Hopes for Eid truce dashed; 64 bodies recovered in Khan Younis

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Turkey on Monday said Israel had blocked its attempt to airdrop aid to Gaza, and vowed to take a series of new measures against the country.

The Turkish air force wanted to drop part of a humanitarian aid operation through its cargo planes.

"Today we learned that our request… was rejected by Israel. There is no excuse for Israel to block our attempt to airlift aid to starving Gazans," Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said.

"We decided to take a series of new measures against Israel," he said, adding that they would be publicised by the relevant institutions.

Fidan said Ankara's reprisals approved by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a vocal advocate of the Palestinian cause, would be implemented "step by step" and "without any delay".

"These measures will be in place until Israel declares a ceasefire and allows humanitarian aid to reach Gaza uninterruptedly," the minister said.

Iran's foreign minister has again accused the United States of approving a deadly Israeli strike that destroyed the Iranian consulate in Damascus last week, shortly after inaugurating a new consulate in the Syrian capital.

"America is responsible for this incident and must be held accountable," Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian told reporters in Damascus on Monday.

"The fact that the US and two European countries opposed a [UN Security Council] resolution condemning the attack on the Iranian embassy is a sign that the US gave the green light to the Zionist regime [Israel]" to carry out the attack, he claimed.

Last Tuesday, a day after the consulate strike, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby dismissed as "nonsense" comments by Amirabdollahian that Washington, Israel's main backer, bore responsibility for the attack.

The Foreign Press Association (FPA) says it is "alarmed" Israel is still blocking international reporters from accessing any area of Gaza independently after six months of war.

"The barring of independent press access to a war zone for this long is unprecedented for Israel," the group's board says in a statement.

"It raises questions about what Israel does not want international journalists to see."

The statement says Israeli authorities have "repeatedly rejected our appeals" for access in private meetings and a decision by the Supreme Court, citing a "variety of security-related and logistical arguments".

"The decision whether to be on the ground in Gaza should be up to each individual international media outlet," the FPA board adds.

"The blanket ban has limited the world's ability to witness the true cost of the war to all sides."

The FPA board calls on authorities to allow international media greater and uninhibited access to Gaza.

"Six months is far too long," it says.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid said he discussed the need for a solution in Gaza, most importantly the release of hostages from the Hamas-led 7 October attack on Israel, in his talks with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday.

Lapid, speaking to reporters following the discussion, said a hostage deal is difficult but doable.

He added that Israel is also worried about the humanitarian situation in Gaza and the need to avoid hurting people in the Palestinian enclave.

But Israel has so far killed more than 33,200 people in the strip and the International Court of Justice in January found it was plausibly breaching the Genocide Convention in Gaza.

(Reuters)

The White House says there is no sign a major ground operation in Rafah is imminent, Reuters reports.

Israel has long threatened to launch an invasion of the city in southern Gaza.

(Reuters, The New Arab)

The White House said on Monday that Hamas bore the responsibility for deciding on a ceasefire in Gaza with Israel, after negotiators presented a proposal to the group.

"At the end of the weekend, a proposal was submitted to Hamas. And now it's going to be up to Hamas to come through," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters on a call.

Iran's foreign minister inaugurated the country's new consulate in Damascus on Monday, a week after a deadly Israeli strike destroyed the former premises, sending regional tensions skyrocketing.

Tehran, a key ally of the Syrian regime, has vowed to avenge last Monday's airstrike on the Iranian embassy's consular section that killed seven Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps members, including two generals.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian inaugurated the new consular section in a Damascus building in the presence of his Syrian regime counterpart Faisal Mikdad, whom he also met earlier Monday, regime news agency SANA said.

An AFP correspondent at the inauguration said the new consulate was not far from the premises destroyed by the strike in the upscale Mazzeh area, which also houses other foreign embassies and UN offices.

The number of corpses recovered since this morning in the destroyed city of Khan Younis has reached 64, The New Arab's Arabic edition Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reports.

Israel's Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Monday it is the right time to do a hostage deal with Hamas, a day after the military pulled out troops from Gaza's main southern city.

With indirect talks between Israel and Hamas on a Gaza truce and a hostage deal going on in Cairo, Gallant told Israeli army recruits that he "thinks we are at an appropriate moment" to do a deal with the Palestinian group, six months into the war.

"The relentless pressure on Hamas and the position of strength from which we come into this campaign, allow us flexibility and freedom of action," he added, according to a statement issued by his office.

"There will be difficult decisions and we will be ready to pay the price in order to get the hostages back, and then return to fighting."

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah denies that his group was behind the kidnapping of Lebanese Forces coordinator Pascal Sleiman last night.

Read more about that incident in an article by The New Arab's Beirut-based correspondent William Christou.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah criticises the response of US President Joe Biden to Israel killing the seven World Central Kitchen workers as "hypocritical".

