Israel yesterday said it had agreed on a truce with Hamas to end 10 days of violence in Gaza, although the reported deal was denied by the Islamist movement.
News of a fresh attempt to end the worst bloodshed in the Gaza Strip in five years came during a five-hour humanitarian truce, under which both Israel and Hamas militants had agreed to hold their fire.
As relative calm returned to the skies over Gaza for the first time since Tuesday last week, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was due to meet with his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, as Cairo pushed regional efforts to broker a new ceasefire deal. An earlier Egyptian attempt to end hostilities collapsed on Tuesday, with Hamas claiming it had not been included in the negotiations.
Photo: Reuters
Speaking on condition of anonymity, an Israeli official said the Jewish state and Hamas “have agreed on a ceasefire” that would begin at 3am GMT today.
However, Hamas shot down the report.
“The news about a ceasefire is incorrect. There are continuing efforts, but no agreement until now,” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said in Gaza.
Photo: AFP
Despite the diplomacy, there seemed little appetite from either side to end their confrontation, which has so far claimed the lives of 231 people in Gaza and one person in Israel.
During the five-hour humanitarian lull, which had been requested by the UN, militants in Gaza fired three mortar shells at southern Israel. And shortly after it ended at 12pm GMT, another Gaza rocket crashed near the southern port city of Ashkelon, the army said.
In a separate incident, an Israeli soldier was lightly injured by an explosion near the fence, with the army firing back across the border, the army said.
The two sides had agreed to temporarily suspend hostilities, with a senior UN official saying the Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Gaza would be opened to allow in medical aid. It also gave Gazans a chance to leave their homes and stock up on supplies, or pick up belongings from homes which they had evacuated.
In Gaza City, the streets immediately filled with honking cars and traffic jams, and outside banks, hundreds of people massed by ATMs to withdraw money to buy supplies.
“It’s not enough. People need to go out and get supplies and to get their belongings. It should have been from 7am until dusk,” Mohamed Nasr said.
“We’ve been stuck in our houses during this war, because of the violence. It’s like living under curfew,” he said.
Just moments before the humanitarian truce began at 7am GMT, Israeli tank fire killed three people in southern Gaza, Palestinian medics said.
The Israeli army also foiled a “major terror attack” by a group of 13 militants who managed to enter southern Israel by tunnel and were seen heading toward Sufa kibbutz near the fence, Israeli army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner told reporters.
They were targeted in an air strike, which killed one and sent the others fleeing back into the tunnel, he said.
The raid was claimed by Hamas, which said its militants had carried out a successful “mission” into Israel.
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
US President Donald Trump in an interview with the New York Times published on Thursday said that “it’s up to” Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be “very unhappy” with a change in the “status quo.” “He [Xi] considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing, but I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that. I hope he doesn’t do that,” Trump said. Trump made the comments in the context
SELF-DEFENSE: Tokyo has accelerated its spending goal and its defense minister said the nation needs to discuss whether it should develop nuclear-powered submarines China is ramping up objections to what it sees as Japan’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons, despite Tokyo’s longstanding renunciation of such arms, deepening another fissure in the two neighbors’ increasingly tense ties. In what appears to be a concerted effort, China’s foreign and defense ministries issued statements on Thursday condemning alleged remilitarism efforts by Tokyo. The remarks came as two of the country’s top think tanks jointly issued a 29-page report framing actions by “right-wing forces” in Japan as posing a “serious threat” to world peace. While that report did not define “right-wing forces,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was
PREPAREDNESS: Given the difficulty of importing ammunition during wartime, the Ministry of National Defense said it would prioritize ‘coproduction’ partnerships A newly formed unit of the Marine Corps tasked with land-based security operations has recently replaced its aging, domestically produced rifles with more advanced, US-made M4A1 rifles, a source said yesterday. The unnamed source familiar with the matter said the First Security Battalion of the Marine Corps’ Air Defense and Base Guard Group has replaced its older T65K2 rifles, which have been in service since the late 1980s, with the newly received M4A1s. The source did not say exactly when the upgrade took place or how many M4A1s were issued to the battalion. The confirmation came after Chinese-language media reported
RSS