Israel ‘eliminates’ Bibas family murderer
The Israeli Defence Force says it has killed one of the terrorists involved in the kidnapping and murder of Shiri Bibas and her sons Ariel and Kfir.
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The Israeli Defence Force says it has killed one of the terrorists involved in the kidnapping and murder of Shiri Bibas and her sons Ariel and Kfir.
The IDF and security agency Shin Bet annouced on Friday (local time) the death of Muhammad Hassan Muhammad, who they say was a senior member of the Mujahideen Brigades, a smaller terror group in the Gasa Strip, was targeted and killed in an airstrike in northern Gaza.
According to Israeli authorities, Awad was involved in the invasion of Kibbutz Nir Oz during Hamas’ October 7 attack and co-ordinated the abduction of the Shiri Bibas and her sons.
“Mohammed Hassan Mohammed Awad, one of the terrorists that was likely involved in the abduction of Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, has been eliminated,” the IDF posted on X.
“Awad was a senior commander in the Military Intelligence Array in Gaza and affiliated with senior commanders of the Palestinian Mujahideen terrorist organization.
“On October 7, he infiltrated the Israeli community of Nir Oz several times. He was one of the leaders of the massacre and was likely involved in the abductions and brutal murders of Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas. He was also involved in the abduction and burial of Gad and Judi Lynn Weinstein. Moreover, he took part in the abductions of Thai civilians.
“Additionally, he was actively involved in recruiting terror operatives and in the execution of terrorist attacks against Israel and IDF troops.”
The bodies of Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas were returned to Israel in February as part of the ceasefire deal with Hamas. Shiri’s husband and father of the boys Yarden Bibas was also kidnapped and held separately before being released alive.
ISRAEL TARGETS HAMAS IN SHELTERS
Gaza’s Health Ministry says 31 people, including many children, were killed when an Israeli air strike targeted a school being used as a shelter in the Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza City.
Health Ministry spokesman Zaher al-Wahidi said a further 70 were injured in the strike which Israel says was carried out to target Hamas terrorists who often hide in designated shelters.
Israel has issued extensive evacuation orders across Gaza, and while many civilians are fleeing once again, others have chosen to stay put.
US President Donald Trump has made good on an executive order he signed on his first day in office which rescinded sanctions on Israeli entities accused of committing violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
Reuters reports Mr Trump has advanced the sale of more than 20,000 US assault rifles – which had been blocked under the Biden administration – to the Israeli National Police.
Compared to the billions of dollars in arms America has supplied Israel, the sale is small but it is seen as symbolic of Mr Trump’s commitment to the Jewish state.
Meanwhile, the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) medical charity said on Friday that another of its staff members had been killed in war-ravaged Gaza, killed in an air strike along with family members.
MSF said it was “appalled and saddened by the killing of our colleague Hussam Al Loulou by an air strike on the morning of 1 April”.
“Our colleague Hussam was killed along with hundreds of others across the Gaza Strip since the resumption of attacks by Israeli forces on 18 March,” MSF said.
The 58-year-old watchman at MSF’s urgent care unit in Khan Yunis was killed along with his wife and 28-year-old daughter in the “horrendous attack” southwest of Deir Al Balah in central Gaza, MSF said.
In a separate development on Friday, the Israeli Defence Force announced that an alleged Hamas operative who “served as a propaganda and psychological terror operative” was killed in an air strike.
The IDF said Mohammed Saleh al-Bardawil, who was killed alongside his wife and three children, “played a central role in Hamas’s propaganda apparatus, systematically spreading false information and leveraging media as a tool for psychological terror and to promote the murderous narrative of the Hamas terrorist organisation.”
Bardawil was employed by the Hamas-run Al-Aqsa Radio.
“While he was referred to as a well-known journalist in Gaza, he was an integral part of Hamas’s incitement and terror infrastructure,” the IDF said.
The IDF also confirmed they shot dead a Palestinian who threw stones at troops near the occupied West Bank village of Husan, whose mayor told AFP the boy was 17.
