RSS
Israel faces charges of genocide at the International Court of Justice. Here’s why, and how Israel will respond.
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Perhaps the most famous court case in Israel history was the trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the architects of the Holocaust. Next week, more than 60 years later, lawyers for the Israeli government will again grapple with an allegation of genocide — but this time as defendants and not as prosecutors.
That grim history helps explain why Israel has chosen to engage with the International Court of Justice, which will weigh a claim by South Africa that Israel is committing genocide in its war against Hamas in Gaza. Israel is furious at the accusation, which it called a perversion of the genocide charge.
The ICJ will base its judgment on the 1948 U.N. Genocide Convention, which Israel joined almost as soon as the state was established because the convention was written in the wake of the Holocaust, in hopes of preventing another genocide.
“Israel decided to send a legal team because this is an outrageous application by South Africa and we will defend ourselves against those lies,” Lior Hayat, the spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry, said in an interview.
Here’s what’s behind the accusation, how Israel is defending it and what to anticipate.
Who is adjudicating the accusation, and when?
The International Court of Justice, based in The Hague in the Netherlands, adjudicates claims against states. In the past it has considered disputes on everything from maritime border disputes to the United States’ funding of the Contras rebel groups in Nicaragua in the 1980s. The court, first convened in 1946, is the culmination of a series of international conferences that aimed to adjudicate disputes between nations as a means of preventing war.
The court has previously considered cases involving Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, the moving of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and an incident in 1955 in which an El Al flight was shot down over Bulgarian airspace.
The International Criminal Court in the same city adjudicates criminal allegations against individuals, such as generals or notorious despots including Libya’s Muammar Ghaddafi and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The case was initiated late last month by South Africa, and the first hearings are next week, Jan. 11 and 12.
Why is Israel participating?
Israel has a tradition of not engaging with war crimes accusations against its officials, in part because it is not party to the 2002 compact that created the International Criminal Court. In light of the United Nations’ repeated votes and other measures placing blame on Israel, Israel sees the U.N. system as irredeemably biased, and feels that the charges are likely to be loaded.
But Israeli officials say the charge of genocide is too much for a state born in the ashes of the Holocaust to ignore.
“The State of Israel will appear before the International Court of Justice at The Hague to dispel South Africa’s absurd blood libel,” Eylon Levy, a government spokesman, said on Jan. 2.
Rumors have circulated that Alan Dershowitz, the emeritus Harvard Law professor and Israel advocate, will be part of Israel’s legal team, though he has not confirmed his participation. Dershowitz has been on the legal teams of other famous defendants, including O.J. Simpson and, more recently, President Donald Trump during his first impeachment trial. He did not reply to a request for comment.
Beyond seeking to stake a moral defense against a crime it has prosecuted against Nazi war criminals, there are practical reasons for Israel to participate. The ICJ’s process may take years, but if after next week’s hearing it finds enough evidence to go forward, it may call on the parties in the Gaza war to cease hostilities.
Such a court order would establish a legal basis for countries to boycott and isolate Israel and to restrict the movement of its officials if Israel does not comply.
Two years ago, Ukraine sought and received a similar order from the court in its efforts to repel Russia’s invasion. But while both cases involve genocide, the Russia and Israel trials differ: Ukraine is not accusing Russia of genocide. Rather, it went to the ICJ to contest Russia’s accusation that Ukraine is committing genocide — which Putin has cited as a pretext for the war.
Russia, which is massive and has built an insular economy, ignored the order. But Israel, a small country allied with the West, can’t afford to make the same choice, said Orde Kittrie, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, an influential Washington think tank with close ties to Israel’s government.
“If Israel is ordered to do what Russia [was] ordered to do, which would be to immediately suspend its military operations, it would certainly be bad for Israel from a PR perspective,” said Kittrie, who is a law professor at Arizona State University. “You don’t want to be violating international law. You don’t want to be fighting when you’ve been told to stop.”
