Israel | DD News

July 18, 2024 2:09 PM

US military ends Gaza floating pier mission to bring aid to Palestinians by sea

The U.S. military announced on Wednesday that its mission to install and operate a temporary, floating pier off the coast of Gaza was complete, formally ending an extraordinary but troubled effort to bring humanitarian aid to Palestinians. The pier, announced by President Joe Biden during a televised address to Congress in March, was a massive endeavor that took about 1,000 U.S. forces to execute. Aid began flowing via the pier to Gaza in May, an operation aimed at helping avert famine after mo...

July 16, 2024 1:07 PM

Israel launches new Gaza strikes after weekend attack kills scores in safe zone

Israel struck the southern and central Gaza Strip on Monday to put more pressure on Hamas, following a weekend strike targeting the militant group's leadership, which killed scores of Palestinians who had sought shelter in a makeshift camp. Two days after the Israeli strike turned a crowded swathe of Mawasi near the Mediterranean coast into a charred wasteland littered with burning cars and mangled bodies, displaced survivors said they had no idea where they should go next. "Those moments as t...

July 11, 2024 5:21 PM

Bodies trapped in Gaza City under Israeli assault as mediators push for truce

Residents of Gaza City were trapped in houses and bodies lay uncollected in the streets under an intense new Israeli assault on Thursday, even as Washington pushed for a peace deal at talks in Egypt and Qatar. Hamas militants say a heavy Israeli assault on Gaza City this week could wreck efforts to finally end the war just as negotiations have entered the home stretch. Home to more than a quarter of Gaza's residents before the war, Gaza City was destroyed during the firs...

July 11, 2024 4:08 PM

How much has U.S.-built Gaza aid pier helped get aid into Gaza?

A U.S.-built pier designed to increase flows of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip has been beset by challenges and is now expected to be permanently dismantled. U.S. officials have said they will attempt to reinstall the pier to clear a backlog of Gaza-bound aid in Cyprus, and that it is then likely to be permanently dismantled. Aid workers and others have long questioned the project, saying delivering aid by land is the only effective way to get supplies at scale into Gaza, where Israeli f...

July 10, 2024 5:54 PM

Israel presses Gaza offensive hours after deadly airstrike on tent camp

Israeli forces pressed their offensive in north and central Gaza on Wednesday, hours after an airstrike on a tent encampment that Palestinian officials said killed more than two dozen people and as negotiations to end the fighting were set to resume. Leaflets were dropped on Gaza City, this time with a map marking "safe routes" for the evacuation of the whole city, not just certain districts. The Israeli leaflets urge civilians to head south along two routes to the central Gaza Strip. The mili...

July 9, 2024 9:21 PM

Israeli strike in Syria kills ex-bodyguard of Hezbollah leader, group says

An Israeli strike hit a vehicle in Syrian territory on the Damascus-Beirut highway, killing one of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's former bodyguards, who security sources said was lately involved in transporting weapons for the group. Hezbollah issued a statement mourning Yasser Nimr Qarnabsh without elaborating on his role in the organisation. Two security sources said the former bodyguard had become a mid-ranking Hezbollah official involved in the transport of weapons. Israel typi...

July 8, 2024 4:57 PM

Israeli tanks storm Gaza City districts, residents report heavy fire

Israeli forces bombarded Gaza City early on Monday and columns of tanks advanced into the heart of the city from different directions in what residents said was one of the heaviest attacks in the Palestinian territory since the start of the war. The Gaza Civil Emergency Service said it believed dozens of people were killed but emergency teams were unable to reach them because of ongoing offensives in Daraj and Tuffah in the east and Tel Al-Hawa, Sabra and Rimal further west. Residents said nei...

July 7, 2024 1:29 PM

Hamas accepts US proposal on talks over Israeli hostages, Hamas source says

Hamas has accepted a U.S. proposal to begin talks on releasing Israeli hostages, including soldiers and men, 16 days after the first phase of an agreement aimed at ending the Gaza war, a senior Hamas source told Reuters on Saturday. The militant Islamist group has dropped a demand that Israel first commit to a permanent ceasefire before signing the agreement, and would allow negotiations to achieve that throughout the six-week first phase, the source told Reuters on condition of anonymity becau...

July 4, 2024 10:48 PM

Israel weighs Hamas response to Gaza ceasefire proposal

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will convene his security cabinet on Thursday evening to discuss new Hamas positions on a ceasefire deal in Gaza, a source in Netanyahu's office said, as fighting in the enclave raged. Before the cabinet meets, Netanyahu will have consultations with his ceasefire negotiations team, the source also said. Israel received Hamas' response on Wednesday to a proposal made public at the end of May by U.S. President Joe Biden that would include the release of ...

July 4, 2024 12:56 PM

Gaza ceasefire effort shows signs of revival as Israel pounds enclave

Signs of renewed activity emerged on Wednesday in the quest for a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas in the nine-month-old war in the Gaza Strip while Israel launched more strikes on the devastated enclave. After weeks with little public diplomacy, mediators Egypt and Qatar delivered a response from Hamas to a proposal that would include a release of hostages held in Gaza and a ceasefire in the Palestinian enclave. Israel is studying the document, said a statement released...