"Biden did not shake his fist or raise his voice for the 33,000 who died in Gaza before," he says.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah says last week's Israeli strike on Iran's consulate in Damascus violated "Iranian territory".

"This was an attack on Iran, not just Syria, this is Iranian territory that was violated," he says in a speech.

"This was a high level of assassination because he was the head of Iran's military advisers in Syria, it was the highest level of assassination for years."

Nasrallah was referring to Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander who was killed in the Israeli attack.

Jordanian protesters have taken to Amman's streets nightly in their thousands during Ramadan, transforming the normally festive Muslim month into a solemn show of solidarity with Palestinians in war-battered Gaza.

"I don't think we can celebrate," said Ahmed Al-Tubeigi, 32, ahead of the holiday of Eid Al-Fitr later this week, which marks the end of the fasting month.

"It would be shameful," he said during a rally on Sunday.

"There's no Eid atmosphere."

Jordan, where about half of the population is of Palestinian origin, has seen numerous demonstrations in support of Gaza since war broke out on 7 October.

The rallies near the Israeli embassy in the capital Amman have drawn between 3,000 and 5,000 protesters every day, beginning after night prayers at around 10pm local time (7pm GMT).

More demonstrations, many of them following Friday prayers, have been held in other cities.

Tubeigi said he saw it as a duty to participate in the protests calling for a ceasefire in Gaza but also for an end to Jordan's peace treaty with Israel.

"It's the least we could do for our people in Gaza," said the demonstrator.

Protests began in Jordan, which neighbours Israel and the occupied West Bank, in October but have seen a spike during Ramadan.

In 1994, Jordan became the second Arab country, after Egypt, to normalise ties with Israel.

An Iranian general killed in an Israeli strike in Syria's capital was a member of Hezbollah's Shura Council, the powerful Lebanese group's decision-making body, a source close to the movement said.

The 1 April airstrike levelled the Iranian embassy's consular annex in Damascus, killing seven Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps members, including two generals.

One of them was Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander in the Quds Force, the Guards' foreign operations arm.

Zahedi was the only non-Lebanese on Hezbollah's eight-member Shura Council, the equivalent of the powerful Shia Muslim movement's political bureau, led by secretary general Hassan Nasrallah, the source said, requesting anonymity because the matter is sensitive.

Nasrallah was set to speak on Monday to pay homage to Zahedi and his colleagues killed in the strike.

In a previous speech, Nasrallah said his group "owed a lot" to the senior Iranian official.

Zahedi "lived with us for long years, away from the spotlight, and provided important services to the resistance in Lebanon and the whole region", Nasrallah said on Friday during a televised address.

Zahedi, 63, had held a succession of commands in a Guards career spanning more than 40 years, and was the most important Iranian military official killed since a United States missile strike at Baghdad airport in 2020 killed General Qasem Soleimani, who headed the Quds Force.

Pope Francis on Monday met relatives of several Israelis taken hostage by Hamas in the 7 October attack, the Vatican said.

The Argentine pontiff, 87, had previously met a group of relatives of hostages at the Vatican in November, the same day as meeting Palestinians who have family in Gaza.

Members of five Israeli families had a private audience with Francis on Monday, showing him posters of loved ones who were taken, including Ariel and Kfir Bibas, aged four and one respectively.

There were also relatives of hostages Tamir Nimrodi, 19, Guy Gilboa Dalal, 22, Agam Berger, 19, and Omri Miran, 46.

Speaking on Sunday after delivering his weekly Angelus prayer at the Vatican, the pope repeated his call for peace.

"Let us always pray for peace, a just, lasting peace, in particular for martyred Ukraine and for Palestine and Israel," he said.

"May the spirit of the risen Lord enlighten and support those who work to reduce tension and favour the gestures that make negotiations possible."

The Israelis were in Italy as part of a delegation that included Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz.

Katz met his Italian counterpart, Antonio Tajani, on Sunday, the six-month anniversary of the Gaza war.

Israel and Hamas both dampened hopes on Monday of a speedy breakthrough in Cairo talks towards a Gaza truce and hostage release deal after Egyptian state-linked media had reported "significant progress".

The news outlet Al-Qahera reported "significant progress being made on several contentious points of agreement", citing an unnamed high-ranking Egyptian source.

Qatari and Hamas delegations had left Cairo and were expected to return "within two days to finalise the terms of the agreement", it said, while US and Israeli teams were also planning 48 hours of consultations.

However, Israel's Ynet news outlet cited an unidentified Israeli official as tempering the upbeat Egyptian report and stressing that "we still don't see a deal on the horizon".

"The distance is still great and there has been nothing dramatic in the meantime," the Israeli official was quoted as saying by the Hebrew-language website.

