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Hamas has reportedly accepted a US proposal to begin talks on releasing Israeli hostages, including soldiers and men
We are restarting our live coverage of the Israel-Gaza war and wider Middle East crisis. I’m Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you all the latest news from the region throughout today.
We start with news that Hamas has accepted a US 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 has told Reuters.
A Palestinian official close to the internationally mediated peace efforts had said the proposal could lead to a framework agreement if embraced by Israel and would end the nine-month-old war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
A source in Israel’s negotiating team, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there was now a real chance of achieving agreement. That was in sharp contrast to past instances in the nine-month-old war in Gaza, when Israel said conditions attached by Hamas were unacceptable.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and top Hamas official Khalil Al-Hayya discussed the latest developments in the Gaza Strip and negotiations aimed at reaching a ceasefire there during a meeting, Hezbollah said on Friday. Nasrallah received Hamas deputy chief Hayya for the meeting, which reviewed “the latest security and political developments” in the Gaza Strip.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, was quoted by Turkish media as saying he hoped a “final ceasefire” could be secured “in a couple of days”, and urged western countries to put pressure on Israel to accept the terms on offer.
Seven Palestinians were killed in an Israeli military offensive on the West Bank city of Jenin on Friday, the Palestinian health ministry said. Israel’s military said in a statement its forces had encircled a building where militants had barricaded themselves in, and that an Israeli aircraft had struck targets in the area. The Palestinian news agency Wafa said military vehicles surrounded a house in a Jenin refugee camp and loudspeaker demands were made for an occupant to surrender. Shoulder-fired missiles were then used and a drone attacked the house, it added.
On 20 May, the same day international criminal court prosecutor Karim Khan made a surprise request for warrants to arrest the leaders of Israel and Hamas involved in the Gaza conflict, he suddenly cancelled a sensitive mission to collect evidence in the region, eight people with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters. Planning for the visit had been under way for months with US officials, four of the sources said. Khan’s move has harmed operational cooperation with the US and angered the UK a sources told Reuters.
Hamas said on Friday it rejected any statements and positions that support plans for foreign forces to enter the Gaza Strip under any name or justification. The group said the administration of the Gaza Strip is a purely Palestinian matter. “The Palestinian people … will not allow any guardianship or the imposition of any external solutions or equations,” it added.
Hezbollah said it had fired 200 rockets into Israel in one of its largest barrages yet. Israel confirmed the Iran-backed militant group had fired “numerous projectiles and suspicious aerial targets” from Lebanon on Thursday towards the occupied Syrian Golan Heights and more than 15 drones into Israeli territory, many of which it said were intercepted. An Israeli military spokesperson said there were no casualties reported.
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