The Biden administration has indicated that it will not honor any injunctions targeting Israel as a result of the genocide charges. “We find this submission meritless, counterproductive, and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Wednesday.
Pro-Palestinian protestors supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel in Cape Town, South Africa, Sept. 21, 2015. Michelly Rall/Getty Images)
Why is South Africa making the charge?
South Africa’s government sees itself as a bulwark against what it casts as western imperialism. It also wants to push back against perceptions in the West that, since the end of apartheid in the early 1990s, it has devolved into corruption, authoritarianism and alliances with repressive regimes.
In 2017, it ignored an ICC warrant for the arrest of then-Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir on genocide charges, allowing him to enter the country.
In addition to the genocide accusation, it has embraced charges that Israel is guilty of apartheid, the crime of institutionalized racial discrimination that was South Africa’s hallmark under white minority rule for decades. Its leaders have never forgiven Israel for cozying up to the apartheid regime. Its parliament in November, in a non-binding vote, said the government should expel Israeli diplomats.
“South Africa has been engaged on the Palestinian issue since really the end of apartheid and the founding of the state,” Michael Walsh, a visiting scholar at the University of California Berkeley, told Vox. “It’s been a prominent issue in South African politics and among South African leaders.”
What is the basis for the genocide accusation?
Pro-Palestinian activists and anti-Zionist figures have been accusing Israel of genocide since the earliest days of the war — an allegation Israeli and other scholars across the political spectrum have strenuously denied both in this conflict and previous rounds of fighting. (A recent letter by a group of Israeli public figures — unconnected with the ICJ case — did accuse some Israeli officials of incitement to genocide, though not of the crime of genocide itself.)
South Africa’s charging document in the ICJ case, which outlines what it calls acts of genocide and also intent, relies on many of the same arguments pro-Palestinian activists have made in recent months.
The acts are drawn from news accounts of the carnage, which according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry has topped 22,000 Palestinian casualties, including thousands of children. That number doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants.
Also included are warnings by international bodies that the population of the enclave is on the verge of mass starvation and disease. “The acts in which Israel has engaged … are genocidal in character, having regard to their nature, scope and context,” the charging document says.
In seeking to establish intent, South Africa quotes statements by Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that South Africa claims are genocidal in scope.
That is an “extraordinarily challenging” standard to meet, according to an analysis by Alaa Hachem and Oona Hathaway at Just Security, an online security think tank run out of the New York University School of Law. “It requires proof of a specific intent to destroy a group in whole or in part.”
The South African charging document quotes a speech Netanyahu delivered to the Knesset, describing the war as “a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle,” which South Africa called a “a dehumanizing theme to which he returned on various occasions.”
That quote and some of the others in the document, the FDD’s Kittrie noted, refer not to the Palestinians as a whole but to Hamas. Kittrie said that Israeli leaders on other occasions have made clear that their war is with the terrorist group that launched the conflict with massacres that took the lives of some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, on Oct. 7.
“Our war against Hamas, the Hamas terrorist organization, is a war — it’s not a war against the people of Gaza,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said last month at a press conference with Lloyd Austin, the U.S. defense secretary.
Smoke is seen over Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip from the Israeli side of the border, Oct. 27, 2023. (Amir Levy/Getty Images)
Other more damning quotes cited in the document come from figures on the far right. It quotes for instance Amichai Eliahu, the minister of heritage who is a member of the Otzma Yehudit, or Jewish Power, party, who has said, “There is no such thing as uninvolved civilians in Gaza” and has called to nuke the territory.
Those figures are not making decisions in the war, Kittrie said. “The South Africans point to a few statements by members of the Knesset,” he said. “They take some statements out of context.”
That may be the case, said Yaniv Roznai, a law professor at Reichman University in Israel, but it is incumbent on Netanyahu and others to get their allies to avoid indulging fantasies of ethnic cleansing at an extraordinarily risky time.
“Instead of understanding that words have meanings, and that we are in wartime and to watch their mouths and not say really stupid things,” Netanyahu and others are “trying to explain them,” Roznai said in a podcast for UnXeptable, a group that opposes the massive judicial reforms Netanyahu sought before the war.
