Israel

Arab Barghouti tells Al Jazeera Israel wants to ‘silence’ his father amid reports Israeli guards beat him last month.

The son of prominent Palestinian political leader Marwan Barghouti says he fears for his father’s life in Israeli prison amid witness reports that he was beaten by guards last month.

In an interview with Al Jazeera on Thursday, Arab Barghouti accused Israel of targeting his father because he is a unifying figure among Palestinians.

“We do fear for my father’s life,” Arab said from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

Earlier this week, the family told media outlets that they had received testimonies from Palestinian detainees released as part of the Gaza ceasefire deal that Barghouti was beaten by guards in mid-September as he was being transferred between two Israeli prisons.

Arab told Al Jazeera that the attack is the fourth time since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023 that his father has been assaulted in Israeli detention.

“They are targeting him,” said Arab, explaining that Israel sees his father as “a danger” because of his ability to bring Palestinians together.

A prominent member of Fatah, the Palestinian political faction that dominates the Palestinian Authority (PA), which governs limited parts of the occupied West Bank, Barghouti has been in Israeli prison since the early 2000s.

He is serving five life sentences plus 40 years on murder and attempted murder charges, which he has consistently denied.

A Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research poll from May found that Barghouti was the most popular Palestinian leader, garnering more support than Hamas official Khaled Meshaal and PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

Palestinians had called for Barghouti to be released as part of the recent Gaza ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, but Israel refused to free him.

As part of the deal, Israel released 250 Palestinians serving life sentences, several of whom were sent into exile abroad. About 1,700 Palestinians who were detained in Gaza and transferred to Israeli detention facilities during the Gaza war were also freed.

One of the released prisoners, Mohammad al-Ardah, told Al Jazeera Arabic that Israeli forces would carry out “barbaric” raids in the prisons each week, severely beating Palestinian detainees.

“The latest reports we heard about the great leader Marwan Barghouti is that they broke three of his ribs,” al-Ardah said.

The Israeli authorities have denied that Barghouti was beaten in September, with the Israel Prison Service telling BBC News that it “operates in accordance with the law, while ensuring the safety and health of all inmates”.

But Arab, Barghouti’s son, said the Israeli authorities have no credibility.

He also pointed to an August video that showed far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir threatening Barghouti in prison, as evidence that the Israeli government is trying to “silence” his father’s voice.

“We know that [Ben-Gvir] showed him an electric chair on his phone and he told him, ‘This is your fate’ … If that’s not a threat to his life, I don’t know what is,” Arab told Al Jazeera on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Barghouti’s son said the family has repeatedly asked Israel to allow international lawyers and the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit his father in prison, but their requests have been denied.

“They see him as a danger … because he wants to bring stability, he wants to end the cycle of violence. He wants a unifying Palestinian vision that is accepted by everyone, and the international community, as well,” Arab said.

“They [Israel] know what my father represents, and they don’t want that. They don’t want a partner for peace.”

While in Israeli detention, Palestinian photojournalist Shadi Abu Sido was told his wife and children had been killed in Gaza. But when he was released under the ceasefire deal, he discovered they were alive.

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Thursday warned Hamas “we will have no choice but to go in and kill them” if internal bloodshed persists in Gaza.

The grim warning from Trump came after he previously downplayed the internal violence in the territory since a ceasefire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas went into effect last week.

Trump said Tuesday that Hamas had taken out “a couple of gangs that were very bad” and had killed a number of gang members. “That didn’t bother me much, to be honest with you,” he said.

The president did not say how he would follow through on his threat posted on his Truth Social platform, and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment seeking clarity.

But Trump also made clear he had limited patience for the killings that Hamas was carrying out against rival factions inside the devastated territory.

“They will disarm, and if they don’t do so, we will disarm them, and it’ll happen quickly and perhaps violently,” Trump said.

The Hamas-run police maintained a high degree of public security after the militants seized power in Gaza 18 years ago while also cracking down on dissent. They largely melted away in recent months as Israeli forces seized large areas of Gaza and targeted Hamas security forces with airstrikes.

