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Israeli PM Netanyahu Vows to Pressure Hamas After Ceasefire Proposal
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a news conference in Jerusalem, Sept. 2, 2024. Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg/Pool via REUTERS
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated a demand on Sunday for Hamas to disarm and for its leaders to leave Gaza as he promised to step up pressure on the group while continuing efforts to return hostages.
He said Israel would work to implement US President Donald Trump’s “voluntary emigration plan” for Gaza and said his cabinet had agreed to keep pressuring Hamas, which says it has agreed to a ceasefire proposal from mediators Egypt and Qatar.
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said Netanyahu’s comments were a recipe for “endless escalation” in the region.
Netanyahu rejected assertions that Israel, which has resumed its bombardment of Gaza after a two-month truce and sent troops back into the enclave, was not negotiating, saying “we are conducting it under fire, and therefore it is also effective.”
“We see that there are suddenly cracks,” he said in a video statement issued on Sunday.
On Saturday, Khalil al-Hayya, the Hamas leader in Gaza, said the group had agreed to a proposal that security sources said included the release of five Israeli hostages each week. But he said laying down its arms as Israel has demanded was a “red line” the group would not cross.
Later on Sunday, the Palestinian Red Crescent Service said it had finally been able to get access to search for rescue teams that had come under Israeli fire during a rescue mission in western Rafah, a week after the attack.
It said it had recovered 13 bodies from the scene, seven of them were Palestinian Red Crescent members, another five were from the Gaza Civil Emergency Service, and another was a United Nations worker. There was no immediate Israeli comment.
Since Israel resumed its attacks in Gaza on March 18, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed and tens of thousands have been forced to evacuate areas in northern Gaza where they had returned following the ceasefire agreement in January.
Netanyahu said Israel was demanding that Hamas lay down its arms and said its leaders would be allowed to leave Gaza. He gave no detail on how long Israeli troops would remain in the enclave but repeated that Hamas’s military and government capacities must be crushed.
“We will ensure general security in the Gaza Strip and enable the implementation of the Trump plan, the voluntary emigration plan,” he said. “That is the plan, we do not hide it, we are ready to discuss it at any time.”
Trump originally proposed moving the entire 2.3 million population of Gaza to countries including Egypt and Jordan and developing the Gaza Strip as a US-owned resort. However, no country has agreed to take in the population and Israel has since said that any departures by Palestinians would be voluntary.
EID IN GAZA
Israel launched its campaign in Gaza after a devastating Hamas attack on Israeli communities around the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023 that killed some 1,200 people, according to an Israeli tally, and saw 251 abducted as hostages.
Sunday’s strikes took place as Palestinians celebrated the Eid holiday marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
“We are here to celebrate the rituals of God amid the destruction and the sounds of cannons,” said Minnatallah Al-Far, in Jabalia, in northern Gaza, where most of the area has been laid waste by Israeli bombardment.
“In Gaza, our situation is very difficult. Other people are celebrating these rituals in peace and safety, but we do them amid destruction and bombardment,” she said.
In Israel, Netanyahu has faced a wave of demonstrations since the military resumed its action in Gaza, with families and supporters of the remaining 59 hostages joining forces with protesters angry at government actions they see as undermining Israeli democracy.
On Sunday, he rejected what he described as “empty claims and slogans” and said military pressure was the only thing that had returned hostages.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
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