WNAM REPORT: The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates welcomes the establishment of the Hague Group and its historic declaration, adopted this Friday after close consultations with Palestine. This declaration ushers an important development in the collective work of states and world leaders to protect and promote international law and institutions at a time when they are under grave threat.
Accountability is the cornerstone of justice and the Hague Group has committed itself to achieving both in Palestine in order to protect and preserve the foundations of the law-based international order. Such a principled and courageous commitment stems from the members’ profound commitment to the core values embodied in international law, which reject exceptionalism and impunity as hallmarks of lawlessness and global stability. This declaration is very timely, coming at a time when some international actors threaten to unravel the entire international system to preserve Israeli exceptionalism, criminality, and impunity. This dangerous campaign is a threat to global stability. It cannot be ignored. It must not be allowed to prevail.
Palestine will continue to stand firm in defense of these values, which reflect the Palestinian people’s core values. Accountability for all crimes and criminals is humanity’s only hope to preserve itself. Palestine will work with all partners to that end and invites all states sharing our commitment to join this important global coalition for justice
Palestine
Hamas delegation arrives in Egypt to discuss progress of Gaza ceasefire, prisoner swap
GAZA CITY ( WNAM MONITORING): The Palestinian group Hamas said Monday that a senior delegation led by Mohamed Darwish, the head of its Shura Council, arrived in Egypt for an official visit to discuss the implementation of the Gaza ceasefire agreement and prisoner exchange with Israel.
“A senior Hamas delegation arrived this evening in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, for an official visit led by Mohamed Darwish, chair of the leadership council,” the group said in a statement.
The delegation is scheduled to meet with Egyptian officials to review the latest developments in executing the ceasefire agreement and the three-phase prisoner swap, the statement added.
The ceasefire agreement, which took effect on Jan. 19, includes a deal to exchange Israeli captives held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
Under the agreement’s first phase, spanning 42 days, Hamas is to release 33 Israeli captives — both living and deceased — while Israel will gradually free 1,700 to 2,000 Palestinian detainees. Negotiations on the subsequent two phases are set to begin on the 16th day of the ceasefire.
The initial exchange, conducted on the first day of the agreement, saw the release of three Israeli women hostages in exchange for 90 Palestinian detainees, including minors and female prisoners, primarily from the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem.
Hamas noted that the delegation will also meet with Palestinian prisoners freed on Saturday.
On Saturday, Israel released 200 Palestinian detainees to the West Bank and Gaza, while 70 were deported to Egypt as part of the second batch under the agreement’s first phase. Hamas reciprocated by releasing four Israeli women soldiers.
According to Israeli Army Radio, 114 Palestinian detainees were released from Ofer Prison to Ramallah in the West Bank and 16 to Gaza, while 70 were transferred to Egypt.
Israel is currently holding more than 10,300 Palestinian prisoners, while around 96 Israeli captives are being held in the enclave.
The Hamas delegation includes senior members of its leadership council and negotiating team: Khaled Meshaal, Khalil al-Hayya, Zaher Jabarin, Nizar Awadallah, Mohammed Nasser and Ghazi Hamad, according to the statement.
The Gaza ceasefire agreement took effect on Jan. 19, suspending Israel’s genocidal war that has killed more than 47,300 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and injured more than 111,400 since Oct. 7, 2023.
The Israeli onslaught has left more than 11,000 people missing, with widespread destruction and a humanitarian crisis that has claimed the lives of many elderly people and children in one of the worst global humanitarian disasters ever.
Only 861 aid trucks reach northern Gaza out of 1,200 due to Israeli obstructions
GAZA ( WNAM MONITORING): The number of aid trucks entering the northern Gaza Strip since a ceasefire agreement took effect Sunday through Wednesday hit 861 out of the 1,200 trucks initially planned, a government source in the enclave told Anadolu on Thursday.
The Beit Hanoun (Erez) crossing in northern Gaza remained closed under the pretext of damaged roads caused by Israeli bombardment, necessitating intervention to reopen roads, said the source.
The source emphasized that the humanitarian situation in northern Gaza continues to require immediate and comprehensive support, including fuel and basic supplies to aid those affected by the Israeli assault, and stressed the importance of expediting the remaining trucks to meet the urgent needs of the population.
The Hamas-Israel agreement stipulated the entry of 300 aid trucks daily into the northern region, highlighting that Israeli obstacles have prevented the full implementation of this clause, resulting in a shortage of trucks.
The Government Media Office in Gaza announced measures earlier for the anticipated return of displaced Palestinians from the southern and central enclave to Gaza City and northern areas starting next Sunday.
The first six-week phase of the ceasefire agreement took effect on Jan. 19, suspending Israel’s genocidal war that has killed nearly 47,200 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured more than 111,160 since Oct. 7, 2023.
