DEIR EL-BALAH, Palestinian Territories: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered negotiators on Saturday to return to Qatar to discuss the fragile ceasefire in the war with Hamas, after the fifth hostage-prisoner swap agreed under the truce was completed.
He repeated his vow to crush Hamas and free all remaining hostages, denouncing the militant group as “monsters” after the handover of three captives in Gaza who appeared emaciated and were forced to speak on a stage.
The hospital treating the three Israeli hostages released from Gaza on Saturday said Or Levy and Eli Sharabi were in a “poor medical condition,” while Ohad Ben Ami was in a “severe nutritional state.”
Of the 183 inmates released by Israel in return, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group said seven required hospitalization and decried “brutality” and mistreatment in jail.
While 41 of those released returned to the West Bank city of Ramallah, four were released in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem, 131 were sent to Gaza and seven were deported to Egypt.
The fifth exchange since the truce took effect last month came as negotiations were set to begin on the next phase of the ceasefire, which is intended to pave the way for a permanent end to the war.
But senior Hamas official Bassem Naim on Saturday said Israel’s “procrastination and lack of commitment in implementing the first phase... exposes this agreement to danger and thus it may stop or collapse.”
He also described, in an interview with AFP, the condition of the hostages as “acceptable under the difficult circumstances that the Gaza Strip was living.”
Saturday’s swap followed remarks by President Donald Trump suggesting the United States should take control of the Gaza Strip and clear out its inhabitants, sparking global outrage.
The three Israeli hostages, who were all seized by militants during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack that sparked the war, “crossed the border into Israeli territory” on Saturday, the Israeli military said.
With their return, 73 out of 251 hostages taken during the attack now remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Jubilant crowds in Israel’s commercial hub Tel Aviv cheered as they watched live footage of the hostages, flanked by masked gunmen, brought on stage in Deir el-Balah before being handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
But the joy at their release was quickly overtaken by concern for their condition, with all three appearing thin and pale.
Sharabi’s cousin Yochi Sardinayof said “he doesn’t look well.”
“I’m sure he will now receive the right treatment and he will get stronger... He has an amazing family, and we will all be there for him.”
The choreographed handover included forced statements from the three on stage, in which they stated support for finalizing the next phases of the Israel-Hamas truce.
The “disturbing images” from Gaza show that “we must get them all out,” said the Hostages and Missing Families Forum campaign group.
The ICRC meanwhile called on “all parties, including the mediators, to take responsibility to ensure that future releases are dignified and private.”
Sharabi, 52, and Ben Ami, a 56-year-old dual German citizen, were both abducted from their homes in kibbutz Beeri when militants stormed the small community near the Gaza border.
Sharabi lost his wife and two daughters in the attack.
Levy was abducted from the Nova music festival, where gunmen murdered his wife.
In the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, relatives and supporters gathered to welcome inmates released by Israel, embracing them and cheering as they stepped off the bus that brought them from nearby Ofer prison.
But Fakhri Barghouti, 71, whose son was among the prisoners, told AFP that Israeli soldiers had stormed his home and beaten him, warning him not to celebrate his son’s release.
“They entered after midnight, smashed everything, took me into a side room, and beat me before leaving,” Barghouti told AFP.
“I was taken to the hospital, where it was found that I had a broken rib.”
The Israeli military said in a statement it had “conveyed messages that celebrations and processions in support of terrorism are prohibited during the release of the terrorists,” but did not give an immediate response when asked about Barghouti’s allegations.
Israel’s prison service said that “183 terrorists... were released” to the West Bank, annexed east Jerusalem and Gaza.
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group said “all the prisoners who were released today are in need of medical care... as a result of the brutality they were subjected” to in jail.
Hamas in a statement accused Israel of undertaking a “policy of... the slow killing of prisoners.”
Gaza militants have so far freed 21 hostages, including 16 Israelis in exchange for hundreds of mostly Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli jails.
Five Thai hostages freed last week from Gaza were discharged on Saturday from a hospital in central Israel, where they had been treated since their release, and were headed back to their home country.
The ceasefire, mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States, aims to secure the release of 17 more hostages during the remainder of the 42-day first phase.
Hamas’s October 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliation has killed at least 48,181 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The United Nations considers the figures reliable.
Israel orders negotiators to Doha after fifth hostage-prisoner swap
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Israel orders negotiators to Doha after fifth hostage-prisoner swap
- The fifth exchange since the truce took effect last month came as negotiations were set to begin on the next phase of the ceasefire, which is intended to pave the way for a permanent end to the war
US strike on Yemen fuel port kills at least 58, Houthi media say
- The US has vowed not to halt the large-scale strikes begun last month, unless the Houthis cease attacks on Red Sea shipping
WASHINGTON: US strikes on a fuel port in Yemen killed at least 58 people, Houthi-run Al Masirah TV said, one of the deadliest since the United States began its attacks on the Iran-backed militants.
The United States has vowed not to halt the large-scale strikes begun last month in its biggest military operation in the Middle East since President Donald Trump took office in January, unless the Houthis cease attacks on Red Sea shipping.
Al Masirah TV said 126 people were also wounded in Thursday’s strikes on the western fuel port of Ras Isa, which the US military said aimed to cut off a source of fuel for the Houthi militant group.
Responding to a Reuters query for comment on the Houthis’ casualty figure and its own estimate, the US Central Command said it had none beyond the initial announcement of the attacks.
“The objective of these strikes was to degrade the economic source of power of the Houthis, who continue to exploit and bring great pain upon their fellow countrymen,” it had said in a post on X.
Since November 2023, the Houthis have launched dozens of drone and missile attacks on vessels transiting the waterway, saying they were targeting ships linked to Israel in protest over the war in Gaza.
