Connect with us

RSS

Qatar Presents Gaza Hostage Draft Agreement Following ‘Breakthrough’

Israeli forces operating in the northern Gaza Strip on Nov. 3, 2023, in an area from which many attempts to attack the Israeli forces through tunnel shafts and military compounds were detected. Photo: EYEPRESS via Reuters Connect

Mediators gave Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas a final draft of a deal on Monday to end the war in Gaza, an official briefed on the negotiations said, after a midnight “breakthrough” in talks attended by envoys of both Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

The official said the text for a ceasefire and release of hostages was presented by Qatar to both sides at talks in Doha, which included the chiefs of Israel’s Mossad and Shin Bet spy agencies and Qatar’s prime minister.

Steve Witkoff, who will become US envoy when Trump returns to the US presidency next week, attended the talks, the official said. A US source said the outgoing Biden administration’s envoy Brett McGurk was also there.

“The next 24 hours will be pivotal to reaching the deal,” the official said, characterizing the draft as the outcome of a breakthrough reached in the early hours of Monday.

Qatar’s ruling emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, received a Hamas delegation headed by senior official Khalil al-Hayya to discuss the ceasefire talks, the emir’s office said.

Israel’s Kan radio, citing an Israeli official, reported on Monday that Israeli and Hamas delegations in Qatar had both received a draft, and that the Israeli delegation had briefed Israel’s leaders. Israel, Hamas, and the foreign ministry of Qatar did not respond to requests for confirmation or comment.

Officials on both sides, while stopping short of confirming that a final draft had been reached, described progress at the talks.

“The negotiation over some core issues made progress and we are working to conclude what remains soon,” a Hamas official told Reuters on Monday, asking not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the negotiations were being coordinated between Biden’s and Trump’s teams.

“There is progress, it looks much better than previously. I want to thank our American friends for the huge efforts they are investing to secure a hostage deal,” Saar told reporters.

The United States, Qatar, and Egypt have worked for more than a year on talks to end the war in Gaza, so far fruitlessly.

In Cairo, an Egyptian security official told Reuters the draft sent to the two warring sides did not comprise the final agreement but “aims to resolve outstanding issues that had hindered previous negotiations.”

HELL TO PAY

Israel’s channel 12 said Israeli government institutions had been told to prepare for the intake of weak and sick hostages. A spokesperson from the Israeli health ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The warring sides have agreed for months broadly on the principle of halting the fighting in return for the release of hostages held by Hamas and Palestinian detainees held by Israel. But Hamas has always insisted a deal must lead to a permanent end to the war and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, while Israel has said it will not end the war until Hamas is dismantled.

Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration is now widely seen in the region as a de facto deadline. The president-elect has said there would be “hell to pay” unless hostages held by Hamas are freed before he takes office, while outgoing President Biden has also pushed hard for a deal before he leaves.

The official who first disclosed the draft said talks went until the early hours of Monday, with Witkoff pushing the Israeli delegation in the Qatari capital Doha and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani pushing Hamas officials to finalize an agreement.

The head of Egypt’s general intelligence agency Hassan Mahmoud Rashad was also in Doha as part of the talks. Rashad left Doha on Monday but a source familiar with the talks said an intelligence delegation stayed behind to play an active role.

Trump envoy Witkoff has traveled to Qatar and Israel several times since late November. He was in Doha on Friday and travelled to Israel to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday before returning to Doha.

Biden also spoke on Sunday by phone with Netanyahu, stressing “the immediate need for a ceasefire in Gaza and return of the hostages with a surge in humanitarian aid enabled by a stoppage in the fighting under the deal,” the White House said.

The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists invaded southern Israel from the neighboring enclave on Oct. 7, 2023, murdering 1,200 people and kidnapping 251 hostages. Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in Gaza.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and his Religious Zionism party, a hardline nationalist party which has opposed previous attempts at a deal, said all its members would oppose a deal that didn’t achieve Hamas’ “destruction” and the latest proposal endangered Israel’s national security.

For the last several months, fighting has been particularly intense along the northern edge of Gaza, where Israel says it is trying to prevent Hamas from regrouping and Palestinians accuse Israel of seeking to depopulate a buffer zone.

Hamas armed wing spokesman Abu Ubaida said the group’s fighters attacked Israeli forces in the area killing at least 10 soldiers and injuring dozens of others in the past 72 hours.

The post Qatar Presents Gaza Hostage Draft Agreement Following ‘Breakthrough’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

RSS

Iran Rejects US Nuclear Proposal, Says ‘Counteroffer’ Coming as Talks Stall Over Uranium Enrichment, Sanctions

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, May 20, 2025. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS

Iran has denounced the latest nuclear proposal from the United States as “unprofessional and untechnical,” reaffirming the country’s right to enrich uranium and announcing plans to present a counteroffer in the coming days.

“After receiving the American proposal regarding the Iranian nuclear program, we are now preparing a counteroffer,” Ali Shamkhnai, political adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in an interview on Wednesday.

