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Women and children of Gaza are killed less frequently as war’s toll rises, AP data analysis finds
By JOSEF FEDERMAN
Today
JERUSALEM (AP) — The proportion of Palestinian women and children being killed in the Israel-Hamas war appears to have declined sharply, an Associated Press analysis of Gaza Health Ministry data has found, a trend that both coincides with Israel’s changing battlefield tactics and contradicts the ministry’s own public statements.
The trend is significant because the death rate for women and children is the best available proxy for civilian casualties in one of the 21st century’s most destructive conflicts. In October, when the war began, it was above 60%. For the month of April, it was below 40%. Yet the shift went unnoticed for months by the U.N. and much of the media, and the Hamas-linked Health Ministry has made no effort to set the record straight.
Israel faces heavy international criticism over unprecedented levels of civilian casualties in Gaza and questions about whether it has done enough to prevent them in an 8-month-old war that shows no sign of ending. Two recent airstrikes in Gaza killed dozens of civilians.
The AP analysis highlights facts that have been overlooked and could help inform the public debate, said Gabriel Epstein, a research assistant at the Washington Institute for Near East policy who has also studied the Health Ministry data.
The declining impact on women and children -- as well as a drop in the overall death rate -- are “definitely due to a change in the way the IDF is acting right now,” Epstein said, using an acronym for the Israeli army. “That’s an easy conclusion, but I don’t think it’s been made enough.”
AS THE WAR EVOLVES, A SHIFT OCCURS
When Israel first responded to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, which killed some 1,200 people, it launched an intense aerial bombardment on the densely populated Gaza Strip. Israel said its goal was to destroy Hamas positions, and the barrage cleared the way for tens of thousands of ground troops, backed by tanks and artillery.
The Gaza death toll rose quickly and by the end of October women and people 17 and younger accounted for 64% of the 6,745 killed who were fully identified by the Health Ministry.
After marching across most of Gaza and saying it had achieved many key objectives, Israel then began withdrawing most of its ground forces. It reduced the frequency of aerial bombings and has focused in recent months on smaller drone strikes and limited ground operations.
As the intensity of fighting has scaled back, the death toll has continued to rise, but at a slower rate – and with seemingly fewer civilians caught in the crossfire. In April, women and children made up 38% of the newly and fully identified deaths, the Health Ministry’s most recent data shows.
“Historically, airstrikes (kill) a higher ratio of women and children compared to ground operations,” said Larry Lewis, an expert on the civilian impacts of war at CNA, a nonprofit research group in Washington. The findings of the AP analysis “make sense,” he said.
Another sign that Israel softened its bombing campaign: Beginning in January, there was a sharp slowdown in “new damage” to buildings in Gaza, according to Corey Scher, a satellite mapping expert at City University of New York who has monitored buildings damaged or destroyed since the war began.
DAILY DEATH TOLLS AT ODDS WITH UNDERLYING DATA
The Health Ministry announces a new death toll for the war nearly every day. It also has periodically released the underlying data behind this figure, including detailed lists of the dead.
The AP’s analysis looked at these lists, which were shared on social media in late October, early January, late March, and the end of April. Each list includes the names of people whose deaths were attributable to the war, along with other identifying details.
The daily death tolls, however, are provided without supporting data. In February, ministry officials said 75% of the dead were women and children – a level that was never confirmed in the detailed reports. And as recently as March, the ministry’s daily reports claimed that 72% of the dead were women and children, even as underlying data clearly showed the percentage was well below that.
Israeli leaders have pointed to such inconsistencies as evidence that the ministry, which is led by medical professionals but reports to Gaza’s Hamas government, is inflating the figures for political gain.
Experts say the reality is more complicated, given the scale of devastation that has overwhelmed and badly damaged Gaza’s hospital system.
Lewis said while the “beleaguered” Health Ministry has come under heavy scrutiny, Israel has yet to provide credible alternative data. He called on Israel to “put out your numbers.”
HIGH CIVILIAN DEATH TOLL IS A LIABILITY FOR ISRAEL
The true toll in Gaza could have serious repercussions. Two international courts in the Hague are examining accusations that Israel has committed war crimes and genocide against Palestinians – allegations it adamantly denies.
Israel has opened a potentially devastating new phase of the war in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where an estimated 100,000 civilians remain even after mass evacuations. How Israel mitigates civilian deaths there will be closely watched.
Israeli airstrikes in Rafah last month set off a fire that killed dozens of people, and on Thursday an airstrike on a school-turned-shelter in central Gaza killed at least 33 people, including 12 women and children, local health officials said.
Israel says it has tried to avoid civilian casualties throughout the war, including by issuing mass evacuation orders ahead of intense military operations that have displaced some 80% of Gaza’s population. It also accuses Hamas of intentionally putting civilians in harm’s way as human shields.
The fate of women and children is an important indicator of civilian casualties because the Health Ministry does not break out combatant deaths. But it’s not a perfect indicator: Many civilian men have died, and some older teenagers may be involved in the fighting.
PARSING GAZA HEALTH MINISTRY DATA
The ministry said publicly on April 30 that 34,622 had died in the war. The AP analysis was based on the 22,961 individuals fully identified at the time by the Health Ministry with names, genders, ages, and Israeli-issued identification numbers.
The ministry says 9,940 of the dead – 29% of its April 30 total – were not listed in the data because they remain “unidentified.” These include bodies not claimed by families, decomposed beyond recognition or whose records were lost in Israeli raids on hospitals.
An additional 1,699 records in the ministry’s April data were incomplete and 22 were duplicates; they were excluded from AP’s analysis.
Among those fully identified, the records show a steady decline in the overall proportion of women and children who have been killed: from 64% in late October, to 62% as of early January, to 57% by the end of March, to 54% by the end of April.
Yet throughout the war, the ministry has claimed that roughly two-thirds of the dead were women and children. This figure has been repeated by international organizations and many in the foreign media, including the AP.
The Health Ministry says it has gone to great lengths to accurately compile information but that its ability to count and identify the dead has been greatly hampered by the war. The fighting has crippled the Gaza health system, knocking out two-thirds of the territory’s 36 hospitals, closing morgues and hampering the work of facilities still functioning.
Dr. Moatasem Salah, director of the ministry’s emergency center, rejected Israeli assertions that his ministry has intentionally inflated or manipulated the death toll.
“This shows disrespect to the humanity for any person who exists here,” he said. “We are not numbers … These are all human souls.”
He insisted that 70% of those killed have been women and children and said the overall death toll is much higher than what has been reported because thousands of people remain missing, are believed to be buried in rubble, or their deaths were not reported by their families.
AS DEATH TOLL RISES, THE DETAILS ARE DEBATED
To be sure, this war’s death toll is the highest of any previous Israel-Palestinian conflict. But Israeli leaders say the international media and United Nations have cited Palestinian figures without a critical eye.
Israel last month angrily criticized the U.N.’s use of data from Hamas’ media office – a propaganda arm of the militant group – that reported a larger number of women and children killed. The U.N. later lowered its number in line with Health Ministry figures.
Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, lashed out on the social platform X: “Anyone who relies on fake data from a terrorist organization in order to promote blood libels against Israel is antisemitic and supports terrorism.”
AP’s examination of the reports found flaws in the Palestinian record keeping. As Gaza’s hospital system collapsed in December and January, the ministry began relying on hard-to-verify “media reports” to register new deaths. Its March report included 531 individuals who were counted twice, and many deaths were self-reported by families, instead of health officials.
Epstein, the Washington Institute researcher, said using different data-collection methodologies and then combining all the numbers gives an inaccurate picture.
“That’s probably the biggest problem,” he said, adding that he was surprised there hadn’t been more scrutiny.
The number of Hamas militants killed in the fighting is also unclear. Hamas has closely guarded this information, though Khalil al-Hayya, a top Hamas official, told the AP in late April that the group had lost no more than 20% of its fighters. That would amount to roughly 6,000 fighters based on Israeli pre-war estimates.
The Israeli military has not challenged the overall death toll released by the Palestinian ministry. But it says the number of dead militants is much higher at roughly 15,000 – or over 40% of all the dead. It has provided no evidence to support the claim, and declined to comment for this story.
Shlomo Mofaz, director of Israel’s Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, said such estimates are typically based on body counts, battlefield intelligence and the interrogations of captured Hamas commanders.
Mofaz, a former Israeli intelligence officer, said his researchers are skeptical of the Palestinian data.
In previous conflicts, he said his researchers found numerous “inconsistencies,” such as including natural deaths from disease or car accidents among the war casualties. He expects that to be the case this time as well. The large number of unidentified dead raises further questions, he said.
Michael Spagat, a London-based economics professor who chairs the board of Every Casualty Counts, a nonprofit that tracks armed conflicts, said he continues to trust the Health Ministry and believes it is doing its best in difficult circumstances.
“I think (the data) becomes increasingly flawed,” he said. But, he added, “the flaws don’t necessarily change the overall picture.”
