Egypt says it received ‘positive signals’ over possible extension of Gaza ceasefire
Egypt said on Saturday it had received positive signals from all parties over a possible extension of the Gaza ceasefire for one or two days, Reuters reports.
Diaa Rashwan, the head of Egypt’s State Information Service (SIS), said in a statement that the country was holding extensive talks with all parties to reach an agreement over extending the four-day ceasefire, which “means the release of more detainees in Gaza and Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails”.
Key events
Tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in London on Saturday to call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza where nearly 15,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli airstrikes in the last seven weeks.
According to Reuters, Saturday’s march was the latest large pro-Palestine demonstration to take place in London since October 7.
Around 1,500 police officers were deployed to the streets for the protest, including 500 that were brought in from forces outside of London.
There were no immediate reports of violence at the demonstration, organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the Stop the War Coalition, Reuters reports.
“We come to show our solidarity and tell the Palestinians they are not alone, we are thinking about them and we are not gonna stop until they are free,” 25-year-old student Leila Talhi told Reuters.
Hamas delays second release of hostages until Israel lets aid into northern Gaza – reports
The armed wing of Hamas said on Saturday that it had decided to delay the second round of hostage releases until Israel is committed to letting aid trucks enter northern Gaza, Reuters reports.
Earlier today, Israeli media outlets including the Jerusalem Post reported security sources saying that Egypt had received a list from Hamas of 13 hostages to be released today.
Here is some information about the 24 hostages released by Hamas on Friday, including 13 Israelis, one Filipino man and 10 Thai citizens.
The Guardian’s Emma Graham-Harrison reports:
The Israeli hostages included four children with female relatives, who were all visiting family at Nir Oz kibbutz when Hamas attacked on 7 October, , and five elderly women, four of them residents of Nir Oz and one from a nearby kibbutz.
The other hostages had been working in the area, part of a large migrant labour force doing caring, agricultural and other work inside Israel. They were not part of the exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners.
For further details, click here:
Summary
Here is a round-up of the day’s main developments so far:
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Egypt said on Saturday it had received positive signals from all parties over a possible extension of the Gaza truce for one or two days, Reuters reports. Diaa Rashwan, the head of Egypt’s State Information Service (SIS), said in a statement that the country was holding extensive talks with all parties to reach an agreement over extending the four-day truce, which “means the release of more detainees in Gaza and Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.”
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Israel’s Prison Service said on Saturday it was preparing 42 prisoners for release, suggesting Hamas would release 14 Israeli hostages, AP reported. There has been no official Israeli announcement on the number of hostages to be freed on Saturday, though Hamas handed a list of names to the authorities late on Friday. It was not immediately clear how many non-Israeli captives might also be released.
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Egypt has received a list from the Palestinian militant group Hamas of 14 hostages to be released on Saturday, security sources said. Earlier on Saturday, Israel also said it had received a list of hostages to be freed from Gaza on Saturday by Hamas, Reuters reported.
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Iran facilitated Friday’s release of 10 Thai hostages from Gaza, providing a list of names to Hamas after a request to do so by Thailand’s foreign ministry and parliamentary speaker, Iran’s embassy in Thailand said on social media on Saturday. “This request was accepted by Hamas and 10 Thai hostages were released after the ceasefire,” it said.
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The second day of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has allowed critical humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip and given civilians their first respite after seven weeks of war. The UN said the pause enabled it to scale up the delivery of food, water and medicine to the largest volume since the resumption of humanitarian aid convoys on 21 October, Associated Press reports.
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It was also able to deliver 129,000 litres of fuel – just over 10% of the daily pre-war volume – as well as cooking gas, for the first time since the war began. In the southern city of Khan Younis on Saturday, a long line of people with gas cans and other containers waited outside a filling station hoping to get some of the newly delivered fuel.
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A Polish citizen was among hostages released from Gaza on Friday, Reuters reports. Poland’s foreign ministry confirmed the news in a statement: “We welcome the information about the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, which allowed the release of the first group of hostages, including a Polish citizen, and increased supplies of humanitarian aid to the enclave,” the ministry said in a statement.
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More than three dozen Palestinian prisoners returned home to a heroes’ welcome in the occupied West Bank on Friday after their release from Israeli prisons as part of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, the Associated Press reports. The freed prisoners, some accused of minor offences and others convicted in attacks, were greeted at a checkpoint outside Jerusalem by a massive crowd of chanting, clapping, hand-waving and shouting Palestinians.