The three-phase ceasefire agreement includes a prisoner exchange and sustained calm, aiming for a permanent truce and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
The Israeli onslaught has left more than 11,000 people missing, with widespread destruction and a humanitarian crisis that has claimed the lives of many elderly people and children in one of the worst global humanitarian disasters ever.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants in November last year for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
GAZA CITY: Thousands of Gaza security forces deployed in several areas across the enclave on Sunday as a ceasefire deal with Israel took effect, local authorities said.
Gaza’s government media office said the deployment comes under a plan to maintain security and order across the territory.
“Municipalities began reopening and rehabilitating streets, shortly after the cease-fire began,” it added in a statement.
The media office said ministries and government institutions “are fully prepared to start work under a government plan to ensure the return of life to normal as soon as possible.”
It urged residents “to be careful when moving between regions” in Gaza.
“The return of the displaced will be seven days after the ceasefire takes effect,” it added.
The ceasefire agreement took effect at 11.15 a.m. local time (0915GMT) on Sunday after a few hours delay due to Israeli accusations for Hamas of delaying the release of a list of captives set to be released. It was originally scheduled to start on 8.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT)
JERUSALEM: Israel on Sunday said a truce with Hamas began in Gaza at 0915 GMT, nearly three hours after initially scheduled, following a last-minute delay on the orders of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
During the delay, Gaza’s civil defense agency said Israeli strikes killed eight people.
A statement from Netanyahu’s office, issued less than an hour before the truce had been set to start at 8:30 a.m. (0630 GMT), said he had “instructed the IDF (military) that the ceasefire… will not begin until Israel has received the list” of hostages to be freed.
Hamas attributed the delay to “technical reasons,” as well as the “complexities of the field situation and the continued bombing,” ultimately publishing at around 10:30 a.m. the names of three Israeli women to be released on Sunday.
Israel confirmed it had received the list and was “checking the details,” before confirming shortly afterwards that the truce would begin at 11:15 am local time.
AFPTV live images from northeastern Gaza showed a plume of grey smoke about 30 minutes after the truce was earlier to take effect, and again around 30 minutes later.
The Israeli military confirmed it was continuing “to strike within the Gaza area” following Netanyahu’s directive.
Gaza civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said three people were killed in the north of the territory and five in Gaza City, with 25 wounded.
AFP images showed displaced Gazans streaming northwards from areas around Gaza City where they had been sheltering, some flashing the victory sign.
But others saw their plans to return home thwarted by the delay of the ceasefire.
“I was on my way home with my family when we heard the sound of bombing,” said Mohammed Baraka, 36.
“We can’t reach our house; the situation is dangerous. I don’t know what to do. I feel frustrated and devastated.”
The initial exchange was to see three Israeli hostages released from captivity in return for a first group of Palestinian prisoners.
A total of 33 hostages taken by militants during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel will be returned from Gaza during an initial 42-day truce.
Under the deal, hundreds of Palestinian prisoners will be released from Israeli jails.
The truce is intended to pave the way for an end to more than 15 months of war sparked by Hamas’s attack, the deadliest in Israeli history.
It follows a deal struck by mediators Qatar, the United States and Egypt after months of negotiations, and takes effect on the eve of Donald Trump’s inauguration as US president.
In a televised address on Saturday, Netanyahu called the 42-day first phase a “temporary ceasefire” and said Israel had US support to return to war if necessary.
In Gaza City, shortly after the deal was initially meant to go into effect, people were already celebrating, waving Palestinian flags in the street.
But as it became clear the hostilities were continuing, the joy gave way to desperation for some.
“I’m dying of despair,” said Maha Abed, a 27-year-old displaced from Rafah who had been waiting since dawn for her husband to pick her up and take her home. “He called to tell me we won’t be returning today. The drones are firing at civilians.”
“Enough playing with our emotions — we’re exhausted,” she added. “I don’t want to spend another night in this tent.”
In Deir Al-Balah, an AFP journalist observed dozens of Palestinians gathered in front of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital seeking information about the unfolding events, particularly whether or not they would be able to return to their homes.
The Israeli army warned Gaza residents early Sunday not to approach its forces or Israeli territory.
“We urge you not to head toward the buffer zone or IDF forces for your safety,” military spokesman Avichay Adraee said on Telegram.
“At this stage, heading toward the buffer zone or moving from south to north via Gaza Valley puts you at risk.”
At a rally for the hostages in Tel Aviv the night before, attendees were guarded ahead of the scheduled exchanges.
“I’m really stressed because I don’t know about the situation of Ofer, my cousin,” said Ifat Kaldron, whose cousin is among the hostages.
“I’m just going to be happy whenever I see the last hostage crossing the border.”
Israel has prepared reception centers to provide medical treatment and counselling to the freed hostages before they return to their families after their long ordeal.
