Category: Foreign

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US suspends most visas for Palestinian passport-holders, reports say

US officials have further restricted visitor visas for Palestinians, by denying them to almost all applicants who use a Palestinian passport, media reports say.

The development comes days after 80 Palestinian officials were denied visas ahead of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Earlier in August, visitor visas were paused for people hoping to travel from the Palestinian territory of Gaza. This newly-reported decree would affect a wider group – including people living in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The Department of State did not explicitly confirm the move but said it was “taking concrete steps in compliance with US law and our national security”.

The decision was issued in a diplomatic cable dated 18 August, the New York Times and CNN reported.

US consular officers were told to refuse non-immigrant visas to “all otherwise eligible Palestinian Authority passport holders”, the communication was quoted as saying.

That would apply to Palestinians hoping to come to the US for a range of purposes, including for business, study or medical treatment.

The move meant that officials would be required to perform a further review of each applicant, which amounted to a blanket ban on issuing visas to Palestinians, the New York Times added in its report.

Palestinians who are able to make visa applications using other passports were said to be unaffected.

It is not clear what prompted the reported move, though the Trump administration has been steadfast in its support for Israel’s military campaign against Hamas in Gaza.

The news also follows last month’s announcements by a number of other US allies – including the UK, Canada and France – that they would recognise a Palestinian state on certain conditions. US Vice-President JD Vance has said Washington has “no plans” to follow suit.

The Trump administration has also cracked down on pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses.

The move represents a further toughening of the president’s stance on visas, following two earlier measures.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was among a group of dozens of Palestinian officials who were recently blocked from attending the UN General Assembly session in New York later this month, after US officials revoked his visa and accused the Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), both of which Abbas leads, of undermining peace efforts.

And the Department of State said on 16 August it had paused approvals of visitor visas for Palestinians from Gaza specifically, so that a review could take place.

Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist group by the US, governed Gaza when hundreds of its armed fighters attacked Israel on 7 October 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages. The attack triggered a massive and ongoing Israeli military offensive, in which at least 63,459 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

The US visa policy has effectively been extended now to include people from the West Bank and wider Palestinian diaspora.

Asked about the latest move, a Department of State spokesperson’s statement said: “The Trump administration is taking concrete steps in compliance with US law and our national security in regards to announced visa restrictions and revocations for PA (Palestinian Authority) passport holders. We refer you to those public announcements for more information on those restrictions and revocations.

“Every visa decision is a national security decision, and the State Department is vetting and adjudicating visa decisions for PA passport holders accordingly.” (BBC)

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Trump administration moves to fire most Voice of America journalists

The Trump administration has moved to terminate almost 500 employees of federally funded news organisation Voice of America (VOA).

The step is the latest in President Donald Trump’s drive to strip back the outlet, which the White House has accused of being “radical”.

Acting CEO of VOA’s parent agency, Kari Lake, said the decision would “help reduce the federal bureaucracy, improve agency service, and save the American people more of their hard-earned money.” A union representing employees called the step illegal in a statement to the New York Times.

VOA was set up during World War Two to counter Nazi propaganda, and has become a major global broadcaster.

The outlet is overseen by the Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which said a total of 532 positions would be eliminated. The majority of those employees are from VOA, which would be left with 108 staff, according to a court filing.

In June, Lake announced 639 employees would be terminated, although the notices were later rescinded due to paperwork errors. Some employees also filed lawsuits to block the terminations.

The announcement late on Friday night came a day after a judge ruled the Trump administration had not followed proper procedures in its attempt to fire VOA’s director, Michael Abramowitz. The judge also ordered Lake to sit for a deposition, where she would be questioned by lawyers.

The lawsuit was brought by a group of agency employees trying to block attempts to close down VOA.

“We find Lake’s continued attacks on our agency abhorrent,” they said in a statement to the BBC’s US partner CBS News.