What will Israel’s case be?
Kittrie said Israel will be able to show it has instituted mitigation measures in its military campaign.
“Israel’s extensive advance warning and other measures to mitigate harm to Gaza civilians make clear that Israel’s goal is not to commit genocide but, far from it, to instead minimize Palestinian civilian casualties while lawfully exercising Israel’s rights to rescue its hostages, apprehend the Oct. 7 perpetrators, and ensure that Israel’s population is secure from further attacks,” he said.
Israeli spokespeople have also suggested that Israel will seek to turn the tables, and level charges of genocide against Hamas.
“The Hamas terrorist organization — which is committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and sought to commit genocide on 7 October — is responsible for the suffering of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by using them as human shields and stealing humanitarian aid from them,” the Foreign Ministry’s Hayat said in a statement.
—
The post Israel faces charges of genocide at the International Court of Justice. Here’s why, and how Israel will respond. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
UK Muslim Groups Reject Interfaith Pact With Jewish Leaders Because Chief Rabbi Is a ‘Zionist’
The signing of the Drumlanrig Accords at Buckingham Palace. Photo: Screenshot
A coalition of Muslim organizations in the United Kingdom has rejected a recently announced Muslim-Jewish reconciliation agreement aimed at improving relations between the two communities, condemning the landmark pact over the involvement of British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, who they denounced as a “staunch Zionist.”
In a joint statement, more than 25 Muslim groups, including Friends of Al Aqsa and The Cordoba Foundation, expressed strong opposition to the Drumlanrig Accords over Mirvis’s support for Israel. They also argued that the agreement, which was drafted in January and signed last month, lacked legitimate representation as it was backed by “self-appointed” Muslim leaders who do not represent the will of the Muslim community.
The signatories “failed to consult widely with grassroot organizations supported by the Muslim community before they signed these accords with the chief rabbi, who is a staunch Zionist,” the statement said.
“Rabbi Mirvis has supported Israel’s war on the Palestinians in Gaza,” the coalition continued, before citing debunked casualty figures supplied by Hamas-controlled authorities. “We cannot in good faith acknowledge these accords when the chief rabbi has made public statements supporting Israel despite the horrific actions of the Israeli Occupation Forces.”
In January, representatives of 11 denominations from Judaism and Islam met at Drumlanrig Castle in Scotland to agree to a pact aimed at improving relations between the two faiths. The signatories said the accords were designed to unite the Jewish and Muslim communities in Britain to “help tackle both antisemitism and Islamophobia, as well as poverty and isolation,” while promoting mutual respect and solidarity.
Jewish and Muslim leaders formally signed the agreement last month and presented it to Britain’s King Charles III at Buckingham Palace in London.
“The Drumlanrig Accords represent a bold first step toward rebuilding a meaningful trust between Muslim and Jewish communities over the long term,” Mirvis said in a statement following the signing of the accords. “They do not gloss over our differences; they acknowledge them.”
“They also send out a powerful message that in times of division, when it is far easier to retreat into fear and suspicion, we are prepared to take the more challenging path to reconciliation,” he continued. “We do so not because it is easy, but because it is necessary.”
In their statement released earlier this week, Muslim leaders explained they would only accept and support the accords if the UK’s chief rabbi condemns the “genocide and apartheid being enacted against the Palestinian people,” welcoming a collective multi-faith movement against oppression.
“Until then, we wholly reject these accords made purportedly on behalf of the Muslim community,” the coalition said. “A central facet of Islam is the complete rejection of oppression. As a community, we do not shy away from rejecting oppression in all its forms against anyone.”
The statement did not acknowledge Hamas’s widely recognized military strategy of embedding its terrorists within Gaza’s civilian population and commandeering civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and mosques to run operations and direct attacks.
In Monday’s statement, the groups also argued that the Muslim leaders who signed the accords were “self-appointed” and do not represent the wider British Muslim community, but rather they only speak for a small minority.