Israel’s justice ministry had previously said 737 Palestinian prisoners and detainees would be freed during the deal’s first phase, starting from 4:00 p.m. (1400 GMT) on Sunday.
Egypt on Saturday said more than 1,890 Palestinian prisoners would be freed in the initial phase.
Hundreds of trucks waited at the Gaza border, poised to enter from Egypt as soon as they get the all-clear to deliver desperately needed aid.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said 600 trucks a day would enter Gaza after the ceasefire takes effect, including 50 carrying fuel.
There has been only one previous truce in the war, lasting for one week in November 2023.
That ceasefire also saw the release of hostages held by militants in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Of the 251 people taken hostage, 94 are still in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has destroyed much of Gaza, killing at least 46,899 people, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.
The truce was to take effect on the eve of Trump’s inauguration for a second term as president of the United States.
Trump, who claimed credit for the ceasefire deal, after months of effort by the outgoing administration of President Joe Biden, told US network NBC on Saturday that he had told Netanyahu that the war “has to end.”
“We want it to end, but to keep doing what has to be done,” he said.
Brett McGurk, the pointman for outgoing President Joe Biden, was joined in the region by Trump envoy Steve Witkoff in an unusual pairing to finalize the agreement, US officials said.
Under the deal, Israeli forces will withdraw from densely populated areas of Gaza and allow displaced Palestinians to return “to their residences,” the Qatari prime minister said.
Biden said an unfinalized second phase of the agreement would bring a “permanent end to the war.”
WNAM MONITORING: Nearly 1,000 mosques were damaged in Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip last year, Palestinian authorities said on Sunday.
In a statement, the Ministry of Awqaf and Religious Affairs said 815 Muslim worship places were entirely destroyed and 151 others partially damaged.
The ministry said 19 cemeteries and three churches were also destroyed in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza in 2024.
In the occupied West Bank, the ministry recorded 256 settler intrusions into the flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem last year.
According to the ministry, some 2,567 illegal settlers forced their way into the mosque complex to celebrate the week-long Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, which was marked from Dec. 25 to Jan. 2.
The ministry also documented Israeli attacks on 20 mosques in the occupied West Bank.
Tension has been running high across the occupied Palestinian territories due to Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 45,800 people, mostly women and children, since Oct. 7, 2023.
In November, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its deadly war on Gaza.
GAZA STRIP: Israel confirmed on Saturday that negotiations for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal had resumed in Qatar, as rescuers said more than 30 people had been killed in fresh bombardment of the territory.
The civil defense agency said a dawn air strike on the home of the Al-Ghoula family in Gaza City killed 11 people, seven of them children.
AFP images from the neighborhood of Shujaiya showed residents combing through smoking rubble. Bodies including those of small children were lined up on the ground, shrouded in white sheets.
As the violence raged, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed that indirect negotiations with Hamas had resumed in Qatar for the release of hostages seized in the October 2023 attacks.
The minister told relatives of one of the hostages, woman soldier Liri Albag, that “efforts are under way to free the hostages, notably the Israeli delegation which left yesterday (Friday) for negotiations in Qatar,” his office said.
Katz said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had given “detailed instructions for the continued negotiations.”
He was speaking after Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, released a video of Albag in captivity in Gaza.
In the undated, three-and-half-minute recording that AFP has not been able to verify, the 19-year-old conscript called in Hebrew for the Israeli government to secure her release.
In response, her family issued an appeal to Netanyahu, saying: “It’s time to take decisions as if it were your own children there.”
A total of 96 Israeli hostages remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said the latest video was “firm and incontestable proof of the urgency of bringing the hostages home.”
Hamas had said late on Friday that the negotiations were poised to resume.
The militant group, whose October 7, 2023, attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war, said they would “focus on ensuring the agreement leads to a complete cessation of hostilities (and) the withdrawal of occupation forces.”
Mediators Qatar, Egypt and the United States have been engaged in months of effort that have failed to end nearly 15 months of war.
In December, Qatar expressed optimism that “momentum” was returning to the talks following the US election of Donald Trump, who takes office in 16 days.
But Hamas and Israel then accused each other of setting new conditions and obstacles.
As the clock ticks down to the handover of power in Washington, the outgoing administration of President Joe Biden notified Congress of an $8 billion arms sale to Israel, a source familiar with the plan said on Saturday.
“The department has informally notified Congress of an $8 billion proposed sale of munitions to support Israel’s long-term security by resupplying stocks of critical munitions and air defense capabilities,” the official said.
The United States is Israel’s largest military supplier.
Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said the Ghoula home in Gaza City “was completely destroyed” by the dawn strike.
“It was a two-story building and several people are still under the rubble,” he said, adding Israeli drones had “also fired on ambulance staff.”
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli army did not immediately comment.