“We are looking forward to her deposition to hear whether her plan to dismantle VOA was done with the rigorous review process that Congress requires. So far we have not seen any evidence of that, and as such we will continue to fight for what we believe to be our rights under the law.”

Most of VOA’s journalists have been on administrative leave since March but some Farsi-speaking staff were called back as war between Israel and Iran broke out this summer.

The notices will also not affect journalists working in its Office of Cuba Broadcasting division, which broadcasts news in Spanish from Miami.

Critics say Trump’s attempts to strip back VOA amount to an attack on press freedom, and impacts America’s ability to exercise soft power abroad. The administration has accused the outlet of being “anti-Trump” and “radical”.

VOA broadcasts TV, radio and digital content in almost 50 languages. (BBC)

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More than 800 killed and 2,800 injured after earthquake hits Afghanistan

More than 800 people have been killed and at least 2,800 injured after a 6.0 magnitude earthquake struck Afghanistan, a spokesperson for the country’s Taliban government has said.

Health authorities in the capital Kabul, however, said the numbers could change as they worked to reach remote areas.

The earthquake struck the country’s northeastern province of Kunar near the Pakistan border at 11.47pm local time (8.17pm UK time) on Sunday, the German Research Centre for Geosciences said.

The quake’s epicentre was near Jalalabad, Nangarhar province, at a depth of 8.7 miles (14km). Jalalabad is situated about 74 miles (119km) from Kabul.

There was a second earthquake in the same province about 20 minutes later, with a magnitude of 4.5 and a depth of 6.2 miles (10km). This was later followed by a 5.2 earthquake at the same depth.

“All our… teams have been mobilised to accelerate assistance, so that comprehensive and full support can be provided,” interior ministry spokesperson Abdul Maten Qanee told Reuters news agency, citing efforts in areas from security to food and health.

Homes of mud and stone were levelled by the midnight quake and several villages completely destroyed in Kunar province, officials said.

Rescuers searched for survivors in several districts of the mountainous province where the quake hit.

Images showed helicopters ferrying aid out to the affected, and residents helping soldiers and medics carry the wounded to ambulances.

Footage from Nangarhar province showed people frantically digging through rubble with their hands, searching for loved ones in the dead of night.

Hundreds of injured people have been taken to hospital, a local official said, with figures likely to rise.

Ziaul Haq Mohammadi, a student at Al-Falah University in Jalalabad, was studying in his room at home when the quake struck. He said he was knocked over by the power of the tremor.

“We spent the whole night in fear and anxiety because at any moment another earthquake could happen,” he said.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban government’s chief spokesman, said: “Sadly, tonight’s earthquake has caused loss of life and property damage in some of our eastern provinces.

“Local officials and residents are currently engaged in rescue efforts for the affected people. Support teams from the centre and nearby provinces are also on their way.”

He added “all available resources will be utilised to save lives”.

According to earlier reports, 30 people were killed in a single village.

“The number of casualties and injuries is high, but since the area is difficult to access, our teams are still on site,” said health ministry spokesperson Sharafat Zaman.

Earlier, an Afghan foreign office spokesperson said “no foreign governments have reached out to provide support for rescue or relief work”.

Later, India said it had delivered 1,000 family tents to Kabul and was moving 15 tonnes of food material to Kunar, with more aid to be sent on Tuesday. A spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry said it was ready to provide disaster relief assistance “according to Afghanistan’s needs and within its capacity”.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said its mission in Afghanistan was preparing to help those in areas devastated by the quake.

Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, described the disaster as “a perfect storm”.

He told Sky News: “It is very tragic. We have very little information as of yet, but already reports of hundreds of people killed and many more made homeless.

“It is a country that is already suffering from a multiplicity of crises – there is a big drought, Iran has sent back almost two million people, Pakistan is trying to do the same with Afghans living there – and of course, it is extremely difficult to mobilise resources because of the Taliban.

