Hamas launches war on Israel

[Exocet25fr]

Drone 'launched towards' Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu's home

https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images...pg?w=800&h=305

[Jimbuna]

At least 33 people have been killed in Israeli air strikes on the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, Hamas-run authorities say. Israel has not commented

Israeli forces have been besieging the densely-populated camp in recent weeks, saying it's trying to prevent Hamas fighters from regrouping

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar's death this week raised hopes of an end to the war, but Iran's supreme leader says the group will "remain alive"

Meanwhile, Benjamin Netanyahu's office says a drone was launched towards the Israeli PM's home in Caesarea, northern Israel, but he wasn't there at the time

Fighting is continuing in Lebanon, where Israel's military says it killed about 60 Hezbollah fighters and destroyed its regional command centre

Hezbollah says it fired rockets at the Israeli city of Haifa and areas to its north

[Jimbuna]

Netanyahu says he is undeterred after reported drone attack on his home

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he is undeterred from his war aims following a reported drone attack on his private residence.

"The attempt by Iran’s proxy Hezbollah to assassinate me and my wife today was a grave mistake," he wrote in a post on X.

His office earlier said a drone was "launched towards" his residence in the northern coastal town of Caesarea on Saturday morning.

Mr Netanyahu and his wife were not at home at the time, and no one was injured.

Iran says Hezbollah was behind the reported attack, Iranian state news agency IRNA reported.

Iran's mission to the UN was quoted as saying: "The action in question has been carried out by Hezbollah in Lebanon”.

Hezbollah - which is funded and equipped by Iran - has not commented on the reports.

The Israeli military said three drones were launched from Lebanon, with one hitting a building in Caesarea.

They did not confirm whether the building was part of the prime minister's residence, nor the extent of any damage.

US outlet Axios reported that the drone did hit the residence.

At 08:19 local time (06:19 BST), the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said: "In the last hour, three unmanned aerial vehicles crossed into the country from Lebanon.

"Two of the aircraft were intercepted. Another aircraft hit a building in Caesarea, no injuries."

The Israeli prime minister makes use of two private homes, in Caesarea and Jerusalem, and has also spent time at Beit Aghion, his official residence in Jerusalem, which is currently being renovated.

The reported attack comes as Israel prepares to respond to Iran's large-scale ballistic missile attack on 1 October - with Israel's defence minister saying its response would be "deadly, precise and surprising".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyl4e7w2e7o

[Exocet25fr]

Top Israeli Army Officer Killed in Gaza Strip

Colonel Ehsan Daksa, commander of the IDF’s 401 armored brigade

[Jimbuna]

Hamas in Gaza has told the BBC it will not reveal the name of its new leader for security reasons

The group will elect a new leader in March to replace Yahya Sinwar who was killed by Israeli troops

Israel says its forces are continuing ground raids in the Jabalia area in northern Gaza - adding that "several hundred" residents have left using evacuation routes

Israel has carried out air strikes across Lebanon, saying it is targeting branches of a bank used by Hezbollah

The US is stepping up diplomatic efforts to get ceasefires between Israel, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza

[Skybird]

Very nice summary of the history behind it. Cannot post a translator-link, it gets suppressed. The author Michael Wolffsohn is a historian and journalist. His books include: “Who owns the Holy Land?” (2002) and “Eine andere Jüdische Weltgeschichte” (2022).
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https://www.nzz.ch/meinung/tatsachen...ina-ld.1849835


Perceived opinions and historical facts - on a few widespread legends about “Palestine”


The world public's attitude to the Gaza war is more divided than ever before. Anyone who wants to form a coherent picture of the seemingly insoluble conflict should know the long history well and analyze it precisely - against the pretence of false facts.

The term “Palestine” is inauthentic. The Roman Emperor Hadrian decreed this place name in 135, after his military had bloodily suppressed the uprising of the Jews of Judea. Nothing was to be reminiscent of Jewry. As an extremely anti-Jewish cipher, “Palestine” was to mean: “Land of the Philistines”, because: The Philistines were, so to speak, the original enemies of the Jews of Judea. The reference to the small, then King David and the Philistine giant Goliath was sufficient.

