Egypt despatched a high-level delegation to Israel within the hope of reaching a cease-fire settlement with Hamas in Gaza, whereas warning a doable new Israeli offensive targeted on the southern metropolis of Rafah on the border with Egypt may have catastrophic penalties for regional stability, two officers mentioned Friday.
Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group fired anti-tank missiles and artillery shells at an Israeli army convoy in a disputed space alongside the border late Thursday, killing an Israeli civilian, the group and Israel’s army mentioned.
Earlier, Palestinian hospital officers mentioned Israeli airstrikes on Rafah killed at the least 5 individuals.
Greater than half of Gaza’s inhabitants of two.3 million have sought refuge within the metropolis. The Israeli army has massed dozens of tanks and armored automobiles within the space in what seems to be preparations for an invasion of Rafah.
The Israel-Hamas conflict was sparked by the unprecedented Oct. 7 raid into southern Israel through which militants killed round 1,200 individuals, largely civilians, and kidnapped round 250 hostages. Israel says the militants are nonetheless holding round 100 hostages and the stays of greater than 30 others.
The conflict has killed greater than 34,000 Palestinians, in line with native well being officers, round two-thirds of them kids and girls.
At present:
— Untimely child woman rescued from her lifeless mom’s womb dies in Gaza after 5 days in an incubator
— A U.S.-led effort to deliver help to Gaza by sea is shifting ahead, however huge considerations stay
— As some U.S. universities negotiate with pro-Palestinian protesters, others shortly name the police
— College students at prestigious Paris college occupy campus constructing in pro-Palestinian protest
— U.S. says it’s reviewing new details about Israeli unit accused of abuses earlier than the conflict in Gaza
Right here is the newest:
JERUSALEM — Israel’s nationwide safety minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, was injured in a automobile accident and delivered to the hospital Friday after visiting the scene of a stabbing assault in central Israel, in line with Israeli police and Hebrew media.
Ben-Gvir’s situation was not instantly clear.
He had simply visited the scene of a stabbing through which Israel’s rescue providers mentioned an 18-year-old lady was injured by a militant on Friday. Paramedics introduced her to the hospital in critical situation. Hebrew media reported that the attacker was shot lifeless.
Because the Israel-Hamas conflict started on Oct. 7, Palestinians have carried out various assaults in opposition to Israelis, a few of them lethal. Violence has additionally surged within the West Financial institution.
The automobile accident involving Ben-Gvir injured three individuals, police mentioned. Hebrew media aired footage of a black automobile overturned on the highway.
ISTANBUL — Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday denied rumors that drones and ballistic missile strikes from Iran’s assault on Israel on April 13 have been intercepted as a consequence of early detection by a NATO radar base in southeastern Turkey.
“The radar middle in Kurecik (Malatya province) doesn’t and can’t have any relationship, bond or contact with any state aside from the safety of our nation and our alliance,” he mentioned
Talking at a televised pro-Palestinian occasion, Erdogan additionally reiterated that Turkey has reduce diplomatic and business ties with Israel and can impose extra commerce restrictions.
“From a business perspective, the one nation that imposes export restrictions on Israel in 54 product teams is Turkey.” Erdogan mentioned.
Turkey, a staunch critic of Israel’s army actions within the Gaza Strip, introduced that it was proscribing exports of 54 forms of merchandise to Israel in early April. They embody aluminum, metal, building merchandise, jet gasoline and chemical fertilizers. In response, Israel banned merchandise from Turkey.
The heads of Israel’s main analysis universities signed a letter Friday expressing deep concern over what they seen as a surge of antisemitism at American schools as pro-Palestinian protests sweep campuses throughout the USA.
Within the letter, the college heads allege that the latest demonstrations have created “a local weather the place Israeli and Jewish college students and college members really feel compelled to cover their identities or keep away from campuses altogether for worry of bodily hurt.” The letter didn’t embody particular examples.
The assertion comes as pro-Palestinian protesters arrange encampments at universities throughout the nation.