Powerful local families and armed gangs, including some anti-Hamas factions backed by Israel, stepped into the void. Many are accused of hijacking humanitarian aid and selling it for profit, contributing to Gaza’s starvation crisis.

The ceasefire plan introduced by Trump had called for all hostages — living and dead — to be handed over by a deadline that expired Monday. But under the deal, if that didn’t happen, Hamas was to share information about deceased hostages and try to hand them over as soon as possible.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel “will not compromise” and demanded that Hamas fulfill the requirements laid out in the ceasefire deal about the return of hostages’ bodies.

Hamas’ armed wing said in a statement Wednesday that the group honored the ceasefire’s terms and handed over the remains of the hostages it had access to.

The United States announced last week that it is sending about 200 troops to Israel to help support and monitor the ceasefire deal in Gaza as part of a team that includes partner nations and nongovernmental organizations. But U.S. officials have stressed that U.S. forces would not set foot in Gaza.

Israeli officials have also been angered by the pace of the return of the remains of dead hostages the militant group had been holding in captivity. Hamas had agreed to return 28 bodies as part of the ceasefire deal in addition to 20 living hostages, who were released earlier this week.

Hamas has assured the U.S. through intermediaries that it is working to return dead hostages, according to two senior U.S. advisors. The advisors, who were not authorized to comment publicly and briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity, said they do not believe Hamas has violated the deal.

Madhani writes for the Associated Press.

BREAKINGBREAKING,

Statement appears to signal about-face from US president, who previously backed Hamas’s crackdown on Gaza gangs.

United States President Donald Trump has threatened to break the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas if the Palestinian group continues to target gangs and alleged Israeli collaborators in Gaza.

“If Hamas continues to kill people in Gaza, which was not the Deal, we will have no choice but to go in and kill them,” Trump wrote in a social media post on Thursday. “Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

The statement appears to signal an about-face from Trump, who earlier this week expressed support for Hamas’s crackdown on gangs in the Palestinian territory.

“They did take out a couple of gangs that were very bad, very, very bad gangs,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday. “And they did take them out, and they killed a number of gang members. And that didn’t bother me much, to be honest with you. That’s OK.”

More to come…

Israel says Hamas is failing to meet commitments under Trump’s Gaza ceasefire plan, while Hamas says Israel’s destruction makes recovering captives’ bodies nearly impossible. With 11,000 Palestinians also still under rubble, Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh says tensions threaten the fragile truce.

Despite a ceasefire deal with Israel, Palestinians across the devastated Gaza Strip continue to go hungry as food supplies remain critically low and aid fails to reach those who need it most.

As per the ceasefire agreement, Israel was supposed to allow 600 humanitarian aid trucks into Gaza per day. However, Israel has since reduced the limit to 300 trucks per day, citing delays in retrieving bodies of Israeli captives buried under the rubble by Israeli attacks.

According to the UN2720 Monitoring and Tracking Dashboard, which monitors humanitarian aid being offloaded, collected, delivered and intercepted on its way into Gaza, from October 10-16, only 216 trucks have reached their intended destinations inside Gaza.

According to truck drivers, aid deliveries are facing significant delays, with Israeli inspections taking much longer than expected.

‘Palestinians want food’

While some food aid has trickled in over the past few days, medical equipment, therapeutic nutrition and medicines are still in extremely short supply, despite being desperately needed by the most impoverished, particularly malnourished children.

Reporting from Deir el-Balah, in central Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary said some commercial trucks have entered Gaza over the past few days, but most Palestinians do not have the ability to buy any of the items they are bringing in as they have spent all of their savings in the past two years.

So far, what has arrived in the trucks includes “wheat, rice, sugar, oil, fuel and cooking gas”, she said.

While food distribution points are expected to open for parcels and other humanitarian aid, people in Gaza have yet to receive them. “Palestinians want food, they want shelter, they want medicine,” Khoudary said.

She added that even 600 trucks a day would be insufficient to meet the needs of Gaza’s entire population.

Food ‘is not a bargaining chip’

The UN humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, has urged Israel to open more border crossings for humanitarian aid.

