Israel open to humanitarian pause but rejects calls for ceasefire
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposes a ceasefire in Gaza as long as Hamas holds Israeli hostages, but is open to a humanitarian pause.
Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu has strongly rejected the Biden administration’s vision for post-war Gaza, saying the Palestinian Authority, which now administers the West Bank, will not assume governance of the war-ravaged enclave.
Israel will retain overall control of security and retain the right to attack any “terrorists who may re-emerge,” Netanyahu said Saturday. Israel has been relentlessly bombing Gaza since Hamas militants crashed across the border, rampaging murderously through Israeli communities, on October 7.
Netanyahu, who credited the Israeli attack with pushing Hamas closer to a deal on the release of the hostages, vowed not to “give in” to global pressure to cede control of Gaza to President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas.
“There will be no civil authority that teaches its children to hate Israel, to kill Israelis, to eliminate the State of Israel,” Netanyahu said. “There cannot be an authority whose leader has still not condemned the terrible massacre. days later.”
Developments:
∎ In Gaza City, the area around Al Shifa Hospital was hit by heavy bombing. Palestinian officials say thousands of civilians have taken refuge there, but Israeli officials accuse Hamas of hiding a command post on the hospital grounds. Hamas denies this.
∎ The Israeli military said there was a safe corridor for civilians to evacuate from Shifa to southern Gaza, but many Palestinians said they were afraid to go out.
Newborn among the dead as medical devices lose power at Gaza’s largest hospital: live updates
Netanyahu said on Sunday that a hostage deal with Hamas could be near, but refused to discuss details to avoid derailing delicate negotiations aimed at freeing those captured in the militant attack on Israeli communities on October 7.
“I think the less I talk about it, the more I’ll increase the chances of it materializing,” he told NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”
Netanyahu credited Israeli military pressure for getting Hamas to discuss the release.
“It’s the only thing that could create a deal,” he said. “We’ll talk about it when we get there. We’ll announce it if it’s feasible.”
The hostage talks have generated considerable and sometimes conflicting buzz, with NBC also reporting that a Biden administration official had confirmed a possible deal involving the release of about 80 women and children in exchange for the release of women and children. Palestinian teenagers detained by Israel, NBC News reported. The official, whom NBC did not name, acknowledged there was no certainty a deal would come to fruition.
But Reuters reported that Hamas decided on Sunday to suspend hostage negotiations due to the Israeli attack on Al Shifa Hospital, a Palestinian official briefed on the hostage talks told the news service.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has called for intensifying global protests against Israel over the war in Gaza, but has again refused to fully commit his militant group to supporting Hamas. Nasrallah said only the United States and Britain fully supported Israel in the war, noting that Western leaders who initially condemned Hamas for the October 7 attack were now calling for a ceasefire and calling for that international pressure is directed towards the United States.
Nasrallah, in a Times of Israel translation, said Hamas supporters must be willing to prolong the war to weaken Israel, saying the Israeli economy had suffered “tens of billions of dollars in losses…despite the $14 billion of dollars in military aid provided. by the United States »
Conflict on U.S. college campuses sparked by the war in Gaza has caused many Jewish and Muslim families to establish a new set of standards by which they hope their children will hang out next year. Over the coming months, exactly how college leaders handle protests and hate speech could have a notable impact on what parents and students ultimately choose on campus. For Jewish students in particular, the chaos could potentially accelerate a downward trend in Jewish enrollment at the nation’s most selective schools, where much of the war-related controversy is focused.
“A reckoning is being done with Jewish families and within many of these institutions,” said Naomi Steinberg, a counselor at a private college in Florida who works primarily with Jewish students and parents. Learn more here.
− Zachary Schermele
Choosing a college is difficult. The war between Israel and Hamas makes things more difficult
Contributor: Associated Press