___
AP correspondents Julia Frankel in Jerusalem, Najib Jobain in Cairo and Lujain Jo in Beirut, Lebanon, contributed to this report.
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Israel rescues 4 hostages taken in Hamas' Oct. 7 attack, and 210 Palestinians are reported killed
By WAFAA SHURAFA, SAM MEDNICK and JACK JEFFERY
59 mins ago
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel on Saturday carried out its largest hostage rescue operation since the latest war with Hamas began, taking four to safety out of central Gaza in a heavy air and ground assault. At least 210 Palestinians, including children, were killed, a Gaza health official said.
Israelis were jubilant as the army said it freed Noa Argamani, 26; Almog Meir Jan, 22; Andrey Kozlov, 27; and Shlomi Ziv, 41, in a daytime operation in the heart of Nuseirat, raiding two locations at once while under fire. All were well, the military said. They were taken by helicopter for medical checks and tearful reunions with loved ones after 246 days held.
Argamani had been one of the most widely recognized hostages after being taken, like the three others, from a music festival. The video of her abduction showed her seated between two men on a motorcycle as she screamed, “Don’t kill me!”
Her mother, Liora, has brain cancer and had released a video pleading to see her daughter. Israel's Channel 13 said Argamani was moved to the hospital where her mother is treated. In a message released by the government, Argamani told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu she was “very excited,” saying she hadn’t heard Hebrew in so long.
Netanyahu in a statement vowed to continue the fighting until all hostages are freed. The operation was “daring in nature, planned brilliantly, and executed in an extraordinary fashion,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said.
Israeli aircraft hummed overhead as the bodies of 109 Palestinians including 23 children and 11 women were taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where spokesperson Khalil Degran told The Associated Press more than 100 wounded also arrived. He said that overall, 210 dead had been taken there and to Al-Awda Hospital, saying he had spoken to the director there. Al-Awda's numbers couldn't immediately be confirmed.
“The horrific massacre committed today by Netanyahu and his fascist government against the Palestinian people in Gaza, which led to slaughter of 210 and more than 400 wounded so far — under the pretext of liberating those detained by the resistance — confirms what the resistance has said repeatedly: that Netanyahu doesn’t plan to reach an agreement to stop the war and free the captured Israelis peacefully,” said Bassem Naim, a senior Hamas official now based in Lebanon.
AP reporters saw dozens of bodies brought from the Nuseirat and Deir al-Balah areas, as smoke rose in the distance and armored vehicles rolled by.
A baby was among the dead. Small children wailed, covered in blood. Bodies were placed on the ground outside, their feet bare, as more wounded were rushed in.
“My two cousins were killed, and two other cousins were seriously injured. They did not commit any sin. They were sitting at home,” one relative said in the chaos. As Palestinians explored the newly destroyed buildings, a small child sat on a collapsed metal door, overwhelmed.
Neighboring Egypt condemned “with the strongest terms” Israel’s attacks on the Nuseirat refugee camp, with its foreign ministry calling it a “flagrant violation of all rules of international law." Neighboring Jordan also condemned it.
“The bloodbath must end immediately,” the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on the social platform X, noting reports of civilian deaths.
Israel’s military said it had attacked “threats to our forces in the area,” adding that one commando died from his wounds.
Israel's military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, told reporters that military intelligence determined some time ago that the hostages were being held in two apartments, about 200 meters (219 yards) away from each other, in the heart of the Nuseirat camp. He said the forces had trained repeatedly on a model of the apartment buildings.
Hagari said the forces moved in simultaneously in broad daylight on both apartments, believing this ensured the best element of surprise. But he said the rescuers came under heavy fire as they moved out, including from gunmen firing rocket-propelled grenades from within the neighborhood.
“A lot of fire was around us,” he said, adding that the military responded with heavy force, including from aircraft, to extract the rescuers and freed hostages.
A U.S. hostage cell provided advice and support throughout the process of locating and rescuing the hostages, according to a Biden administration official, who was not authorized to comment and requested anonymity. The hostage cells are multi-agency teams.
Hamas took some 250 hostages during the Oct. 7 attack that killed about 1,200 people. About half were released in a weeklong cease-fire in November. About 120 hostages remain, with 43 pronounced dead. Survivors include about 15 women, two children under 5 and two men in their 80s.
Saturday’s operation brought the total number of rescued hostages to seven. Two were freed in February and one was freed in the aftermath of the October attack. Israeli troops have recovered the bodies of at least 16 others, according to the government.
The latest rescue lifted some spirits in Israel as divisions deepen over the best way to bring hostages home. Many Israelis urge Netanyahu to embrace a cease-fire deal U.S. President Joe Biden announced last month, but far-right allies threaten to collapse his government if he does.
Netanyahu, whose support has fallen, rushed to the hospital to greet the freed hostages and his office released a stream of photos and videos of him meeting the families. But thousands of Israelis again gathered Saturday evening for the latest anti-government demonstration and calls for a cease-fire agreement.
“It’s time to pay the price of a political deal. One deal that will bring them all back without risking soldiers,” said Omri Shtivi, whose brother Idan marked his 29th birthday Saturday while in captivity.
“The hostage release and cease-fire deal that is now on the table would secure the release of all the remaining hostages together with security assurances for Israel and relief for the innocent civilians in Gaza,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement.
International pressure is mounting on Israel to limit civilian bloodshed in its war in Gaza, which reached its eighth month on Friday with more than 36,700 Palestinians killed, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians.
Palestinians also face widespread hunger because fighting and Israeli restrictions have largely cut off the flow of aid.
Meanwhile, Benny Gantz, a popular centrist member of Israel’s three-member War Cabinet who had threatened to resign from the government if it didn't adopt a new plan by Saturday for the war in Gaza, postponed an expected announcement. Netanyahu urged him not to step down.
___
Mednick and Jeffery reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.
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UN will declare that both Israel and Hamas are violating children's rights in armed conflict
By MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN
Today
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. secretary-general will tell the Security Council next week that both Israel and Hamas are violating children's rights and leaving them exposed to danger in their war to eliminate each other.
The secretary-general annually makes a global list of states and militias that are menacing children and threatening them. Parties on the list have ranged from the Kachin Independence Army in Myanmar to — last year — Russia during its war with Ukraine.
Now Israel is set to join them.
António Guterres sends the list to the Security Council and the council can then decide whether to take action. The United States is one of five veto-wielding permanent council members and has been reluctant to act against Israel, its longtime ally.
Another permanent member is Russia and when the United Nations put Russian forces on its blacklist last year for killing boys and girls and attacking schools and hospitals in Ukraine, the council took no action.
The inclusion of Israel this month will likely just put more of a global spotlight on the country's conduct of the war in Gaza and increase already high tensions in its relationship with the global body.
The preface of last year’s U.N. report says it lists parties engaged in “the killing and maiming of children, rape and other forms of sexual violence perpetrated against children, attacks on schools, hospitals and protected persons."
The head of Guterres' office called Israel's U.N. ambassador, Gilad Erdan, on Friday to inform him that Israel would be in the report when it is sent to the council next week, U.N. spokesman Stéphane Dujarric told reporters.
The militant Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad groups will also be listed.
Israel reacted with outrage, sending news organizations a video of Erdan berating the head of Guterres' office — who was supposedly on the other end of a phone call — and posting it on X.
“Hamas will continue even more to use schools and hospitals because this shameful decision of the secretary-general will only give Hamas hope to survive and extend the war and extend the suffering,” Erdan wrote in a statement. “Shame on him!”
The Palestinian U.N. ambassador said that adding Israel to the “‘list of shame,’ will not bring back tens of thousands of our children who were killed by Israel over decades.”
“But it is an important step in the right direction,” Riyad Mansour wrote in a statement.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said "the U.N. put itself on the black list of history today” as the move heightened the long-running feud between Israel and the U.N. and even the routine mechanics of Israel's dealings with the world body are now fraught with tensions.
The normally equanimous secretary-general's spokesman broke from the good-natured tone of his noon briefing when asked to discuss the latest development.
“The call was a courtesy afforded to countries that are newly listed on the annex of the report,” Dujarric said. “The partial release of that recording on Twitter is shocking and unacceptable and frankly, something I’ve never seen in my 24 years serving this organization.”
Condemnation of the secretary-general’s decision appeared to bring together Israel’s increasingly fractious leadership — from the right-wing Netanyahu and Erdan to the popular centrist member of the War Cabinet, Benny Gantz.
Gantz cited Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, as saying “it matter not what say the goyim (non-Jews), what is important is what do the Jews.”
U.N. agencies warned Wednesday that over 1 million Palestinians in Gaza could experience the highest level of starvation by the middle of next month if hostilities continue.
The World Food Program and the Food and Agriculture Organization said in a joint report that hunger is worsening because of heavy restrictions on humanitarian access and the collapse of the local food system in the eight-month Israel-Hamas war.
