Israeli officials are threatening to invade Rafah if a hostage deal is not reached amid Egyptian and Qatari-mediated negotiations with Hamas.
Axios reported on Friday that Israeli officials told their Egyptian counterparts that Israel is giving Hamas “one last chance” to reach a deal. If an agreement is not reached, Israel will order a ground invasion of Rafah, which is packed with over 1 million civilians.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday that Israel could suspend its plans to launch an assault on Rafah. “If there is a deal, we will suspend the operation,” he said. “The release of the hostages is a deep priority for us.”
Hamas is currently reviewing Israel’s latest proposal, which reportedly includes a proposal to discuss a “restoration of sustainable calm” as part of a second phase after an initial round of hostage and prisoner exchanges. Israeli officials deny that the offer was an agreement to reach a permanent ceasefire, something Hamas has been proposing for months.
An unnamed Hamas official told AFP on Sunday that there were no “major” issues with Israel’s latest proposal. “The atmosphere is positive unless there are new Israeli obstacles. There are no major issues in the observations and inquiries submitted by Hamas regarding the contents,” the official said.
However, a Hamas official told Al Mayadeen that the Israeli proposal does not reflect a fundamental shift in Israel’s position. “[Hamas] is still studying the Israeli proposal in the negotiations, but there are no great expectations for its acceptance unless fundamental amendments are made to it,” the official said.
Hamas is expected to give its formal response to Egyptian and Qatari mediators on Monday. In the meantime, the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza continues. Israeli strikes hit three houses in Rafah early Monday morning and killed at least 13 Palestinians.
Is the Likud formally linking more mass murder and ethnic cleasning as part of negotiations ?
Really ?
It is Hamas who cruelly displays its innocent victims,teasing,rather working out a mutually beneficial deal.
Has the IDF already killed 70 of these prisoners ?
People believe the Likud wants these prisoners dead,
Did you count the bodies?Did you do forensic examination of the victim? How do you know?
“People believe” There are people who also believe that moon landings were fake, the earth is flat, the 9/11 attacks were done by US air force pilots and Covid vaccine contain tracking chips. A certain percentage of the population live in a fantasy world where they believe in any conspiracy theory that supports their view.
Weapons of Mass Distraction…this is your call to distract and avoid the blatantly obvious. Reading you is like reading the utter mendacity from any bought government official…
What “blatantly obvious fact” are you referring too?
The IDF is nothing more than a professional terrorist organization…the proof is all there in blood, bodies torture and destruction. People like you love it which is why you defend it with distractions about Hamas and Hezbollah…You are owned Jake..we get it…
The IDF is ‘just following orders’ like all armies and navies. It’s the Adolf Eichmann syndrome now applied to Israel. They learned all this from the Third Reich.
Massacre 1200 people in the most sadistic ways,and expect a harsh response.
Does anybody else think that the hostage deal is nothing but a straw man argument?
It seems to me that Netanyahu intends to remove Gaza from the map by any means necessary, and that he intends to do this whether an agreement is reached with Hamas or not.
Yeah, yeah, heard it all before. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. There will be no “ceasefire”, “pause”, or this stupid euphemism “sustainable calm”. AFP is pushing bullshit while Al-Mayadeen is probably reporting truthfully.
… And Hamas threatens to kill all the hostages if Rafah ground invasion begins…!
No hostages will be released…! Israel is just hoping once the invasion begins the frightened Gaza people just rush crossing the border into Egypt and overwhelm its border guards…!
If the hostages are not released the war continue. If the hostages are killed, the war will also continue with more anger by Israel. Is that what you want?
And Gaza citizens will not crash the Egypt boarder because the Egyptians guards will just kill them.
You “antiwar” types are inhumane. Do you want the Palestinians to die slowly and painfully from thirst and hunger? If we can kill them all with bombs and bullets, we can relieve them from their terrible misery. The more you try to stop us, the more they suffer. Read your bibles and let us get back to work. Find some mercy in your hearts. (Okay, I had to add Sarcasm here because I don’t have a clue how many Christian Zi@nists actually share this view and find it plausible)
The Xtian Zionists are brain washed by preachers who are funded by Zionist organizations. But, sooner or later (hopefully) they’ll finally get a clue as to the reality of the situation.
After we’re all dead.
Do you have the cancelled checks? The documents?
Arab-Islamic Extraordinary Summit calls for sanctions against Israel
Senior officials from Arab and Muslim countries attending a high-profile summit in Saudi Arabia have called for effective sanctions against the Israeli regime for the war crimes it has committed in Palestine.