Shamkhani criticized the White House draft proposal as “not well thought out,” emphasizing its alleged failure to address sanction relief — a key demand for Tehran under any deal with Washington.

“There is no mention whatsoever of lifting sanctions in the latest American proposal, even though the issue of sanctions is a fundamental matter for Iran,” Shamkhnai said.

The Iranian official also warned that Tehran will not allow the US to dismantle its “peaceful nuclear program” or force uranium enrichment down to zero.

“Iran will never relinquish its natural rights,” Shamkhani said.

Washington’s draft proposal for a new nuclear deal was delivered by Omani officials — who have been mediating negotiations between Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff — during last month’s talks in Rome.

On Wednesday, Khamenei dismissed such an offer, saying it “contradicts our nation’s belief in self-reliance” and runs counter to Iran’s key objectives.

“The proposal that the Americans have presented is 100 percent against our interests,” the Iranian leader said during a televised speech.

“The rude and arrogant leaders of America repeatedly demand that we should not have a nuclear program. Who are you to decide whether Iran should have enrichment?” Khamenei continued.

After five rounds of talks, diplomatic efforts have yet to yield results as both adversaries clash over Iran’s demand to maintain its domestic uranium enrichment program — a condition the White House has firmly rejected.

In April, Tehran and Washington held their first official nuclear negotiation since the US withdrew from a now-defunct 2015 nuclear deal that had imposed temporary limits on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanction relief.

Since taking office, US President Donald Trump has sought to curtail Tehran’s potential to develop a nuclear weapon that could spark a regional arms race and pose a threat to Israel.

Meanwhile, Iran seeks to have Western sanctions on its oil-dependent economy lifted, while maintaining its nuclear enrichment program — which the country insists is solely for civilian purposes.

As part of the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran — which aims to cut the country’s crude exports to zero and prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon — Washington has been targeting Tehran’s oil industry with mounting sanctions.

Amid the ongoing diplomatic deadlock, Israel has declared it will never allow the Islamist regime to acquire nuclear weapons, as the country views Iran’s nuclear program as an existential threat.

However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to uphold any agreement that prevents Tehran from enriching uranium.

“But in any case, Israel maintains the right to defend itself from a regime that is threatening to annihilate it,” Netanyahu said in a press conference last month, following reports that Jerusalem could strike Iranian nuclear sites if ongoing negotiations between Washington and Tehran fail.

The post Iran Rejects US Nuclear Proposal, Says ‘Counteroffer’ Coming as Talks Stall Over Uranium Enrichment, Sanctions first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

RSS

Day After Colorado Attack, Founder of Anti-Israel Group Chides Activists Who Are Insufficiently ‘Pro-Resistance’

Nerdeen Kiswani, founder of WithinOurLifetime (WOL), leading a pro-Hamas demonstration in New York City on Aug. 14, 2024. Photo: Michael Nigro via Reuters Connect

Nerdeen Kiswani, the founder of the radical anti-Israel organization Within Our Lifetime, chastised those within the pro-Palestinian movement who only support “resistance” in the abstract but not in practice following Sunday’s antisemitic attack in Boulder, Colorado.

“A lot of people who call themselves anti-Zionist or pro-resistance don’t actually understand what resistance is,” Kiswani posted on X/Twitter on Monday. “They support it in theory, but when it shows up in practice, they hesitate, distance themselves, or shift the conversation entirely.”

She continued, “And it makes it even harder for those of us who are principled to take public stances. We’re already marginalized, already painted as extreme or dangerous and that isolation only deepens when others in the movement won’t stand firm when it counts.”

Kiswani’s comments came the day after a man threw Molotov cocktails at a Boulder gathering where participants were rallying in support of the Israeli hostages who remain in captivity in Gaza — which resulted in 15 injuries, including some critically, in what US authorities called a targeted terrorist attack. Her tweets also came less than two weeks after a gunman murdered two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC, while they were leaving an at the Capital Jewish Museum hosted by the American Jewish Committee. In both attacks, the perpetrator yelled “Free Palestine” as they targeted innocent civilians, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

After Kiswani’s social media posts sparked some backlash among pro-Israel users on X, she provided limited pushback on the idea that it was an expression of support for the prior day’s attack in Colorado.

“Zionists are freaking out in the QTs about this, insisting it’s about Colorado,” she wrote. “Newsflash: the world doesn’t revolve around you. Resistance hasn’t stopped in Gaza, look at what just happened in Jabalia [where three IDF soldiers were killed] for instance. The perpetual victimhood is getting old.”

However, Kiswani did not say her comment had no connection to the attack in Colorado, and she did not say that she opposed the firebombing.

Kiswani and her group, Within Our Lifetime (WOL), have been at the forefront of anti-Israel and pro-Hamas activism since Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists killed 1,200 people and abducted 251 hostages during their invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, a massacre that started the war in Gaza.

