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Oct. 10 (UPI) — Israeli forces in Gaza began pulling back to pre-agreed positions Friday in line with the terms of the cease-fire and hostage release agreement requiring a partial withdrawal within 24 hours of the Israeli cabinet signing off on the deal.

The Israel Defense Forces posted a video on X of troops preparing to pull out and military vehicles moving under the cover of darkness.

“Southern Command in the midst of adjusting operational positions in Gaza,” it said, but warned that troops were still deployed in the area and would counter any threats that emerged.

IDF Radio said the IDF projected that its forces would have withdrawn to the agreed positions by noon local time.

The BBC said troops had started to pull out from the north-western areas of Gaza City while local residents in other locations reported similar maneuvers.

However, Israeli armor remained in place in locations from which forces were due to withdraw under the first phase of the plan, including the coastal road and parts of Khan Yunis in the south where Israeli air strikes were reported overnight.

Artillery and gunfire were also heard near the Netzarim corridor in central Gaza.

The cease-fire was supposed to take effect immediately after being approved by the Israeli government in the early hours of Friday, local time.

The three-phase pullout mandates IDF troops permanently withdraw to a so-called “yellow line” in U.S. President Donald Trump‘s peace plan that will leave Israel in control of about 53% of the Palestinian enclave within 24 hours of Israeli government approval of the deal, which came just before 2 a.m.

For its part, Hamas is required to hand back 48 hostages, 20 of whom are believed to be living, by noon on Monday, while at the same time Israel will release 1,700 Palestinians held in its prisons.

Flows of humanitarian aid was also due to recommence with all restrictions lifted immediately.

U.S. officials said the Pentagon was redeploying a force of as many as 200 troops from other Middle East missions to Israel to lead a multinational force to monitor the truce.

They stressed their presence would be in a coordinating role only and that there would be no U.S. boots on the ground in Gaza.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it stood by ready to assist in the hostage-prisoner swap, including reuniting families with the remains of their loved ones, as it had done in previous deals over the past two years since the Oct. 7 attacks.

The NGO said in a news release that its teams were prepared to deliver and safely distribute lifesaving aid to those who needed it most in Gaza.

The United Nations said it was standing ready to get to work implementing a 60-day plan 60-day comprehensive plan to deliver critical aid, including hundreds of thousands tons of food, medicine and other supplies.

“Our plan, detailed and tested, is in place. Our supplies, 170,000 metric tons, are in place. And our team, courageous and expert and determined, are in place,” U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Tom Fletcher told a news conference in New York.

“We will aim to increase the pipeline of supplies to hundreds of trucks every day. We will scale up the provision of food across Gaza to reach 2.1 million people who need food aid and around 500,000 people who need nutrition.

Famine must be reversed in areas where it has taken hold and prevented in others. So we will be distributing in-kind rations. We’ll be supporting bakeries, community kitchens. We’ll be supporting herders and fishers in restoring their livelihoods,” said Fletcher, who also serves as the Office of Humanitarian Affairs’ emergency relief coordinator.

About 200,000 families would also receive cash payouts to use to shop at public markets to cover their basic food needs.

Meanwhile, Israel was preparing to welcome Trump, who was expected to travel to Jerusalem on Sunday to address the Knesset. Hostage families also want him to come and speak in Dizengoff Square in Tel Aviv, which has been unofficially dubbed “Hostage Square.”

Speaking in the Oval office on Thursday, Trump said that he hoped to be in Israel for when the hostages were released “on Monday or Tuesday.

However, Israeli media were reporting that Trump’s visit will be short, with the president scheduled to fly out of Israel again late Sunday.

July 26 (UPI) — Israel Defense Forces are taking new steps to improve the delivery of aid to Gazans, who the IDF says are not subject to famine despite contrary reports.

Aerial aid drops will resume and include seven pallets of flour, sugar and canned food, while pauses in fighting will enable the safe movement of U.N. convoys that contain food and medical supplies, the IDF announced Saturday in a post on X.

