The fragile ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas has been marred by violence, with at least 115 people killed in Gaza, including 28 children and 31 women, and over 265 injured, according to Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for Gaza’s Civil Defense agency.

The hours surrounding the ceasefire deal were deemed “the bloodiest day in the past week” for Gaza, Basal noted, per NBC. Despite the ceasefire announcement, Israel continued bombing Gaza, killing Palestinian civilians and sparking widespread condemnation.

The United Nations’ Human Rights Council denounced the strikes, saying “we are dismayed that shortly after the deal was announced, Israel continued bombing Gaza indiscriminately, killing Palestinian civilians despite expectations of calm until the ceasefire takes effect”.

The council urged all parties to accept the Gaza ceasefire deal to end “15 months of immense and terrible suffering in Gaza.” The Israeli government’s vote on the deal, held on Friday, will determine the fate of the ceasefire, with the possibility of it taking effect as early as Sunday.

However, the situation remains dire, the Israel Defense Forces said on Thursday that they carried out strikes on approximately 50 targets across the Gaza Strip, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists, military compounds, and weapons storage facilities, “over the last day”.

The 15-month offensive in Gaza has resulted in the deaths of over 46,500 people, including thousands of children, according to local health officials. The international community, including the UN Secretary-General, has welcomed the ceasefire deal as a “critical first step” towards ending the conflict.

As the situation in Gaza continues to unfold, the world watches with bated breath, hoping for a lasting peace. The ceasefire deal, brokered by Egypt, Qatar, and the US, outlines a six-week initial ceasefire phase, including the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the release of hostages held by Hamas.

However, the road to peace is long and arduous, with deep-seated historical roots that need to be addressed.

On Thursday, in a video captured by NBC News, the bodies of four young children lay lifeless on the ground, shrouded alongside the corpses of other victims at Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital. Witnesses said they were killed in the string of airstrikes launched by the IAF.

“They were sleeping happily with the news of the truce,” one man told the crew. Then “the Israeli airplanes shelled us.”

Brussels:

High-ranking European Union (EU) officials welcomed a ceasefire agreement in Gaza and called on both parties to fully implement the deal.

“This brings hope to the entire region, where people have endured immense suffering for far too long,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on her X account, Xinhua news agency reported.

“Both parties must fully implement this agreement, as a stepping stone toward lasting stability in the region and a diplomatic resolution of the conflict, “she added.

“This is a major, positive breakthrough towards ending the violence,” noted Kaja Kallas, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, also on X.

Qatar announced Wednesday evening that Israel and Hamas have agreed to a ceasefire-for-hostages deal in Gaza. According to the agreement, Hamas will release 33 hostages in the first phase, spanning six weeks, in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners. Implementation of the agreement will begin on Sunday, Jan. 19. The details of the second and third phases will be announced after the completion of the first phase of the agreement.

Israel and Hamas have agreed a deal which could halt the war in Gaza and see the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, the US and mediators Qatar have said.

It would be the most dramatic breakthrough in 15 months of war, which began when the armed Palestinian group Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there were still several unresolved clauses, which he hoped would be finalised on Wednesday evening.

A completed deal would see the war in Gaza stop and an exchange of hostages and prisoners.

Hamas seized 251 hostages when it attacked Israel in October 2023. It is still holding 94 captive, although Israel believes that only 60 are still alive.

Israel is expected to release about 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, some jailed for years, in return for the hostages.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Syrian children play next to a destroyed residential building at Hanano neighbourhood in the city of Aleppo, Syria.
| Photo Credit: AP

Top diplomats from the United States, the Arab League and Turkey met in Jordan on Saturday to discuss how to assist Syria ’s transition after the fall of Bashar Assad’s government a week ago. No Syrian representatives attended.

The collapse of the Assad family’s more than half-century of rule has sparked new fears of instability in a region already shaken by the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and hostilities between Israel and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah despite a tenuous ceasefire.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said American officials have been in direct contact with the Syrian insurgent group that led the overthrow of Assad’s government, but the group continues to be designated a foreign terrorist organization by the United States and others.

