Mahmud Abbas urges Hamas to free hostages as captive appears alive in new video
Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas has begged Hamas to let Israeli hostages go, as the terror group released a video showing an October 7, 2023 captive alive. Follow updates.
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Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has urged Hamas to free all hostages, saying their captivity provided Israel with “excuses” to attack Gaza, as the terror group released a new video showing a captive alive.
Israeli attacks killed at least 25 people across the besieged territory, while Germany, France and Britain urged Israel to end its blockade on aid.
Israel resumed its military campaign in Gaza on March 18, ending the ceasefire that had largely paused hostilities and saw the release of 33 hostages in exchange for around 1800 Palestinians from Israeli custody.
Talks on a new ceasefire have so far failed to produce any breakthroughs, and a Hamas delegation is in Cairo for renewed negotiations with Egyptian and Qatari mediators.
“Hamas has given the criminal occupation excuses to commit its crimes in the Gaza Strip, the most prominent being the holding of hostages,” Abbas said in Ramallah, seat of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
“I’m the one paying the price, our people are paying the price, not Israel. My brother, just hand them over.”
“Every day there are deaths,” Abbas said.
“You sons of dogs, hand over what you have and get us out of this ordeal,” he added, levelling a harsh Arabic epithet at Hamas.
Senior Hamas official Bassem Naim called Abbas’s remarks “insulting”.
“Abbas repeatedly and suspiciously lays the blame for the crimes of the occupation and its ongoing aggression on our people,” he said.
Ties between Abbas’ Fatah party and Hamas have been tense, with deep political and ideological divisions for nearly two decades.
Abbas and the PA have often accused Hamas of undermining Palestinian unity, while Hamas has criticised the former for collaborating with Israel and cracking down on dissent in the West Bank.
Since Israel’s military campaign resumed, at least 1890 people have been killed in Gaza, bringing the total death toll since the war erupted to at least 51,266, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
Hamas’s attack on Israel in 2023 that ignited the war resulted in the deaths of 1218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
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HAMAS RELEASES VIDEO SHOWING HOSTAGE ALIVE
Hamas’s armed wing released a video showing an Israeli-Hungarian hostage alive in Gaza, speaking in Hebrew and walking through a tunnel.
In the nearly three-minute clip published by the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades on Wednesday, the hostage – who identifies himself as 48-year-old Omri Miran – is seen addressing the camera.
Israeli media confirmed his identity.
AFP was unable to verify when the footage was recorded.
In the video, Miran is also shown sitting in a confined space, acknowledging protesters in Israel who have been demonstrating against the government and demanding the hostages’ release.
He says that hostages are living in constant fear of bombings and urges a deal be reached as soon as possible to secure their release.
Miran was abducted from Kibbutz Nahal Oz on October 7, 2023.
GRISLY FIND AS 17 BODIES PULLED FROM GAZA SHELTER
Gaza’s civil defence agency on Wednesday said its crew recovered charred bodies from a school-turned-shelter for displaced people, as Israeli strikes killed 17 people in the Hamas-turn territory since dawn.
Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said 11 of the victims, which included women and children, died in an air strike targeting the Yafa school building in Gaza City’s Al-Tuffah neighbourhood.
“The school was housing displaced people. The bombing sparked a massive blaze, and several charred bodies have since been recovered,” he said.
On Tuesday, the Israeli military stated that it had targeted approximately 40 “engineering vehicles”, alleging they were being used for “terror purposes”.
US URGES HAMAS TO SIGN PEACE DEAL
The new US ambassador to Israel called on Hamas to accept a deal that would secure the release of hostages, in exchange for the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
“We call upon Hamas to sign an agreement so that humanitarian aid can flow into Gaza to the people who desperately need it,” Mike Huckabee said in a video statement on X on Monday.
“When that happens, and hostages are released which is an urgent matter for all of us, then we hope that the humanitarian aid will flow and flow freely knowing it will be done without Hamas being able to confiscate and abuse their own people”, he added.
Huckabee’s message comes after Hamas on Thursday signalled its rejection of Israel’s latest truce proposal, which a Hamas source said proposed a hostage-prisoner swap and the entry of aid.
The militants’ chief negotiator said the group rejected any “partial” agreements and sought a comprehensive deal including “halting the war” and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
UN WARNS GAZA FACING DEEPENING HUNGER
The United Nations warned Tuesday that Gaza was facing deepening hunger 50 days into a total Israeli blockade on all aid entering the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.
“Gaza has become a land of desperation,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, said on X.
“Hunger is spreading and deepening, deliberate and man-made.”
ISLAMIST LEADER KILLED IN BEIRUT BY ISRAELI STRIKE
A military leader of Jamaa Islamiya, a Lebanese Islamist group allied with Palestinian group Hamas, was killed Tuesday in an Israeli strike south of Beirut, a security official told AFP.
According to the Lebanese Civil Defence, “an Israeli drone targeted a car” near the coastal town of Damour, about 20 kilometres south of Beirut, and rescuers recovered a man’s body from the vehicle.
The security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the strike killed Hussein Atoui, a leader of Jamaa Islamiya’s armed wing, the Al-Fajr Forces.
ISRAEL CANCELS VISAS FOR FRENCH POLITICIANS
Israel’s government cancelled visas for 27 French left-wing politicians and local officials two days before they were to start a visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories on Sunday, the group said.
The action came only days after Israel stopped two British members of parliament from the governing Labour Party from entering the country.
It also came amid diplomatic tensions after President Emmanuel Macron said France would soon recognise a Palestinian state. Mr Macron has in turn sought to pressure Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over conditions in Gaza amid the Israel-Hamas war.
‘PROFESSIONAL FAILURES’ LED TO MEDICS DEATHS
The Israeli military has said “professional failures” led to the killing of 15 paramedics and first responders in an incident in Gaza last month, according to an investigation released on Sunday local time.
The investigation identified several failures during the incident, as well as breaches of orders and a failure to fully report the incident, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said in a statement.
The IDF said the troops did not engage in “indiscriminate fire” during the incident, but they opened fire on what they believed to be a “tangible threat” amid what the military called “operational misunderstandings”.
– with AFP
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