“These self-appointed Muslims were fully aware that they only represent a small minority of the overall British Muslim population,” the statement read. “The majority of the British Muslim community do not even know who these individual Muslim ‘leaders’ are. Their actions and decisions were made independently without consulting the wider Muslim community.”
According to their statement, these Muslim groups would be “wholly supportive” of interfaith relations if carried out in good faith.
“We note the significant rise in anti-Muslim hatred within the Jewish community and support engagement on challenging hatred in all its forms,” the signatories said.
The signing of the accords came amid an ongoing surge in antisemitic crimes across the UK since the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, amid the ensuing war in Gaza.
Last month, the Community Security Trust (CST), a nonprofit charity that advises Britain’s Jewish community on security matters, released data showing the UK experienced its second worst year ever for antisemitism in 2024, despite recording an 18 percent drop in antisemitic incidents from the previous year’s all-time high.
In one of the latest incidents, a visibly Jewish man in England was brutally attacked after a prayer service, leaving him fearing for his eyesight, with local police investigating the assault as a hate crime.
Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists started the war in Gaza when they murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages during their invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
In January, both sides reached a ceasefire and hostage-release deal brokered by Egypt and Qatar with the support of the United States.
The post UK Muslim Groups Reject Interfaith Pact With Jewish Leaders Because Chief Rabbi Is a ‘Zionist’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Legal Nonprofit Launches Civil Rights Blitz Against Campus Antisemitism in California
Illustrative: A pro-Hamas demonstrator uses a megaphone on the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, in New York City, US, Oct. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mike Segar
The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law has launched a legal blitz in California, announcing on Thursday that it filed three federal civil rights complaints against California State Polytechnic, Humboldt (Cal Poly), Scripps College, and the Etiwanda School District in San Bernardino County.
“While an increasing number of schools recognize that their Jewish students are being targeted both for their religious beliefs and due to their ancestral connection to Israel, and are taking necessary steps to address both classic and contemporary forms of antisemitism, some shamefully continue to turn a blind eye,” Brandeis Center founder and chairman Kenneth Marcus said in a statement announcing the actions. “The law and the federal government recognize Jews share a common faith and they are a people with a shared history and heritage rooted in the land of Israel.”
According to the Brandeis Center, the three complaints are being supported by several co-litigants — with Jewish on Campus (JOC) being a party to the Cal Poly complaint; the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and Arnold & Porter LLP to the Scripps College complaint; and StandWithUs and the ADL to the Etiwanda School District complaint.
Cal Poly is accused of allowing Jewish students to be subjected to “vicious antisemitism,” standing down while pro-Hamas activists doused them in fake blood and committed other acts of intimidation, such as antisemitic graffiti and hate speech. Rather than correcting the hostile environment, the Brandeis Center and JOC alleged, the university recommended that those being targeted hide any indicators of their Jewishness and even terminated their participation in a club fair as an alternative to disciplining a pro-Hamas student who physically harassed them at the event.
At Scripps College, in Claremont, California, a Jewish student was allegedly ordered to remove her Star of David and routinely taunted with antisemitic tropes accusing Jews of being “immoral,” rapacious, and exercising “control” over media. Living openly as a Jewish woman has become an unrelenting tribulation for this student, the Brandeis Center and Arnold & Peter added, noting that she has seen her social network collapse due to her attending Shabbat dinners and “studying Torah with the campus rabbi.” In addition to allegedly neglecting to respond to these indignities, Scripps has been accused of showing further disregard for the civil rights of Jewish students by helping pro-Hamas agitators evade accountability for behaviors such as vandalism. The situation, the groups said, has prompted many Jewish students to leave the country to participate in study abroad programs rather than remain on campus.
The Etiwanda school district case recounts the experience of a 12-year-old Jewish girl who was allegedly assaulted on school grounds — being beaten with a stick — told to “shut your Jewish ass up,” and teased with jokes about Hitler. According to the court filings, one student said such behavior would have never happened were she not Jewish. Despite receiving a slew of complaints about the discriminatory treatment, a substantial amount of which occurred in the classroom, school officials have allegedly eschewed punishing her tormentors.