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The body of a Tanzanian student who went missing in Israel after the bloody Hamas attack last month is due to be returned home on Sunday, his family said. Clemence Felix Mtenga, 22, was one of two Tanzanians reported missing after the 7 October attack that saw around 1,200 people killed and around 240 taken hostage, according to Israeli officials.
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The US president, Joe Biden, said the chances were “real” that the temporary Israel-Hamas ceasefire could be extended. He said Friday’s hostage release was the “start of a process” and that he “will not stop” until all remaining hostages in Gaza were brought home. The deal reached by Israel and Hamas involved “extensive US diplomacy”, Biden said, adding: “It’s only a start, but so far it’s gone well.” He also said he expected US citizens to be among the hostages who would be released.
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Most of the Israeli hostages released by Hamas were said to be in good health after returning to Israel, the hospital receiving them announced. Schneider Children’s hospital, where four women and four child hostages were released, said doctors had conducted a preliminary examination and said they were all in in good physical condition.
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A container ship managed by an Israeli-controlled company was hit by a suspected Iranian drone in the Indian Ocean, causing minor damage to the vessel but no injuries, Reuters reports a US defence official saying. The Malta-flagged CMA CGM SYMI, recently renamed Mayet, was struck on Friday by an unmanned aerial vehicle, which appeared to be an Iranian Shahed-136 drone, the official said.
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In the UK, Metropolitan police officers are to hand out leaflets to demonstrators to provide “absolute clarity” on what will be deemed an offence, as more than 100,000 people are expected to join a pro-Palestine march on Saturday. More than 1,500 officers will be on duty in London as the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) marches from Park Lane to Whitehall in protest over the Israel-Hamas conflict. The Met police said 500 officers from outside London would be on duty.
That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, for today. My colleague Maya Yang will be along shortly to continue bringing you the latest news from the Israel-Hamas war.
Qatari delegation reportedly in Israel for talks over possible ceasefire extension
A Qatari delegation visited Israel on Saturday to discuss a possible extension of a four-day ceasefire between Hamas and Israel that started on Friday, an official briefed on the visit said.
The Qatari operations team also coordinated with Israeli officials to ensure the ceasefire and hostage releases continue smoothly, the official said.
More from that AFP feature:
Even for those whose loved ones have returned, the joy is tempered by the thoughts of others.
In a video released by the hostage families’ forum, Roy Zichri Munder, whose brother was released on Friday, said: “We are not in a festive mood today, we are happy but we are not festive because there are more hostages detained.”
He offered his support to those still being held. “You will be back soon,” he told them, urging their families: “Don’t lose hope.”
For most, the wait goes on.
Nadav Rudaeff has had no indication of life for his 61-year-old father, Lior, an ambulance driver and volunteer medic who had a heart attack two years ago.
“We are very concerned because he has no medicine,” he said.
Ruby Chen has also had no news about the fate of his son, 19-year-old soldier Itai, snatched while on duty protecting kibbutzim in the area.
“It’s hard to describe the feeling of not knowing if your kid is alive or not,” he said. “It’s something beyond pain.”
For days, the family did not know where he was. Their middle son was listed as “missing in action” until at 6am one day, two army officers knocked at their door.
Immediately they suspected the worst.
“That means someone’s going to give you a very bad message. Your heart stops,” he said.
“But we are the lucky ones: the notification we got was that Itai was abducted,” he went on, “not the other notification that many others got that day.”
There is a stark account of how the families of hostages are dealing with being parted from their loved ones published by AFP today.
It reads:
For some families, returning Gaza hostages bring ‘sign of life’.
When the first group of Israeli hostages was released from Gaza as part of a ceasefire, Noam Peri’s elderly father was not among them. But they brought with them news that he was still alive.
“We have a sign of life from my father, we know he’s alive from other people from the community who were released yesterday,” said Peri, whose 79-year-old father, Haim, was snatched from his home in Nir Oz kibbutz near the Gaza border by Hamas militants on 7 October.
Without giving details, she said she had received the news from some of the 13 people who returned to Israel on Friday, the first day of a four-day ceasefire and hostage-prisoner exchange deal with Hamas in which dozens of Palestinian prisoners were also freed.
All but one of the hostages released on Friday – among them six elderly women, three mothers and their four children – were from Nir Oz, one of the hardest hit communities when Hamas militants stormed across the border, killing around 1,200 people in southern Israel and kidnapping about 240 others.
