Israel carries out airstrikes in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria as hostage talks stall
Gaza Strip: Israel launched new strikes against Hamas across Gaza and promised “increasing military force” after talks on further hostage releases stalled.
Israel’s prime minister’s office said on Monday it instructed the army to strike Hamas because of the militant group’s repeated refusals to release its hostages and its rejection of all offers from US presidential envoy Steve Witkoff and mediators.
Surrounded by destroyed homes and buildings, Palestinians gather for iftar, the fast-breaking meal during Ramadan in the northern Gaza Strip on the weekend.
Credit: AP
The strikes come after nearly two months of a ceasefire to pause the 17-month-long war and allow dozens of hostages to be released in exchange for nearly 2000 Palestinian prisoners.
Israel also launched strikes in southern Lebanon and southern Syria.
They were the latest in what have been frequent and often deadly attacks by Israeli forces during the fragile ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon. Israel has blocked all food, medicine, fuel and other supplies from entering Gaza for the past two weeks, demanding Hamas accept changes in the two sides’ ceasefire deal.
In Syria, Israel seized a zone in the south after the fall of long-time autocrat Bashar Assad in December. Israel says it is a pre-emptive security measure against the former Islamist insurgents who now run Syria, though their transitional government has not expressed threats against Israel.
The strikes hit a residential area in the southern city of Daraa, killing three people and wounding 19 others, including four children, a woman and three civil defence volunteers, the Syrian civil defence agency said. It said two ambulances were damaged. Other strikes hit military positions near the city.
The Israeli military said it was targeting military command centres and sites in southern Syria that contained weapons and vehicles belonging to Assad’s forces. It said the materials’ presence posed a threat to Israel.
In central Gaza, two strikes hit around the urban refugee camp of Bureij. One struck a school serving as a shelter for displaced Palestinians, killing a 52-year-old man and his 16-year-old nephew, according to officials at nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where the casualties were taken. The Israeli military said it struck militants planting explosives.
An earlier strike killed three men in Bureij. The Israeli military said the men were trying to plant an explosive device in the ground near Israeli troops. Gaza’s Hamas-led government said the men were collecting firewood.
In Lebanon, Israel said it struck two members of the Hezbollah militant group in the southern Lebanese town of Yohmor, who it said were “observation operatives”. Lebanon’s state news agency reported two people killed in the strike and two wounded.
The military later said it carried out further strikes on Hezbollah sites in Lebanon, without specifying where.
Since the ceasefire in Gaza began in mid-January, Israeli forces have killed dozens of Palestinians who the military says approached its troops or entered unauthorised areas.
Still, the deal has tenuously held without an outbreak of wide violence. The ceasefire’s first phase saw an exchange of some hostages held by Hamas in return for the freeing of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Egypt, Qatar and the United States have been trying to mediate the next steps in the ceasefire.
Israel wants Hamas to release half of the remaining hostages in return for a promise to negotiate a lasting truce. Hamas instead wants to follow the ceasefire deal reached by the two sides, which calls for negotiations to begin on the ceasefire’s more difficult second phase, in which the remaining hostages would be released and Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza. Hamas is believed to have 24 living hostages and the bodies of 35 others.
AP
Most Viewed in World
>read more at © Sydney Morning Herald
Views: 0