The Algemeiner has reached out to Cal Poly, Scripps College, and the Etiwanda school district for comment and will update this story if they respond.
Cal Poly told the Lost Coast Outpost, a local media outlet, that it is “reviewing the federal complaint and will, of course, fully cooperate with the [US Department of Education’s] Office of Civil Rights in any investigation.” The school added, “Hatred or discrimination in any form, including antisemitism, is contrary to our core values. The university unequivocally condemns all acts of hatred, bigotry, and violence, and we are committed to keeping safe our students, staff, and faculty of all religions. We will continue to work together to foster a learning and working environment where we can all feel safe, included, and respected.”
According to leading voices behind the federal complaints, administrators at many educational institutions are not doing enough to combat anti-Jewish discrimination.
“Too many of our nation’s young minds are being corrupted by the disease of antisemitism. It is the duty of K-12 educators and administrators to provide the necessary education to inoculate them — not indoctrinate them,” StandWithUs chief executive officer and founder Roz Rothstein said in a statement. “As long as students continue to find themselves on the receiving end of anti-Jewish hate and bigotry from their peers or teachers, and their appeals to administration continue to fall on deaf ears, we will continue to show up and support them in holding their schools accountable.”
The ADL’s vice president of national litigation, James Pasch, added, “ADL and our partners will not sit idly by as Jewish students are attacked for their identity — from our college campuses to our K-12 schools, our educational institutions have an obligation to protect their Jewish students and ensure that all its students receive an education free of harassment and discrimination.”
The Brandeis Center has spearheaded litigation for dozens of complaints of antisemitism in recent years, taking on large, powerful institutions, as well as lesser-known ones, across the US. Recently, it achieved the pausing of the Santa Ana Unified School District’s (SAUSD) implementation of an ethnic studies curriculum that, according to the lawsuit, district leaders in California intentionally hid from the Jewish community to conceal its antisemitic content.
Just weeks prior, the Brandies Center negotiated the resolution of a lawsuit which accused Harvard University of violating the rights of Jewish students by failing to discipline a professor whom a third-party firm had deemed guilty of mistreating Jewish students.
The organization’s legal actions further its mission to combat antisemitism in educational institutions, Marcus noted in Thursday’s press release, saying, “Schools that continue to ignore either aspect of Jewish identity are becoming dangerous breeding grounds for escalating anti-Jewish bigotry, and they must be held accountable.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Legal Nonprofit Launches Civil Rights Blitz Against Campus Antisemitism in California first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Hamas Dismisses Trump Threat, Says Hostages Will Only Be Released With Lasting Ceasefire
US President Donald speaking in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, DC on March 3, 2025. Photo: Leah Millis via Reuters Connect
Hamas on Thursday dismissed US President Donald Trump’s latest threat against the Palestinian terrorist group, saying it will only release the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza with a lasting ceasefire.
The “best path to free the remaining Israeli hostages” is through negotiations on a second phase of the ceasefire agreement, Hamas spokesman Abdel-Latif al-Qanoua said.
The first phase of the truce, which lasted 42 days, ended on Saturday. During that time, fighting stopped between Israel and Hamas as the former withdrew some forces from Gaza. Meanwhile, Hamas released 25 living Israeli hostages and the bodies of eight more in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, many of whom were serving lengthy sentences for terrorist activity.
Only limited preparatory talks have been held so far regarding a second phase of the ceasefire, which could include a permanent truce, full Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza, and release of the remaining living hostages in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners. However, the future of the deal is in doubt, as both sides disagree on how to proceed.
Negotiations were further complicated by Trump, who on Wednesday posted a statement on his social media platform Truth Social in which he issued an ultimatum to Hamas.