The insurgent leader in an interview with Syrian TV didn’t mention contact with the U.S., but he warned Israel about the hundreds of airstrikes it has carried out in Syria in the past week.

The U.S. is also making a renewed push for a ceasefire in Gaza, where the war has plunged more than 2 million Palestinians into a severe humanitarian crisis.

Gunmen attacks Syrian insurgent group members

A Syrian war monitor and a citizen journalist say gunmen attacked members of a Syrian insurgent group in the country’s coastal region, killing or wounding 15 of them Saturday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said loyalists to former President Bashar Assad killed and wounded members of the Failaq al-Sham group, which took part in the attacks that led to the overthrow of Assad a week ago.

The coastal region is home to many members of Assad’s minority Alawite sect.

Citizen journalist Taher al-Omar said Failaq al-Sham members were ambushed near the town of Jableh by “sectarian gunmen.” He said several were killed, without giving details.

Hezbollah leader says main supply line via Syria has been cut

The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah militants says the fall of Bashar Assad in Syria has cut a main supply line for the group but it can find other ways to bring in weapons.

Hezbollah was a main backer of Assad and sent thousands of fighters to Syria over the past decade. And for decades, Hezbollah relied on Syria as a channel for weapons from the militant group’s main backer, Iran.

In his first public comments in the week since Assad’s fall, Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem in a televised speech on Saturday said Hezbollah has lost the military supply line through Syria but the new authority there might reinstate the route. Otherwise, he said, “we might find other ways.”

Kassem also said Hezbollah hopes the new authority in Syria will consider Israel an enemy.

U.S. officials have been in direct contact with the Syrian rebel group that ousted Assad, Blinken says

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says American officials have been in direct contact with the Syrian rebel group that led the overthrow of President Bashar Assad’s government a week ago, but the group continues to be designated a foreign terrorist organization by the United States and others.

Blinken is the first U.S. official to publicly confirm contacts between the Biden administration and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, which ousted Assad. Speaking at a news conference in Jordan, Blinken would not discuss details of the contacts but said it was important for the U.S. to convey messages to the group about its conduct and how it intends to govern in a transition period.

Turkey reopens its embassy in Syria

Turkey reopened its embassy in Syria on Saturday, becoming the first country to do so since the end of Bashar Assad’s rule last weekend. The Syrian insurgents who overthrew Assad had received vital help from Turkey.

The Turkish flag was raised above the compound in Damascus for the first time since diplomatic ties were cut in 2012. The embassy suspended operations 12 years ago due to insecurity during the Syrian civil war.

Several countries maintained diplomatic ties with Assad’s government during the 13-year conflict, while others reopened their diplomatic missions in recent years as they sought to normalize relations.

Palestine Red Crescent Society evacuates casualties, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in the central Gaza Strip, June 16, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Armenia announced on June 21 its recognition of the State of Palestine, the latest country to do so during the war in Gaza, the Armenian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“Armenia supports a U.N. resolution on an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and is in favour of a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,” the same statement said.

Also read | 145 countries now recognise a Palestinian state

“Based on the above and confirming its commitment to international law, equality of nations, sovereignty and peaceful coexistence, the Republic of Armenia recognises the State of Palestine,” Yerevan said.

Israel’s war in Gaza since the October 7 attack has revived a global push for Palestinians to be given a state of their own.

The other countries who recognised a state of Palestine are Norway, Spain and Ireland, breaking with the long-held view of Western powers that Palestinians can only gain statehood as part of a negotiated peace with Israel.

(With inputs from agencies)

Palestinians inspect the ruins of a residential building for the Abu Muammar family after an Israeli airstrike in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, March 29, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Talks aimed at brokering a truce between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip will resume in Cairo on March 31, Egyptian outlet Al-Qahera reported, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave the green light for fresh negotiations.

“An Egyptian security source confirmed to Al-Qahera News the resumption of negotiations on a truce between Israel and Hamas in the Egyptian capital Cairo tomorrow,” an anchor for the channel, which is close to the country’s intelligence services, said in a broadcast on Saturday.