The black, white, green and red flag of Palestine is not very authentic, indeed it is almost historical masochism. It was designed by the British diplomat Mark Sykes for the Kingdom of Hejaz, which was Hashemite until 1926 and then became Saudi Arabia in 1932. It couldn't have been more colonialist, because it was precisely Mark Sykes and his French colleague François Georges-Picot who, in 1916, divided up the spoils of the Ottoman Empire, including Palestine, in a highly imperialist manner.

The ignorant proclaim: Today's Palestinians are the descendants of the Philistines who once lived on the east coast of the Mediterranean, in the greater Gaza region. This theory has a flaw: the Philistines did not come from the Arabian Peninsula, but from the Balkan Peninsula. They were therefore not Arabs. Around the twelfth century BC, the Philistines or the “Sea Peoples” arrived in the Near East as invaders, where, expanding eastwards, they attacked the pre- and early Jewish community that had first lived on the hills of the West Bank.

Why more than three thousand years back in history? Because today's self-designation of Palestinians as “Palestinians” is a deliberate misrepresentation of history. Nevertheless (or precisely because of this), the Philistine-Palestinian legend is part of the counterfactual and ultimately anti-Jewish toolkit of the Israel campaigners.

This also includes the Islamic monopolistic claim to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. On several occasions, most recently in October 2016, the international community served as a voluntary helper or useful idiot within the framework of the United Nations and Unesco. Fact one: the first (Solomonic) Jewish temple stood on this hill - not mountain - from the middle of the tenth century BC to 586 BC and the second Jewish temple from 515 BC to 70 AD. Before the Jewish site, the “mountain” was a place of worship for the Jebusites. After the Islamic-Arab conquest of Jerusalem in 638, Muslims erected the Dome of the Rock in 690. The Al-Aksa Mosque was consecrated in 712. Ergo: Historically, there are two claims, whereby the two polytheistic and the pre-Islamic Byzantine-Christian interlude are disregarded.

We skip over centuries in which peoples came and went in “Palestine”. However, neither the land nor its inhabitants, the majority of whom were Muslim Arabs and a few Jews, were called “Palestine” or “Palestinians”. This almost two-thousand-year-old term, which was originally clearly anti-Jewish and disregarded Arabs and Arabia, was not used again in international politics until the late 19th century - even in Zionism!

At that time, from 1517 to be precise, Palestine (not yet officially so called) belonged to the Ottoman Empire. In 1922, the League of Nations transferred the mandate or trusteeship over Palestine to Great Britain in breach of international law. The programmed British disloyalty is easy to prove. Britain had already distributed the Ottoman inheritance several times during the First World War. In 1915 to the Hashemite Arab dynasty from Hejaz (today Saudi Arabia), in 1916, as mentioned, to itself, France, Italy and Russia and in 1917 to the Zionist Jews.

What belonged to the British Mandate of Palestine? The West Bank including Jerusalem, the East Bank (today Jordan), today's Israel and the Gaza Strip.

The aim of the trusteeship formulated on paper was the “establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine”, but not the whole of Palestine as a Jewish homeland. Furthermore, nothing was to be done that would restrict the civil and religious rights of the non-Jewish population. That sounded wonderfully humane and peaceful. But how to deal with two-sided one-sidedness?

Largely undeterred by Jewish-Zionist and especially Palestinian frustration, agitation and violence, the British trustees acted as colonialists. They divided up: In 1923, they handed over the East Bank of Palestine to the Hashemites who had been cheated when the mandate was granted. The League of Nations sealed this fraud under international law in 1924. Law, not justice - intra-Arab colonialism.

The Jews said yes to the Mandate Statute, but grumbled. They grumbled because of the “in Palestine”. The indigenous Arabs in the rest of Palestine grumbled because they, as the demographic majority, were not offered the prospect of political sovereignty. They overlooked (or wanted to overlook) the fact that the size of the Jewish-Zionist homeland had not been specified in the text at all. That “in” could be a mini-in as well as a maxi-in. Moreover, there was not a word about what was to happen to Jews in “Palestine”. Instead of using this loophole politically to possibly get almost everything from Palestine, the Palestinian leadership fought any Jewish-Zionist claim violently and totally from the outset.

This in turn means, firstly, that historically and demographically Jordan is East Palestine. Secondly, analytically, this means that international law is favorable to the Hashemites and their minions and is in fact directed against the self-determination of the Palestinians. Law, international law and justice are far apart here. In 1946, East Palestine was granted “independence” by Britain as the Kingdom of Transjordan, which remained militarily dependent on London.

