Egypt said late Thursday that “intensive discussions†between Israel and Hamas on the next phase of the ceasefire in Gaza have begun in Cairo. The first phase is set to expire this weekend, but the agreement says the truce remains in effect during the negotiations.
The announcement came a day after Hamas handed over what it said were the remains of four in exchange for the release of more than 600 Palestinian detainees held by Israel.
This is a sensitive moment for the fragile truce. An Israeli official said earlier Thursday that the military will not withdraw from along the Gaza Strip's southern border. The pullout was part of the ceasefire, and Israel’s refusal could spark a crisis with Hamas and key mediator Egypt.
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Campaign vaccinates over 600,000 Palestinian children in Gaza against polio
UNITED NATIONS – A five-day campaign has vaccinated over 600,000 Palestinian children in Gaza under the age of 10 against polio, the United Nations says.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric announced the end of the campaign, which followed the discovery of poliovirus in wastewater samples from Deir al Balah and Khan Younis in December and January.
Last September and October, two rounds of polio vaccinations reached over 95% of the 640,000 children targeted.
That campaign came after the first polio case was reported in Gaza in 25 years – a 10-month-old boy, now paralyzed in the leg.
The U.N. World Health Organization said last week that with poliovirus still in the environment, the latest round of vaccinations, which ended Wednesday, was needed to reach every child and strengthen the immunity of the population.
The Geneva-based agency said overcrowded shelters in Gaza and severely damaged water, sanitation and hygiene facilities “create ideal conditions for further spread of poliovirus.â€
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Corrects number of days in vaccination campaign to five instead of six
Freed Israeli hostage says he won't rest until his fellow captive is home safe
Eli Sharabi says he became especially close with 24-year-old Alon Ohel while they and two other Israelis were held hostage in Gaza under cramped, painful conditions.
“I adopted him from the first minute,†Sharabi said. “24/7 together. I know everything about him and his family.â€
Sharabi, 53, told Channel 12 TV’s “Uvda†program the men were able to draw strength from one another. But Ohel took it very hard when he learned that Sharabi and the two others, Or Levy and Eliya Cohen, were being released.
Sharabi said that when he was released with Levy on Feb. 8, Ohel grabbed him and refused to let go until their guard tore him away. He said there were “moments of hysteria†and it took about 15 minutes to calm him down.
“It was a very hard moment,†he said. “He said he was happy for me. I promised him I won’t leave him there. I will fight for him.†Cohen was released two weeks later, leaving Ohel alone.
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Corrects that Coen was released two weeks later instead of one.
Israeli hostage describes being isolated and barely fed by his militant captors
Eli Sharabi, who lost over 30 kilos (66 pounds) in captivity, said militants held the four hostages in iron chains, and sometimes beat or humiliated them, and they subsisted for months on a single plate of pasta each day.
He told Israeli Channel 12 TV’s “Uvda†that the hunger pains were unbearable and that getting his captors to give them a dried-out date or a quarter of a piece of bread felt like a victory.
Sharabi was abducted on Oct. 7, 2023, from his home in Kibbutz Be’eri. Sharabi said he had no access to the news and only learned after his release that his wife and two daughters, as well as his brother, were all killed in the attack.
Despite the pain, he told the station that he feels lucky to be alive and fortunate for the time he spent with his wife Lianne, and daughters, Noiya and Yahel.
“I’m not angry,†he said. “I was lucky I had Lianne for 30 years, I was lucky I had those amazing daughters for years.â€
What's on the table in the ceasefire talks?
Negotiations on the ceasefire's more difficult second phase are meant to find an end to the war — including the return of the hostages still alive in Gaza and the withdrawal of all Israeli troops from the territory.
It will be difficult to reconcile a deal with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war objectives, which call for dismantling Hamas’ governing and military capabilities. After suffering heavy losses in the war, Hamas has nonetheless emerged intact during the ceasefire, and the group says it will not give up its weapons.
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Egypt says Israel and Hamas have started talks to keep the Gaza ceasefire from collapsing
Officials from Israel, Qatar and the U.S. on Thursday started “intensive discussions†in Cairo on the second phase of the ceasefire, Egypt‘s state information service said in a statement.
“The mediators are also discussing ways to enhance the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, as part of efforts to alleviate the suffering of the population and support stability in the region,†it said.
The launch of talks helps avert a collapse of the ceasefire, whose first phase is set to expire on Saturday.
Under the deal, the ceasefire remains in effect while negotiations on the second phase are taking place.
Freed Palestinian teen says Israel mistreated detainees from Gaza
One boy released back to Gaza, 17-year-old Mohamed Abu Sahloul, said his Israeli captors kept him constantly bound in detention.
“I swear, I could not believe that they (the restraints) were removed from my hands. Twenty-four hours! You sleep with your hands and feet tied,†he told a group of people welcoming him home.
Rights groups and freed prisoners say Palestinians in military detention have been tortured, beaten frequently, deprived of adequate food and water, and held blindfolded and handcuffed.
“Bad things happened to me, not just me,†said Abu Sahloul. “Every young man who was arrested, ask him about the situation, he will tell you. No one can describe what happened to him.
“I was in a nightmare, I was in hell, and finally I got out of the hell that I was in,†he said.
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Palestinian mothers hug their gaunt sons after Israel frees detainees
Nidaa Abu Sahloul said she was crying “tears of joy†upon seeing her son, even though she said he was unrecognizable. “They took him with more muscles and weight,†she said.