“We need more crossings open and a genuine, practical, problem-solving approach to removing remaining obstacles. Throughout this crisis, we have insisted that withholding aid from civilians is not a bargaining chip. Facilitation of aid is a legal obligation,” Fletcher said.

Since the ceasefire began, 137 World Food Programme trucks have entered Gaza as of October 14, delivering supplies to bakeries and supporting nutrition and food distribution programmes.

With the ceasefire in effect, WFP is now scaling up.

🔹137 trucks have already entered #Gaza — supporting bakeries, nutrition, and food distributions.

🔹170,000+ MT of food ready to move, enough to feed 2M people.

The goal: flood Gaza with food, fast. The ceasefire must hold. pic.twitter.com/AjKBu8rap7

— World Food Programme (@WFP) October 14, 2025

Israeli authorities continue to block UNRWA

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) – the primary and largest organisation providing aid to Palestinians – has faced significant restrictions imposed by Israel.

The agency, which was responsible for delivering food, medical care, education and emergency assistance, says it has enough food aid in warehouses in Jordan and Egypt to supply the people in Gaza for three months.

This includes food parcels for 1.1 million people and flour for 2.1 million, and shelter supplies sufficient for up to 1.3 million individuals.

However, despite the ceasefire, Israeli authorities are continuing to block them from entering.

UNRWA has enough food outside #Gaza to supply people there for three months, amid desperate need. Our teams stand ready to deliver it.

But despite the #ceasefire, the Israeli Authorities’ block on UNRWA bringing any supplies into Gaza still continues after over 7 months.

Let us… pic.twitter.com/O3fwK70d5V

— UNRWA (@UNRWA) October 16, 2025

Malnutrition among children

As of October 12, at least 463 people, including 157 children, have died from starvation amid Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip. Nearly one in four children suffers from severe acute malnutrition.

After prolonged starvation, food must be reintroduced carefully under medical supervision to avoid re-feeding syndrome, a potentially fatal condition in which sudden intake of nutrients causes dangerous shifts in electrolytes, affecting the heart, nerves and muscles. A larger supply of nutritional aid, given safely, could dramatically save lives.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 90 percent of children in Gaza less than two years of age consume fewer than two food groups each day, which doesn’t include protein-rich foods.

At least 290,000 children between the ages of six months and 5 years, and 150,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women require feeding and micronutrient supplies.

In addition to this, there are an estimated 132,000 cases of children less than the age of five, and 55,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women projected to be suffering from acute malnutrition by June 2026, if immediate food aid isn’t made available.

“They’re digging.” US President Donald Trump appeared to acknowledge Hamas’s struggle to recover Israeli captives’ bodies from beneath Gaza’s ruins. Israel says it will not move to the next phase of the Gaza peace plan until Hamas returns the remains of all 28 captives.

Health officials in Gaza say many of the 90 returned bodies bore marks of violence and possible executions.

Gaza’s Ministry of Health says it has received the remains of 45 Palestinians who were held in Israeli custody via the International Committee of the Red Cross, bringing the total number of bodies returned to 90 as part of a United States-brokered ceasefire deal.

Medical teams are continuing to examine, document and prepare the bodies for delivery to families “in line with approved medical procedures and protocols”, the Health Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

Under a ceasefire deal backed by US President Donald Trump and aimed at ending the two-year Gaza war, Israel was to turn over the bodies of 15 Palestinians for every deceased Israeli returned. The remains of 45 people were returned on Monday.

Palestinians awaited information about the bodies that arrived at Nasser Hospital on Tuesday and Wednesday. The forensics team described disturbing conditions, bearing signs of physical abuse.

Some of the Palestinian bodies were blindfolded and handcuffed, indicating “field executions” may have taken place, medical sources told Al Jazeera.

Israel is expected to hand over more bodies, though officials have not said how many are in its custody or how many will be returned. It remains unclear whether the bodies were dug up from cemeteries by the Israeli army during its ground offensive or if they belong to detainees who were killed during the Israeli assault. Throughout the war, Israel’s military has exhumed bodies as part of its search for the remains of captives.

As forensic teams examined the first remains returned, the Health Ministry on Wednesday released images of 32 unidentified bodies to help families recognise missing relatives.