The proportion of Palestinian women and children being killed in the Israel-Hamas war appears to have declined sharply, an Associated Press analysis of Gaza Health Ministry data has found, a trend that both coincides with Israel’s changing battlefield tactics and contradicts the ministry’s own public statements.
The trend is significant because the death rate for women and children is the best available proxy for civilian casualties in one of the 21st century’s most destructive conflicts. In October, when the war began, it was above 60%. For the month of April, it was below 40%.
Yet the shift went unnoticed for months by the U.N. and much of the media, and the Hamas-linked Health Ministry has made no effort to set the record straight.
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The US is making its biggest push yet to get Israel and Hamas to halt fighting. Is it succeeding?
By ELLEN KNICKMEYER
Yesterday
WASHINGTON (AP) — In Middle East capitals, at the United Nations, from the White House and beyond, the Biden administration is making its most concentrated diplomatic push of the eight-month-old war in Gaza to persuade Israeli and Hamas leaders to take a proposed deal that would bring a cease-fire and release of more hostages.
But one week into the U.S. pressure campaign, the world still is waiting for signs that the cease-fire appeal begun May 31 by President Joe Biden was working, by moving Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leaders toward a negotiating breakthrough.
For Israel and Hamas, the U.S. diplomatic press has become a public test of whether either side is ready to stop fighting — at least on any terms that fall short of their professed goals, whether it’s the complete crushing of the militant group or the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.
For Biden, who describes the proposal as Israeli, it’s the latest high-profile test of U.S. leadership in trying to convince ally Israel as well as the militant group to relent in a conflict that is killing tens of thousands of people, inflaming regional tensions and absorbing much of the administration’s focus.
Here’s a look at the U.S.-led push for a Gaza cease-fire and where it stands:
GOING PUBLIC
It wasn't that the cease-fire proposal Biden outlined in a televised address from the White House a week ago was startingly new. It was that Biden laid out the terms to the world and put the full weight of the U.S. presidency behind the appeal for both sides to take this deal.
The terms that Biden described for the first of three phases sounded much like the deal that U.S., Qatari and Egyptian mediators and Israel and Hamas have been haggling over for months.
There would be a six-week cease-fire in which Israeli forces pulled back from populated areas of Gaza. In exchange for Israel releasing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, Hamas would release some women, older people and wounded among hostages it had seized in the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel that set off the war.
The proposal calls for a full release of remaining hostages and an Israeli withdrawal in later phases, although the terms are vague.
“Everyone who wants peace now must raise their voices and let the leaders know they should take this deal,” Biden said a week ago.
But by Friday, neither Israel nor Hamas had said yes. Netanyahu says the terms of the proposal aren't as they have been described publicly and that Israel will never cease fighting until “the destruction” of Hamas' military and leadership.
In effect, said Nimrod Novik, a former senior adviser to the late Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, Biden “decided to ‘out’ Netanyahu and let the Israeli public know how serious the potential for bringing all hostages out."
The U.S. aim: "So Israel would say ‘yes’ to its own proposal," said Novik, now the Israel fellow at the Washington-based Israel Policy Forum.
KEEPING UP THE PRESSURE
The Biden administration isn't letting up in its drive to get Hamas and Israel on board.
“The U.S. is going to do everything it can in some formulation to keep pushing this. Until there's no place to go any more,” said Jonathan Panikoff, a former U.S. intelligence official. He's now the director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East program.
At the U.N., U.S. diplomats are asking the Security Council to adopt a resolution demanding a permanent cease-fire between Hamas and Israel in Gaza, over Israel's objections. Biden is sending Secretary of State Antony Blinken back to the Middle East next week for his eighth visit since the war began, a lightning tour of Middle East capitals to promote the cease-fire proposal.
CIA director Bill Burns and Biden Middle East adviser Brett McGurk also have traveled to the region to garner support for the deal and show key players how it could work.
The Group of Seven leading global economies endorsed the proposal. So have countries with hostages held by militants in Gaza. Biden, Blinken and other U.S. officials are working the phones to rally support among Arab governments from Egypt and Qatar to Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
Many allies appear to welcome the president’s initiative to get the cease-fire talks back on course after weeks of drift, Panikoff said.
THE VIEW FROM ISRAEL
There's little sign — yet — that the U.S. efforts have been enough to change the political equation in Israel. Netanyahu's far-right coalition partners have vowed to bring down the government if the Israeli prime minister accepts the proposal that Biden outlined.
Trailing in opinion polls and facing an ongoing corruption trial, Netanyahu has little incentive to risk heading to another election. Although opposition leader Yair Lapid has offered to give Netanyahu backing for a hostage deal, the two men are bitter enemies and there is little reason to think any alliance would last.
Benny Gantz, a centrist member of Netanyahu's war Cabinet, has called a news conference for Saturday, where he is expected to address his earlier threat to resign by this weekend if Netanyahu failed to release a plan for the war and Gaza.
Netanyahu will still control a parliamentary majority if Gantz leaves. But the departure of Gantz, a former military chief and defense minister who is respected in Washington, would weaken Netanyahu’s international credibility and leave him more dependent than ever on far-right coalition partners, who believe Israel should reoccupy Gaza and oppose the cease-fire proposal.
Popular protests could be one of the few scenarios that sway Netanyahu toward a deal, Novik said. Alternatively, Novik contended, just the threat of a public denunciation by Biden could prod Netanyahu toward compromise, given the United States' importance as an ally.
HOW ABOUT HAMAS?
Hamas is expected to deliver a formal response in coming days to the proposal that Biden is pushing, according to what the Qataris and Egyptians, who handle the direct communications with Hamas officials in the negotiations, told U.S. officials this week.
Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan told reporters this week in Beirut that Biden’s announcement was “positive” but said the group couldn't accept any deal without Israel's guarantee of a permanent cease-fire, a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, a prisoner exchange and other conditions.
While the supreme leader of Hamas and other political figures are based abroad, Hamas also must relay any proposals to Yahya Sinwar — whose opinion is paramount — and other military leaders in Gaza. They inhabit tunnels up to 100 feet (30 meters) or more underground and are believed to have surrounded themselves with foreign hostages to discourage attack.
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Hamas says 3 hostages, including an American, were killed in Israeli rescue raid: Live updates
by John Bacon, USA TODAY
6/9/2024 · 1:37 PM EDT
Militant-held Israeli hostages were among the more than 200 people killed in the raid that freed four captives and has been lauded as heroic in Israel but described as a massacre across much of the Middle East, Hamas officials said Sunday.
Abu Obaida, spokesman for the Hamas Al-Qassam Brigades military wing, called Saturday's raid a "complex war crime." He said three hostages were killed in the attack, including one holding a U.S. passport, a claim Israeli military spokesperson Peter Lerner said should be taken "with a pinch of salt."
"By committing horrific massacres, the enemy was able to free some of his prisoners, but at the same time, it killed some of them," Obaida said. "The operation will pose a great danger to the (remaining hostages) and will have a negative impact on their conditions and lives."
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The Israeli operation Saturday involved hundreds of troops and heavy air support that pounded the Nuseirat refugee camp. Freed captives Noa Argamani, 25, Almog Meir Jan, 21, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 40, were in good health and being reunited with their families, Israeli authorities said. Lerner said they were held "in civilian homes, putting them within the civilian arena."
Neighboring Egypt and Jordan expressed outrage at the Israeli attack, calling it a violation of international law. Lebanon’s foreign ministry condemned the “massacre." Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi, secretary-general of the Gulf Cooperation Council, called the attack "a heinous and terrorist cime that targeted defenseless innocents with brutality."
But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remained ecstatic Sunday, saying in a social media post that "Happy is the people that is blessed with its heroes. We will continue together to do our utmost to return all of the hostages, and to achieve victory over our enemies."
∎ Israeli War Cabinet minister and key opposition leader Benny Gantz was expected to resign Sunday night despite the prime minister's social media post Sunday requesting that Gantz "not leave the emergency government. Don't give up on unity." Gantz wants Netanyahau to provide a clear plan for post-war Gaza governance.
∎Netanyahu proposed the rescue be dubbed Operation Arnon in honor of the "hero of Israel Arnon Zamora," the commander of the assault force who was killed during the effort.
∎ Sixty-four of the dead were children and 57 were women, the Hamas-run Gaza government media office said Sunday.
∎ Netanyahu's office said he will appoint lawmaker Danny Danon to again serve as Israel's ambassador to the United Nations. Ambassador Gilad Erdan announced a week ago that he would step down after four years; Danon served five years in the post before Erdan.
Palestinians children search through the rubble of their home on June 9, 2024, a day after an operation by the Israeli Special Forces that freed four hostages.
Gaza's Health Ministry said Sunday that 274 Palestinians were killed in the raid, up from 210 it reported on Saturday. Sixty-four of the dead were children and 57 were women, the Hamas-run Gaza government media office said. Another 698 people were wounded. Israel said Arnon was the only Israeli soldier killed in an exchange of gunfire with militants.