The next turning point was the UN Partition Plan of November 29, 1947, in which the remaining Palestine from 1923 was to be divided into a Jewish and an Arab-Palestinian state. This required mutual agreement to tolerate the other side as a minority both legally and internally or emotionally.

The day after the UN vote, the Palestinian leadership began the civil war against the nascent Israel. They lost it in April 1948 and called on their Arab brothers for help after Israel's founding on May 14. Especially Egypt and Transjordan. They came and took. Egypt “administered” the conquered Gaza Strip, and Transjordan, which until then had been East Jordan, became de facto Jordan in 1948 and officially Jordan in 1950 by incorporating East Jerusalem and the West Bank. With active British help, as King Abdallah I's army was led by the British commander-in-chief Glubb Pasha. Although this annexation was only recognized under international law by Great Britain and Pakistan, Jordan became a member of the UN in December 1955 without any ifs or buts.

That's how it usually is with wars. Those who start them and lose them also lose land and have to reckon with the expulsion of their own countrymen or their flight. Think of Germany, which was completely defeated by the Allies. It started the war in 1939 and lost it in 1945. The Palestinians shared this fate, which was self-inflicted by their own leadership, with the Germans. Around 750,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled by Israelis. Unlike the German refugees and displaced persons, they were, at the behest of their leaders, unwilling to integrate in their places of refuge and renounce violence, while the Arab states that took them in refused to integrate them.

The Palestinian population began to resist. Inside Jordan, things were boiling. Especially in the West Bank. In 1951, King Abdallah I was assassinated by a Palestinian. Against the will of the king and his successor Hussein I, Palestinian “freedom fighters” from the West Bank attacked Israel. At the same time, they stirred up internal political unrest. The high point was the attempted coup in 1957/58, which was mainly carried out by Palestinians. The West Bank was the focal point. Only British soldiers secured the king's throne in 1958. He then “cleansed” his armed forces. They became almost “Palestinian-free”. Their supporting pillar: loyal Bedouins, for whom the predominantly urban Palestinians had always been a thorn in their side. A variant of the historical confrontation between urbanity and nomadism.

In the Six-Day War of June 1967, Israel conquered East Jerusalem and the West Bank in addition to the Syrian Golan Heights and the Gaza Strip and then attempted to establish local, freely elected self-government. This failed because the Palestinian national movement radicalized in and out of Jordan under the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which was founded in East Jerusalem in 1964. In September 1970, the PLO was on the verge of seizing power in the kingdom by force. But Hussein's Bedouin army prevailed. Palestinians call their bloodbath “Black September”. The shock is still felt today. There has not been a Palestinian uprising in Jordan since.

In 1970, the masses in the West looked on. Instead, they protested against the Vietnam War of the leading Western power, the USA. No pro-Palestinian demonstration that even came close to the dimensions of the protests of 2023/24 in response to Israel's supposed “genocide” against “the” Palestinians.

Nevertheless, there have been three major Palestinian uprisings, almost wars. In the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The first intifada from 1987 to 1993. The second intifada from 2000 to 2005 and Hamas' Gaza war in 2023/24, which also became its war in the West Bank and was joined by the Lebanese Hizbullah, the Yemeni Houthi and pro-Iranian militias from Syria and Iraq under the direction of Iran.

Result one of the first intifada: Fearing that the Palestinian uprising would spill over from West to East Jordan, King Hussein severed all remaining administrative and legal ties between the two banks of the Jordan in July 1988. From then on, it seemed that only Israel, and no longer Jordan, was the decisive obstacle to Palestinian self-determination. To this day, the world remains blind to this fact.

Result two of the first intifada, in the words of then Prime Minister Rabin: to take the “risk of peace” and initiate a two-state solution. In vain, because in addition to diplomacy, the PLO's dual strategy also included terror, which on the one hand led to increased harshness on the part of Israel, but on the other to this offer from Prime Minister Barak in 2000/01: the Gaza Strip, 97 percent of the West Bank as the state of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital. The PLO refused and began the second intifada. The result: military defeat.

Nevertheless, the total evacuation of the Gaza Strip by Israel took place in July 2005 under the direction of Prime Minister Sharon. Instead of “land for peace” since 2007, Hamas rockets for land. Nevertheless, Israel's Prime Minister Olmert repeated Barak's offer of 2000/01 in September. No was the answer of the Palestinian Authority, and more Hamas rockets on Israel followed. Israel's response: limited, “proportional” military action. The next Hamas action: the terrorist orgy of October 7, 2023. Israel's response: the Gaza War, which Hamas soon lost in fact, but continued in a militarily absurd manner, sacrificing its own civilian population thousands of times over for propaganda reasons.