Many appeared decomposed or burned. Some were missing limbs or teeth, while others were coated in sand and dust. Health officials have said Israeli restrictions on allowing DNA testing equipment into Gaza have often forced morgues to rely on physical features and clothing for identification.

The forensics team that received the bodies said some arrived still shackled or bearing signs of physical abuse.

“There are signs of torture and executions,” Sameh Hamad, a member of a commission tasked with receiving the bodies at Nasser Hospital, said.

The bodies belonged to men aged 25 to 70. Most had bands on their necks, including one who had a rope around his neck. Most of the bodies wore civilian clothing, but some were in uniforms, suggesting they were Palestinian fighters.

Hamad said the Red Cross provided names for only three of the dead, leaving many families uncertain of their relatives’ fate.

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed nearly 68,000 Palestinians since October 2023, according to the Health Ministry. Palestinian officials say the true toll could be far higher, with tens of thousands of bodies believed to be under the rubble.

Thousands more people are missing, according to the Red Cross and Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.

Rasmiya Qudeih, 52, waited outside Nasser Hospital, hoping her son would be among the 45 bodies transferred from Israel on Wednesday.

He vanished on October 7, 2023, the day of the Hamas-led attack. She was told he was killed by an Israeli strike.

“God willing, he will be with the bodies,” she said.

The Health Ministry released a video showing medical workers examining the bodies, saying the remains would be returned to families or buried if left unidentified.

Rights groups and a United Nations Commission of Inquiry have accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, and South Africa has filed a case alleging Israel committed genocide at the International Court of Justice. Israel denies the accusations.

Israel continues to restrict aid entering Gaza, saying Hamas has not met its end of deal to release all bodies of captives.

Oct. 15 (UPI) — Israel Defense Forces said Wednesday that one of the four bodies returned from Gaza in this week’s cease-fire deal did not belong to any of the hostages taken by Hamas.

The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it has completed the identification process and informed that the families of Uriel Baruch, Tamir Nimrodi and Eitan Levy that their remains have been returned to Israel.

“The government of Israel shares in the deep sorrow of the Baruch, Nimrodi and Levy families, and the families of the fallen hostages,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement.

The IDF said the fourth body has yet to be identified.

“Following the completion of examinations at the National Institute of Forensic Medicine, the fourth body handed over to Israel by Hamas does not match any of the hostages,” the IDF said, according to NBC News. Hamas has returned the bodies of seven hostages out of the 28 bodies believed to be held in Gaza.

Israel’s far-right security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, called for a halt on humanitarian aid into Gaza, accusing Hamas of not putting enough effort into recovering the remaining dead hostages, The Guardian reported. Hamas negotiators said nine of the bodies weren’t able to be recovered amid rubbling from bombing.

“Enough with the disgrace,” Ben Gvir said.

“Moments after opening the crossings to hundreds of trucks, Hamas very quickly returned to its known methods — to lie, to cheat, and to abuse families and the bodies. This Nazi terror understands only force, and the only way to deal with it is to erase it from the face of the earth.”

The Israel Defense Forces said Nimrodi, a member of the IDF, was taken alive at the age of 18 from the Coordination and Liaison Headquarters base in the Gaza Division, and is believed to have been killed at the beginning of the war.

Baruch, 35, a husband and father of two, was killed on Oct. 7, 2023. The IDF said he was fleeing the Nova music festival and his body was taken back into Gaza. The military had confirmed on March 26, 2024, that he had died.

Levy, 53, was also killed on Oct. 7, 2023, and his body was taken back into Gaza, the IDF said, adding that officials confirmed on Dec. 8, 2023, that he was dead. He leaves behind a son and a sister.

“The IDF shares in the families’ grief, continues to invest all efforts in returning the bodies of the fallen hostages and is preparing to continue implementing the agreement,” the military said.

Israel said Tuesday night that it had received the remains of four deceased hostages that Hamas had kidnapped during its surprise attack on Israel Oct. 7, 2023, that ignited the two-year-long war. A total 251 hostages were taken that day.