Egypt, Qatar and key Israeli ally the United States have mediated previous rounds of negotiations, but a workable agreement has remained elusive. The mediators had hoped to secure a ceasefire before the start of Ramadan, but progress stalled and the Muslim holy month is more than half over.

On March 29, Mr. Netanyahu approved a new round of ceasefire negotiations to take place in Doha and Cairo. His office said the Israeli premier had spoken to Mossad chief David Barnea about the talks, but did not elaborate on whether Mr. Barnea would be travelling to either city.

Reports of the new talks in Cairo came as protesters in Israel’s biggest city blocked a major road on March 30 following demonstrations calling for the release of hostages held in Gaza and criticising the government’s handling of the war. Militants seized about 250 hostages during the October 7 attacks on Israel that sparked the war. Of those, Israel believes 130 remain in Gaza, including 33 who are presumed dead.

A key element of the ceasefire negotiations has been an agreement on releasing the hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.

France’s top diplomat was also in Cairo on March 30 for meetings with his Egyptian and Jordanian counterparts, with all three calling for an “immediate and permanent ceasefire” in Gaza and the release of all the hostages.

French foreign minister Stephane Sejourne also said his government would put forward a draft resolution at the UN Security Council setting out a “political” settlement of the war that would include “all the criteria for a two-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

On March 25, the Security Council adopted a resolution demanding an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza, and a UN court ordered Israel on Thursday to “ensure urgent humanitarian assistance” reaches civilians there, though neither development appears to have changed the situation on the ground.

Also read: Stop the war: On the U.N. Security Council’s call for a Gaza ceasefire 

Hamas’s October 7 attacks resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures. Israel’s retaliatory campaign against Hamas in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 32,705 people, most of them women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

Some of Latin America’s largest countries came out on Wednesday to condemn Israel’s attacks on a densely populated refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, widening the diplomatic rift between the region and the Middle Eastern country.

Argentina, home to Latin America’s largest Jewish community, Peru and Mexico lambasted the Israeli attacks, which the Gaza government in the Hamas-controlled territory said had killed nearly 200 people.

The criticisms come a day after Bolivia cut diplomatic ties with Israel over its bombardment and siege of Gaza and mounting civilian casualties, while Colombia and Chile recalled their ambassadors to the country.

-Reuters

Northern Ireland may be thousands of miles from the Middle East but signs of the current heightened conflict can be seen on the streets of the British province.

Palestinian and Israeli flags flutter in pro-Irish and pro-U.K. neighbourhoods in Northern Ireland, tapping into its own history of conflict and division that still affects everyday life despite a 1998 peace deal that largely ended violence.

The growing number of flags displayed are supplemented by murals and graffiti showing support for either the Palestinians or Israel, depending on which side of Northern Ireland’s sectarian divide they are located.

On the Falls Road, a main artery in the mostly pro-Irish western districts of Belfast, Pat Sheehan, a lawmaker with Sinn Fein, the former political wing of the paramilitary IRA, explained that local people feel “empathy” for Palestinians.

“If there’s any nation that can understand the difficulties that the Palestinians are living under now it’s the Irish,” Sheehan told AFP in front of a freshly painted pro-Palestinian mural.

“Ireland has suffered colonialism and occupation for 800 years, there have been many armed uprisings against British rule, and we see Palestinians suffering under similar colonial occupation.”

Nearby, across a so-called peace line — one of many barriers of concrete and metal that still divide Belfast neighbourhoods 25 years after the Good Friday peace accords — Israeli flags now adorn the pro-UK Shankill Road area in response.

“The unionist community in Northern Ireland has a long-standing affinity and affiliation to the cause of Israel,” said Brian Kingston, a lawmaker with the largest pro-UK party, the Democratic Unionist Party.

“We see Israel as having suffered terribly from terrorism over the years just like we have,” said the bespectacled 57-year-old, who previously performed the largely ceremonial role of Lord Mayor of Belfast.

– AFP