“A huge explosion woke us up. Everything was shaking,” said neighbor Ahmed Mussa.
“It was home to children, women. There wasn’t anyone wanted or who posed a threat.”
Elsewhere, the civil defense agency said an Israeli strike killed five security officers tasked with accompanying aid convoys as they drove through the southern city of Khan Yunis.
The Israeli army said the five had been “implicated in terrorist activities” and were not escorting aid trucks at the time of the strike.
Rescuers said strikes elsewhere in Gaza killed 10 other people.
AFP images showed Palestine Red Crescent paramedics in Gaza City moving the body of one of their colleagues, his green jacket laid over the blanket that covered his corpse.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said a total of 136 people had been killed over the previous 48 hours.
On Sunday, the Israeli military said it intercepted a missile launched from Yemen in the latest of a series of attacks.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have been firing missiles and drones at Israel — as well as at ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden — in what they say is a solidarity campaign with Palestinians during the war in Gaza.
The Hamas attack that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 45,717 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Gaza health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.
50 Palestinians killed in Israeli strike near Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza
GAZA : Nearly 50 Palestinians were killed Thursday in an Israeli airstrike on a building opposite the headquarters of Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, including three medical staff and workers.
“There are nearly 50 martyrs, including three of our medical staff, under the rubble of a building opposite Kamal Adwan Hospital in the Beit Lahia Project area after it was bombed by Israeli warplanes,” Hussam Abu Safia, the hospital’s director, said in a statement.
Abu Safia said the medical staff and workers were present in the targeted building because they were staying there with their families.
He identified the slain staffers as Ahmed Samour, a pediatrician, Israa, a laboratory technician, and Fares, a maintenance technician at the hospital.
Israel launched a large-scale ground offensive in northern Gaza on Oct. 5 to allegedly prevent the Palestinian group Hamas from regrouping. Palestinians, however, accuse Israel of seeking to occupy the area and forcibly displace its residents.
Since then, no sufficient humanitarian aid including food, medicine and fuel has been allowed into the area, leaving the remaining population on the verge of imminent famine.
Israel has killed more than 45,000 people in Gaza since an Oct. 7, 2023 cross-border attack by Hamas, reducing the enclave to rubble.
Last month, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
At least 7 Palestinians killed, dozens injured in Israeli airstrikes across Gaza
GAZA CITY ( WNAM MONITORING): At least seven Palestinians were killed on Tuesday, the majority of whom were in northern Gaza, and several others were injured in a series of Israeli airstrikes on various areas of the besieged coastal strip.
Eyewitnesses told Anadolu that six Palestinians were killed and scores of others injured when an Israeli warplane targeted a home in Jabalia al-Nazla in northern Gaza.
The four-story home was heavily damaged by the intense Israeli bombardment, and efforts to recover the bodies of the victims and the wounded are ongoing, with locals participating in the search for the dead and injured to provide them with the necessary assistance, the witnesses added.
In Gaza City, eyewitnesses said Israeli drones fired near Salahuddin Mosque in the Zeitoun neighborhood to the southeast of the city.
Meanwhile, Israeli military vehicles opened fire in the northwest’s Al-Sftawi area.
A medical source told Anadolu that a Palestinian was killed in an Israeli airstrike that targeted the top floor of a building near the Jabalia bus station east of the city.
According to a statement from the administration of Al-Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, 12 Palestinians, including two children and three women, were injured as a result of an Israeli strike on an area near the Abu Areeban School.
In the southern part of the Gaza Strip, witnesses told Anadolu that Israeli artillery stationed east of Khan Younis renewed its bombardment on various areas of Rafah city.
Israel has continued a genocidal war on Gaza that has killed more than 45,300 people, most of them women and children, since an attack by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023.
Last month, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel is also facing a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its actions in Gaza.
Children among 15 Palestinians killed in Israeli attack on southern Gaza shelter
GAZA CITY ( WNAM MONITORING): At least 15 Palestinians, including children, were killed, and several others injured in an Israeli strike on a school-turned shelter in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis Sunday evening, a medical source said.
Witnesses said the strike targeted the Ahmed Abdel Aziz School west of the city, where hundreds of displaced civilians have sheltered.
The source said children were among the victims, without giving an exact figure.
The Civil Defense Service confirmed the attack, saying its medical teams had recovered the bodies of several people after the attack.
Israel has systematically targeted civilian facilities, including schools, hospitals, and places of worship, in its ongoing offensive on the Gaza Strip.
Under the rules of war, targeting such civilian facilities can constitute a war crime.
Israel has launched a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip that has killed nearly 45,000 victims, mostly women and children, since a Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
The second year of genocide in Gaza has drawn growing international condemnation, with officials and institutions labeling the attacks and the blocking of aid deliveries as a deliberate attempt to destroy a population.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants last month for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense chief Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on Gaza.