Middle East latest: Egypt and Qatar are working to salvage the Gaza ceasefire deal
Egyptian and Qatari mediators were working to salvage the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas on Wednesday, according to Egypt’s state-run Al-Qahera News TV, which is close to the country's security agencies.
The fragile ceasefire is facing a significant test after Hamas said it would delay the next release of hostages scheduled for Saturday, alleging Israel has violated the truce by firing on people in Gaza and not allowing the agreed-upon number of tents, shelters and other vital aid to enter the territory.
Since the truce started on Jan. 19, Israeli fire has killed at least 92 Palestinians and wounded more than 800 others, said Munir al-Bursh, director general of the Health Ministry, on Tuesday. The Israeli military says it has fired on people who approach its forces or enter certain areas in violation of the truce.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with the support of President Donald Trump, has warned that Israel would resume fighting if hostages are not freed on Saturday. Trump has threated that “all hell” will break out if the militant group does not release the remaining Israeli hostages held in Gaza by Saturday.
Here’s the latest:
UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations said Wednesday that since the start of the ceasefire in Gaza, its agencies and partners have fed 1.2 million people, provided shelter aid to more than 600,000 people and provided water and waste disposal services to nearly half a million.
In a briefing, the U.N. said it opened 37 shelters for Palestinians returning to the war-battered north, where they were providing tents, blankets and warm clothing. At least 644,000 people across the territory had received tents, tarps or sealing-off materials to improve their shelter conditions.
The ceasefire, which came into effect on Jan. 19, has paused the war in Gaza and sent aid flowing more freely to Palestinians in need. The war sparked a humanitarian crisis in the territory.
CAIRO — Al-Azhar, the Sunni Muslim world’s foremost seat of religious learning, on Wednesday threw its support behind Egypt’s rejection of President Donald Trump’s plan to depopulate the Gaza Strip.
“No one has the right to force the Palestinian people to accept unworkable proposals,” the Cairo-based institution said in a statement. “The whole world must respect the right of the Palestinians to live on their land and establish their independent state with Jerusalem as its capital.”
It called for Arab and Muslim leaders as well as “the world’s wise people” to reject “transfer plans that aim at destroying the Palestinian cause.” Al-Azhar also called on religious institutions around the world to use their influence and defend “the vulnerable in Palestine.”
NABLUS, West Bank — Israel's military kept up its protracted raid in the northern occupied West Bank on Wednesday, where soldiers and armored vehicles remained deployed in the urban refugee camp of Nur Shams.
Many residents were still stuck in their homes without running water on the fourth day of the raid, as military bulldozers had torn up roads and gunfire blasted in the alleys, said Nihad Al-Shawish, head of the Popular Committee that runs the camp.
As troops fired sound bombs and explosions shook houses, an Israeli military call in Arabic went out over mosque loudspeakers in the camp of some 7,000 people, imploring residents to immediately evacuate. Hundreds of people continued to flee the camp outside the city of Tulkarem on Wednesday, said the mayors of the nearby villages of Anabta and Kufr al-Labad, which have scrambled to open new shelters.
In response to reports of the evacuations, the Israeli military said it “does not evacuate the population” in the West Bank. It said its forces secure crossings to allow residents who want to flee combat zones do so.
The Israeli military put out a statement Wednesday saying its forces were confiscating weapons and dismantling militant infrastructure in Nur Shams.
It said soldiers killed a Palestinian militant who shot and moderately wounded one of them.
Israel has intensified its operations against Palestinian militants in the northern occupied West Bank since the ceasefire in Gaza took effect last month.
JERUSALEM — Israel’s defense minister said Wednesday that “all hell would break loose” on Hamas if the militant group fails to free hostages on Saturday, as it has threatened to do.
Israel Katz said that if Hamas stops freeing hostages “then there is no deal and there is war.”
Katz said his threat echoed U.S. President Donald Trump, who has warned there would be “hell to pay” if the hostages aren’t freed.
Hamas has threatened to delay the next hostage release scheduled for Saturday, saying that Israel was not meeting its commitments under the ceasefire deal, including over humanitarian aid. Israel has said it would resume the war if the hostages aren’t released as planned.
CAIRO — Hamas reiterated Wednesday that the only way to free the remaining hostages was for Israel to follow through with the ceasefire deal, brushing off warnings from Israel and the Trump administration.
“Our position … is clear, and we won’t accept the language of U.S. and Israeli threats,” Hazem Kassem, a spokesman for Hamas, said.
In comments released by the militant group, Kassem said mediators were working to complete the ceasefire deal.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinians in Gaza are sending a defiant message to U.S. President Donald Trump over his proposal to depopulate the war-torn territory, insisting they prefer to remain in their homeland “even if he offers us the whole world.”
“We will not leave. We will remain here, staying above the rubble, stones and iron,” said Manar Hamo, sitting in front of his destroyed home in central Gaza's Bureij refugee camp.
Hamo called Trump's plan to scatter Gaza's residents to other Arab countries a “policy of displacement.”
Akram Abdullah, from Gaza’s northern town of Beit Hanoun, brushed Trump’s threats aside, saying: “We die here and do not leave.”
Ziad Abu Shamala, a father living in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, said he didn’t care about threats by Israel and Trump that fighting will resume.
Two of his children were killed in the war and his house was destroyed, but he insisted that he won’t leave Gaza.
“There is nothing left for a person to cry about. Whether the war resumes or not, it doesn’t matter much,” he said, standing amid ruined buildings amid a light rain. “We spent almost a year and a half in war and got used to it.”
TEL AVIV, Israel — Families of the hostages in Gaza are struggling to maintain hope as the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas seems increasingly at risk of falling apart.