The army said “several terrorists hurled rocks toward Road 375 adjacent to Husan … Soldiers who were operating in the area responded with fire toward the terrorists, eliminated one terrorist and hit an additional terrorist”.
Husan mayor Jamal Sabateen said the army had opened fired on youngsters throwing stones in the village west of Bethlehem.
“The Israeli army opened fire on them – killed one and injured another. The army took them, and up until now, they haven’t been returned,” Sabateen told AFP.
The West Bank-based Palestinian health ministry reported the killing of the young man “by Israeli gunfire” and identified him as Yussef Zaoul.
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HAMAS READY TO RELEASE HOSTAGES – UNDER ONE CONDITION
Hamas is ready to release all remaining 59 hostages in Gaza in exchange for a permanent ceasefire with Israel, Palestinian officials said.
As Israel ramps up its military campaign in Gaza, the terror group told negotiators it was prepared to free all its hostages so long as it gets assurance that Jerusalem will withdraw all its forces, a senior Palestinian official told the Times of Israel.
It remains to be seen if the proposal will be accepted, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long rejected any deal that does not include Hamas’ complete defeat, including demilitarisation and its permanent exit from Gaza.
While Hamas has insisted that both sides should stick to the original US-brokered ceasefire deal in January, the terror group appears to be ready to concede that a permanent end to the fighting may not be immediately on the table.
“We had no other choice. The situation in Gaza is terrible,” the officials said about Hamas’ new position.
The terror group is allegedly open to releasing more hostages in exchange for a temporary ceasefire, Palestinian officials told the Israeli outlet.
Hamas previously agreed to a new deal proposed by US special envoy Steve Witkoff to release five hostages in exchange for another temporary truce.
Israel, however, rejected the offer and demanded the release of 11 living hostages, as well as the bodies of 16 captives.
Hamas officials found the Israeli counter-proposal unacceptable, with negotiators for the terror group refusing to respond on Wednesday.
In response, Israel launched a major air and ground offensive in Gaza drawing condemnation from both the international community and the families of hostages.
Heavy strikes were reported in Rafah and Khan Younis overnight, killing 34 people, followed by grounds troops advancing in Rafah.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said at least 19 people were killed, including nine children, when an Israeli strike “targeted an UNRWA (UN agency for Palestinian refugees) building housing a medical clinic in Jabalia refugee camp”.
Hamas’ latest proposal comes as Israeli troops prepare to split the already divided sections of Gaza further, with the Israeli Defense Forces carrying out a plan to seal off the city of Rafah in the south.
The operation would leave Gaza cut up into three parts, with Israel already controlling a border sealing off the north, and allow the IDF to occupy 25 per cent of the Strip.
Following Israel’s return to war last month, Hamas has faced increasing pressure from Palestinian civilians to end the fighting and free the Israeli captives.
The Israeli army said in a statement that it struck Hamas militants “inside a command and control centre” in north Gaza’s Jabalia. It separately confirmed to AFP the building housed a UN clinic.
The Palestinian foreign ministry, based in the occupied West Bank, condemned the “massacre at the UNRWA clinic in Jabalia” and called for “serious international pressure” to halt Israel’s widening offensive.
Israel has on several occasions conducted strikes on UNRWA buildings housing displaced people in Gaza, citing Hamas militants hiding there as the reason.
Israel also carried out deadly air strikes in southern and central Gaza on Wednesday.
Britain was among the first nations to condemn the move.
“We are deeply concerned about the resumption of hostilities in Gaza. The UK does not support an expansion of Israel’s military operations,” junior foreign office minister Hamish Falconer, told parliament.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum also issued a statement slamming the decision.
“(We) were horrified to wake up this morning to the defence minister’s announcement that the military operation in Gaza would be expanded for the purpose of ‘capturing extensive territory,’” the statement reads.
“Has it been decided to sacrifice the hostages for the sake of ‘territorial gains?’
“Instead of securing the release of the hostages through a deal and ending the war, the Israeli government is sending more soldiers into Gaza to fight in the same areas where battles have already taken place repeatedly.”