A separate senior Israeli official was quoted by Ynet as saying that "patience is needed. There is potential, but we are not there yet".

A senior Hamas official meanwhile told AFP that "we cannot speak of concrete progress so far", with disagreement centred on the pace of displaced Palestinians returning to Gaza City in the north.

Iran's foreign minister visited the Syrian capital on Monday, local media reported, a week after a deadly Israeli strike destroyed the Iranian consulate in Damascus, sending regional tensions skyrocketing.

Tehran, a key ally of the Syrian regime, has vowed to avenge last Monday's airstrike on the Iranian embassy's consular section that killed seven Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) members, including two generals.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian began a regional tour a day earlier in Oman, long a mediator between Tehran and the West, where Muscat's foreign minister called for de-escalation.

Amirabdollahian is set to meet Syrian regime president Bashar Al-Assad and foreign minister Faisal Mikdad during the visit, while the Damascus regime's information ministry said he was to inaugurate a new Iranian consular section.

Syria's pro-regime newspaper Al-Watan said the officials' talks would be "mainly focused" on repercussions of last week's strike.

An adviser to Iran's supreme leader warned Sunday that Israeli embassies were "no longer safe" after the attack.

The death toll from Israel's war on Gaza has reached 33,207, the enclave's health ministry says.

It adds that 75,933 people have been injured.

Germany hit back on Monday at Nicaragua's allegation at the UN's top court that it was facilitating genocide in Gaza by supporting Israel, saying it was fully upholding international law.

"Germany completely rejects the accusations. We never did violate the Genocide Convention nor international humanitarian law either directly nor indirectly," said a lawyer for Germany, Tania von Uslar-Gleichen.

"Nicaragua's presentation was grossly biased and we will be telling you tomorrow how we fully live up to our responsibilities," she told reporters.

United Nations officials said on Monday that six months of violence on the Israel-Lebanon border "must stop", urging de-escalation "while there is still space for diplomacy".

Israeli forces and the Lebanese group Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, have exchanged regular cross-border fire since the day after the Gaza war began.

Other armed groups in Lebanon including Palestinian militants have also occasionally claimed launches into Israel.

"It is six months since the exchanges of fire across the Blue Line began, and continue unabated, taking a heavy toll on both sides," said a joint statement from UN special coordinator for Lebanon, Joanna Wronecka, and Aroldo Lazaro, head of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

UNIFIL peacekeepers patrol the so-called Blue Line between Lebanon and Israel, demarcated by the UN in 2000 after Israeli troops pulled out of southern Lebanon.

"The violence and suffering has gone on too long. It must stop," the officials said.

They urged all sides to "avail of all avenues to avoid further escalation while there is still space for diplomacy".

While the UN said Israel had withdrawn from southern Lebanon in 2000, Lebanon argued that the Shebaa Farms, Arab land still occupied by Israel, were Lebanese rather than Syrian.

An Israeli strike on southern Lebanon early on Monday killed a field commander in the Lebanese group Hezbollah.

Israeli fighter jets hit the village of Al-Sultaniyah and killed a field commander in Hezbollah's elite Radwan units and two other people, the Israeli military and two Lebanese security sources said.

The Israeli military identified the commander as Ali Ahmed Hassin, and said he was responsible for planning and executing attacks against Israelis. Hezbollah issued a funeral notice for Hassin but without details of his role.

Israeli strikes have killed around 270 Hezbollah fighters in the last six months as well as around 50 civilians, including children, medics, and journalists. Hezbollah's rocket fire has killed around a dozen Israeli soldiers and half as many civilians.

(Reuters)

Nicaragua on Monday urged the top UN court to order Germany to halt its weapon supplies to Israel, as it accused Berlin of complicity in what it called a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

"Germany was and is fully conscious of the risk that the arms it has furnished and continues to furnish to Israel" could be used to commit a genocide, said Alain Pellet, a lawyer for Nicaragua.

"It is extremely urgent that Germany finally suspend" such aid, he added.

Nicaragua hit out at Germany at the UN's top court on Monday over its support to Israel, saying it was "pathetic" to give weapons to the Israeli government while simultaneously providing aid in Gaza.

"It is indeed a pathetic excuse to the Palestinian children, women, and men to provide humanitarian aid, including through airdrops, on the one hand and to furnish the military equipment that is used to kill and annihilate them... on the other hand," Daniel Mueller, a lawyer for Nicaragua, told the court.

Nicaragua brought the case against Germany before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to demand that judges impose emergency measures to stop Berlin from providing Israel with weapons and other assistance.

In a 43-page submission to the court, Nicaragua argued that Germany is in breach of the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention, set up in the wake of the Holocaust.

"By sending military equipment and now defunding UNRWA [the UN agency for Palestinian refugees]... Germany is facilitating the commission of genocide," the submission says.