“‘Shalom Hamas’ means Hello and Goodbye – You can choose,” the president’s post began. “Release all of the Hostages now, not later, and immediately return all of the dead bodies of the people you murdered, or it is OVER for you. Only sick and twisted people keep bodies, and you are sick and twisted!”
Trump added that he is “sending Israel everything it needs to finish the job,” and that “not a single Hamas member will be safe if you don’t do as I say.”
The US president then noted that he met earlier in the day with several former hostages who were released from Hamas captivity.
“I have just met with your former Hostages whose lives you have destroyed. This is your last warning! For the leadership, now is the time to leave Gaza, while you still have a chance,” Trump said
He also warned that Gazans could be killed if they assisted Hamas in detaining Israeli hostages. Several of the hostages freed from Gaza were held by families with connections to the Hamas terrorist group. These hostages reportedly experienced physical and psychological violence while being held in captivity.
“Also, to the People of Gaza: A beautiful Future awaits, but not if you hold Hostages. If you do, you are DEAD! Make a SMART decision. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW, OR THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY LATER,” Trump wrote.
Beyond calling for the second phase of the ceasefire deal, Hamas also responded to Trump’s threat by arguing that it would embolden Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Such positions are what give the war criminal Netanyahu the strength and ability to continue his crimes,” Hamas spokesman Salama Maroof said on Thursday.
Another spokesman for the terrorist group, Hazem Qassem, reportedly added, “Trump’s threats complicate matters related to the ceasefire agreement and push the occupation’s [Israel’s] government to become more radical. If Trump cares about releasing the occupation’s hostages, he should pressure Netanyahu to begin negotiations for the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement. We fear that the occupation will take advantage of Trump’s statements to intensify the Gaza siege and starvation policy against its residents.”
Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists started the war in Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, when they invaded, southern Israel, murdered 1,200 people, and kidnapped 251 hostages. Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the captives and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
Fighting stopped when the ceasefire went into effect on Jan. 19.
Israel recently presented Hamas with a proposal for an extension of the ongoing Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release deal. The proposal would mandate that Hamas release half of the remaining Israeli hostages who were kidnapped into Gaza at the beginning of the extension. The rest of the hostages would be released at the end, if Hamas and Israel can agree on a permanent ceasefire deal. Israel would retain the right to restart the war in Gaza if negotiations are unsuccessful by the 42-day mark.
According to Jerusalem, the ceasefire extension proposal was the brainchild of US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.
However, Hamas has refused to extend the first phase of the ceasefire deal, leading Israel to announce that it would block humanitarian aid transfers into Gaza to pressure the terrorist group into accepting the ceasefire extension.
Hamas is believed to still have 24 living hostages taken in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack, including Israeli-American Edan Alexander. It is also holding the bodies of 34 others who were either killed in the initial attack or in captivity, as well as the remains of a soldier killed in the 2014 Israel-Hamas war.
Under Trump, the White House has prioritized the release of Israeli hostages during the opening weeks of the new administration. Last month, Trump vowed to let “hell break out” in Gaza if Hamas did not release the remaining hostages.
“As far as I’m concerned, if all of the hostages aren’t returned by Saturday at 12 o’clock … I would say, cancel it [the hostage deal] and all bets are off and let hell break out,” Trump said at the time,
The Trump administration has also started direct communications with Hamas, a designated terrorist organization, over the release of US hostages in Gaza.
“When it comes to the negotiations … the special envoy who’s engaged in those negotiations does have the authority to talk to anyone,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday. “Israel was consulted on this matter. Dialogue and talking to people around the world to do what’s in the best interest of the American people, is something that the president has proven, what he believes is good-faith effort to do what’s right for the American people.”
According to reports, US special envoy for hostage affairs Adam Boehler has been leading the discussions with Hamas in Doha, Qatar. The talks have mainly focused on securing the release of American hostages still in Hamas captivity. However, Hamas and US officials have also reportedly discussed brokering an agreement to release all remaining hostages in the enclave.
The post Hamas Dismisses Trump Threat, Says Hostages Will Only Be Released With Lasting Ceasefire first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login