After around 140 years of conflict and war with Israel, the ever-divided Palestinian leadership can present its people with these “achievements”: a totally militarized underworld in the Gaza Strip due to Hamas and billions of dollars in funding from the Gulf and the West on the one hand, and a totally impoverished, harassed and suffering population on the other. The upper world of the Gaza Strip in ruins.

Soon also the West Bank, Lebanon, Yemen, Iran? Hamas has “enriched” the world with an unprecedented mixed strategy of guerrilla and terror as a new form of war. At the same time, it acts as a catalyst for a “real” multi-front war. A tragedy not only for the Palestinian people. Due to their leadership and the misguided and misdirected policies of the international community under the direction of the UN, the USA and the EU.

[Jimbuna]

Hidden fortune: Hezbollah's alleged bunker beneath Beirut hospital

- Hezbollah has allegedly built a bunker beneath one of the hospitals in Beirut, the Lebanese capital. According to the Israel Defence Forces spokesperson, the group is purportedly concealing over £400 million in gold and cash there, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari. He stated that the military will not target the facility, despite the hospital director having ordered its evacuation.

This money could help rebuild Lebanon, but it has been allocated to strengthen Hezbollah, said Hagari. The spokesperson's statement, posted on social media, included a graphic showing the bunker's location and the facility's entrances.

Hagari noted that the bunker, intentionally constructed under the hospital, previously served as one of the hideouts for Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed at the end of September in an Israeli airstrike. He claims The hideout has now been converted into Hezbollah's central treasury, where most of the terrorist organisation's funds are concealed.

Hospital director Fadi Alameh, in an interview with Reuters, denied the Israeli military's accusations and called on the Lebanese army to inspect the facility. He has simultaneously ordered its evacuation.

- Israel will continue attacks on Hezbollah's financial institutions, Hagari announced.

On the night from Sunday to Monday, Israel targeted about 30 locations associated with Hezbollah-affiliated financial institution Al-Qard Al-Hasan, as reported by the Chief of the General Staff of the Israeli Armed Forces, Gen. Herzi Halevi. Media reported that Israeli fighter jets and drones struck facilities across Lebanon, including Beirut.

Hagari added that during the day on Monday, in an attack on the Syrian capital, Damascus, an unnamed Hezbollah official responsible for transferring funds to the group from Iran was killed. According to Israelis, the man had been performing his duties for only a few weeks because his predecessor was also killed in an Israeli attack.

On Monday evening, the Arabic-speaking spokesperson for the Israeli military, Col. Avichay Adraee, warned residents in the southern suburb of Beirut to evacuate immediately from the vicinity of several buildings used by Hezbollah.

A few minutes later, a heavy airstrike began near the Rafic Hariri University Hospital, reported Reuters. According to its sources, at least three people were killed in the attack, which destroyed the hospital's car park.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...9856d3d&ei=102

[Shadowblade]

Hashem Safieddine, the senior Hezbollah leader widely seen as the successor to the group’s former leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed around three weeks ago, the Israel Defense Forces announced Tuesday.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...non-hezbollah/

[Jimbuna]

Who is Hashem Safieddine, Hezbollah heir to Nasrallah Israel claims to have killed?

Israel claims to have killed Hashem Safieddine, heir apparent to slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, in an early October airstrike on southern Beirut.

The Israeli military said on Tuesday that its airstrikes on the Dahiyeh suburb killed Safieddine, head of Hezbollah’s executive council, along with Ali Hussein Hazima, the group’s intelligence chief, three weeks ago.

Hezbollah is yet to confirm or deny the Israeli claim.

“We have reached Nasrallah, his replacement and most of Hezbollah’s senior leadership,” Israeli army chief Herzi Halevi said, according to Reuters. “We will reach anyone who threatens the security of the civilians of the State of Israel.”

The Israelis also claim to have killed three Hezbollah commanders and around 70 fighters over the past 48 hours in southern Lebanon.

What do we know about Hashem Safieddine?

Safieddine was born into a prominent Shia family in southern Lebanon in 1964. He joined Hezbollah in its early days during the 1980s, a period marked by the Lebanese civil war and Israel’s invasion of the country.