Relatives of hostages are pleading with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to give up on the ceasefire framework and to speed up the timeline of releases. Their worries are exacerbated by President Donald Trump’s demand that all of the hostages be freed by Saturday.
After 16 months of excruciating uncertainty, Idit Ohel finally received word this week that her 24-year-old son, a hostage in Gaza, is still alive.
She said she fainted upon hearing the brutal details of his captivity from freed hostages who had been held with him by Hamas since Oct. 7, 2023. Bound by chains in an underground tunnel, Alon Ohel has subsisted on a piece of bread or less each day.
“He hasn’t seen sunlight in 493 days,” she told reporters on Monday.
For families of hostages who are not scheduled for release in the first phase of the ceasefire, the uncertainty is difficult to bear.
Tamir Nimrodi, 20, an Israeli soldier kidnapped from his post at a main crossing between Israel and Gaza, is not on the list to be freed in the first stage.
His mother, Herut, said it’s been tough watching the hostage releases over the past few weeks, especially the emotional videos of hostages reuniting with their families.
The other two soldiers her son was kidnapped with were killed, and she has not received any sign of life from him.
“I know there is a chance I won’t get to the point where I can hold my son,” she said.
CAIRO — The leaders of Egypt and Jordan on Wednesday reiterated their rejection of President Donald Trump’s plan to depopulate the Gaza Strip.
President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and King Abdullah II of Jordan spoke by phone, and stressed the importance of the immediate start of Gaza’s reconstruction “without the transfer of Palestinian people from their land,” according to a statement from the Egyptian leader’s office.
The leaders “showed their keenness” to work with Trump to achieve “permanent peace” in the region through the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, the statement said.
Abdullah met with Trump at the White House on Tuesday.
CAIRO — The International Committee of the Red Cross on Wednesday urged Israel and Hamas to abide by the ceasefire deal.
In a statement, the group said the release of Israeli hostages and the delivery of lifesaving humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza “depends on the continuation of the ceasefire agreement.”
“Countless lives have been saved over the three weeks of the ceasefire,” the statement said. “Any reversal risks plunging people back into the misery and despair that defined the last 16 months.”
It called on warring parties to “maintain the ceasefire,” complete the release of other hostages and provide assistance to the people of Gaza.
“Hundreds of thousands of lives depend on it,” it said of the ceasefire agreement.
BEIRUT — Lebanon's new President Joseph Aoun said Wednesday that Israel must withdraw all its forces from Lebanon by next week’s deadline.
In a statement, Aoun denied media reports of another extension to the ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel. The U.S.- and French-brokered truce, reached in late November, gave Israel 60 days to withdraw while Hezbollah repositioned north of the Litani River.
The deadline was later extended to Feb 18.
Israeli and Lebanese media, citing anonymous local and Western sources, reported Wednesday that the withdrawal deadline had been pushed to Feb. 28.
Israeli warplanes broke the sound barrier at low altitude over Beirut and other areas on Wednesday — the first such incident since the ceasefire.
CAIRO — Egypt’s state-run Al-Qahera News TV reported Wednesday that Egyptian and Qatari mediators are working to salvage the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, which risks being derailed over a dispute between the sides.
The TV channel, which is close to Egyptian security agencies, said mediators were intensifying efforts to bring the deal back from the brink. Citing an unnamed Egyptian official, the channel reported that Egyptian and Qatari mediators have been working to find a settlement that ensures “a balanced implementation” of the deal.
Hamas official Mahmoud Merdawi said there were “positive signals” that the hostages will be released as planned on Saturday.
He told The Associated Press that mediators were working to finalize the settlement but “we have yet to receive Israel’s commitment to implement the full terms of the deal, especially the humanitarian protocol.”
Israeli officials had no immediate comment.
BEIRUT — Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that his country is ready to help improve Syria’s social and economic situation, including through humanitarian aid, during a phone call with President Ahmad Sharaa of Syria, according to the country's state-run news agency.
Syria’s new authorities have not cut off relations with Moscow, which long supported the ousted President Bashar Assad during the county's civil war, or forced a complete exit of Russian military forces from bases in Syria. Al-Sharaa led the insurgents that toppled Assad in December.
The Kremlin said Putin, in his call with Sharaa, reaffirmed his support for “Syria’s unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity,” according to SANA.
The Kremlin also emphasized Russia’s role in rebuilding trust through reparations, reconstruction and “transitional justice for the victims of the brutal war waged by Assad.”
JERUSALEM — The family of a prominent Gaza Strip physician who was detained by Israeli forces when they raided a hospital in December says he was tortured by the army and kept in solitary confinement for 24 days.
Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya's family said he's currently in the Ofer prison near Jerusalem, where he met with a lawyer for the first time on Tuesday. They said there are no charges against him, hoping that means he could be released soon.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military or the Prison Service
The Al Mezan rights group said one of its lawyers was able to visit him on Tuesday for the first time since his detention. The group said the physician was initially taken to the Sde Teiman facility in southern Israel, where former detainees and rights groups have reported rampant abuses.
“He reported being forcibly stripped, having his hands tightly shackled, and being made to sit on sharp gravel for approximately five hours by Israeli forces,” it said, adding that he was also beaten with batons and subjected to electric shocks.
Abu Safiya was the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of the last functioning medical facilities in northern Gaza that was raided in December. Israel's military said Hamas militants were using the facility and that over 240 suspects were detained.
Israel has raided several Gaza hospitals during the 15-month war sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack. It accuses Hamas and other militants of using hospitals for military purposes, something hospital officials have denied.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — The Israeli military says it struck two people in the southern Gaza Strip who were allegedly flying a drone.
The military said Wednesday that the drone was observed entering Gaza from Israel after past attempts to use drones to smuggle in weapons.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says a 44-year-old man was killed in an Israeli strike near the southern city of Rafah on Wednesday, without providing further details.
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