The plea was made on Sunday by foreign ministers of Jordan, Egypt and Turkey, as well as officials from Qatar, the Palestinian Authority and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation attending the Joint Arab-Islamic Extraordinary Summit in Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh to discuss the war in Gaza.
The Saudi foreign ministry said on its website that the summit had called for measures like halting arms exports to Israel amid the regime’s continued violation of international law and its committing of “war crimes”.
It said the summit, which was chaired by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, said that international legal tools should be activated to hold the Israeli regime accountable for crimes it has committed in recent months in both Gaza and in the West Bank.
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/04/28/724537/Arab-Muslim-summit-Riyadh-Israel-war-crimes-sanctions
anther hopeful sign. thanks Dread.
Does anybody else think that the hostage deal is nothing but a straw man argument?
It seems to me that Netanyahu intends to remove Gaza from the map by any means necessary, and that he intends to do this whether an agreement is reached with Hamas or not.
If Netanyahu intends to remove Gaza from the map, he is doing a very poor job.
Looks like he’s got half done. How much rubble and lives will it take to finish the job?
Since ninety nine percent of the citizens of Gaza are still alive, I would say he got a lot of work to do to “remove Gaza from the map”. Which is clearly not his intent. He wants the hostage released and Hamas removed from power.
Which is clearly not his intend.[sic]
Really? So when he says that they intend to remove all the Palestinians from Gaza for Israeli settlements he’s lying? That seems a weird tactic to take.
First thanks for pointing out my typo.
Second, can you document where he said the he is planning to remove the Palestinians from Gaza. I would like to read that for myself.
On 28 October 2023, as Israeli forces prepared their land invasion of Gaza, the Prime Minister invoked the Biblical story of the total destruction of Amalek by the Israelites, stating: “you must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our
Holy Bible. And we do remember”. The Prime Minister referred again to Amalek in the letter sent on 3 November 2023 to Israeli soldiers and officers. The relevant biblical passage reads as follows: “Now go, attack Amalek, and proscribe all that belongs to him. Spare no one, but kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings, oxen and sheep, camels and asses”
(Source: page 60 of the charges before the ICJ linked below)
https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/South-Africa-v-Israel.pdf
From that document, “9 On 13 October 2023, he confirmed that “[w]e are striking our enemies with unprecedented might .” Hitting ones enemies hard is not the same as “removing Palestinians from Gaza”.
The court didn’t buy that, and I doubt that anybody here will buy it either.
And six months later, 99.9 % of people living in Gaza before they started the war with Israel are still in Gaza. So how again is he removing people from Gaza?
Bibi doesn’t always get what he wants when he wants it. But he has repeatedly said what he wants. As we look at Rafah, we can see that he’s not finished trying.
His references to Amalek, along with the nearly 30,000 women and children he’s had put to death since October, tell us all we need to know about his intentions.
And Hamas actions had nothing to do with the losses in Gaza. How quickly one forgets who started this war.
If you want to talk about whether the chicken was first, or the egg, you’re going to have to start a few decades earlier than October 2023.
Will Israel release all its hostages in prison, including kids? Fair is fair everywhere but in Tel Aviv (well, maybe not). The whole mess and slaughter is metaphysical in nature, but real estate opportunities are also in the mix.
Those who have blood on their hands should rot in jail.Those who do not should be released. Very simple.
So you’re saying the world needs to build enough prisons to house the IDF troops committing atrocities in Gaza? For once I agree with you.
The International Criminal Court plans to issue arrest warrants for Bibi and some of his Party comrades for that very reason.
Depends on your definition of “hostages”. If you include terrorists who planted bombs at a bus station as hostages than no. If it include someone taken prisoner in Gaza as a Hamas suspect than yes.
The declared primary purpose of the Al Aqsa Flood operation was to capture enough Israeli hostages that they could exchange them for the over 7,000 Palestinians being held without charges, many of them children. Attacking some of the more annoying IDF posts nearby was a secondary goal.
That plan got 30,000 Palestinians killed. Not to mention a larger number of building destroyed or damaged. Nice trade off, 30,000 dead people for the chance to get 7000 people freed.
As for the “many” Palestinian children in prison. 156 under 18 Palestinians were detained in the last report of which 144 were 16 to 18 years old and 12 where 14 to 16. 101 were convicted or charged with a crime. Now how many of Hamas kidnapped victims were under 5? Nine is the correct answer.
You’ve had many answers to all of your accusations and posts. Bye!
Ted Nugent will kick your ass!
and Geotge Thorogood will kick your other ass!
what people don’t realize is that they both have the same guitar.
Ted thought that he had swept all of them up but oops!
George has one. oops.