Safieddine rapidly rose up Hezbollah’s ranks, recognised for his leadership skills and ties to the Shia community, and ultimately became a central figure in the organisation.

He was designated a terrorist by the US in 2017.

While Washington has classified Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation in its entirety, the EU has only blacklisted its armed wing.

“As Nasrallah’s cousin and longtime presumed successor, he would likely be able to unify Hezbollah ranks around him,” Matthew Levitt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy was quoted as saying by Radio Free Europe earlier in October

He added, however, that Safieddine “lacks Nasrallah’s charisma and he inherits an organisation that is a shadow of its former self”.

Safieddine, as head of the executive council, has managed Hezbollah’s financial and administrative matters. He has also overseen military operations as a member of the Jihad Council.

He took on a more visible role within the organisation in recent years, speaking at funerals and public events in place of Nasrallah, who stayed in the shadows due to security risks.

“Throughout the years, Safieddine directed terrorist attacks against the state of Israel and took part in Hezbollah’s central decisionmaking processes,” the Israeli military said in a statement on Tuesday.

Israel is yet to provide any evidence to confirm Safieddine’s death.

Hezbollah has refrained from commenting on Safieddine’s status since the airstrikes. It has not responded to Israel’s claims either.

Safieddine, like his cousin Nasrallah, has sported a black turban, symbolising his status as a respected Shia cleric, whenever he has appeared in public.

Safieddine was educated in the holy Shia city of Qom in Iran, where his brother now serves as Hezbollah’s representative.

Safieddine’s son is said to be married to the daughter of Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian general who reportedly played a key role in beating back Isis in Iraq and Syria and who was assassinated by the US military in 2020.

Safieddine’s involvement in Hezbollah has extended beyond Lebanon. His position on the Jihad Council allowed him oversight over the group’s military operations during the Syrian civil war, in which it supported President Bashar al-Asad’s government.

His death, if confirmed, would represent another significant setback for Hezbollah after the assassination of Nasrallah last month.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknew...d18c5733&ei=94

[mapuc]

Markus

[Exocet25fr]

UN Secretary-General's message to the International Conference in Support of Lebanon's People and Sovereignty.....

[Jimbuna]

IDF soldiers should refuse orders that may be war crimes, Israeli ex-security adviser tells BBC

As someone who served four Israeli prime ministers and was deputy head of the country’s National Security Council, Eran Etzion’s judgement was trusted at the highest levels of the state.

A longstanding critic of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he is also someone whose years of public service earned him widespread respect.

But now Mr Etzion, a former soldier himself, is warning that Israel’s military - the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) - might be committing war crimes in northern Gaza. And he is suggesting that officers and troops should reject illegal orders.

“They should refuse. If a soldier or an officer is expected to commit something that might be suspected as a war crime, they must refuse. That's what I would do if I were a soldier. That's what I think any Israeli soldier should do,” he tells me.

We are sitting on the balcony of his home in Shoresh in central Israel.

Here there is the quiet sunshine of an autumn morning. A peaceful neighbourhood where some builders are working on house improvements.

Less than 40 miles down the road is the Gaza neighbourhood of Jabalia.

As Mr Etzion and I are speaking, doctors and medical staff at the Indonesian Hospital in Jabalia are sending desperate voice notes to the international community begging for aid.

One senior nurse - in a message heard by the BBC - speaks in an exhausted voice of relentless privations allegedly imposed by the Israelis besieging Jabalia.

“My friend, I’m so so tired,” he says. “I can’t explain how tired I am. The water is empty. We don't have water. We contacted the Israeli force to allow us to charge water to the tank, but they don't accept that.... And we don't know what will happen tomorrow. The situation is very very bad.”

Another nurse says: “I am sorry for my language, I can't talk well. I am very fatigued and dizzy. I haven't eaten since yesterday. We try to give the food that we found to the patients and families and we don't eat ourselves.”

Tens of thousands of people are now fleeing Jabalia as the Israeli army continues its offensive against what it says is an attempt by Hamas to regroup.

Mr Etzion is worried for the civilians of Jabalia and his country. “There is a very dangerous erosion of norms. There is a very widespread sense of revenge, of rage,” he says.

This is because, Mr Etzion says, Israel is in the grip of trauma after the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks in which around 1,200 Israelis were killed and more than 200 taken hostage into Gaza.