Some special forces slipped into the Nuseirat refugee camp in a car with mattresses on top posing as Palestinians fleeing Rafah, according to Saudi-owned Asharq news channel in a report translated by the Times of Israel. They told locals they were escaping the Israeli attack on Rafah and would be staying in the building near a market − a building where Argamani was being held. The other freed hostages were being held in another building nearby.
Local also said some Israelis entered in humanitarian aid trucks, a claim the Israel military has denied.
Only about 100,000 of the more than 1 million residents and refugees who occupied Rafah a month ago remain in the city, according to the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA. Rafah, on the Egyptian border in southern Gaza, had become home to Palestinians fleeing Israeli attacks that left much of northern and central Gaza in ruins. With Israel military options now focused on Rafah, many Palestinians are heading back toward their destroyed communities, the agency said.
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"All UNRWA shelters in Rafah have been vacated. Many of the people who were based in Rafah have fled up the coast seeking safer locations in both Khan Younis and the middle area of Gaza," UNRWA said in a statement.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 36,357
Centrist Benny Gantz is quitting Israel's war Cabinet, citing frustrations with Netanyahu
By MELANIE LIDMAN
2 hours ago
JERUSALEM (AP) — Benny Gantz, a centrist member of Israel’s three-man war Cabinet, announced his resignation Sunday, accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of mismanaging the war effort and putting his own “political survival” over the country's security needs.
The move does not immediately pose a threat to Netanyahu, who still controls a majority coalition in parliament. But the Israeli leader becomes more heavily reliant on far-right allies who oppose the latest U.S.-backed cease-fire proposal and want to press ahead with the war.
“Unfortunately, Netanyahu is preventing us from achieving true victory, which is the justification for the painful and ongoing price,” Gantz said. He added that Netanyahu was “making empty promises,” and the country needs to take a different direction as he expects the fighting to continue for years to come.
The popular former military chief joined Netanyahu’s government shortly after the Hamas attack in a show of unity. His presence also boosted Israel’s credibility with its international partners. Gantz has good working relations with U.S. officials.
He scrapped a planned news conference Saturday night after four Israelihostages were dramatically rescued from Gaza earlier in the day in Israel’s largest such operation since the eight-month war began. At least 274 Palestinians, including children, were killed in the assault, Gaza health officials said.
Gantz called for Israel to hold elections in the fall, and encouraged the third member of the war Cabinet, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, to “do the right thing” and resign from the government as well. Gallant has previously said he would resign if Israel chose to reoccupy Gaza, and encouraged the government to make plans for a Palestinian administration.
On Saturday, Netanyahu had urged Gantz not to leave the emergency wartime government.
“This is the time for unity, not for division,” he said, in a direct plea to Gantz.
Gantz’s decision to leave is largely “a symbolic move” due to his frustration with Netanyahu, said Gideon Rahat, chairman of the political science department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He noted it could further increase Netanyahu’s reliance on extremist, right-wing members of his government, led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
“I think the outside world, especially the United States, is not very happy about it, because they see Gantz and his party as the more responsible people within this government,” Rahat said.
On Sunday evening, Ben-Gvir demanded a spot in the war Cabinet, saying Gantz and the smaller Cabinet had bungled the war effort due to “dangerous” ideological decisions.
Hamas took some 250 hostages during the Oct. 7 attack that killed about 1,200 people. About half were released in a weeklong cease-fire in November. About 120 hostages remain, with 43 pronounced dead. At least 36,700 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting, according to Gaza’s HealthMinistry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 36,357
What does Israel's rescue of 4 captives, and the killing of 274 Palestinians, mean for truce talks?
By TIA GOLDENBERG
Today
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel's dramatic weekend rescue of four hostages from the Gaza Strip, in an operation that local health officials say killed 274 Palestinians, came at a sensitive time in the 8-month-old war, as Israel and Hamas weigh a U.S. proposal for a cease-fire and the release of the remaining captives.
Both sides face renewed pressure to make a deal: The complex rescue is unlikely to be replicated on a scale needed to bring back scores of remaining hostages, and it was a powerful reminder for Israelis that there are still surviving captives held in harsh conditions. Hamas now has four fewer bargaining chips.
But they could also dig in, as they repeatedly have over months of indirect negotiations mediated by the United States, Qatar and Egypt. Hamas is still insisting on an end to the war as part of any agreement, while Israel says it is still committed to destroying the militant group.
Here is a look at the fallout from the operation and how it might affect cease-fire talks:
The rescue operation was Israel’s most successful since the start of the war, bringing home four of the roughly 250 captives seized by Hamas in its Oct. 7 cross-border attack, including Noa Argamani, who became an icon of the struggle to free the hostages.
The raid also killed at least 274 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, deepening the suffering of people in Gaza who have had to endure the brutal war and a humanitarian catastrophe. The ministry does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its tallies.
The rescue was met with elation in Israel, which is still reeling from the Hamas attack and agonizing over the fate of the 80 captives and the remains of over 40 others still held in Gaza. Israeli hard-liners are likely to seize on it as proof that military pressure alone will bring the rest back.
But only three other hostages have been freed by military force since the start of the war. Another three were mistakenly killed by Israeli forces after they escaped on their own, and Hamas says others have been killed in Israeli airstrikes.
“If anyone believes that yesterday’s operation absolves the government of the need to strike a deal, they are living a fantasy," Israeli columnist Nahum Barnea wrote in the mass-selling Yediot Aharonot newspaper. "There are people out there who need to be saved, and the sooner the better.”
Even the Israeli army's spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, acknowledged the limits of military force. “What will bring most of the hostages back home alive is a deal,” he told reporters.
Over 100 hostages were released during a weeklong cease-fire last year, in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, and reaching a similar agreement is still widely seen as the only way of getting the rest of the hostages back. Hours after Saturday's rescue, tens of thousands of Israelis attended protests in Tel Aviv calling for such a deal.
Biden described it as an Israeli proposal, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly questioned some aspects of it, particularly its call for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and a lasting truce. His ultranationalist coalition partners have threatened to bring down his government if he ends the war without destroying Hamas.
That appears to have only deepened suspicions on the part of Hamas, which has demanded international guarantees that the war will end. It's unclear if such guarantees have been offered, and Hamas has not yet officially responded to the plan.
He has reveled in the operation’s success, rushing Saturday to the hospital where the freed hostages were held and meeting with each of them as cameras rolled. Recent opinion polls had already shown him making some progress in rehabilitating his image, and the rescue operation will help.
But as the elation fades, he will still face heavy pressure from an American administration that wants to wind the war down and an ultranationalist base that wants to vanquish Hamas at all costs. His main political opponent, the retired general Benny Gantz, quit the emergency wartime coalition on Sunday, leaving Netanyahu even more beholden to the hard-liners.
Netanyahu is already facing criticism from some of the families of deceased hostages, who say they received no such visits and accuse him of only taking credit for the war's successes. Israel will also likely face heightened international pressure over the raid's high Palestinian death toll.
“The success in freeing four hostages is a magnificent tactical victory that has not changed our deplorable strategic situation,” columnist Ben Caspit wrote in Israel’s Maariv daily.
It all makes for a tough balancing act, even for someone like Netanyahu, who friends and foes alike consider to be a master politician.
The operation could provide the kind of boost with the Israeli public that would allow him to justify making a deal with Hamas. Or he might conclude that time is on his side, and that he can drive a harder bargain with the militants as they grapple with a major setback.
HAMAS LOSES BARGAINING CHIPS
Hamas has lost four precious bargaining chips it had hoped to trade for high-profile Palestinian prisoners. Argamani, widely known from a video showing her pleading for her life as militants dragged her away on a motorcycle, was a particularly significant loss for Hamas.
The raid may have also dealt a blow to Hamas’ morale. In the Oct. 7 attack, Hamas managed to humiliate a country with a far superior army, and since then it has repeatedly regrouped despite devastating military operations across Gaza.
But the fact that Israel was able to mount a complex rescue operation in broad daylight in the center of a crowded urban area has at least temporarily restored some of the mystique that Israel's security forces lost on Oct. 7.
The operation also refocused global attention on the hostage crisis at a time when the U.S. is rallying world pressure on Hamas to accept the cease-fire deal.
But Hamas has a long history of withstanding pressure from Israel and others — often at enormous cost to Palestinians. The militants may conclude that it's best to use the remaining hostages to end the war while they still can — or they might just look for better places to hide them.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
A common question is why more artists aren't speaking out "for Palestine" in relation to the war in Gaza. One reason could be because you immediately become (most generously) adjacent to shit like this.
A common question is why more artists aren't speaking out "for Palestine" in relation to the war in Gaza. One reason could be because you immediately become (most generously) adjacent to shit like this.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 36,357
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
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"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
that long?
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
JERUSALEM (AP) — The proportion of Palestinian women and children being killed in the Israel-Hamas war appears to have declined sharply, an Associated Press analysis of Gaza Health Ministry data has found, a trend that both coincides with Israel’s changing battlefield tactics and contradicts the ministry’s own public statements.