The bodies were returned as part of the first phase of a 20-point peace plan that began to be implemented Monday when Hamas released 20 living hostages to Israel and Israel released nearly 2,000 detainees into Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

No living hostages remain in Gaza following Monday’s exchange, though it is believed that the bodies of 20 deceased hostages remain in Gaza.

Israel had said Tuesday that the bodies of the four deceased hostages were transferred to the IDF via the Red Cross inside the Palestinian enclave and were transported into Israel where they were received in a military ceremony.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared in court to testify in his corruption trial, days after U.S. President Trump called for him to be pardoned. Protesters outside the court demanded the trial continue as a test of Israel’s democracy. Netanyahu denies all charges.

Handover comes as Trump says Hamas must disarm or be disarmed, ‘perhaps violently’.

United States President Donald Trump says his Gaza ceasefire deal will bring peace to the Middle East.

Some 20 world leaders, including Trump, signed the agreement at a special summit in Egypt on Monday.

The deal outlines the steps both Hamas and Israel must take to maintain the ceasefire and end the war in Gaza.

But it does not quite address the bigger question of what will happen in the Palestinian territory beyond the next few months.

What about Israel’s larger occupation? And the establishment of a viable Palestinian state?

How will Trump’s plan address these important issues?

Presenter: Nick Clark

Guests:

Ori Goldberg – political commentator

Phyllis Bennis – fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies

Muhammad Shehada – visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Tuesday posthumously awarded America’s highest civilian honor to Charlie Kirk, the slain activist who inspired a generation of young conservatives and helped push the nation’s politics further to the right.

The ceremony coincided with what would have been Kirk’s 32nd birthday. It came just over a month after the Turning Point USA founder was fatally shot while speaking to a crowd at Utah Valley University.

In a sign of Kirk’s close ties to the administration, he was the first recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in Trump’s second term. The president also spoke at at Kirk’s funeral in September, calling him a “great American hero” and “martyr” for freedom, while Vice President JD Vance accompanied his body home to Arizona on Air Force Two along with Kirk’s widow, Erika.

“We’re here to honor and remember a fearless warrior for liberty, beloved leader who galvanized the next generation like nobody I’ve ever seen before, and an American patriot of the deepest conviction, the finest quality and the highest caliber,” Trump said Tuesday afternoon.

Of Kirk’s killing, Trump said: “He was assassinated in the prime of his life for boldly speaking the truth, for living his faith and relentless fighting for a better and stronger America.”

The Presidential Medal of Freedom was established by President Kennedy in 1963 for individuals making exceptional contributions to the country’s security or national interests or to world peace, or being responsible for significant cultural endeavors or public and private initiatives.

Tuesday’s event followed Trump returning to the U.S. in the predawn hours after a whirlwind trip to Israel and Egypt to celebrate a ceasefire agreement in Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza that his administration was instrumental in brokering.

Trump joked that he almost requested to move the ceremony because of the trip.

“I raced back halfway around the globe,” Trump said. “I was going to call Erika and say, ‘Erika, could you maybe move it to Friday? And I didn’t have the courage to call. But you know why I didn’t call? Because I heard today was Charlie’s birthday.”

Argentine President Javier Milei, who had been visiting with the president at the White House earlier, stayed to attend the ceremony.

Trump has awarded a string of presidential medals going back to his first term, including to golf legend Tiger Woods, ex-football coach Lou Holtz and conservative economist Arthur Laffer, as well as to New York Yankees Hall of Fame pitcher Mariano Rivera and conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, the latter of which came during the 2020 State of the Union. He awarded posthumous medals to Babe Ruth and Elvis.

This term, Trump has also announced his intentions to award the medals to Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and a close former advisor, and to Ben Carson, who served as Trump’s first-term secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

Kirk founded Turning Point USA in 2012. Trump has praised Kirk as one of the key reasons he was reelected.

But Kirk’s politics were also often divisive. He sharply criticized gay and transgender rights while inflaming racial tensions. Kirk also repeated Trump’s false claims that former Vice President Kamala Harris was responsible for policies that encouraged immigrants to come to the U.S. illegally and called George Floyd, a Black man whose killing by a Minneapolis police officer sparked a national debate over racial injustice, a “scumbag.”

