Cease-fire talks are expected to resume Sunday in Cairo, with negotiators pushing for a pause in fighting of at least six weeks to free the remaining hostages in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israel and increased aid deliveries to Gaza.
In a statement marking six months since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack and Israel’s ensuing military campaign in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated Israel’s stance that there can be “no cease-fire without the return of the hostages” and blamed Hamas for the lack of progress in negotiations.
“Hamas hopes that external and internal pressure will cause Israel to capitulate to these extreme demands,” he added.
On Saturday night, thousands of Israelis took to the streets once again in demonstrations against Netanyahu’s far-right government, demanding fresh elections and for the government to negotiate the immediate release of hostages remaining in Gaza. Those demands could become the greatest threat to Netanyahu, The Post reported late last month, when tens of thousands of people protested over several nights.
Netanyahu is also facing pressure from allies, including the United States, over Israel’s punishing military campaign in Gaza. President Biden said last week that the United States would reassess its policy on the war in Gaza if Israel does not take immediate steps to address the humanitarian situation and protect aid workers.
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The Israel Defense Forces said Sunday it had withdrawn all but one brigade of its ground troops in Khan Younis, the largest city in southern Gaza. The IDF said its 98th commando division, which consists of special ground forces, had “concluded its mission” in the city and left Gaza “to recuperate and prepare for future operations.” Israel’s Nahal brigade, made up of ground troops, “continues to operate” in the enclave, the IDF said.
Officials around the world marked the war’s grim anniversary. U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said that while the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas was a day of “horror,” Israel’s war in Gaza had “brought relentless death & destruction.” UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinians, tweeted on Sunday that the conflict had brought six months “of never-ending displacement,” estimating that about 1.7 million people have been forced to flee their homes. The World Health Organization said that six months of war had led to the “destruction” of Gaza’s al-Shifa and Nasser hospitals, which “has broken the backbone of the already ailing health system.”
Britain will send a Royal Navy ship to boost aid to Gaza through an international maritime corridor and an upcoming U.S.-led temporary pier, the Foreign Office said in a statement. “Gazans are facing a devastating humanitarian crisis and there needs to be a significant increase in the volume of vital supplies entering the territory by all routes,” the statement said.
Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza is “an empty shell with human graves” and “completely nonfunctional,” the WHO said, after its team visited the facility following a two-week siege by Israel, which said its troops battled Hamas militants and recovered weapons at the complex. Inside the compound, “many dead bodies were partially buried with their limbs visible,” the WHO said, adding that patients were held in “abysmal conditions during the siege.”
The Israeli military said it recovered the body of an Israeli hostage, Elad Katzir, from Khan Younis in Gaza. Katzir, who was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz in Israel on Oct. 7, was killed in captivity, the IDF said Saturday. Katzir had been filmed alive twice in captivity, and his mother was released in November during a pause in fighting. Responding to the news of his death, his sister, Karmit Palti Katzir, accused the Israeli leadership of “abandoning” him and the remaining hostages in Gaza in a social media post. “It was possible to save him if a deal would’ve happened on time,” she wrote.
World Central Kitchen demanded that an independent commission investigate the killing of seven of its aid workers in IDF airstrikes in Gaza. Earlier, the Israeli military dismissed two officers, reprimanded three commanders and apologized for the incident, after which WCK suspended its operations in Gaza.
At least 33,175 people have been killed and 75,886 injured in Gaza since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants and says the majority of the dead are women and children. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers, and says 260 soldiers have been killed since the start of its military operation in Gaza