Israel has responded with a heavy aerial campaign and ground invasion that has killed 15,000 people, including thousands of children, according to authorities in Hamas-run Gaza.
In Nir Oz, 75 people were abducted and 29 killed, Peri said. “So one out of four people from this community were either murdered or kidnapped,” many of them neighbours or lifelong friends of her parents, kibbutz veterans.
Hearing that her father was still alive has given the family fresh hope, but they have no guarantees he will be getting out soon, if at all – the hostages to be released under the ceasefire deal are women and children aged 18 or under.
“It brings a lot of hope but we don’t know how much time they’re going to be able to hold on there,” she said, describing her father as “a brave man but not a healthy man” who survived a heart attack and “depends on medication to survive”.
Egypt says it received ‘positive signals’ over possible extension of Gaza ceasefire
Egypt said on Saturday it had received positive signals from all parties over a possible extension of the Gaza ceasefire for one or two days, Reuters reports.
Diaa Rashwan, the head of Egypt’s State Information Service (SIS), said in a statement that the country was holding extensive talks with all parties to reach an agreement over extending the four-day ceasefire, which “means the release of more detainees in Gaza and Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails”.
A Polish citizen was among hostages released from Gaza on Friday, Reuters reports.
Poland’s foreign ministry confirmed the news in a statement: “We welcome the information about the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, which allowed the release of the first group of hostages, including a Polish citizen, and increased supplies of humanitarian aid to the enclave,” the ministry said in a statement.
“At the same time, Poland continues to firmly demand that Israel consent to the safe departure from the Gaza Strip by other Polish citizens.”
The body of a Tanzanian student who went missing in Israel after the bloody Hamas attack last month is due to be returned home on Sunday, his family said.
Clemence Felix Mtenga, 22, was one of two Tanzanians reported missing after the 7 October attack that saw around 1,200 people killed and around 240 taken hostage, according to Israeli officials.
Tanzania’s foreign ministry confirmed Mtenga’s death in a statement on 18 November, but did not say how he had been killed.
“We were to receive the body today but there are changes. We expect to have it tomorrow,” his sister Christina Mtenga told Agence France-Presse by phone on Saturday.
She said the funeral would take place on Tuesday in the family’s home district of Rombo in the Kilimanjaro area of northern Tanzania.
A container ship managed by an Israeli-controlled company was hit by a suspected Iranian drone in the Indian Ocean, causing minor damage to the vessel but no injuries, Reuters reports a US defence official saying.
The Malta-flagged CMA CGM SYMI, recently renamed Mayet, was struck on Friday by an unmanned aerial vehicle, which appeared to be an Iranian Shahed-136 drone, the official said.
Iran has supplied Shahed drones to Russia for use in Ukraine. They carry a small warhead that explodes on impact.
The incident comes amid heightened maritime security tensions due to the Israel-Hamas war and follows the seizure of an Israeli-linked cargo ship by Yemeni Houthis, allies of Iran, in the southern Red Sea earlier this week. Israel called the vessel’s seizure an “Iranian act of terrorism”.
Singapore-based Eastern Pacific Shipping, which had rented Mayet, said it was aware a container ship was targeted in a possible security incident on Friday.
There was no immediate comment from Iran or Israel.
Afternoon summary
Here is a round-up of the day’s main developments so far:
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Israel’s Prison Service said on Saturday it was preparing 42 prisoners for release, suggesting Hamas would release 14 Israeli hostages, AP reported. There has been no official Israeli announcement on the number of hostages to be freed on Saturday, though Hamas handed a list of names to the authorities late on Friday. It was not immediately clear how many non-Israeli captives might also be released.
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Egypt has received a list from the Palestinian militant group Hamas of 14 hostages to be released on Saturday, security sources said. Earlier on Saturday, Israel also said it had received a list of hostages to be freed from Gaza on Saturday by Hamas, Reuters reported.
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Iran facilitated Friday’s release of 10 Thai hostages from Gaza, providing a list of names to Hamas after a request to do so by Thailand’s foreign ministry and parliamentary speaker, Iran’s embassy in Thailand said on social media on Saturday. “This request was accepted by Hamas and 10 Thai hostages were released after the ceasefire,” it said.
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The second day of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has allowed critical humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip and given civilians their first respite after seven weeks of war. The UN said the pause enabled it to scale up the delivery of food, water and medicine to the largest volume since the resumption of humanitarian aid convoys on 21 October, Associated Press reports.
