Hamas says it won't disarm unless independent Palestinian state established
In a statement, the Palestinian militant faction said its "armed resistance ... cannot be relinquished except through the full restoration of our national rights, foremost among them the establishment of an independent, fully sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital."
Indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel aimed at securing a 60-day ceasefire in the Gaza war and a deal for the release of hostages ended last week in deadlock.
Reuters
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Nahar Net
3 hours ago
- Nahar Net
US envoy meets Israeli hostage families in Tel Aviv
by Naharnet Newsdesk 03 August 2025, 13:00 U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff met anguished relatives of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza on Saturday, as fears for the captives' survival mounted almost 22 months into the war sparked by Hamas's October 2023 attack. Witkoff was greeted with some applause and pleas for assistance from hundreds of protesters gathered in Tel Aviv, before going into a closed meeting with the families. Videos shared online showed him arriving to meet the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, as families chanted "Bring them home!" and "We need your help." The meeting came one day after Witkoff visited a U.S.-backed aid station in Gaza to inspect efforts to get food into the devastated Palestinian territory. "The war needs to end," Yotam Cohen, brother of 21-year-old hostage Nimrod Cohen, told AFP. "The Israeli government will not end it willingly. It has refused to do so," he added. "The Israeli government must be stopped. For our sakes, for our soldiers' sakes, for our hostages' sakes, for our sons and for the future generations of everybody in the Middle East." Of the 251 hostages taken during the Hamas attack, 49 are still being held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead. After the meeting, the Forum released a statement saying Witkoff had given them a personal commitment that he and US President Donald Trump would work to return the remaining hostages. - 'Horrifying acts' - Hamas attempted to maintain pressure on the families, on Friday releasing a video of one of the hostages -- 24-year-old Evyatar David -- for the second time in two days, showing him looking emaciated in a tunnel. The video called for a ceasefire and warned that time was running out for the hostages. David's family said their son was the victim of a "vile" propaganda campaign and accused Hamas of deliberately starving their son. "The deliberate starvation of our son as part of a propaganda campaign is one of the most horrifying acts the world has seen. He is being starved purely to serve Hamas's propaganda," the family said. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot on Saturday also denounced the video, and one released a day earlier by another Palestinian Islamist group, as "despicable". "They must be freed, without conditions," he posted on X. "Hamas must be disarmed and excluded from ruling Gaza." The United States, along with Egypt and Qatar, had been mediating ceasefire talks between Hamas and Israel that would allow the hostages to be released and humanitarian aid to flow more freely. But talks broke down last month and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government is under domestic pressure to come up with another way to secure the missing hostages, alive and dead. He is also facing international calls to open Gaza's borders to more food aid, after UN and humanitarian agencies warned that more than two million Palestinian civilians are facing starvation. - 'Without rest' - Israel's top general warned that there would be no respite in fighting if the hostages were not released. "I estimate that in the coming days we will know whether we can reach an agreement for the release of our hostages," armed forces chief of staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said in a statement. "If not, the combat will continue without rest." Zamir denied that there was widespread starvation in Gaza. "The current campaign of false accusations of intentional starvation is a deliberate, timed, and deceitful attempt to accuse the IDF (Israeli military), a moral army, of war crimes," he said. Alongside reports from UN-mandated experts warning a "famine is unfolding" in Gaza, more and more evidence is emerging of serious malnutrition and deaths among the most vulnerable Palestinian civilians. Modallala Dawwas, 33, living in a displacement camp in Gaza City told AFP her daughter Mariam had no known illnesses before the war but had now dropped from 25 kilograms (four stone) to 10 (around one and half stone) and was seriously malnourished. Hamas's 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to a tally based on official figures. Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed at least 60,332 people, mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, deemed reliable by the UN. The Palestine Red Crescent Society said in a post on X early Sunday that one of its staff members was killed and three others wounded in an Israeli attack on its Khan Yunis headquarters in Gaza. Gaza's civil defense agency said Israeli fire killed 34 people in the territory on Saturday. Five people were killed in an Israeli strike on an area of central Gaza where Palestinians were awaiting food distribution by the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said. The GHF has largely sidelined the longstanding U.N.-led aid distribution system in Gaza, just as Israel in late May began easing a more than two-month aid blockade that exacerbated existing shortages. The U.N. human rights office in the Palestinian territories said at least 1,373 Palestinians seeking aid in Gaza were killed since May 27, adding that most of them were killed near GHF sites, and by the Israeli military.
