A woman holds a cut-out picture of hostages Shiri Bibas, 32, with Kfir Bibas, 9 months old, who were kidnapped from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz during the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas and then killed in Gaza, on the day of their funeral procession, at a public square dedicated to hostages in Tel Aviv, Israel, Feb. 26, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Shir Torem

Israelis mourned the family that symbolized the trauma their country suffered in the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7, 2023, as the Palestinian terrorist group agreed to free the last hostage bodies included in the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire.

Hamas said the bodies of Tsachi Idan, Itzhak Elgarat, Ohad Yahalomi, and Shlomo Mantzur would be released on Wednesday night and added that a hospital in Gaza was preparing to receive Palestinian prisoners who would be released in exchange.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said an agreement was reached for the handover of bodies of four deceased hostages, but it did not name them.

The resolution came on the same day as the funeral of the Bibas family following the handover of the bodies of nine-month-old Kfir Bibas, his four-year-old brother Ariel, and their mother Shiri last week.

The youngest hostages seized during the attack on Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, were killed weeks after they were abducted into the Gaza Strip.

Israel says it has intelligence and forensic evidence that shows the boys and their mother were killed by their captors using their bare hands. Hamas said they were killed in an Israeli airstrike.

Thousands of people, some in tears, carrying blue and white Israeli flags or photographs of the family, walked in procession or waited as a convoy bearing the coffins drove past. Many were carrying orange balloons, a symbol of mourning for the hostages, matching the red hair of the two Bibas boys.

“It’s still not really registering,” said Tal Ben-Shimon, who joined mourners at what has come to be known as Hostages Square in Tel Aviv. “They kind of represent all the families, the very young families, who were slaughtered on that day.”

Yarden Bibas, the father of the boys, who was captured separately from his family and released earlier this month, paid tribute in an emotional eulogy at their funeral.

“I hope you know I thought about you every day, every minute,” he said in an address carried live on Israeli television.

For Israelis, the Bibas family has become an emblem of the trauma that has haunted their country since the Hamas-led attack on communities in southern Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken back to Gaza as hostages.

Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza. But fighting has stopped since the fragile ceasefire agreement brokered by Egyptian and Qatari mediators last month.

Under the deal, Hamas agreed to hand over 33 Israeli hostages in exchange for some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from some of their positions in Gaza as well as an influx of aid.

BREAKTHROUGH SECURED

On Wednesday, Egyptian mediators confirmed they had secured a breakthrough that should allow the handover of the final four hostage bodies due in the first phase of the deal this week after a days-long impasse.

Hamas confirmed that an agreement had been reached for the exchange of hostages for prisoners, that would be conducted under a new mechanism.

It said the European Hospital in Gaza’s Khan Younis was preparing to receive released prisoners as early as Wednesday night. The Israeli Prison Service said it had received the list of prisoners and detainees and that preparations were under way for their release.

An Israeli official said the bodies of the hostages were expected to be handed in the evening. Netanyahu’s office said their release would not include a Hamas ceremony.

The Hamas-staged ceremonies in which living hostages and coffins carrying hostage remains have been displayed on stage before a crowd in Gaza have drawn increasing criticism, including from the United Nations.

Israel had refused to release more than 600 Palestinian prisoners and detainees on Saturday after Hamas handed over six living hostages in such a ceremony.

Days earlier, the agreement was held up when Hamas handed over the remains of an unidentified woman instead of Shiri Bibas before delivering the correct body the next day.

With the 42-day truce due to expire on Saturday, it remains unclear whether an extension will be agreed or whether negotiations can begin on a second stage of the deal, which would see the release of the remaining 59 hostages in Gaza.

Despite numerous hiccups, the ceasefire deal has held. But moving to a second phase would require agreements on issues that have proved impossible to bridge so far, including the postwar future of Gaza and Hamas, which Israel has vowed to eliminate as a governing force.

Hamas said that it has not received any proposals so far.

The post Israel Mourns Bibas Family as Hamas Agrees to Free Last Hostage Bodies Under Phase One of Gaza Truce first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters speaks during an interview with Reuters in London, Britain, July 1, 2024. Photo: Reuters/Suzanne Plunkett

A judge in the United Kingdom ruled on Tuesday that Pink Floyd co-founder and former lead singer Roger Waters defamed a Jewish British film producer and investigative journalist.

The High Court in London rejected Waters’ argument that his assertions targeting John Ware were his honest opinions about Israel’s military actions in the Gaza Strip and not a statement of fact. Justice Jennifer Eady ruled that Waters made inflammatory statements that he tried to pass as fact, making them defamatory. Eady’s ruling reportedly means the defense will have to settle or the lawsuit will advance to trial.

“The statements are defamatory of the claimant at common law,” Eady wrote in her ruling. “Although I would accept that the first defendant’s reference to a ‘genocide’ expressed his opinion as to what was happening as a result of the actions of Israeli forces in Gaza (to which he had already referred), in stating that the claimant positively supported that ‘genocide,’ I find he was making a statement of fact.”

Ware, who produced and presented the documentary “The Dark Side of Roger Waters,” sued the singer and the Qatar-based Al Jazeera media network for defamation. He filed the lawsuit after Rogers claimed that Ware was a “lying, conniving Zionist mouthpiece” and accused him of “cheerleading the genocide of Palestinians” during an interview on the Al Jazeera show “The Stream.” Rogers also described Ware as a “pro-Zionist, pro-genocider.”