Israel also reconnected a power line from Israel to a desalination plant in Gaza that will increase daily water output to nearly 22,000 cubic yards.

“The IDF emphasizes that there is no starvation in Gaza,” the IDF post says. “This is a false campaign promoted by Hamas.”

The U.N. and international aid organizations are responsible for food distribution in Gaza and for ensuring Hamas does not receive any, which the IDF says commonly steals humanitarian aid for personal use and profit.

Hamas accused of attacking aid distribution sites

Hamas has targeted GHF aid distribution sites with deadly violence, including a July 16 incident that killed 19 Gazans at a Khan Younis site and a July 5 grenade attack that injured two U.S. aid workers, according to the non-partisan Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Such attacks occurred as Hamas struggles to raise funds and is incapable of rebuilding its collapsed tunnels or paying its fighters, former Israel Defense Forces intelligence officer Oded Ailam told The Washington Post on Monday.

Hamas did not prepare for more than a year of war when it attacked Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, 2023, and is struggling to provide basic services for Gazans, Gazan analyst Ibrahim Madhoun said.

Hamas previously depended on revenues from taxing commercial shipments and seizing humanitarian goods for funding by deploying plainclothes Hamas personnel to take inventory at crossings into Gaza and warehouses and markets, The Washington Post reported.

U.N. and European Commission officials and others from international organizations say there is no evidence of Hamas stealing aid.

Officials with the U.S. Agency for International Development said they found no evidence of Hamas stealing aid for Gazans, ABC News reported on Saturday.

USAID investigated 150 reported incidents of stolen aid from October 2024 until May and said the perpetrators could not be identified in most cases in which aid was seized.

An unnamed Gazan contractor, though, told The Washington Post that over the past two years he witnessed Hamas charge local merchants about $6,000 each to receive aid or lose their trucks and threatened to kill or condemn those who did not cooperate.

The contractor claims he knew at least two aid truck drivers who Hamas killed for refusing to pay the designated foreign terrorist organization to deliver aid intended for Gazans.

U.N. aid trucks halted inside Gaza

While claims of Hamas intercepting aid deliveries to raise funds are disputed, the United Nations says it has thousands of tons of aid sitting idle.

The United Nations recently halted 950 trucks inside Gaza that holding a combined total of 2,500 tons of food near the Kerem Shalom crossing, Johnnie More, Gaza Humanitarian Foundation executive chairman, opined in The Wall Street Journal on Friday.

“Since we began our operations in May, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has repeatedly called for the U.N. and its affiliate agencies to combine efforts with us to feed the people of Gaza,” Moore said.

“As of Friday morning, hundreds of trucks loaded with food from the United Nations and other humanitarian organizations were sitting idle inside Gaza,” he wrote.

“The food is there, the people are starving, and yet it isn’t moving to them fast enough to meet the need.”

Moore said video footage shows many of the trucks have been looted or abandoned, and their drivers are walking away.

Officials with the U.N. Relief and Works Agency blame the GHF for what UNRWA calls a “constructed and deliberate mass starvation.”

The GHF is incapable of addressing the “humanitarian crisis” in Gaza and called air drops the “most expensive and inefficient way to deliver aid” to Gazans, according to UNRWA.

The agency says it has the equivalent of 6,000 trucks of food and medical supplies “Stuck” in Egypt and Jordan.

The Nasser hospital in southern Gaza has said 24 people have been killed near an aid distribution site.

Palestinians who were present at the site said Israeli troops opened fire as people were trying to access food on Saturday.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said there were “no known injured individuals” from IDF fire near the site.

Separately, an Israeli military official said warning shots were fired to disperse people who the IDF believed were a threat.

The claims by both sides have not been independently verified. Israel does not allow international news organisations, including the BBC, into Gaza.

Footage seen by the BBC later on Saturday showed what appeared to be a number of body bags at Nasser hospital’s courtyard surrounded by nurses and people in blood-stained clothes.

In another video, a man said people were waiting to get aid when they came under targeted fire for five minutes. A paramedic accused Israeli troops of killing in cold blood.