-
It was also able to deliver 129,000 litres of fuel – just over 10% of the daily pre-war volume – as well as cooking gas, for the first time since the war began. In the southern city of Khan Younis on Saturday, a long line of people with gas cans and other containers waited outside a filling station hoping to get some of the newly delivered fuel.
-
More than three dozen Palestinian prisoners returned home to a heroes’ welcome in the occupied West Bank on Friday after their release from Israeli prisons as part of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, the Associated Press reports. The freed prisoners, some accused of minor offences and others convicted in attacks, were greeted at a checkpoint outside Jerusalem by a massive crowd of chanting, clapping, hand-waving and shouting Palestinians.
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The US president, Joe Biden, said the chances were “real” that the temporary Israel-Hamas ceasefire could be extended. He said Friday’s hostage release was the “start of a process” and that he “will not stop” until all remaining hostages in Gaza were brought home. The deal reached by Israel and Hamas involved “extensive US diplomacy”, Biden said, adding: “It’s only a start, but so far it’s gone well.” He also said he expected US citizens to be among the hostages who would be released.
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Most of the Israeli hostages released by Hamas were said to be in good health after returning to Israel, the hospital receiving them announced. Schneider Children’s hospital, where four women and four child hostages were released, said doctors had conducted a preliminary examination and said they were all in in good physical condition.
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In the UK, Metropolitan police officers are to hand out leaflets to demonstrators to provide “absolute clarity” on what will be deemed an offence, as more than 100,000 people are expected to join a pro-Palestine march on Saturday. More than 1,500 officers will be on duty in London as the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) marches from Park Lane to Whitehall in protest over the Israel-Hamas conflict. The Met police said 500 officers from outside London would be on duty.
A pro-Palestine march calling for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza has set off in central London.
Thousands of demonstrators carrying Palestinian flags and placards began walking down Park Lane from Marble Arch towards Piccadilly.
Kaamil Ahmed
On the 45th day of the bombing of Gaza, eight-year-old Waseem Abedrabou and his father Husam, left the family home for a night to stay with Husam’s mother.
“[His mother Abeer] doesn’t let Waseem sleep a metre away from her, but she let him sleep in that house that day,” said Dina Safi, Waseem’s aunt. “Husam wanted to see his family and Waseem wanted to see his grandma.”
Abeer would never see either of them again. An Israeli airstrike hit the house Waseem and Husam were staying in, devastating the large home, which housed five units of their extended family in Nuseirat refugee camp – south of the point in Gaza where the enclave’s population were ordered to evacuate.
Waseem’s uncle pulled the boy’s lifeless body from the rubble and carried him to his mother. But Husam’s body was buried beneath tonnes of heavy concrete.
Safi said Abeer screamed and collapsed when her son was brought to her, wrapped in a shroud, but she has been unable to process her pain because she does not know the fate of her husband, who still has not been found after days of digging.
Safi described her nephew as a child genius with an interest in Lego and computers inspired by his father’s work as an electrical engineer. He had won chess and engineering competitions at school and had shared with his mother his worries about losing his trophies if their home they left in Gaza City was bombed.
“I don’t want him to be a number, Waseem’s eyes were full of dreams,” she says.
Alongside the almost 15,000 people, including more than 6,000 children, killed in Gaza since 7 October, the Palestinian health ministry has reported another 6,000 Palestinians believed trapped under the rubble.
Nadeem Badshah
In the UK, Metropolitan police officers are to hand out leaflets to demonstrators to provide “absolute clarity” on what will be deemed an offence, as more than 100,000 people are expected to join a pro-Palestine march on Saturday.
More than 1,500 officers will be on duty in London as the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) marches from Park Lane to Whitehall in protest over the Israel-Hamas conflict. The Met police said 500 officers from outside London would be on duty.
Officers will be distributing leaflets warning demonstrators against the use of racist abuse and promoting terrorism. The leaflet states that “while the majority of people are complying with these rules, a minority have crossed the line”.
It says that to “avoid ending up in our cells”, demonstrators should not use words that “are racist or incite hatred against any faith”, that “support Hamas or any other banned organisation” or “that celebrate or promote acts of terrorism – such as the killing or kidnap of innocent people”.
Emily Foster is a globe-trotting journalist based in the UK. Her articles offer readers a global perspective on international events, exploring complex geopolitical issues and providing a nuanced view of the world’s most pressing challenges.