The trend is significant because the death rate for women and children is the best available proxy for civilian casualties in one of the 21st century’s most destructive conflicts. In October, when the war began, it was above 60%. For the month of April, it was below 40%. Yet the shift went unnoticed for months by the U.N. and much of the media, and the Hamas-linked Health Ministry has made no effort to set the record straight.
Israel faces heavy international criticism over unprecedented levels of civilian casualties in Gaza and questions about whether it has done enough to prevent them in an 8-month-old war that shows no sign of ending. Two recent airstrikes in Gaza killed dozens of civilians.
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The AP analysis highlights facts that have been overlooked and could help inform the public debate, said Gabriel Epstein, a research assistant at the Washington Institute for Near East policy who has also studied the Health Ministry data.
The declining impact on women and children -- as well as a drop in the overall death rate -- are “definitely due to a change in the way the IDF is acting right now,” Epstein said, using an acronym for the Israeli army. “That’s an easy conclusion, but I don’t think it’s been made enough.”
AS THE WAR EVOLVES, A SHIFT OCCURS
When Israel first responded to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, which killed some 1,200 people, it launched an intense aerial bombardment on the densely populated Gaza Strip. Israel said its goal was to destroy Hamas positions, and the barrage cleared the way for tens of thousands of ground troops, backed by tanks and artillery.
The Gaza death toll rose quickly and by the end of October women and people 17 and younger accounted for 64% of the 6,745 killed who were fully identified by the Health Ministry.
After marching across most of Gaza and saying it had achieved many key objectives, Israel then began withdrawing most of its ground forces. It reduced the frequency of aerial bombings and has focused in recent months on smaller drone strikes and limited ground operations.
As the intensity of fighting has scaled back, the death toll has continued to rise, but at a slower rate – and with seemingly fewer civilians caught in the crossfire. In April, women and children made up 38% of the newly and fully identified deaths, the Health Ministry’s most recent data shows.
“Historically, airstrikes (kill) a higher ratio of women and children compared to ground operations,” said Larry Lewis, an expert on the civilian impacts of war at CNA, a nonprofit research group in Washington. The findings of the AP analysis “make sense,” he said.
Another sign that Israel softened its bombing campaign: Beginning in January, there was a sharp slowdown in “new damage” to buildings in Gaza, according to Corey Scher, a satellite mapping expert at City University of New York who has monitored buildings damaged or destroyed since the war began.
DAILY DEATH TOLLS AT ODDS WITH UNDERLYING DATA
The Health Ministry announces a new death toll for the war nearly every day. It also has periodically released the underlying data behind this figure, including detailed lists of the dead.
The AP’s analysis looked at these lists, which were shared on social media in late October, early January, late March, and the end of April. Each list includes the names of people whose deaths were attributable to the war, along with other identifying details.
The daily death tolls, however, are provided without supporting data. In February, ministry officials said 75% of the dead were women and children – a level that was never confirmed in the detailed reports. And as recently as March, the ministry’s daily reports claimed that 72% of the dead were women and children, even as underlying data clearly showed the percentage was well below that.
Israeli leaders have pointed to such inconsistencies as evidence that the ministry, which is led by medical professionals but reports to Gaza’s Hamas government, is inflating the figures for political gain.
Experts say the reality is more complicated, given the scale of devastation that has overwhelmed and badly damaged Gaza’s hospital system.
Lewis said while the “beleaguered” Health Ministry has come under heavy scrutiny, Israel has yet to provide credible alternative data. He called on Israel to “put out your numbers.”
HIGH CIVILIAN DEATH TOLL IS A LIABILITY FOR ISRAEL
The true toll in Gaza could have serious repercussions. Two international courts in the Hague are examining accusations that Israel has committed war crimes and genocide against Palestinians – allegations it adamantly denies.
Israel has opened a potentially devastating new phase of the war in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where an estimated 100,000 civilians remain even after mass evacuations. How Israel mitigates civilian deaths there will be closely watched.
Israeli airstrikes in Rafah last month set off a fire that killed dozens of people, and on Thursday an airstrike on a school-turned-shelter in central Gaza killed at least 33 people, including 12 women and children, local health officials said.
Israel says it has tried to avoid civilian casualties throughout the war, including by issuing mass evacuation orders ahead of intense military operations that have displaced some 80% of Gaza’s population. It also accuses Hamas of intentionally putting civilians in harm’s way as human shields.
The fate of women and children is an important indicator of civilian casualties because the Health Ministry does not break out combatant deaths. But it’s not a perfect indicator: Many civilian men have died, and some older teenagers may be involved in the fighting.
PARSING GAZA HEALTH MINISTRY DATA
The ministry said publicly on April 30 that 34,622 had died in the war. The AP analysis was based on the 22,961 individuals fully identified at the time by the Health Ministry with names, genders, ages, and Israeli-issued identification numbers.
The ministry says 9,940 of the dead – 29% of its April 30 total – were not listed in the data because they remain “unidentified.” These include bodies not claimed by families, decomposed beyond recognition or whose records were lost in Israeli raids on hospitals.
An additional 1,699 records in the ministry’s April data were incomplete and 22 were duplicates; they were excluded from AP’s analysis.
Among those fully identified, the records show a steady decline in the overall proportion of women and children who have been killed: from 64% in late October, to 62% as of early January, to 57% by the end of March, to 54% by the end of April.
Yet throughout the war, the ministry has claimed that roughly two-thirds of the dead were women and children. This figure has been repeated by international organizations and many in the foreign media, including the AP.
The Health Ministry says it has gone to great lengths to accurately compile information but that its ability to count and identify the dead has been greatly hampered by the war. The fighting has crippled the Gaza health system, knocking out two-thirds of the territory’s 36 hospitals, closing morgues and hampering the work of facilities still functioning.
Dr. Moatasem Salah, director of the ministry’s emergency center, rejected Israeli assertions that his ministry has intentionally inflated or manipulated the death toll.
“This shows disrespect to the humanity for any person who exists here,” he said. “We are not numbers … These are all human souls.”
He insisted that 70% of those killed have been women and children and said the overall death toll is much higher than what has been reported because thousands of people remain missing, are believed to be buried in rubble, or their deaths were not reported by their families.
AS DEATH TOLL RISES, THE DETAILS ARE DEBATED
To be sure, this war’s death toll is the highest of any previous Israel-Palestinian conflict. But Israeli leaders say the international media and United Nations have cited Palestinian figures without a critical eye.
Israel last month angrily criticized the U.N.’s use of data from Hamas’ media office – a propaganda arm of the militant group – that reported a larger number of women and children killed. The U.N. later lowered its number in line with Health Ministry figures.
Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, lashed out on the social platform X: “Anyone who relies on fake data from a terrorist organization in order to promote blood libels against Israel is antisemitic and supports terrorism.”
AP’s examination of the reports found flaws in the Palestinian record keeping. As Gaza’s hospital system collapsed in December and January, the ministry began relying on hard-to-verify “media reports” to register new deaths. Its March report included 531 individuals who were counted twice, and many deaths were self-reported by families, instead of health officials.
Epstein, the Washington Institute researcher, said using different data-collection methodologies and then combining all the numbers gives an inaccurate picture.
“That’s probably the biggest problem,” he said, adding that he was surprised there hadn’t been more scrutiny.
The number of Hamas militants killed in the fighting is also unclear. Hamas has closely guarded this information, though Khalil al-Hayya, a top Hamas official, told the AP in late April that the group had lost no more than 20% of its fighters. That would amount to roughly 6,000 fighters based on Israeli pre-war estimates.
The Israeli military has not challenged the overall death toll released by the Palestinian ministry. But it says the number of dead militants is much higher at roughly 15,000 – or over 40% of all the dead. It has provided no evidence to support the claim, and declined to comment for this story.
Shlomo Mofaz, director of Israel’s Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, said such estimates are typically based on body counts, battlefield intelligence and the interrogations of captured Hamas commanders.
Mofaz, a former Israeli intelligence officer, said his researchers are skeptical of the Palestinian data.
In previous conflicts, he said his researchers found numerous “inconsistencies,” such as including natural deaths from disease or car accidents among the war casualties. He expects that to be the case this time as well. The large number of unidentified dead raises further questions, he said.
Michael Spagat, a London-based economics professor who chairs the board of Every Casualty Counts, a nonprofit that tracks armed conflicts, said he continues to trust the Health Ministry and believes it is doing its best in difficult circumstances.
“I think (the data) becomes increasingly flawed,” he said. But, he added, “the flaws don’t necessarily change the overall picture.”
___
AP correspondents Julia Frankel in Jerusalem, Najib Jobain in Cairo and Lujain Jo in Beirut, Lebanon, contributed to this report.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
yeah, sure he wants peace. SURE
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https://x.com/AvivaKlompas/status/1799392357412139114
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel on Saturday carried out its largest hostage rescue operation since the latest war with Hamas began, taking four to safety out of central Gaza in a heavy air and ground assault. At least 210 Palestinians, including children, were killed, a Gaza health official said.