The videos have not been verified by the BBC.

Reuters said it had spoken to witnesses who described people being shot in the head and torso. The news agency also reported seeing bodies wrapped in white shrouds at Nasser hospital.

There have been almost daily reports of people being killed by Israeli fire while seeking food in Gaza.

Israel imposed a total blockade of aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip in March, and later resumed its military offensive against Hamas, collapsing a two-month ceasefire. It said it wanted to put pressure on the Palestinian armed group to release Israeli hostages.

Although the blockade was partially eased in late May, amid warnings of a looming famine from global experts, there are still severe shortages of food, as well as medicine and fuel.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, says there are thousands of malnourished children across the territory, with more cases detected every day.

In addition to allowing in some UN aid lorries, Israel and the US set up a new aid distribution system run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), saying they wanted to prevent Hamas from stealing aid.

On Friday, the UN human rights office said that it had so far recorded 798 aid-related killings, including 615 in the vicinity of the GHF’s sites, which are operated by US private security contractors and located inside military zones in southern and central Gaza.

The other 183 killings were recorded near UN and other aid convoys.

The Israeli military said it recognised there had been incidents in which civilians had been harmed and that it was working to minimise “possible friction between the population and the [Israeli] forces as much as possible”.

The GHF accused the UN of using “false and misleading” statistics from Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Earlier this month, a former security contractor for the GHF told the BBC he witnessed colleagues opening fire several times on hungry Palestinians who had posed no threat. The GHF said the allegations were categorically false.

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas’ cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 57,823 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Another Glastonbury set has been pulled by the BBC after controversial comments after initially being broadcast live on Saturday afternoon

Bob Vylan became the latest to see their set removed from BBC after a controversial Glastonbury performance. The duo took to the stage at Worthy Farm prior to Irish trio Kneecap’s eagerly anticipated set.

But, like their Irish counterparts, Bob Vylan found themselves victims of the beeb’s cuts. It comes after complaints were made about their set, which was initially shown live on iPlayer. It has since been swiftly removed fans noticed.

One user on Twitter /X remarked: “They’ve already took Bob Vylan’s set off of the iPlayer do don’t expect to see Kneecap on there any time soon lmao.” It comes after another had said: “Someone better quick download that Bob Vylan set as there’s no way that’s staying on iplayer.”

A third had commented: “The BBC really thought they had it all covered by not live streaming Kneecaps set. Then comes along Bob Vylan.” Another jibed: “Noticed the BBC haven’t uploaded Kneecap and Bob Vylan’s sets to iPlayer yet. Something they said?”

During their set, Bob Vylan sparked chants of “death to the IDF”. The musician was streamed live on the BBC ahead of Kneecap’s highly anticipated performance. The duo also vented their support for Palestine as a large message appeared on the screen behind them. It read: “Free Palestine. United Nations have called it a genocide. The BBC calls it a ‘conflict’.”

Bobby then called out chants “Free Free Palestine” and “Death Death to the IDF,” [Israel Defence Forces], with the bumper crowd shouting it back. He then said: “From the river to the sea Palestine must be, will be, free.”

The duo also shared their support for Kneecap as they went on: “Recently a list was released of people trying to stop our mates Kneecap from performing here today.

“And who do I see on that f***ing list, but that bald-headed c*** I used to f***ing work for.” Speaking about a colleague at a record company he used to work at, his comments were met by loud boos from the crowd. And he continued to say: “We’re seeing some f***ed up things in the world.

“We’re seeing the UK and the US be complicit in war crimes and genocide happening over there to the Palestinian people. And I know we’re on the BBC, we’re not going to say anything crazy. Leave that for them lads, you know what I mean.

“But unfortunately we have seen a strange reaction to people that come out and voice support for Palestine. Even though anybody with any moral compass can surely see that what is happening over there in Gaza is a tragedy.”

Bobby added: “We are not pacifist punks here over at Bob Vylan Enterprises. We are the violent punks, because sometimes, you have to get your message across with violence because that is the only language some people speak.”

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