"Germany's failure is all the more reprehensible with respect to Israel given that Germany has a self-proclaimed privileged relationship with it, which would enable it to usefully influence its conduct," added Nicaragua.

Germany will respond in court on Tuesday but has already hit back at the allegations.

Sebastian Fischer, spokesman for the German foreign ministry, told reporters ahead of the hearings: "We reject the allegations from Nicaragua.

"Germany has violated neither the Genocide Convention nor international humanitarian law and we will demonstrate this in full before the International Court of Justice."

Nicaragua has also asked the ICJ to decide "provisional measures" – emergency orders imposed while the court considers the broader case.

It is "imperative and urgent" the court orders such measures given that the lives of "hundreds of thousands of people" are at stake, it said in its submission.

Iraq has decided to send 10 million litres of fuel to Gaza and receive wounded Palestinians from the strip to provide them treatment in government and private hospitals.

The decision was made during a cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani yesterday, according to a statement released by the prime minister's media office.

In December, Iraq delivered fuel and medical assistance to Gaza in coordination with Egypt.

Hopes a Gaza ceasefire agreement would come soon are further dampened by Israeli officials mentioned by Israeli broadcaster Channel 12 and news website Ynet.

"We don't see a deal on the horizon. The distance [between the sides] is still great and there has been nothing dramatic so far," an official says, according to Ynet.

A Hamas official told Reuters on Monday that no progress was made at a new round of Gaza ceasefire talks in Cairo also attended by delegations from Israel, Qatar, and the United States.

"There is no change in the position of the [Israeli] occupation and therefore, there is nothing new in the Cairo talks," the Hamas official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.

"There is no progress yet."

(Reuters)

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) shows the scenes after Israel pulled out of the area around Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis yesterday.

"After the withdrawal... the extent of the significant damage to the hospital's facilities became evident," PRCS says on X.

"The occupation forces raided the hospital, resulting in the destruction of medical equipment, nursing rooms, intensive care units, the ophthalmology department, the emergency operations room, and ambulances."

PRCS attaches four photos to its post.

After the withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces from the vicinity of PRCS Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Yunis yesterday, the extent of the significant damage to the hospital’s facilities became evident. The occupation forces raided the hospital, resulting in the destruction of… pic.twitter.com/K681ncqupk

— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) April 8, 2024

British journalist George Monbiot says the "horror" in the Gaza Strip will haunt the Western governments that backed it into the future.

"The horror in #Gaza will haunt the Western governments that have supported it for years to come, just as the Iraq War has done," Monbiot posts on X, formerly Twitter.

"[US President Joe] Biden, [UK Prime Minister Rishi] Sunak and others will forever be associated with backing - and weapons - they supplied to [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu."

The horror in #Gaza will haunt the Western governments that have supported it for many years to come, just as the Iraq War has done. Biden, Sunak and others will forever be associated with the backing - and weapons - they supplied to Netanyahu.

— George Monbiot (@GeorgeMonbiot) April 8, 2024

Israel is yet to provide a satisfactory explanation for the death of seven aid workers last week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Monday as Australia appointed a senior former military official to study Israel's inquiry into the incident.

The killings have increased the pressure for a resolution to six months of brutal Israeli war on Gaza.

Israel said on Friday its soldiers mistakenly believed they were attacking Hamas gunmen when airstrikes killed the mostly international group of World Central Kitchen staff, including Australian "Zomi" Frankcom.

Two officers have been dismissed and others reprimanded, but the killings are part of a long line.

Albanese said the explanation for the deaths was not adequate. Given that almost 200 aid workers had been killed in the Gaza war, Israel also needed to provide more information about what it would do to prevent similar events in the future, he added.

"We don't find the explanations to be satisfactory to this point," he said in an interview on national broadcaster ABC.

"We need proper accountability, we need full transparency about the circumstances and I think that is what the Australian public would expect."

Albanese declined to say what actions Australia would consider adequate, or whether he would consider diplomatic sanctions should Israel fail to provide more information.

Australia on Monday appointed a retired air force general to study Israel's investigation and advise Canberra whether the inquiry was sufficient and whether further action was needed to hold those responsible to account.

(Reuters)

Truce talks in Egypt have reportedly made progress but Israel kept up the pressure, warning that it was ready for future military operations in Gaza's far-southern city of Rafah, the last area so far spared a ground invasion.

International pressure has mounted on Israel to bring an end to its brutal war, with its main ally the United States last week demanding a ceasefire and hostage release deal along with ramped-up aid deliveries.

Israel pulled its forces out of the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday.

But Israel's Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said troops had left the city of Khan Younis "to prepare for future missions, including... in Rafah".

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was "one step away from victory".

But, as truce talks resumed, Netanyahu also told his cabinet that "Israel is ready for a deal", adding that "there will be no ceasefire without the return of hostages".