Israelis were jubilant as the army said it freed Noa Argamani, 26; Almog Meir Jan, 22; Andrey Kozlov, 27; and Shlomi Ziv, 41, in a daytime operation in the heart of Nuseirat, raiding two locations at once while under fire. All were well, the military said. They were taken by helicopter for medical checks and tearful reunions with loved ones after 246 days held.
Argamani had been one of the most widely recognized hostages after being taken, like the three others, from a music festival. The video of her abduction showed her seated between two men on a motorcycle as she screamed, “Don’t kill me!”
ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR
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Her mother, Liora, has brain cancer and had released a video pleading to see her daughter. Israel's Channel 13 said Argamani was moved to the hospital where her mother is treated. In a message released by the government, Argamani told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu she was “very excited,” saying she hadn’t heard Hebrew in so long.
Netanyahu in a statement vowed to continue the fighting until all hostages are freed. The operation was “daring in nature, planned brilliantly, and executed in an extraordinary fashion,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said.
Israeli aircraft hummed overhead as the bodies of 109 Palestinians including 23 children and 11 women were taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where spokesperson Khalil Degran told The Associated Press more than 100 wounded also arrived. He said that overall, 210 dead had been taken there and to Al-Awda Hospital, saying he had spoken to the director there. Al-Awda's numbers couldn't immediately be confirmed.
“The horrific massacre committed today by Netanyahu and his fascist government against the Palestinian people in Gaza, which led to slaughter of 210 and more than 400 wounded so far — under the pretext of liberating those detained by the resistance — confirms what the resistance has said repeatedly: that Netanyahu doesn’t plan to reach an agreement to stop the war and free the captured Israelis peacefully,” said Bassem Naim, a senior Hamas official now based in Lebanon.
AP reporters saw dozens of bodies brought from the Nuseirat and Deir al-Balah areas, as smoke rose in the distance and armored vehicles rolled by.
A baby was among the dead. Small children wailed, covered in blood. Bodies were placed on the ground outside, their feet bare, as more wounded were rushed in.
“My two cousins were killed, and two other cousins were seriously injured. They did not commit any sin. They were sitting at home,” one relative said in the chaos. As Palestinians explored the newly destroyed buildings, a small child sat on a collapsed metal door, overwhelmed.
Neighboring Egypt condemned “with the strongest terms” Israel’s attacks on the Nuseirat refugee camp, with its foreign ministry calling it a “flagrant violation of all rules of international law." Neighboring Jordan also condemned it.
“The bloodbath must end immediately,” the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on the social platform X, noting reports of civilian deaths.
Israel’s military said it had attacked “threats to our forces in the area,” adding that one commando died from his wounds.
Israel's military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, told reporters that military intelligence determined some time ago that the hostages were being held in two apartments, about 200 meters (219 yards) away from each other, in the heart of the Nuseirat camp. He said the forces had trained repeatedly on a model of the apartment buildings.
Hagari said the forces moved in simultaneously in broad daylight on both apartments, believing this ensured the best element of surprise. But he said the rescuers came under heavy fire as they moved out, including from gunmen firing rocket-propelled grenades from within the neighborhood.
“A lot of fire was around us,” he said, adding that the military responded with heavy force, including from aircraft, to extract the rescuers and freed hostages.
A U.S. hostage cell provided advice and support throughout the process of locating and rescuing the hostages, according to a Biden administration official, who was not authorized to comment and requested anonymity. The hostage cells are multi-agency teams.
Hamas took some 250 hostages during the Oct. 7 attack that killed about 1,200 people. About half were released in a weeklong cease-fire in November. About 120 hostages remain, with 43 pronounced dead. Survivors include about 15 women, two children under 5 and two men in their 80s.
Saturday’s operation brought the total number of rescued hostages to seven. Two were freed in February and one was freed in the aftermath of the October attack. Israeli troops have recovered the bodies of at least 16 others, according to the government.
The latest rescue lifted some spirits in Israel as divisions deepen over the best way to bring hostages home. Many Israelis urge Netanyahu to embrace a cease-fire deal U.S. President Joe Biden announced last month, but far-right allies threaten to collapse his government if he does.
Netanyahu, whose support has fallen, rushed to the hospital to greet the freed hostages and his office released a stream of photos and videos of him meeting the families. But thousands of Israelis again gathered Saturday evening for the latest anti-government demonstration and calls for a cease-fire agreement.
“It’s time to pay the price of a political deal. One deal that will bring them all back without risking soldiers,” said Omri Shtivi, whose brother Idan marked his 29th birthday Saturday while in captivity.
It was unclear what effect the rescue might have on apparently stalled cease-fire efforts. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will return to the Middle East next week, seeking a breakthrough.
“The hostage release and cease-fire deal that is now on the table would secure the release of all the remaining hostages together with security assurances for Israel and relief for the innocent civilians in Gaza,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement.
International pressure is mounting on Israel to limit civilian bloodshed in its war in Gaza, which reached its eighth month on Friday with more than 36,700 Palestinians killed, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians.
Palestinians also face widespread hunger because fighting and Israeli restrictions have largely cut off the flow of aid.
Meanwhile, Benny Gantz, a popular centrist member of Israel’s three-member War Cabinet who had threatened to resign from the government if it didn't adopt a new plan by Saturday for the war in Gaza, postponed an expected announcement. Netanyahu urged him not to step down.
___
Mednick and Jeffery reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.
___
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Gaza at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. secretary-general will tell the Security Council next week that both Israel and Hamas are violating children's rights and leaving them exposed to danger in their war to eliminate each other.
The secretary-general annually makes a global list of states and militias that are menacing children and threatening them. Parties on the list have ranged from the Kachin Independence Army in Myanmar to — last year — Russia during its war with Ukraine.
Now Israel is set to join them.
António Guterres sends the list to the Security Council and the council can then decide whether to take action. The United States is one of five veto-wielding permanent council members and has been reluctant to act against Israel, its longtime ally.
Another permanent member is Russia and when the United Nations put Russian forces on its blacklist last year for killing boys and girls and attacking schools and hospitals in Ukraine, the council took no action.
The inclusion of Israel this month will likely just put more of a global spotlight on the country's conduct of the war in Gaza and increase already high tensions in its relationship with the global body.
The preface of last year’s U.N. report says it lists parties engaged in “the killing and maiming of children, rape and other forms of sexual violence perpetrated against children, attacks on schools, hospitals and protected persons."
The head of Guterres' office called Israel's U.N. ambassador, Gilad Erdan, on Friday to inform him that Israel would be in the report when it is sent to the council next week, U.N. spokesman Stéphane Dujarric told reporters.
The militant Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad groups will also be listed.
Israel reacted with outrage, sending news organizations a video of Erdan berating the head of Guterres' office — who was supposedly on the other end of a phone call — and posting it on X.
“Hamas will continue even more to use schools and hospitals because this shameful decision of the secretary-general will only give Hamas hope to survive and extend the war and extend the suffering,” Erdan wrote in a statement. “Shame on him!”
The Palestinian U.N. ambassador said that adding Israel to the “‘list of shame,’ will not bring back tens of thousands of our children who were killed by Israel over decades.”
“But it is an important step in the right direction,” Riyad Mansour wrote in a statement.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said "the U.N. put itself on the black list of history today” as the move heightened the long-running feud between Israel and the U.N. and even the routine mechanics of Israel's dealings with the world body are now fraught with tensions.
The normally equanimous secretary-general's spokesman broke from the good-natured tone of his noon briefing when asked to discuss the latest development.
“The call was a courtesy afforded to countries that are newly listed on the annex of the report,” Dujarric said. “The partial release of that recording on Twitter is shocking and unacceptable and frankly, something I’ve never seen in my 24 years serving this organization.”
Condemnation of the secretary-general’s decision appeared to bring together Israel’s increasingly fractious leadership — from the right-wing Netanyahu and Erdan to the popular centrist member of the War Cabinet, Benny Gantz.
Gantz cited Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, as saying “it matter not what say the goyim (non-Jews), what is important is what do the Jews.”
For month Israel has faced heavy international criticism over civilian casualties in Gaza and questions about whether it has done enough to prevent them in the eight-month-old war. Two recent airstrikes in Gaza killed dozens of civilians.
U.N. agencies warned Wednesday that over 1 million Palestinians in Gaza could experience the highest level of starvation by the middle of next month if hostilities continue.
The World Food Program and the Food and Agriculture Organization said in a joint report that hunger is worsening because of heavy restrictions on humanitarian access and the collapse of the local food system in the eight-month Israel-Hamas war.
The proportion of Palestinian women and children being killed in the Israel-Hamas war appears to have declined sharply, an Associated Press analysis of Gaza Health Ministry data has found, a trend that both coincides with Israel’s changing battlefield tactics and contradicts the ministry’s own public statements.
The trend is significant because the death rate for women and children is the best available proxy for civilian casualties in one of the 21st century’s most destructive conflicts. In October, when the war began, it was above 60%. For the month of April, it was below 40%.
