Israel on Wednesday denied agreeing to a week long ceasefire in Gaza in exchange for a list from Hamas of hostages that the group would release. Media reports claimed the proposed deal would include a six-to-eight-week ceasefire, expanded aid access to the Palestinian enclave, and efforts to rebuild its health system, destroyed by Israeli strikes….
Israel said on Monday that it had not received any new information from Hamas regarding the 34 hostages reportedly approved for exchange in a potential Gaza ceasefire deal. The list was widely circulated in both Israeli and Arab media, it included 12 women and children, 11 men aged 50 or above, and 11 young men…
Israel plans to maintain “security control” in the Gaza Strip even after a ceasefire, Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Tuesday. This means that, after dismantling the military and administrative capabilities of the Palestinian militant Hamas organisation, Israel’s army would retain “full freedom of action,” akin to the situation in the West Bank, Katz posted…
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has blamed his archenemies the United States and Israel for the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria. “There can be no doubt that what has happened in Syria is the result of a joint American-Zionist plan,” Khamenei said on Wednesday in the capital Tehran, according to state…
Avi Melamed, a former Israeli intelligence official, highlights that the collapse of the Assad regime is transforming regional security dynamics, particularly for Jordan and Iraq, and easing some threats to Israel while complicating the overall situation in the Middle East. Melamed points out that with Assad’s downfall, Iran has lost its foothold in Syria, hindering…
Israel threatened on Tuesday to return to war in Lebanon if its truce with Hezbollah collapses and said this time its attacks would go deeper and target the Lebanese state itself, after the deadliest day since the ceasefire was agreed last week. In its strongest threat since the truce was agreed to end 14 months…
A ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanese armed group, Hezbollah, was held on Wednesday after both sides accepted an agreement brokered by the U.S. and France. Acceptance of the agreement by both sides represents a rare victory for diplomacy in the Middle East wracked by two wars for over a year. Lebanon’s army, tasked with…
The Israeli military reported an incident in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, hours after the ceasefire with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia came into force. In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that soldiers had identified a vehicle with several suspects in a zone prohibited for movement in Lebanese territory. “IDF troops fired to prevent…
As truce talks intensified, exchanges of cross-border fire between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah have also increased, with Israel reporting around 250 projectiles launched at its territory on Sunday alone. Israel’s security cabinet was due to meet Tuesday to vote on a proposed ceasefire in its war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, an official said, while…
Top EU diplomat Josep Borrell is to propose suspending political dialogue with Israel over its war in the Gaza Strip at an EU foreign ministers meeting on Monday in Brussels. The move comes after “a year of unheeded pleas by the Israeli authorities regarding respect for international law in the Gaza war,” Borrell wrote in…