On Oct. 8, 2023, one day after the biggest single-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, WOL organized a protest to celebrate the prior day’s attack, which it described as an effort to “defend the heroic Palestinian resistance.” Kiswani notably refused to condemn Hamas and the Oct. 7 massacre following the atrocities.

Then, in Apil 2024, Kiswani refused to condemn the chant “Death to America” and organized a mass demonstration to block the “arteries of capitalism” by staging a blockade of commercial shipping ports across the world in protest of Western support for the Jewish state. That same month, she was banned from Columbia University’s campus in New York City after leading chants calling for an “intifada,” or violent uprising.

The following month, Kiswani led a demonstration in Brooklyn, New York in which she lambasted the local police department, claimed then-US President Joe Biden will soon die, and called for the destruction of Israel.

That proceeded the activist saying she does not want Zionists “anywhere” in the world while speaking in defense of a person who called for “Zionists” to leave a crowded subway car in New York City.

WOL, which planned a protest last year to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 massacre, was also behind demonstrations at the Nova Music Festival exhibit, which commemorated the more than 300 civilians slaughtered by Hamas while at a music festival.

The latter protest prompted widespread condemnation, including from Biden and even progressive members of the US Congress who are outspoken against Israel.

US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), for example, posted on social media that the “callousness, dehumanization, and targeting of Jews on display at last night’s protest outside the Nova Festival exhibit was atrocious antisemitism – plain and simple.”

The post Day After Colorado Attack, Founder of Anti-Israel Group Chides Activists Who Are Insufficiently ‘Pro-Resistance’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

RSS

Israel’s Defense Exports Hit Record $15 Billion in 2024 Despite European Pressure, Calls for Arms Embargo

Israeli troops on the ground in Gaza. Photo: IDF via Reuters

Israel reached a new all-time high in defense exports in 2024, nearing $15 billion — the fourth consecutive year of record-breaking sales — despite mounting international criticism over the war in Gaza and growing pressure from European countries to suspend arms deals.

In a press release on Wednesday, Israel’s Defense Ministry announced that defense exports reached over $14.7 billion last year — a 13 percent increase from 2023 — with more than half of the deals valued at over $100 million.

According to the ministry, Israel’s military exports have more than doubled over the past five years, highlighting the industry’s rapid expansion and growing global demand.

“This tremendous achievement is a direct result of the successes of the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] and defense industries against Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, the Ayatollah regime in Iran, and in additional arenas where we operate against Israel’s enemies,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement.

“The world sees Israeli strength and seeks to be a partner in it. We will continue strengthening the IDF and the Israeli economy through security innovation to ensure clear superiority against any threat – anywhere and anytime,” Katz continued.

In 2024, over half of the Jewish state’s defense contracts were with European countries — up from 35 percent the previous year — as many in the region have increased their defense spending following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Despite increasing pressure and widespread anti-Israel sentiment among European governments amid the current conflict in Gaza, this latest data seems to contradict recent calls by European leaders to impose an arms embargo on the Jewish state over its defensive campaign in Gaza against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.

On Wednesday, Germany reversed its earlier threat to halt arms deliveries to Israel, reaffirming its commitment to continue cooperation and maintain defense contracts with Jerusalem.

“Germany will continue to support the State of Israel, including with arms deliveries,” German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul told lawmakers in parliament.

Last week, Berlin warned it would take unspecified measures against Israel if it continued its military campaign in Gaza, citing concerns that exported weapons were being used in violation of humanitarian law.

“Our full support for the right to exist and the security of the State of Israel must not be instrumentalized for the conflict and the warfare currently being waged in the Gaza Strip,” Wadephul said in a statement.

Germany would be “examining whether what is happening in the Gaza Strip is compatible with international humanitarian law,” he continued. “Further arms deliveries will be authorized based on the outcome of that review.”

Spain and Ireland are among the countries in Europe that have threatened or taken steps to limit arms deals with Israel, while others such as France have threatened unspecified harsh measures against the Jewish state.

According to the Israeli defense ministry’s report, since the outbreak of war on Oct. 7, 2023, after the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, the operational successes and proven battlefield performance of Israeli systems have fueled strong international demand for Israel’s defense technology.

Last year, the export of missiles, rockets, and air defense systems reached a new high, making up 48 percent of the total deal volume — up from 36 percent in 2023.

Similarly, satellite and space systems exports surged, accounting for 8 percent of total deals in 2024 — quadrupling their share from 2 percent in 2023.

While Europe dominated Israel’s defense export market in 2024, significant portions also went to other regions. Asia and the Pacific made up 23 percent of total sales — slightly lower than in previous years, when the region approached 30 percent.

Exports to Abraham Accords countries fell to 12 percent, down from 23 percent in 2022, while North America remained stable at around 9 percent.

The post Israel’s Defense Exports Hit Record $15 Billion in 2024 Despite European Pressure, Calls for Arms Embargo first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

Copyright © 2017 - 2023 Jewish Post & News