Yet the shift went unnoticed for months by the U.N. and much of the media, and the Hamas-linked Health Ministry has made no effort to set the record straight.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — In Middle East capitals, at the United Nations, from the White House and beyond, the Biden administration is making its most concentrated diplomatic push of the eight-month-old war in Gaza to persuade Israeli and Hamas leaders to take a proposed deal that would bring a cease-fire and release of more hostages.
But one week into the U.S. pressure campaign, the world still is waiting for signs that the cease-fire appeal begun May 31 by President Joe Biden was working, by moving Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leaders toward a negotiating breakthrough.
For Israel and Hamas, the U.S. diplomatic press has become a public test of whether either side is ready to stop fighting — at least on any terms that fall short of their professed goals, whether it’s the complete crushing of the militant group or the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.
JOE BIDEN
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For Biden, who describes the proposal as Israeli, it’s the latest high-profile test of U.S. leadership in trying to convince ally Israel as well as the militant group to relent in a conflict that is killing tens of thousands of people, inflaming regional tensions and absorbing much of the administration’s focus.
Here’s a look at the U.S.-led push for a Gaza cease-fire and where it stands:
GOING PUBLIC
It wasn't that the cease-fire proposal Biden outlined in a televised address from the White House a week ago was startingly new. It was that Biden laid out the terms to the world and put the full weight of the U.S. presidency behind the appeal for both sides to take this deal.
The terms that Biden described for the first of three phases sounded much like the deal that U.S., Qatari and Egyptian mediators and Israel and Hamas have been haggling over for months.
There would be a six-week cease-fire in which Israeli forces pulled back from populated areas of Gaza. In exchange for Israel releasing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, Hamas would release some women, older people and wounded among hostages it had seized in the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel that set off the war.
The proposal calls for a full release of remaining hostages and an Israeli withdrawal in later phases, although the terms are vague.
“Everyone who wants peace now must raise their voices and let the leaders know they should take this deal,” Biden said a week ago.
But by Friday, neither Israel nor Hamas had said yes. Netanyahu says the terms of the proposal aren't as they have been described publicly and that Israel will never cease fighting until “the destruction” of Hamas' military and leadership.
In effect, said Nimrod Novik, a former senior adviser to the late Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, Biden “decided to ‘out’ Netanyahu and let the Israeli public know how serious the potential for bringing all hostages out."
The U.S. aim: "So Israel would say ‘yes’ to its own proposal," said Novik, now the Israel fellow at the Washington-based Israel Policy Forum.
KEEPING UP THE PRESSURE
The Biden administration isn't letting up in its drive to get Hamas and Israel on board.
“The U.S. is going to do everything it can in some formulation to keep pushing this. Until there's no place to go any more,” said Jonathan Panikoff, a former U.S. intelligence official. He's now the director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East program.
At the U.N., U.S. diplomats are asking the Security Council to adopt a resolution demanding a permanent cease-fire between Hamas and Israel in Gaza, over Israel's objections. Biden is sending Secretary of State Antony Blinken back to the Middle East next week for his eighth visit since the war began, a lightning tour of Middle East capitals to promote the cease-fire proposal.
CIA director Bill Burns and Biden Middle East adviser Brett McGurk also have traveled to the region to garner support for the deal and show key players how it could work.
The Group of Seven leading global economies endorsed the proposal. So have countries with hostages held by militants in Gaza. Biden, Blinken and other U.S. officials are working the phones to rally support among Arab governments from Egypt and Qatar to Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
Many allies appear to welcome the president’s initiative to get the cease-fire talks back on course after weeks of drift, Panikoff said.
THE VIEW FROM ISRAEL
There's little sign — yet — that the U.S. efforts have been enough to change the political equation in Israel. Netanyahu's far-right coalition partners have vowed to bring down the government if the Israeli prime minister accepts the proposal that Biden outlined.
Trailing in opinion polls and facing an ongoing corruption trial, Netanyahu has little incentive to risk heading to another election. Although opposition leader Yair Lapid has offered to give Netanyahu backing for a hostage deal, the two men are bitter enemies and there is little reason to think any alliance would last.
Benny Gantz, a centrist member of Netanyahu's war Cabinet, has called a news conference for Saturday, where he is expected to address his earlier threat to resign by this weekend if Netanyahu failed to release a plan for the war and Gaza.
Netanyahu will still control a parliamentary majority if Gantz leaves. But the departure of Gantz, a former military chief and defense minister who is respected in Washington, would weaken Netanyahu’s international credibility and leave him more dependent than ever on far-right coalition partners, who believe Israel should reoccupy Gaza and oppose the cease-fire proposal.
Popular protests could be one of the few scenarios that sway Netanyahu toward a deal, Novik said. Alternatively, Novik contended, just the threat of a public denunciation by Biden could prod Netanyahu toward compromise, given the United States' importance as an ally.
HOW ABOUT HAMAS?
Hamas is expected to deliver a formal response in coming days to the proposal that Biden is pushing, according to what the Qataris and Egyptians, who handle the direct communications with Hamas officials in the negotiations, told U.S. officials this week.
Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan told reporters this week in Beirut that Biden’s announcement was “positive” but said the group couldn't accept any deal without Israel's guarantee of a permanent cease-fire, a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, a prisoner exchange and other conditions.
While the supreme leader of Hamas and other political figures are based abroad, Hamas also must relay any proposals to Yahya Sinwar — whose opinion is paramount — and other military leaders in Gaza. They inhabit tunnels up to 100 feet (30 meters) or more underground and are believed to have surrounded themselves with foreign hostages to discourage attack.
____
Josef Federman contributed from Jerusalem.
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Hamas says 3 hostages, including an American, were killed in Israeli rescue raid: Live updates
Militant-held Israeli hostages were among the more than 200 people killed in the raid that freed four captives and has been lauded as heroic in Israel but described as a massacre across much of the Middle East, Hamas officials said Sunday.
Abu Obaida, spokesman for the Hamas Al-Qassam Brigades military wing, called Saturday's raid a "complex war crime." He said three hostages were killed in the attack, including one holding a U.S. passport, a claim Israeli military spokesperson Peter Lerner said should be taken "with a pinch of salt."
"By committing horrific massacres, the enemy was able to free some of his prisoners, but at the same time, it killed some of them," Obaida said. "The operation will pose a great danger to the (remaining hostages) and will have a negative impact on their conditions and lives."
The Israeli operation Saturday involved hundreds of troops and heavy air support that pounded the Nuseirat refugee camp. Freed captives Noa Argamani, 25, Almog Meir Jan, 21, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 40, were in good health and being reunited with their families, Israeli authorities said. Lerner said they were held "in civilian homes, putting them within the civilian arena."
Neighboring Egypt and Jordan expressed outrage at the Israeli attack, calling it a violation of international law. Lebanon’s foreign ministry condemned the “massacre." Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi, secretary-general of the Gulf Cooperation Council, called the attack "a heinous and terrorist cime that targeted defenseless innocents with brutality."
But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remained ecstatic Sunday, saying in a social media post that "Happy is the people that is blessed with its heroes. We will continue together to do our utmost to return all of the hostages, and to achieve victory over our enemies."
'Miraculous triumph': What we know about Israel's operation to rescue 4 hostages
Developments:
∎ Israeli War Cabinet minister and key opposition leader Benny Gantz was expected to resign Sunday night despite the prime minister's social media post Sunday requesting that Gantz "not leave the emergency government. Don't give up on unity." Gantz wants Netanyahau to provide a clear plan for post-war Gaza governance.
∎Netanyahu proposed the rescue be dubbed Operation Arnon in honor of the "hero of Israel Arnon Zamora," the commander of the assault force who was killed during the effort.
∎ Sixty-four of the dead were children and 57 were women, the Hamas-run Gaza government media office said Sunday.
∎ Netanyahu's office said he will appoint lawmaker Danny Danon to again serve as Israel's ambassador to the United Nations. Ambassador Gilad Erdan announced a week ago that he would step down after four years; Danon served five years in the post before Erdan.
Palestinian death toll rises in hostage raid
Gaza's Health Ministry said Sunday that 274 Palestinians were killed in the raid, up from 210 it reported on Saturday. Sixty-four of the dead were children and 57 were women, the Hamas-run Gaza government media office said. Another 698 people were wounded. Israel said Arnon was the only Israeli soldier killed in an exchange of gunfire with militants.
Israeli special forces posed as Rafah refugees
Some special forces slipped into the Nuseirat refugee camp in a car with mattresses on top posing as Palestinians fleeing Rafah, according to Saudi-owned Asharq news channel in a report translated by the Times of Israel. They told locals they were escaping the Israeli attack on Rafah and would be staying in the building near a market − a building where Argamani was being held. The other freed hostages were being held in another building nearby.
Local also said some Israelis entered in humanitarian aid trucks, a claim the Israel military has denied.