Trump wrote in a social media post hours before the event that he was moving the ceremony from the White House’s East Room to the Rose Garden to accommodate a crowd he said would be “so big and enthusiastic.”

Weissert writes for the Associated Press.

President Donald Trump said that Hamas “is going to disarm” but if they don’t the US would act to disarm them “quickly and perhaps violently.” Trump declined to elaborate or to explain how the group would disarm a day after the Gaza peace deal was signed.

Israel has imposed new restrictions on aid entering the besieged Gaza Strip and will not open the Rafah crossing as planned, while Israeli forces killed several people in the Palesitinian territory as the Israel-Hamas ceasefire came under growing strain.

Israel notified the United Nations on Tuesday that it will only allow 300 aid trucks – half of the number it originally agreed to – daily into the Gaza Strip from Wednesday.

Olga Cherevko, a spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Gaza, confirmed the UN had received the note from the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the arm of the Israeli military that oversees aid flows into Gaza.

The COGAT note said no fuel or gas will be allowed into the war-torn enclave except for specific needs related to humanitarian infrastructure.

Reporting from Gaza City, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud noted that allowing 300 trucks of aid each day was “not nearly enough” for famine-stricken Gaza.

“Three hundred is not enough. It’s not going to change anything,” he said.

Israeli authorities also announced the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt will remain closed.

The restrictions came hours after Israeli forces killed at least nine Palestinians in attacks in northern and southern Gaza, medical sources told Al Jazeera.

At least six Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in Gaza City, and three others were killed in Khan Younis.

Sources from al-Ahli Arab Hospital told Al Jazeera Arabic on Tuesday that Israeli soldiers killed five Palestinians in the Shujayea neighbourhood of Gaza City.

The Israeli military said it opened fire to remove a threat posed by people who approached its forces in northern Gaza.

The attacks come four days after a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect, preparing the way for an exchange of captives and partial Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

The ceasefire is the first phase of US President Donald Trump’s proposal for ending Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed at least 67,913 people and wounded 170,134 since October 2023, according to Palestinian health authorities. The remains of thousands of other people are estimated to be under the rubble in Gaza.

At least 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, and more than 200 others were taken captive.

Under the terms of the ceasefire, Hamas and Israel carried out an exchange on Monday that saw the release of nearly 2,000 Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli jails and 20 Israeli captives held in the Gaza Strip. Some 154 prisoners were exiled to Egypt.

Hamas was also due to return the remains of 24 dead captives on Monday, but the group only handed over four coffins.

Trump’s ceasefire plan provided a mechanism if that handover didn’t happen, saying Hamas should share information about deceased captives and “exert maximum effort” to carry out the handover as soon as possible.

Hamas said that it would transfer the remains of four more deceased Israeli captives on Tuesday, and the Israeli military said that the Red Cross had received the bodies.

The Israeli military accused Hamas of violating the ceasefire “regarding the release of the bodies of the hostages”.

Trump noted the delay in handing over the remains of the deceased captives in a post on his Truth Social platform.

“THE DEAD HAVE NOT BEEN RETURNED, AS PROMISED! Phase Two begins right NOW!!!” he wrote.

Hamas has previously said recovering the bodies of some captives could take more time because not all sites where they were held are known, and because of the vast Israeli destruction of the enclave.

“The headline here is, Israel is already starting to put threats of restricting aid going into Gaza for what they say is the slow work by Hamas to get the bodies of the deceased captives back to Israel,” Al Jazeera’s Gabriel Elizondo said, reporting from the UN.

@ajplus

Israel unilaterally broke the last ceasefire in Gaza. AJ+ spoke to journalist and analyst Omar Rahman about what might make this deal different. #Gaza #Ceasefire #Israel #PeaceDeal #Palestine

♬ news, documentary, serious, depressing : L(1488971) – 8.864

UN urges more aid deliveries

The UN and the International Red Cross called for all crossings into Gaza to be opened to allow desperately needed aid into the enclave. The UN had 190,000 metric tonnes of aid waiting and ready to go into Gaza, OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke said on Tuesday.

