Defining the News
PUSH FOR CEASEFIRE. Relatives and supporters of Israelis held hostage by Palestinian militants in Gaza since the Oct. 7 attacks, wave flags as they demonstrate calling for their release in the port city of Haifa during the weekend amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the militant Hamas movement. Before US Secretary Antony Blinken departed for Tel Aviv on Saturday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office called for ‘heavy pressure’ on Hamas to reach a breakthrough.
“We are not facing a deal or real negotiations, but rather the imposing of American diktats,” he said.But the stakes have risen since the late July killings in quick succession of Iran-backed militant leaders, including Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh, and as the humanitarian crisis in the besieged Gaza Strip has deepened with a feared polio outbreak.
“We have a prime minister that is not so much willing to release the hostages, to finish the war, because he has he own interests,” Yossi, a 53-year-old protester, said as thousands rallied in Tel Aviv demanding a deal to bring home the captives still held in Gaza. The Israeli military told AFP its forces had targeted rocket launchers in central Gaza and that it was looking into “reports… that as a result of the strike, civilians in an adjacent structure were killed”.Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Western and Arab diplomats have been shuttling around the region to push for a Gaza deal which they see as the best way to avert a wider conflagration following the high-profile killings.
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