They halted attacks on shipping lanes during a two-month ceasefire in Gaza. Although they vowed to resume strikes after Israel renewed its assault on Gaza last month, they have not claimed any since.
In March, two days of US attacks killed more than 50 people, Houthi officials said.
Lebanon says one killed in a renewed Israeli strike near Sidon
- Israel has continued to carry out near-daily strikes in Lebanon
Beirut: Lebanon’s health ministry said an Israeli strike on Friday hit a vehicle near the southern coastal city of Sidon, killing one person.
Despite a November 27 ceasefire that sought to halt more than a year of conflict — including two months of all-out war — between Israel and Hezbollah, Israel has continued to carry out near-daily strikes in Lebanon.
“The attack carried out by the Israeli enemy against a car on the Sidon-Ghaziyeh road resulted in one dead,” said a health ministry statement on the fourth consecutive day of Israeli attacks on the south where Israel says it has targeted Hezbollah militants.
An AFP journalist said the Israeli attack hit a four-wheel-drive vehicle, sending a pillar of black smoke into the sky.
The Lebanese army sealed off the area as firemen fought the blaze.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the strike, but the Israeli military has said it was behind previous attacks this week that it said killed members of the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement.
Hezbollah, significantly weakened by the war, insists it is adhering to the November ceasefire, even as Israeli attacks persist.
Gaza rescuers say 15 killed in Israeli strikes
- On Thursday the civil defense agency reported the deaths of at least 40 residents in Israeli strikes
GAZA CITY: Gaza’s civil defense agency said Friday that 15 people, including 10 from the same family, had been killed in two overnight Israeli strikes.
Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said on Telegram that “our crews recovered the bodies of 10 martyrs and a large number of wounded from the house of the Baraka family and the neighboring houses targeted by the Israeli occupation forces in the Bani Suhaila area east of Khan Yunis,” in the southern Gaza Strip.
Bassal later announced that a separate strike hit two houses in northern Gaza’s Tal Al-Zaatar, where crews had “recovered the bodies of five people.”
The Israeli military, which did not immediately comment, has intensified its aerial bombardments and expanded its ground operations in the Gaza Strip since it resumed its offensive in the besieged Palestinian territory on March 18.
On Thursday, the civil defense agency reported the deaths of at least 40 residents in Israeli strikes, most of them in camps for displaced civilians, as Israel pressed its offensive.
Israeli military intercepts missile launched from Yemen
- Iran-backed Houthi militia have regularly fired missiles and drones targeting Israel
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said Friday it had intercepted a missile launched from Yemen, from where the Iran-backed Houthi militia have regularly fired missiles and drones targeting Israel.
“Following the sirens that sounded a short while ago in several areas in Israel, a missile launched from Yemen was intercepted,” Israel’s army said on Telegram, adding that aerial defense systems had been deployed “to intercept the threat.”
Cash crunch leaves Syrians queueing for hours to collect salaries
- Syria has been struggling to emerge from the wake of nearly 14 years of civil war, and its banking sector is no exception
- The liquidity crisis has forced authorities to drastically limit cash withdrawals, leaving much of the population struggling to make ends meet
DAMASCUS: Seated on the pavement outside a bank in central Damascus, Abu Fares’s face is worn with exhaustion as he waits to collect a small portion of his pension.
“I’ve been here for four hours and I haven’t so much as touched my pension,” said the 77-year-old, who did not wish to give his full name.
“The cash dispensers are under-stocked and the queues are long,” he continued.
Since the overthrow of president Bashar Assad last December, Syria has been struggling to emerge from the wake of nearly 14 years of civil war, and its banking sector is no exception.
Decades of punishing sanctions imposed on the Assad dynasty – which the new authorities are seeking to have lifted – have left about 90 percent of Syrians under the poverty line, according to the United Nations.
The liquidity crisis has forced authorities to drastically limit cash withdrawals, leaving much of the population struggling to make ends meet.
Prior to his ousting, Assad’s key ally Russia held a monopoly on printing banknotes. The new authorities have only announced once that they have received a shipment of banknotes from Moscow since Assad’s overthrow.
In a country with about 1.25 million public sector employees, civil servants must queue at one of two state banks or affiliated ATMs to make withdrawals, capped at about 200,000 Syrian pounds, the equivalent on the black market of $20 per day.
In some cases, they have to take a day off just to wait for the cash.
“There are sick people, elderly... we can’t continue like this,” said Abu Fares.
“There is a clear lack of cash, and for that reason we deactivate the ATMs at the end of the workday,” an employee at a private bank said, preferring not to give her name.
A haphazard queue of about 300 people stretches outside the Commercial Bank of Syria. Some are sitting on the ground.
Afraa Jumaa, a civil servant, said she spends most of the money she withdraws on the travel fare to get to and from the bank.
“The conditions are difficult and we need to withdraw our salaries as quickly as possible,” said the 43-year-old.
“It’s not acceptable that we have to spend days to withdraw meagre sums.”
The local currency has plunged in value since the civil war erupted in 2011, prior to which the dollar was valued at 50 pounds.
Economist Georges Khouzam explained that foreign exchange vendors – whose work was outlawed under Assad – “deliberately reduced cash flows in Syrian pounds to provoke rapid fluctuations in the market and turn a profit.”
Muntaha Abbas, a 37-year-old civil servant, had to return three times to withdraw her entire salary of 500,000 pounds.
“There are a lot of ATMs in Damascus, but very few of them work,” she said.
After a five-hour wait, she was finally able to withdraw 200,000 pounds.
“Queues and more queues... our lives have become a series of queues,” she lamented.