UNICEF spokesman Ricardo Pires, meanwhile, said the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) had 1,370 trucks ready to enter Gaza.

“The level of destruction, again, is so huge that it will take at least 600 trucks a day, which is the aim that we have,” he said. “We’re far from that.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) also stressed the need to send more aid into Gaza.

“We need to scale up the delivery of medical supplies because the pressure on hospitals is not going to ease overnight,” WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told reporters.

“We need really to bring as many supplies as we can right now to make sure that those health workers who are still providing healthcare have what they need.”

The Indonesia government said last week it will not grant visas to Israeli gymnasts for the World Championships.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport has rejected appeals by the Israel Gymnastics Federation to be allowed to compete at a world championships in Indonesia this weekend.

The CAS also turned down Israel’s request to force the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) to guarantee Israel’s participation, or alternatively cancel or move the artistic worlds, set to start on Sunday in Jakarta.

The Indonesian government last week said it will not grant visas to Israeli gymnasts, and the Swiss-based CAS said on Tuesday that FIG stated it has no control over Indonesia’s visa policies.

In its reaction to Indonesia’s move, the FIG did not threaten to take the event away from Indonesia as stipulated in its statutes for cases where the host refuses to issue visas. Israel wanted the FIG “taking note” of the government statement to be annulled, but CAS also rejected that on Tuesday.

Indonesia’s decision to deny visas came after Israel’s planned participation sparked intense opposition in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, which has long been a staunch supporter of Palestinians.

Israel is among 86 countries registered to compete at the worlds, with a team featuring 2021 Olympic gold medallist and defending world champion Artem Dolgopyat in the men’s floor exercise.

Now its participation is in doubt, even though the Israeli federation said in July that it had been assured by Indonesian officials that it would be welcome at the worlds. That would have gone against Indonesia’s longstanding policy of refusing to host Israeli sport delegations for major events.

The gymnastics spat is the latest example of how the global backlash against Israel over the humanitarian toll of the war in Gaza has spread into the arenas of sport and culture.

Donald Trump says there is peace in the Middle East, after signing the Gaza ceasefire deal. But when asked about a two-state solution, Trump suggested he hadn’t focused on long-term solutions to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Analysts say there will be no lasting peace in the Middle East, without a Palestinian state.

The October 13, 2023, attack in southern Lebanon killed a Reuters journalist and wounded six other reporters.

The NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged Lebanon to continue its pursuit of justice over a deadly Israeli strike two years ago that killed a Reuters journalist and wounded six other reporters.

The rights group said in a statement on Monday that it welcomed a move by Lebanon’s Ministry of Justice to investigate legal options to press charges against Israel for crimes against journalists.

Reporters Without Borders also welcomed that “Lebanon is finally taking action” as Israel is accused of targeting a large number of journalists during its military aggression in Gaza and Lebanon.

Issam Abdallah, a videographer for the Reuters news agency, was killed in the October 13, 2023, attack by an Israeli tank on southern Lebanon near the Israeli border. Two Al Jazeera reporters were among those injured.

HRW said Lebanon’s announcement last week that it was looking at legal options to pursue the matter presented a “fresh opportunity to achieve justice for the victims”.

Ramzi Kaiss, the NGO’s Lebanon researcher, said the country’s action to hold Israel accountable is overdue.

“Israel’s apparently deliberate killing of Issam Abdallah should have served as a crystal clear message for Lebanon’s government that impunity for war crimes begets more war crimes,” he said.

“Since Issam’s killing, scores of other civilians in Lebanon have been killed in apparently deliberate or indiscriminate attacks that violate the laws of war and amount to war crimes,” Kaiss asserted.

‘War crime’

The October 2023 attack wounded Al Jazeera cameraman Elie Brakhia and reporter Carmen Joukhadar, Reuters journalists Thaer Al-Sudani and Maher Nazeh, and the AFP news agency’s Christina Assi and Dylan Collins.

Assi was seriously wounded and had to have her right leg amputated.

HRW said an investigation by the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) had found that an Israeli Merkava tank had fired two 120mm rounds at the group of clearly identifiable journalists.