“It’s a perfect storm, and this earthquake, likely to have been quite devastating, is just going to add to the misery. So, a strong appeal to all of those who can help.”

Kate Carey, an officer at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), warned of the risk of landslides due to heavy rainfall in affected areas.

She also said the shrinking of funding for Afghanistan, led by US aid cuts, was hampering the response to the quake.

Ms Carey said: “The actual delivery of response has been badly hit by the funding cuts this year, but also the number of people we have on the ground is much less than we would have had six months ago.” (SkyNews)

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Putin, Modi, Erdogan to attend Tianjin Summit as Xi welcomes world leaders

Chinese President Xi Jinping began welcoming dignitaries including United Nations chief Antonio Guterres and Egyptian Premier Moustafa Madbouly on Saturday before a summit attended by leaders from more than 20 countries.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation gathering will be held in the northern port city of Tianjin on Sunday and Monday, days before a massive military parade in nearby Beijing to mark 80 years since the end of World War II.

North Korea’s Kim Jong Un will be among some 26 world leaders slated to attend the parade.

The SCO comprises China, India, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus. Sixteen more countries are affiliated as observers or “dialogue partners”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are also due to arrive in Tianjin ahead of the summit.

China and Russia have used the organisation — sometimes touted as a counter to the Western-dominated NATO military alliance — to deepen ties with Central Asian states.

Other leaders including Iranian and Turkish presidents Masoud Pezeshkian and Recep Tayyip Erdogan will also attend the bloc’s largest meeting since its founding in 2001.

Multiple bilateral meetings are expected to be held on the sidelines of the summit.

The Kremlin said on Friday that Putin will discuss the Ukraine conflict with Erdogan on Monday.

Turkey has hosted three rounds of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine this year that have failed to break the deadlock over how to end the conflict, triggered when Moscow launched its invasion of its pro-European neighbour in February 2022.

Putin will also talk about Tehran’s nuclear programme on Monday with his Iranian counterpart Pezeshkian, a meeting that comes as Iran faces fresh Western pressure.

Britain, France and Germany, known as the E3, triggered a “snapback” mechanism on Thursday to reinstate UN sanctions on Tehran for failing to comply with commitments made in a 2015 deal over its nuclear programme.

Russia’s foreign ministry warned that the reimposition of sanctions against Iran risked “irreparable consequences”.

Tehran and Moscow have been bolstering political, military and economic ties over the past decade as Russia drifted away from the West.

Relations between them grew even closer after Moscow launched its offensive against Ukraine.

Modi’s visit comes after a trip to Japan, and is his first to China since 2018.

The world’s two most populous nations are intense rivals competing for influence across South Asia and fought a deadly border clash in 2020.

A thaw began last October when Modi met with Xi for the first time in five years at a summit in Russia. (Punch)

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US court rules many of Trump’s global tariffs are illegal

A US appeals court has ruled that most tariffs issued by US President Donald Trump are illegal, setting up a potential legal showdown that could upend his foreign policy agenda.

The ruling affects Trump’s so-called “reciprocal” tariffs, imposed on most countries around the world, as well as other tariffs slapped on China, Mexico and Canada.

In a 7-4 decision, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rejected Trump’s argument that the tariffs were permitted under an emergency economic powers act, calling them “invalid as contrary to law”.

The ruling will not take effect until 14 October, to give the administration time to ask the US Supreme Court to take up the case.

Trump criticised the appeals court and its ruling on Truth Social, saying: “If allowed to stand, this Decision would literally destroy the United States of America.”

He wrote: “Today a Highly Partisan Appeals Court incorrectly said that our Tariffs should be removed, but they know the United States of America will win in the end.

“If these Tariffs ever went away, it would be a total disaster for the Country. It would make us financially weak, and we have to be strong.”

Trump had justified the tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which gives the president the power to act against “unusual and extraordinary” threats.