Another mother, Zenat al-Samoni, collapsed as her son ran toward her, kissing the ground beneath her feet. “Thank God. I am happy with all my heart that I saw my son. He has changed a lot.†she said.
It was not clear if either had been charged with a crime. Israel’s justice ministry said it was not publishing names or information of minors detained from Gaza.
Dozens of Palestinians ages 15-19 and two women were released back to Gaza on Thursday. As their friends and relatives dispersed, one of the women was visible being escorted through the crowd by her family. Her face covered, she did not look up.
Suspected car ramming attack in Israel wounds at least eight
Israeli police are investigating an episode in which a driver rammed his car into people at a highway bus stop, wounding at least eight Thursday in what authorities believed was a militant attack.
Police said they had apprehended the suspect but did not say whether he had been killed. Police described him as a 53-year-old Palestinian from the northern West Bank who lived in Israel and was married to an Israeli citizen.
Medical workers said the ramming injured at least eight people, two in serious condition, who they evacuated to the hospital.
Paramedic Avi Cohen described a chaotic aftermath at the scene in Pardes Hanna-Karkur, a town south of the coastal city of Haifa.
“When we arrived, they were lying on the ground. We immediately began providing medical treatment to all the injured, including stopping bleeding and bandaging wounds,†he said in a statement from Magen David Adom, Israel’s emergency rescue service.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, violence by militant attackers against Israelis has risen, as deadly Israeli military operations have ramped up and attacks by Jewish settlers on Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank have climbed.
Hamas congratulated the attack as “a message of defiance†but did not claim responsibility.
Israeli Finance Minister Smotrich will meet with US Treasury secretary in Washington
It would mark the first in-person talks between Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a fervent settler advocate at the helm of Israel’s settlement planning apparatus, and a Trump administration official — and it could have major implications for U.S. policy toward the settlements, which the international community largely considers illegal.
Smotrich will head to Washington in the coming days to meet with and discuss economic and political cooperation, Smotrich’s spokesperson said Thursday.
Smotrich, a key partner in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition, supports rebuilding Jewish settlements in Gaza and what he describes as the voluntary migration of large numbers of Palestinians out of the territory.
He’s coming to the U.S. after President , on his first day in office, against extremist Israeli settlers accused of in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
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Israel releases 46 Palestinian teens and women back to their loved ones in Gaza
Dozens of Palestinian teenagers, many of them children, as well as women detained by Israel in Gaza were released back to hugs and tears from their loved ones on Thursday, marking the latest release of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire.
As they disembarked from the Red Cross buses in the southern town of Khan Younis, the teenagers looked gaunt and skinny. Rights groups have alleged widespread mistreatment and abuse in Israeli prisons and military detention facilities.
Many detainees fell into the arms of their relatives, who have spent days waiting for them ever since Israel held up their release last weekend to protest what it called Hamas' cruel treatment of hostages during the releases.
The Palestinian Prisoners Club, a group representing current and former prisoners, said that those being released into Gaza on Thursday were 44 male teenagers ages 15-19 and two women.
The scenes came after Israel released 500 prisoners back into Gaza overnight, in exchange for Hamas releasing four hostage bodies.
Israel rounded up hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack and has held them without charge on security suspicions.
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Israel has yet to release 24 Palestinian detainees, says group that represents prisoners
Israel on Thursday had yet to return 24 Palestinian detainees whose release was supposed to occur overnight, a group that represents prisoners said, after Hamas sent back to Israel the bodies of four hostages killed in captivity.
The 24 Palestinian detainees include 23 teenagers and one woman, all taken into Israeli custody during military raids in Gaza. They were part of a group of over 600 prisoners whose release Israel held back last weekend to protest what it called Hamas’s cruel treatment of hostages during the ceasefire deal. Israel released the bulk of the prisoners overnight except for the woman and minors.
The Palestinian Prisoners Club, a group that represents current and former prisoners, said that in addition to the 24, Israel was also set to release 22 more Palestinians, including 21 aged 15-19 and one woman. Israeli forces have arrested hundreds of people in Gaza and held them without trial.
As part of the ceasefire, Israel committed to releasing more than 1,000 detainees who hadn’t participated in the Oct. 7 attack.
Israeli official says army will not withdraw from corridor along Gaza-Egypt border
An Israeli official says the army will not withdraw from a corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border as required in the ceasefire agreement with Hamas.
The official spoke Thursday on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. The official said Israel needed to maintain a presence in the so-called Philadelphi corridor to prevent weapons smuggling.
Israel’s refusal to withdraw from the corridor could spark a crisis with Hamas and Egypt, a key mediator that has repeatedly called for Israel to pull out.
The first phase of the Gaza ceasefire is set to expire this weekend and negotiations over the next phase have not yet begun.
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Associated Press writer Josef Federman contributed from Jerusalem.
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Israeli hostage group says the remains of 3 hostages returned by Hamas have been identified
An Israeli group representing families of hostages held by Hamas says the remains of three of four bodies returned early Thursday have been identified. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said Thursday that the bodies of Ohad Yahalomi, Itzhak Elgarat and Shlomo Mantzur have been returned to Israel.
Mantzur, 85, was killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack and his body was taken into Gaza. The other two were kidnapped alive and the circumstances surrounding their deaths were not known.
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