Biden, Macron welcome rescue of four Gaza hostages, repeat call for cease-fire
Rafah shelters empty as refugees flee again
Only about 100,000 of the more than 1 million residents and refugees who occupied Rafah a month ago remain in the city, according to the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA. Rafah, on the Egyptian border in southern Gaza, had become home to Palestinians fleeing Israeli attacks that left much of northern and central Gaza in ruins. With Israel military options now focused on Rafah, many Palestinians are heading back toward their destroyed communities, the agency said.
"All UNRWA shelters in Rafah have been vacated. Many of the people who were based in Rafah have fled up the coast seeking safer locations in both Khan Younis and the middle area of Gaza," UNRWA said in a statement.
Contributing: Reuters
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Hamas says 3 hostages, including an American, were killed in Israeli rescue raid: Live updates
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JERUSALEM (AP) — Benny Gantz, a centrist member of Israel’s three-man war Cabinet, announced his resignation Sunday, accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of mismanaging the war effort and putting his own “political survival” over the country's security needs.
The move does not immediately pose a threat to Netanyahu, who still controls a majority coalition in parliament. But the Israeli leader becomes more heavily reliant on far-right allies who oppose the latest U.S.-backed cease-fire proposal and want to press ahead with the war.
“Unfortunately, Netanyahu is preventing us from achieving true victory, which is the justification for the painful and ongoing price,” Gantz said. He added that Netanyahu was “making empty promises,” and the country needs to take a different direction as he expects the fighting to continue for years to come.
The popular former military chief joined Netanyahu’s government shortly after the Hamas attack in a show of unity. His presence also boosted Israel’s credibility with its international partners. Gantz has good working relations with U.S. officials.
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Gantz had previously said he would leave the government by June 8 if Netanyahu did not formulate a new plan for postwar Gaza.
He scrapped a planned news conference Saturday night after four Israelihostages were dramatically rescued from Gaza earlier in the day in Israel’s largest such operation since the eight-month war began. At least 274 Palestinians, including children, were killed in the assault, Gaza health officials said.
Gantz called for Israel to hold elections in the fall, and encouraged the third member of the war Cabinet, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, to “do the right thing” and resign from the government as well. Gallant has previously said he would resign if Israel chose to reoccupy Gaza, and encouraged the government to make plans for a Palestinian administration.
On Saturday, Netanyahu had urged Gantz not to leave the emergency wartime government.
“This is the time for unity, not for division,” he said, in a direct plea to Gantz.
Gantz’s decision to leave is largely “a symbolic move” due to his frustration with Netanyahu, said Gideon Rahat, chairman of the political science department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He noted it could further increase Netanyahu’s reliance on extremist, right-wing members of his government, led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
“I think the outside world, especially the United States, is not very happy about it, because they see Gantz and his party as the more responsible people within this government,” Rahat said.
On Sunday evening, Ben-Gvir demanded a spot in the war Cabinet, saying Gantz and the smaller Cabinet had bungled the war effort due to “dangerous” ideological decisions.
Hamas took some 250 hostages during the Oct. 7 attack that killed about 1,200 people. About half were released in a weeklong cease-fire in November. About 120 hostages remain, with 43 pronounced dead. At least 36,700 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting, according to Gaza’s HealthMinistry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians.
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TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel's dramatic weekend rescue of four hostages from the Gaza Strip, in an operation that local health officials say killed 274 Palestinians, came at a sensitive time in the 8-month-old war, as Israel and Hamas weigh a U.S. proposal for a cease-fire and the release of the remaining captives.
Both sides face renewed pressure to make a deal: The complex rescue is unlikely to be replicated on a scale needed to bring back scores of remaining hostages, and it was a powerful reminder for Israelis that there are still surviving captives held in harsh conditions. Hamas now has four fewer bargaining chips.
But they could also dig in, as they repeatedly have over months of indirect negotiations mediated by the United States, Qatar and Egypt. Hamas is still insisting on an end to the war as part of any agreement, while Israel says it is still committed to destroying the militant group.
Here is a look at the fallout from the operation and how it might affect cease-fire talks:
ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR
How an Israeli raid freed 4 hostages and killed at least 274 Palestinians in Gaza
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ELATION, AND MOUNTING CALLS FOR A DEAL
The rescue operation was Israel’s most successful since the start of the war, bringing home four of the roughly 250 captives seized by Hamas in its Oct. 7 cross-border attack, including Noa Argamani, who became an icon of the struggle to free the hostages.
The raid also killed at least 274 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, deepening the suffering of people in Gaza who have had to endure the brutal war and a humanitarian catastrophe. The ministry does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its tallies.
The rescue was met with elation in Israel, which is still reeling from the Hamas attack and agonizing over the fate of the 80 captives and the remains of over 40 others still held in Gaza. Israeli hard-liners are likely to seize on it as proof that military pressure alone will bring the rest back.
But only three other hostages have been freed by military force since the start of the war. Another three were mistakenly killed by Israeli forces after they escaped on their own, and Hamas says others have been killed in Israeli airstrikes.
“If anyone believes that yesterday’s operation absolves the government of the need to strike a deal, they are living a fantasy," Israeli columnist Nahum Barnea wrote in the mass-selling Yediot Aharonot newspaper. "There are people out there who need to be saved, and the sooner the better.”
Even the Israeli army's spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, acknowledged the limits of military force. “What will bring most of the hostages back home alive is a deal,” he told reporters.
Over 100 hostages were released during a weeklong cease-fire last year, in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, and reaching a similar agreement is still widely seen as the only way of getting the rest of the hostages back. Hours after Saturday's rescue, tens of thousands of Israelis attended protests in Tel Aviv calling for such a deal.
U.S. President Joe Biden last week announced a proposal for a phased plan for a cease-fire and hostage release, setting in motion the administration’s most concentrated diplomatic push for a truce.
Biden described it as an Israeli proposal, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly questioned some aspects of it, particularly its call for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and a lasting truce. His ultranationalist coalition partners have threatened to bring down his government if he ends the war without destroying Hamas.
That appears to have only deepened suspicions on the part of Hamas, which has demanded international guarantees that the war will end. It's unclear if such guarantees have been offered, and Hamas has not yet officially responded to the plan.
NETANYAHU SEEKS TO GAIN
The rescue operation was a rare win for Netanyahu, who many Israelis blame for the security failures leading up to the Oct. 7 attack and the failure to return the hostages despite months of grinding war.
He has reveled in the operation’s success, rushing Saturday to the hospital where the freed hostages were held and meeting with each of them as cameras rolled. Recent opinion polls had already shown him making some progress in rehabilitating his image, and the rescue operation will help.
But as the elation fades, he will still face heavy pressure from an American administration that wants to wind the war down and an ultranationalist base that wants to vanquish Hamas at all costs. His main political opponent, the retired general Benny Gantz, quit the emergency wartime coalition on Sunday, leaving Netanyahu even more beholden to the hard-liners.
Netanyahu is already facing criticism from some of the families of deceased hostages, who say they received no such visits and accuse him of only taking credit for the war's successes. Israel will also likely face heightened international pressure over the raid's high Palestinian death toll.
“The success in freeing four hostages is a magnificent tactical victory that has not changed our deplorable strategic situation,” columnist Ben Caspit wrote in Israel’s Maariv daily.
It all makes for a tough balancing act, even for someone like Netanyahu, who friends and foes alike consider to be a master politician.
The operation could provide the kind of boost with the Israeli public that would allow him to justify making a deal with Hamas. Or he might conclude that time is on his side, and that he can drive a harder bargain with the militants as they grapple with a major setback.
HAMAS LOSES BARGAINING CHIPS
Hamas has lost four precious bargaining chips it had hoped to trade for high-profile Palestinian prisoners. Argamani, widely known from a video showing her pleading for her life as militants dragged her away on a motorcycle, was a particularly significant loss for Hamas.
The raid may have also dealt a blow to Hamas’ morale. In the Oct. 7 attack, Hamas managed to humiliate a country with a far superior army, and since then it has repeatedly regrouped despite devastating military operations across Gaza.
But the fact that Israel was able to mount a complex rescue operation in broad daylight in the center of a crowded urban area has at least temporarily restored some of the mystique that Israel's security forces lost on Oct. 7.
The operation also refocused global attention on the hostage crisis at a time when the U.S. is rallying world pressure on Hamas to accept the cease-fire deal.
But Hamas has a long history of withstanding pressure from Israel and others — often at enormous cost to Palestinians. The militants may conclude that it's best to use the remaining hostages to end the war while they still can — or they might just look for better places to hide them.
___
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Gaza at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
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https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/11/middleeast/sinwar-hamas-israel-ceasefire-hostage-talks-intl/index.html
www.headstonesband.com
The way they discuss loss of lives as a positive is disgusting
EV
Toronto Film Festival 9/11/2007, '08 - Toronto 1 & 2, '09 - Albany 1, '11 - Chicago 1
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www.headstonesband.com
If being against any religion as a political force is a problem, I may have all the phobias.....
https://time.com/6989720/israel-hamas-war-ben-stiller-essay/
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