Nahar Net
3 hours ago
- Nahar Net
Palestinian Red Crescent says one staff killed in Israeli attack on Gaza HQ
by Naharnet Newsdesk 03 August 2025, 13:03 The Palestine Red Crescent Society said Sunday that one of its staff members was killed and three others wounded in an Israeli attack on its Khan Yunis headquarters in Gaza. "One Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) staff member was killed and three others injured after Israeli forces targeted the Society's headquarters in Khan Younis, igniting a fire on the building's first floor," the aid organization said in a post on X. A video, which the PRCS said "captures the initial moments" of the attack, shows fires burning in a building, with the floors covered in rubble. It comes two days after U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff visited a U.S.-backed aid station in Gaza to inspect efforts to get food into the devastated Palestinian territory. Nearly two years after the war began, U.N. agencies have warned that time was running out and that Gaza was "on the brink of a full-scale famine". Eight staff members from the Red Crescent, six from the Gaza civil defense agency and one employee of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees were killed in an attack by Israeli forces in southern Gaza in March, according to the U.N. humanitarian office OCHA. Hamas' October 2023 attack on Israel, which triggered the war, resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to a tally based on official Israeli figures. Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed at least 60,332 people, mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, deemed reliable by the U.N.
Nahar Net
3 hours ago
- Nahar Net
Netanyahu says in 'profound shock' over hostage videos
by Naharnet Newsdesk 03 August 2025, 13:11 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed "profound shock" over videos showing two emaciated hostages in Gaza, with the EU also denouncing the clips on Sunday and demanding the release of all remaining captives after nearly 22 months of war. Over the past few days, Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad have released three videos showing two hostages seized during the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the ongoing war in Gaza. The images of Rom Braslavski and Evyatar David have sparked strong reactions among Israelis, fueling renewed calls to reach a truce and hostage release deal without delay. A statement from Netanyahu's office late Saturday said he had spoken with the families of the two hostages and "expressed profound shock over the materials distributed by the terror organizations". Netanyahu "told the families that the efforts to return all our hostages are ongoing", the statement added. Earlier in the day, tens of thousands of people had rallied in the coastal hub of Tel Aviv to urge Netanyahu's government to secure the release of the remaining captives. In the clips shared by the Palestinian Islamist groups, 21-year-old Braslavski, a German-Israeli dual national, and 24-year-old David both appear weak and malnourished. There was particular outrage in Israel over images of David who appeared to be digging what he said in the staged video was his own grave. The videos make references to the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza, where UN-mandated experts have warned a "famine is unfolding". EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the images "are appalling and expose the barbarity of Hamas", calling for the release of "all hostages... immediately and unconditionally". - 'Hamas must disarm' - Kallas said in the same post on X that "Hamas must disarm and end its rule in Gaza" -- demands endorsed earlier this week by Arab countries, including key mediators Qatar and Egypt. She added that "large-scale humanitarian aid must be allowed to reach those in need". Israel has heavily restricted the entry of aid into Gaza, which was already under blockade for 15 years before the war began. U.N. agencies, aid groups and analysts say that much of the trickle of food aid that Israel allows in is looted by gangs or diverted in chaotic circumstances rather than reaching those most in need. Many desperate Palestinians are left to risk their lives under fire seeking what aid is distributed through controlled channels. On Sunday, Gaza's civil defense agency said Israeli fire killed nine Palestinians who were waiting to collect food rations from a site operated by the U.S.- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Israeli attacks elsewhere killed another 10 people on Sunday, said civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal. - 'Emaciated and desperate' - Israeli newspapers dedicated their front pages on Sunday to the plight of the hostages, with Maariv decrying "hell in Gaza" and Yedioth Ahronoth showing a "malnourished, emaciated and desperate" David. Left-leaning Haaretz declared that "Netanyahu is in no rush" to rescue the captives, echoing claims by critics that the longtime leader has prolonged the war for his own political survival. In his conversations with Braslavski and David's families on Saturday, Netanyahu accused Hamas of "deliberately starving our hostages", and Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said he was "initiating a special U.N. Security Council meeting on the issue of the Israeli hostages". Braslavski and David are among the 49 hostages taken during Hamas's 2023 attack who are still being held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead. Most of the 251 hostages seized in the attack have been released during two short-lived truces in the war, some in exchange for Palestinians in Israeli custody. - Red Crescent says HQ hit - Hamas's 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to a tally based on official figures. Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed at least 60,430 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, deemed reliable by the UN. The Palestine Red Crescent Society said in a post on X early Sunday that one of its staff members was killed and three others wounded in an Israeli attack on its Khan Yunis headquarters, in southern Gaza. There was no comment from Israel. Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties accessing many areas mean AFP cannot independently verify tolls and details provided by the civil defense and other parties. Overnight from Saturday to Sunday, Israel's military said it had "most likely intercepted" a rocket launched from southern Gaza. Meanwhile, in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, firebrand National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said he had prayed at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, where his repeated visits are seen as a provocation to many Palestinians. The mosque is Islam's third-holiest site, and is revered by Jews as the Temple Mount, though Jews are barred from praying there under a long-standing convention. In a video statement recorded during his visit -- Ben Gvir said "the response to Hamas's horror videos" should include Gaza's occupation and plans for the "voluntary emigration" of its people. Jordan, which acts as the site's custodian, condemned the minister's visit as "an unacceptable provocation, and a reprehensible escalation".