Many are demanding colleges reduce monetary ties to Israel and divest from firms they are saying are enabling the battle.
Israel and its supporters have branded the protests as antisemitic, whereas critics of Israel say it makes use of such allegations to silence opponents.
Whereas some protesters have been caught on digital camera making antisemitic remarks or violent threats, organizers of the protests, a few of whom are Jewish, say it’s a peaceable motion aimed toward defending Palestinian rights and protesting the conflict.
“Freedom of expression and the fitting to exhibit are important to the well being of any democracy,” wrote the faculty presidents, whose affiliation goes by the acronym VERA in Israel. “Nonetheless, these freedoms don’t embody the fitting to to have interaction in violence, make threats in opposition to communities, or name for the destruction of the state of Israel.”
They mentioned that they might assist Jewish college students and college wishing to maneuver to Israel.
CAIRO — Egypt despatched a high-level delegation to Israel within the hope of reaching a cease-fire settlement with Hamas in Gaza, whereas warning a doable new Israeli offensive targeted on the southern metropolis of Rafah on the border with Egypt may have catastrophic penalties for regional stability, two officers mentioned Friday.
Egypt’s high intelligence official, Abbas Kamel, is main the delegation and plans to debate a “new imaginative and prescient” on establishing a chronic cease-fire in Gaza with Israeli officers, an Egyptian official mentioned, talking on situation of anonymity to freely talk about the mission.
Talks will focus at first on a restricted alternate of hostages held by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners, alongside the return of a major variety of displaced Palestinians to their properties in northern Gaza “with minimal restrictions,” the official mentioned.
The hope is that negotiations will then proceed, with the aim of a bigger deal to finish the conflict, he mentioned.
Hamas has mentioned it is not going to again down from its calls for for a everlasting cease-fire and full withdrawal of Israeli troops, each of which Israel has refused. Israel says it should proceed army operations till Hamas is definitively defeated and can retain a safety presence in Gaza afterwards.
Israel has additionally been conducting near-daily raids on Rafah, a metropolis through which greater than half of Gaza’s inhabitants of two.3 million have sought refuge.
Whereas in Israel, Kamel plans to clarify that Egypt “is not going to tolerate” Israel’s deployments of troops alongside Gaza’s borders with Egypt, the Egyptian official mentioned.
A Western diplomat in Cairo additionally mentioned that Egypt has intensified its efforts in latest days to achieve a compromise and set up a brief cease-fire in Gaza that can assist negotiate an extended truce and avert the Rafah offensive.
The diplomat spoke on situation of anonymity to freely talk about the developments.
— Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed.
BEIRUT — Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group fired anti-tank missiles and artillery shells at an Israeli army convoy in a disputed space alongside the border, killing an Israeli civilian, the group and Israel’s army mentioned Friday.
Hezbollah mentioned that its fighters ambushed the convoy on Thursday shortly earlier than midnight, destroying two automobiles.
The Israeli army mentioned the ambush wounded an Israeli civilian doing infrastructure work, and that he later died of his wounds.
The incident happened in a disputed space identified in Lebanon because the Kfar Chouba hills and in Israel as Har Dov. The world was captured by Israel from Syria throughout the 1967 Mideast conflict and is are a part of Syria’s Golan Heights that Israel annexed in 1981. The Lebanese authorities says the realm belongs to Lebanon.
Hezbollah and Israel have traded hearth on a near-daily foundation alongside the border because the begin of the conflict in Gaza almost seven months in the past. Hezbollah says it’s appearing in solidarity with the Hamas, a Palestinian militant group, which triggered the conflict with its lethal Oct. 7 assault into southern Israel.
The low-intensity preventing has repeatedly threatened to boil over as Israel has focused senior Hezbollah militants in latest months.
Tens of hundreds of individuals have been displaced on either side of the border.
On the Israeli facet, the cross-border preventing has killed 10 civilians and 12 troopers. In Lebanon, greater than 350 individuals have been killed, together with 50 civilians and 271 Hezbollah members.