The journalists were removed from the hostilities and had been stationary for more than an hour when they came under fire, the report said. No exchange of fire had been recorded across the border for more than 40 minutes before the attack.

The NGO said it had found no evidence of a military target near the journalists’ location and, because the incident appeared to be a deliberate attack on civilians, it constituted a war crime.

‘Premeditated, targeted attack’

Morris Tidball-Binz, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said on Friday that the attack was “a premeditated, targeted and double-tapped attack from the Israeli forces, a clear violation, in my opinion, of [international humanitarian law], a war crime”.

Reporters Without Borders urged Beirut to refer the case to the International Criminal Court, saying on Friday: “Lebanon is finally taking action against impunity for the crime.”

In February, the Committee to Protect Journalists said a record 124 journalists had been killed in 2024 and Israel was responsible for more than two-thirds of those deaths.

AN Israeli couple whose abduction by Hamas became one of the most haunting symbols of the October 7 massacre have finally been reunited.

Noa Argamani, 27, and her boyfriend Avinatan Or, 32, were seized from the Nova music festival in southern Israel in 2023.

6

6

Images of Noa screaming as she was dragged into Gaza on the back of a motorbike while reaching for Avinatan became one of the defining moments of the horror attack.

But this week, they were back in each other’s arms.

Video from the Re’im reception site shows Avinatan walking into a room and immediately embracing Noa, the pair clinging to each other after a harrowing 738 days apart.

The IDF shared a photo of him kissing her cheek as she smiled – a stark contrast to the terror captured in 2023.

Avinatan was among 20 hostages freed on Monday as part of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas brokered by US president Donald Trump.

Noa was rescued by Israeli forces in June 2024 after 245 days in captivity.

Their reunion comes with a dramatic revelation: Avinatan is a member of Sayeret Matkal, Israel’s elite special forces unit modelled on the British SAS.

His identity had been kept secret throughout his captivity amid fears Hamas would retaliate if they learned who he was.

Reports in Israeli media say Avinatan was held in isolation for more than two years, never encountering other hostages.

Medical examinations show he lost between 30 and 40 per cent of his body weight after prolonged starvation in captivity.

After his release, he reportedly asked to spend time alone with Noa – and the two shared what they called their “first cigarette together after two years.”

Noa described the horror of their abduction in a speech in Washington last week, days before Avinatan’s release.

“Avinatan and I came to the Nova music festival just to celebrate our life,” she said.

“We found ourselves in the darkest tunnels of Gaza. I cannot even begin to describe those terrible pictures.”

She said she searched for information about him throughout her captivity.

“I asked about Avinatan everywhere I went,” she recalled.

“I didn’t know if he was murdered or kidnapped, and I was afraid to know the answer.”

Noa, a Chinese-born Israeli citizen, has campaigned for the release of hostages since her rescue.

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When news broke that Avinatan was among those to be freed, she scrambled onto eight separate flights to return from Washington in time for his release.

Adding to the extraordinary turn of events, Avinatan’s employer revealed that his shares in NVIDIA had quadrupled while he was in captivity.

The company’s stock rose from $45.76 at the time of his abduction to $188.32 today.

Their reunion was one of several deeply emotional scenes on Monday as the 20 remaining living hostages were returned to Israel after more than two years underground.

Families who had campaigned for their return wept and embraced loved ones, some of whom appeared dramatically thinner and frailer than when they were taken.

Brothers David and Ariel Cunio were reunited with their partners Sharon and Arbel, while Omri Miran embraced his daughters – one of whom was just six months old when he was kidnapped.

“I’m on cloud nine,” said Omri’s father Danny.

“One moment I’m crying, the next I’m laughing.”

The hostage release follows a Trump-brokered ceasefire deal aimed at ending the two-year war in Gaza, which has killed tens of thousands and caused a humanitarian crisis.

It also paves the way for future stages including the disarmament of Hamas and the formation of a transitional government.

“After so many years of unceasing war and endless danger, today the skies are calm, the guns are silent and the sirens are still,” Trump said in a speech at the Knesset.

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