The Latest | Israeli minister’s visit to Jerusalem holy site puts pressure on cease-fire talks
The Latest | Israeli minister’s visit to Jerusalem holy site puts pressure on cease-fire talks
A leading far-right figure in the Israeli government visited Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site on Thursday, a move that threatened cease-fire talks to end the 9-month-old war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s Public Security Minister, said he went to the contested compound of Al-Aqsa Mosque to pray for the return of Israeli hostages in Gaza and to pressure Israel’s prime minister to continue with the military campaign in the territory.
Israeli negotiators were in Cairo on Wednesday to press ahead with cease-fire talks, as Israel and Hamas consider the latest proposal.
Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack sparked the war when militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducting about 250. Since then, Israeli ground offensives and bombardments have killed more than 38,600 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. It does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.
Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack sparked the war when militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducting about 250. Since then, Israeli ground offensives and bombardments have killed more than 38,600 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. It does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.
Two international courts have accused Israel of war crimes and genocide – charges Israel denies. Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are crammed into squalid tent camps in central and southern Gaza. Israeli restrictions, fighting and the breakdown of law and order have limited humanitarian aid efforts, causing widespread hunger and sparking fears of famine.
Here’s the latest:
Amnesty accuses Israel of torturing Palestinian detainees from Gaza
JERUSALEM — Human rights organization Amnesty International accused Israeli authorities on Thursday of mass incommunicado detention and torture of Palestinian detainees from Gaza.
The organization interviewed 27 former Palestinian detainees, including a 14-year-old boy, who it says were held without charge, trial, or access to their lawyers or family for up to 4 1/2 months under an Israeli law on unlawful combatants.
Citing Israeli rights group Hamoked, Amnesty said that 1,402 Palestinians were being held under the law as of July 1, 2024. That’s the highest figure since the war began, according to Hamoked’s figures.
Amnesty in a statement said the law allows the Israeli military to detain anyone from Gaza suspected of engagement in hostilities or posing a security threat “for indefinitely renewable periods without having to produce evidence to substantiate the claims.”
The group said that all the former detainees they interviewed had alleged torture or ill-treatment while they were held.
One interviewee, 57-year-old pediatrician Said Maarouf, said guards kept him blindfolded and handcuffed for the duration of his 45-day detention at the Sde Teiman military facility, and said he was “starved, repeatedly beaten, and forced to sit on his knees for long periods.”
One woman who spoke to Amnesty on condition of anonymity said she was beaten, forced to remove her veil and “photographed without it,” and was forced to watch what she said was a mock execution of her husband.
Amnesty called on Israel to grant all detainees, including those suspected of being part of armed groups, access to lawyers and monitoring groups such as the International Committee for the Red Cross.
“This law blatantly fails to provide these safeguards,” said Amnesty’s Secretary General Agnès Callamard. “It enables rampant torture and, in some circumstances, institutionalizes enforced disappearance.”
Israel says it holds detainees lawfully, denies allegations of torture and says prisoners are granted their basic rights.
Lebanese militant group says one of its leaders was killed in an Israeli drone strike
BEIRUT — Israeli drone strikes early Thursday in Lebanon killed at least one person, who was identified as Mohammad Hamed Jabbara, one of the leaders of the militant Sunni al-Jamaa al-Islamiya, or Islamic Group.
In a statement, the political and militant group said Jabbara was killed in a strike in the western Bekaa area in Lebanon not far from the Syrian border. The group gave no further details but Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said the drone fired a rocket at him while he was driving a pickup truck.
The Israeli military described Jabara as a Hamas operative in Lebanon who helped coordinate Islamic Group attacks targeting northern Israel.
The armed wing of the Islamic Group, the Fajr Forces, has also attacked northern Israel alongside its allies, Hamas and the Lebanese group Hezbollah. Similarly to Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the group’s founded was inspired by the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Elsewhere in Lebanon, an Israeli drone struck a civilian vehicle in a village near the southern coastal city of Tyre. It’s unclear who was in the vehicle and whether they were killed or wounded.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strikes, though it has acknowledged in previous instances that its attacks have targeted Hezbollah militants and allies.
Hezbollah launched attacks against Israel after the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza on Oct. 7 with the Hamas attack on southern Israel.
Since then, Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon have killed over 450 people, mostly Hezbollah fighters but also more than 80 civilians and non-combatants. On the Israeli side, 21 soldiers and 13 civilians have been killed since the war in Gaza began.
Tens of thousands of people on both sides of the tense Lebanon-Israel frontier have been displaced in the monthslong war.
Israel extends law restricting foreign media on security grounds
JERUSALEM — Israel’s parliament extended a temporary law which allows the country to shut down foreign media outlets they consider a threat to Israel’s security. In a marathon session that lasted until early Thursday morning, the parliament gave final approval to extend the emergency law until Nov. 30.
Israeli officials used the new law on May 5 to close Qatar-based Al Jazeera within Israel, confiscating its equipment, banning its broadcasts and blocking its websites.
Under the law, Israel’s Communications Ministry also briefly seized AP broadcasting equipment from southern Israel after accusing it of violating a new media law by providing images to Al Jazeera. The government returned the equipment to AP several hours later.
A bill that would make the emergency legislation permanent is currently making its way through the Israeli parliament. The draft said a permanent bill is needed because Israel “has faced serious security threats since its establishment and is expected to continue to face them in the future, possibly even more severely.”
Critics say the measure passed earlier this year is undemocratic and a threat to press freedom.
Israeli strikes kill at least 11 people in central Gaza
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Overnight Israeli strikes Thursday in central Gaza killed at least 11 people, including women and children.
Early Thursday an Israeli strike hit a house in central Gaza, killing at least six people, while another strike later hit a car, killing at least three. The dead were taken to the Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where an Associated Press journalist counted the bodies.
Among the six killed in the early strike in Zawaida were two children and two women. The area struck is close to Deir al-Balah, where many Palestinians displaced from across the war-torn Gaza Strip have fled.
Meanwhile, Gaza’s Civil Defense organization said they pulled two dead bodies and seven wounded from the rubble following an Israeli airstrike in Bureij that hit a family house.
Israel’s military said it had targeted two commanders from the militant Palestinian group Islamic Jihad, one from the group’s naval forces and the other responsible for launches in the city of Shujaiya.
By The Associated Press