Civilians continue to face a humanitarian crisis over the renewed blockade on food and aid supplies, with the death toll in Gaza rising above 50,000 last week, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health, which does not differentiate between civilians and terrorists.
Meanwhile in Israel, Netanyahu is facing his own mass protests over the decision to return to war, as families of the hostages accused the PM of putting politics ahead of their loved ones’ safety.
There are currently 59 hostages remaining in Gaza, only 24 of whom are believed to still be alive, including Israeli American Edan Alexander.
HUNGARY CAUSES EUROPEAN UPROAR
Europe is in uproar as Hungary withdrew from the International Criminal Court and welcomes a visiting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as Israel continues to seize swathes of Gaza.
Hungary’s announcement that it will start the year-long withdrawal process came as Mr Orban welcomed Mr Netanyahu in Budapest on his first trip to Europe since 2023.
Mr Netanyahu, who faces an ICC arrest warrant that Hungary said it would not carry out, welcomed his hosts’ “bold and principled” decision to leave the tribunal, calling it a “corrupt organisation.”
Set up in 2002, the ICC, based in The Hague, seeks to prosecute individuals responsible for the world’s gravest crimes when countries are unwilling or unable to do so themselves.
The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority urged Hungary to “comply with the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant by immediately handing Netanyahu over to bring him to justice”.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock also decried the visit.
“This is a bad day for international criminal law,” Ms Baerbock said at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels.
Mr Orban said during a press conference with Netanyahu that the ICC was “no longer an impartial court” but a “political court” as shown “most clearly by the decisions on Israel”.
Mr Orban invited Mr Netanyahu last November, a day after the ICC issued the arrest warrant against the Israeli leader for crimes against humanity and war crimes – allegations he fiercely rejects.
Hungary’s government submitted a bill to parliament on Thursday, with a vote expected at the end of May, after which the country will notify the UN.
The withdrawal process from the ICC usually takes about one year to complete.
The ICC insisted Hungary still had a “duty” to co-operate with the body.
“The court recalls that Hungary remains under a duty to co-operate with the ICC,” spokesman Fadi El Abdallah said.
UN SLAMS ISRAEL FOR AID WORKER DEATHS
United Nations officials have harshly condemned an Israel army attack on an emergency convoy that killed 15 aid workers and medical personnel, demanding an investigation after their bodies were discovered in what the agency described as a “mass grave”.
“This is a huge blow to us … These people were shot,” said Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN aid co-ordination office, OCHA.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said it had recovered the bodies of eight of its medics, six members of Gaza’s civil defence agency and on UN employee. One Red Crescent medic remains missing.
“I condemn the attack by the Israeli army on a medical and emergency convoy on 23 March resulting in the killing of 15 medical personnel and humanitarian workers in Gaza,” United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said in a statement.
“The subsequent discovery of their bodies eight days later in Rafah, buried near their clearly marked destroyed vehicles, is deeply disturbing,” he added.
“This raises significant questions with regard to the conduct of the Israeli army during and in the aftermath of the incident.”
TEEN HELD WITHOUT CHARGE DIES IN ISRAELI JAIL
A 17-year-old boy held without charge for six months in an Israeli prison has died after collapsing in unclear circumstances, Palestinian officials have said.
The family of Walid Ahmad, arrested last September for allegedly throwing stones at Israeli soldiers, claims he contracted amoebic dysentery from the unsanitary conditions in the prison.
Citing witnesses, a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority’s detainee commission told AP that Walid had collapsed and hit his head on a metal rod, losing consciousness.
“The prison administration did not respond to the prisoners’ requests for urgent care to save his life,” he said.
In a statement, the Israeli prison service said an investigation was under way.
“A 17-year-old security detainee from Megiddo prison, from the West Bank area, passed away yesterday in the prison, with his medical condition being under privacy protection,” it said. “An investigation is still ongoing.”
– with AFP
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Originally published as Israel ‘eliminates’ Bibas family murderer
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