete.
- Many Kibbutz Be’eri members are currently living in temporary housing at another kibbutz.
The Associated Press has the story:
Hamas official: Netanyahu comments on ‘partial’ cease-fire show he does not want a deal
Newslooks- BEIRUT —
A senior Hamas official says recent comments by Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu about only accepting a “partial” cease-fire deal have confirmed the Palestinian militant group’s concerns that the Israeli leader does not want a cease-fire or the release of hostages.
Khalil al-Hayya said Netanyahu wants to free the hostages then resume Israel’s campaign in the Gaza Strip, but Hamas “is ready and serious” for real negotiations if Netanyahu abides by the truce outlines put forward late last month by U.S. President Joe Biden.
Speaking to Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV on Monday, the Hamas official said his group wants a deal that would stop the war in the Gaza and lead to the release of Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
He said that Hamas’s stance “to end the aggression” by Israel has not changed.
Netanyahu told Israel’s Channel 14 late Sunday that he was prepared to make a partial deal that will return some of the hostages. He was referring to the roughly 120 hostages still held in the Gaza Strip.
Al-Hayya reiterated Hamas’s conditions for any deal that would include a permanent cease-fire, full Israeli withdrawal and return of displaced people to their homes.
Hamas appears concerned that Israel will resume the war once its most vulnerable hostages are returned. And even if it doesn’t, Israel could make demands in that stage of negotiations that were not part of the initial deal and are unacceptable to Hamas — and then resume the war when Hamas refuses them.
Biden administration is unsure why Israel’s Netanyahu is repeating claims that US weapons deliveries have dropped
WASHINGTON — U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller says he doesn’t understand repeated claims from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that weapons deliveries from the U.S. to Israel have dropped.
Miller told reporters Monday in Washington that President Joe Biden has delayed only one shipment of heavy bombs over concerns of heavy civilian casualties.
“There are other weapons that we continue to provide Israel,” he said, “as we have done going back years and years, because we are committed to Israel’s security. There has been no change in that.”
He noted that Israel was making “intense requests” at the beginning of the conflict and “they continue to make requests and we continue to fulfill those requests.”
Netanyahu on Sunday again repeated his claim that a “dramatic drop” in arms shipments from the U.S. has hindered the war effort.
When he first made the accusation last week, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said the U.S. is “perplexed” by the claims and called them incorrect.
Netanyahu has been facing growing domestic political problems, and analysts have said his comments on weapons delays were likely aimed to shore up support among his right-wing base in Israel and the country’s supporters in the U.S., and didn’t appear to indicate actual shortages of weapons.
Israel must give info about prison conditions for Gaza detainees, court says, as whistleblowers allege harsh treatment
JERUSALEM — Israel’s top court has ordered the government to provide information about the conditions inside a shadowy military facility where Palestinians from Gaza are detained.
Whistleblowers who worked at the facility and Palestinians who believe they were held there have reported that detainees are handcuffed and blindfolded at all times, fed only meager snacks as meals, held inside pens under harsh floodlights, and not allowed outdoors.
The desert facility, called Sde Teiman, is the major detention center where Israel has held thousands of Palestinians pulled in from Gaza during large-scale raids. A coalition of rights groups is petitioning the high court to shut the facility down, alleging that it does not meet Israel’s own standards for how detention facilities should operate during wartime.
In response, the state has said it is transferring the bulk of Palestinian detainees out of Sde Teiman and upgrading it. But it has not yet submitted information about the conditions at the facility. The court on Sunday gave the state a week to do so. The order directed the state to include information about the food and medical treatment detainees are receiving, the sanitary conditions in the facility, and whether they have access to outdoor space, external observers and lawyers.
Israel has barred the International Committee of the Red Cross from accessing all military detention facilities since the start of the war. Detainees can be held there pre-trial and without access to an attorney for over a month, under a wartime revision to Israeli law.
Israel says it has detained about 4,000 Palestinians during its Gaza offensive, saying the detentions are necessary to gather intelligence. It has released 1,500 after deeming them unaffiliated with Palestinian militant groups.
Israelis lay cornerstone for a new neighborhood in kibbutz that was badly damaged on Oct. 7
JERUSALEM — Residents from one of the Israeli towns that was hit hardest by the Oct. 7 Hamas attack in held a ceremony on Monday dedicating the cornerstone of a new neighborhood.
The new neighborhood of Kibbutz Be’eri will include 52 new homes and will take around two years to complete.
About 150 buildings and homes at the kibbutz were destroyed on Oct. 7, town officials said; 101 people were killed and more than 30 taken hostage. Some have been released, but 11 members of the kibbutz are still being held in Gaza, according to the kibbutz spokesperson.
Ruti Elgarnati, whose father was killed on Oct. 7 and will live in the new neighborhood, said the rebuilding represented “a brave decision” to return to Kibbutz Be’eri in the future.
“The beginning of the construction of this neighborhood fills us with optimism, and restores our belief that, in the foreseeable future, we will return with our children and it will still be a good place,” she said. Many kibbutz members are currently living in temporary housing at another kibbutz about 30 kilometers east of Be’eri.
Thousands of Hamas and other militants attacked small farming towns and cooperatives of southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people and kidnapping around 250.
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