“The Dark Side of Roger Waters” highlighted various incidents in which the musician displayed antisemitic behavior toward not only individual Jewish people but also the Jewish community at large, including in previously unrevealed e-mails. It featured several interviews with people close to Waters, including his saxophonist Norbert Statchel and Bob Ezrin, the producer of Pink Floyd’s album “The Wall.”

The documentary was released in October 2023 on YouTube by the UK-based advocacy group Campaign Against Antisemitism. Waters previously criticized the film in a lengthy statement on his website. He called it “a flimsy, unapologetic piece of propaganda that indiscriminately mixes things I’m alleged to have said or done at different times and in different contexts, in an effort to portray me as an antisemite, without any foundation in fact.” In the same statement he denied being an antisemite, echoing a claim he has made several times throughout his career.

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism commented on Eady’s ruling in a released statement.

“We welcome this judgment on the meaning of Roger Waters’ nonsense rant following John Ware’s production of our documentary, “The Dark Side of Roger Waters,” exposing Mr. Waters’ history of inflammatory conduct towards Jewish people,” the statement read.

“Those who claim that someone alleging antisemitism is just a ‘cheerleader for genocide’ are just spouting a modernized version of the trope that those who allege antisemitism are merely trying to silence criticism of Israel,” the spokesperson added. “[Former leader of the British Labour Party] Jeremy Corbyn tried it, and it doesn’t hold water. It’s a line long used by people like Mr. Waters, and it is high time that he faces repercussions for his big mouth and long history of Jew baiting.”

Rogers has been regularly accused of antisemitism, including by his former bandmate David Gilmour and Polly Samson, a lyricist for Pink Floyd and Gilmour’s wife. He is an avid supporter of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, has repeatedly accused Israel of genocide and apartheid, and has compared the Jewish state to Nazi Germany.

Rogers has also called Israel “extremely evil” and promoted antisemitic tropes about Jewish power. He defended Hamas for orchestrating the deadly massacre in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and claimed there is “no evidence” that the terrorists sexually assaulted their victims, despite widespread evidence proving systematic sexual violence, including testimonies from former hostages kidnapped by Hamas.

The musician and anti-Israel activist has performed on stage wearing a swastika-like badge, used sets that included giant inflatable pigs emblazoned with a Star of David, and featured inappropriate Holocaust-related imagery in his shows.

The post Pink Floyd Co-Founder Roger Waters Defamed Jewish Filmmaker and Journalist, UK Judge Rules first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi meets with Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi in Tehran, Iran, Nov. 14, 2024. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

Iran‘s stock of uranium close to weapons grade has jumped since it announced a dramatic acceleration in enrichment in December and there has been no progress on resolving outstanding issues, two reports by the UN nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday.

The stock of uranium enriched to up to 60 percent fissile purity, close to the roughly 90 percent of bomb grade, has been a long-standing concern for Western powers, which say there is no civil justification for enriching uranium to such a high level. Iran says it seeks only peaceful nuclear energy.

While US President Donald Trump’s administration has said it plans to pressure Iran over its nuclear program, the International Atomic Energy Agency has said time is running out for diplomacy to impose new restrictions on Iran‘s activities.

“The significantly increased production and accumulation of high enriched uranium by Iran, the only non-nuclear weapon state to produce such nuclear material, is of serious concern,” the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a passage that, unusually, was included in both its quarterly reports on Iran.

Those confidential reports, sent to member states on Wednesday and both seen by Reuters, showed that while the stock of 60 percent material grew by half, there was no real progress on resolving long-running outstanding issues including the unexplained presence of uranium traces at undeclared sites.

The stock of uranium refined to up to 60 percent in the form of uranium hexafluoride grew by 92.5 kg in the past quarter to 274.8 kg, one of two confidential IAEA reports said.

That is enough in principle, if enriched further, for six nuclear bombs, according to an IAEA yardstick. There is enough for more weapons at lower enrichment levels.

Where before its latest acceleration Iran was producing between 6 and 9 kilograms (13 and 20 pounds) of uranium enriched to up to 60 percent per month, now that figure is between 35 and 40 kg, a senior diplomat said. This is just short of the 42 kg that is enough in principle for one bomb, if refined further.

One of the reports spelled out the lack of progress on the outstanding issues such as explaining the uranium traces, which the IAEA has been asking the Islamic Republic to do for years.

“Iran states that it has declared all of the nuclear material, activities and locations required under its Safeguards Agreement. This is inconsistent with the Agency’s assessments,” it said.

“The Agency is, therefore, at an impasse with regard to resolving these outstanding safeguards issues.”

During his first, 2017-21 term as president, Trump withdrew the United States from a landmark deal between Iran and major powers that placed temporary limits on Tehran’s nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. After Trump pulled out in 2018, Iran breached and far surpassed those limits.

With the deal now largely in tatters, European powers are seeking to either have the US help agree new limits on Iran‘s nuclear program or use a mechanism in the deal to re-impose all sanctions before the deal expires in October.

The post Iran’s Near-Bomb-Grade Uranium Stockpile Jumps, IAEA Reports Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.