“The will to revenge could be understood. It's human, but we're not a gang, we're not a terror organisation, and we're not a militia. We're a sovereign country. We have our history, we have our morals, we have our values, and we must operate under international law and under international standards if we want to continue to be a member of the international community, which we do.”

He is speaking out as a former soldier, as someone whose children served in the IDF, and whose family and friends still serve. “I'm just a concerned citizen trying to raise my voice. So that's what I'm doing. I want to make sure that no soldier is involved in anything that could be constituted as a war crime.”

Israel has faced mounting international criticism over its conduct during the war. The United States has threatened to cut arms shipments if Israel does not surge aid into Gaza.

The UN has accused the Israelis of repeatedly blocking or impeding the transfer of aid, most recently into northern Gaza.

The IDF has consistently rejected allegations that it is implementing a deliberate policy of starvation to force residents to flee from Jabalia. Israel has long accused Hamas of using the civilian population as human shields, launching attacks from schools and medical facilities.

“Hamas does not hesitate to abuse Gazans, exploit them, steal aid from them, and forcefully prevent them from evacuating when it is necessary for them to do so,” the IDF said in May.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx24ngy9g70o

[mapuc]

Markus

[Jimbuna]

Secret Hamas documents reveal Sinwar’s ‘last orders’

Secret documents appear to show killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s last written orders, which include instructions on what to do with Israeli hostages.

The three pages of handwritten notes were published by Palestinian paper Al-Quds, which claim they are the final “wills” and “directives” of Sinwar, who was killed in an Israeli strike last week.

Scribbled hastily in blue ink, the first page includes an instruction to the captors of the hostages to “take care of the lives of enemy prisoners and secure them, since they are the bargaining chip in our hands”.

Guarding “the enemy’s prisoners”, the writer stressed, is essential to securing the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. Those that carry out their “duty” will be rewarded, it read.

At the time of Sinwar’s death, 101 Israeli hostages were being held captive in the enclave, at least 60 of whom were thought to be alive.

The second page of notebook paper, written under the header Alarqam Trading for Printer Co, a Dubai-registered printed company, included tallies of hostages and their locations.

It mentioned 112 unnamed hostages held in three areas, Gaza City (14), the centre of the Gaza Strip (25), Rafah (51). The fourth group of 22 hostages has no location.

Names, ages and genders are detailed as well as whether they were soldiers, civilians, young or old. There were also calculations showing that Sinwar may have been working out how many hostages were left in each location.

The last page showed the names of 11 female hostages who were released earlier in the war, most of them in the week-long November ceasefire. It listed whether they held foreign citizenship.

There has not yet been an official comment from Israel on the documents attributed to Sinwar.

Hamas released 105 civilians during the November hostage-prisoner swap, adding to the four released before that. Eight hostages have since been rescued alive, while the bodies of 37 have been recovered.

On Thursday, the Hostages Families Forum called on Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, and Hamas to secure an agreement for the release of the captives.

“We demand the Israeli prime minister grant the negotiating team full authority to secure this deal. Time is running out for the hostages,” they said in a statement.

Their plea came after Israel announced it would be sending officials to Doha on Sunday for new truce talks, the first of their kind since August.

It is not clear whether Hamas has agreed to participate but a delegation of leaders of the terror group met with Egyptian security officials on Thursday in Cairo to discuss “ideas and proposals”, a senior Hamas official told AFP.

Washington believes the killing of Sinwar might draw Hamas back to the negotiation table, particularly if the decision-making will now be led by the remaining leaders abroad which could help expedite the long-stalled ceasefire talks.

“With Sinwar gone there is a real opportunity to bring home [the hostages] and to accomplish the objective,” Antony Blinken, US secretary of state, said this week on his 11th trip to the Middle East since the start of the conflict.

Hamas is now believed to be engaged in talks to select the group’s new leader, with speculation that Sinwar’s younger brother Muhammed could take control.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...c037ba3c6&ei=9

[Skybird]

CNN just reports the IDF has begun striking Iran. "Military targets" are being struck, explosions are heard around Teheran. No word on the scale and planned duration of the attack.

If these strikes today already are against the final targets, it will be over soon. If they are just of preparatory nature, the big one still is away and the operation could last days, if not weeks. Who knows.


I think it is at least no minor, symbolic attack, but a robust one.