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ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR
🔴Live: Biden raises possibility of new Israel-Hamas ceasefire before Ramadan
A new ceasefire between Israel and Hamas could start as soon as Monday, US President Joe Biden said, in a deal that could include the exchange of dozens of hostages held in Gaza for several hundred Palestinian detainees. Biden also said that Israel had agreed to halt its Gaza offensive during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan under the deal currently being negotiated. Read our liveblog for all the latest updates on the Israel-Hamas war.
Issued on: 27/02/2024 – 03:42
Modified: 27/02/2024 – 07:17
2 min
An explosion is seen in this screengrab taken from video footage released on February 26, 2024 by the Israeli army.
An explosion is seen in this screengrab taken from video footage released on February 26, 2024 by the Israeli army. © Reuters
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FRANCE 24
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FRANCE 24
Summary:
A new ceasefire between Israel and Hamas could start as soon as next Monday, US President Joe Biden said on Monday in an interview aired by the US network NBC.
Israeli Prime Minister Binjamin Netanyahu has stressed that any truce deal would delay, not prevent, a ground invasion of Rafah in the far south of the Gaza Strip, which he said was necessary to achieve “total victory” over Hamas.
In Israel, municipal elections twice delayed by the fighting will be held Tuesday in a poll which could gauge the public mood nearly five months into Israel’s war against Hamas.
Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani – whose country hosts Hamas leaders and helped broker a one-week truce in November – is due in Paris this week, according to the French presidency.
At least 29,782 people have been killed and 70,043 wounded in Israeli strikes in Gaza, two thirds of which are children and women, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Saturday. Around 1,140 people were killed in the Hamas-led October 7 attacks, according to Israeli officials. Around 250 people were taken hostage during the attack and 132 are still in Gaza, according to Israeli figures.
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27 minutes ago
Ultra-Orthodox Jews break with tradition to enlist in Israeli military
In Israel, ultra-Orthodox Jews make up 15 percent of the population and enjoy a special status. They do not pay certain taxes and are exempt from military service, a privilege that has been questioned by some politicians since the war against Hamas broke out.
But following the October 7 attacks, thousands of young ultra-Orthodox men have come forward to volunteer in the armed forces, even if their families don’t always support them in this endeavour. FRANCE 24’s team on the ground reports.
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an hour ago
Hezbollah fires ‘a large salvo of rockets’ at Israeli base
Lebanon’s Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah said it launched a salvo of rockets at an Israeli air control base on Tuesday in retaliation for deadly Israeli strikes on east Lebanon.
Hamas ally Hezbollah has exchanged near-daily fire with the Israeli army since the Gaza war erupted in October, but strikes have been largely restricted to the border area.
Hezbollah said it targeted the “Meron air control base… with a large salvo of rockets from several launchers”. It said the rocket fire was in response to Israel’s first strikes of the war on eastern Lebanon.
Israel struck Hezbollah targets near the city of Baalbek, killing two of its fighters, security sources said. The Israeli army said it targeted Hezbollah air defences after the group downed one of its drones.
In retaliation, Hezbollah fired 60 rockets at an Israeli base in the annexed Golah Heights on Monday.
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2 hours ago
Hamas studying Paris truce proposal involving 40-day pause and hostage exchange
The Palestinian militant group Hamas has received a draft proposal from Gaza truce talks in Paris which includes a 40-day pause in all military operations and the exchange of Palestinian prisoners for Israeli hostages at a ratio of 10 to one, a senior source close to the talks told Reuters on Tuesday.
Under the proposed ceasefire, hospitals and bakeries in Gaza would be repaired and 500 aid trucks would enter into the enclave each day, the source said.
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2 hours ago
Biden says Israel would halt Gaza ‘activities’ during Ramadan under ceasefire deal
US President Joe Biden said on Monday that Israel had agreed that it would halt its Gaza offensive during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan under a ceasefire deal that is being negotiated.
“Ramadan’s coming up and there’s been an agreement by the Israelis that they would not engage in activities during Ramadan as well, in order to give us time to get all the hostages out,” Biden said in an interview with late-night comic Seth Meyers on the US network NBC.
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3 hours ago
Israel holds municipal elections delayed by Gaza war
Israelis vote Tuesday in twice-postponed municipal elections that could offer a gauge of the public mood nearly five months into the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Soldiers had already turned out over the past week at special polling stations set up in army encampments in Gaza as fighting rages on.
More than seven million people are eligible to cast ballots in the local elections, held across most of Israel, in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, Jerusalem and parts of the annexed Golan Heights.
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4 hours ago
US strikes Houthi unmanned vessels, anti-ship missiles, drone
US forces struck three unmanned vessels and two cruise missiles inside Yemen and an attack drone over the Red Sea on Monday that posed an “imminent threat” to ships in the area, the military said.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis have been targeting shipping for months and their attacks have persisted despite repeated US and British strikes aimed at degrading their ability to threaten a vital global trade route.
In Monday’s attack, US Central Command (CENTCOM) destroyed “three unmanned surface vessels, two mobile anti-ship cruise missiles, and a one-way attack unmanned aerial vehicle,” it said on social media.
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5 hours ago
Biden hopes to have ceasefire in place by March 4
A new ceasefire between Israel and Hamas could start as soon as Monday, US President Joe Biden said, in a deal that could include the exchange of dozens of hostages held in Gaza for several hundred Palestinian detainees.
In a protracted bid to bring about a truce, Egypt, Qatar, the United States, France and others have acted as go-betweens for Israel and Hamas, with negotiations ongoing.
They are seeking a six-week halt to the fighting and the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza since Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel sparked the war.
A deal could include the release of several hundred Palestinian detainees held by Israel, media reports suggest.
“My hope is by next Monday we’ll have a ceasefire,” said Biden on Monday, when asked when an agreement could start, adding that “we’re close, we’re not done yet”.
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Yesterday’s key developments:
UN chief Antonio Guterres on Monday warned that a full-scale Israeli military operation in Rafah would put “the final nail in the coffin” for aid programmes in Gaza, where humanitarian assistance remains “completely insufficient”.
The Palestinian Authority’s prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh on Monday announced the resignation of his government, which rules part of the occupied West Bank, citing the need for change in light of the Israel-Hamas war.
Israel on Monday filed a report with the International Court of Justice about measures taken to comply with an interim ruling that called on it to prevent Gaza war actions that might amount to genocide, an Israeli official said.
An active-duty member of the US Air Force died after he set himself ablaze outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, while declaring that he “will no longer be complicit in genocide”.
About casualty figures from Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry:
Gaza’s health ministry collects data from the enclave’s hospitals and the Palestinian Red Crescent.
The health ministry does not report how Palestinians were killed, whether from Israeli airstrikes and artillery barrages or errant Palestinian rocket fire. It describes all casualties as victims of “Israeli aggression”.
The ministry also does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Throughout four wars and numerous skirmishes between Israel and Hamas, UN agencies have cited the Hamas-run health ministry’s death tolls in regular reports. The International Committee of the Red Cross and Palestinian Red Crescent also use the numbers.
In the aftermath of war, the UN humanitarian office has published final death tolls based on its own research into medical records. The UN’s counts have largely been consistent with the Gaza health ministry’s, with small discrepancies.
For more on the Gaza health ministry’s tolls, click here.
(FRANCE 24 with AP)
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP, Reuters)