Trump has declared a national emergency on trade, arguing that a trade imbalance was harmful to US national security. But the court ruled that imposing tariffs was not within the president’s mandate, and that setting levies was “a core Congressional power”.

In its 127-page judgement, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said the IEEPA “neither mentions tariffs (or any of its synonyms) nor has procedural safeguards that contain clear limits on the president’s power to impose tariffs”.

The power to impose taxes and tariffs therefore continues to belong to Congress, the court ruled, and the IEEPA did not override this.

The court wrote that it was unlikely that, when Congress passed the law in 1977, it was intended to “depart from its past practice and grant the president unlimited authority to impose tariffs”.

“Whenever Congress intends to delegate to the president the authority to impose tariffs, it does so explicitly, either by using unequivocal terms like tariff and duty, or via an overall structure which makes clear that Congress is referring to tariffs,” the judges wrote.

The ruling comes in response to two lawsuits filed by small businesses and a coalition of US states.

They were brought after Trump’s executive orders in April, which imposed a baseline 10% tariff on almost every country in the world, as well as “reciprocal” tariffs intended to correct trade imbalances with dozens of countries. Trump declared the date to be America’s “liberation day” from unfair trade policies.

In May, the New York-based Court of International Trade declared the tariffs were unlawful. That decision was put on hold during the appeal process.

In addition to those tariffs, Friday’s ruling also strikes down tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, which Trump argues are necessary to stop the importation of drugs.

However, the decision does not apply to other tariffs, like those imposed on steel and aluminium, which were brought in under a different presidential authority.

Ahead of the ruling, lawyers for the White House argued that invalidating the tariffs would lead to a 1929-style financial collapse, a stock market crash which led to the Great Depression.

“Suddenly revoking the president’s tariff authority under IEEPA would have catastrophic consequences for our national security, foreign policy, and economy,” they wrote in a letter.

“The president believes that our country would not be able to pay back the trillions of dollars that other countries have already committed to pay, which could lead to financial ruin.”

The ruling also raises questions about deals some nations agreed with the US for reduced tariffs rates.

The latest development means the case is now almost certain to head to the Supreme Court, which has in recent years taken a sceptical view toward presidents who try to implement sweeping new policies that are not directly authorised by Congress.

During Joe Biden’s presidency, the court expanded on what it called the “major questions doctrine” to invalidate Democratic efforts to use existing laws to limit greenhouse gas emissions by power plants and to forgive student loan debt for millions of Americans.

The top court’s nine justices, if they agree to consider the case, could weigh whether Trump’s expansive tariff programme is another example of presidential overreach or sufficiently grounded in law and presidential authority.

Even though the appellate court handed the president a defeat, the White House may take solace in the fact that only three of the court’s 11 judges were appointed by Republicans.

The Supreme Court has six Republican appointees, including three who were selected by Trump himself. (BBC)

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PM killed in Israeli strike, say Yemen’s Huthis

The prime minister of Yemen’s Huthis was killed in an Israeli airstrike along with other officials earlier this week, the Iran-backed rebels announced on Saturday.

Ahmed Ghaleb Nasser Al-Rahawi, who was appointed last year, is the most senior official known to have been killed in a series of Israeli strikes during the war in Gaza.

“We announce the martyrdom of the fighter Ahmed Ghaleb Nasser Al-Rahawi… along with several of his ministerial colleagues, as they were targeted by the treacherous Israeli criminal enemy,” a Huthi statement said.

“Others among their companions were injured with moderate to serious wounds and are receiving medical care since Thursday afternoon,” it added.

The Israeli military struck in the area of Sanaa, the Huthi-held capital, on Thursday. The Huthis, claiming solidarity with the Palestinians, have frequently fired missiles and drones at Israel during the Gaza war.

Israeli forces “struck a Huthi terrorist regime military target”, the Israeli military said at the time.

The Huthis have also targeted shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, which they claim is linked to Israel during the Gaza war.

The rebel group controls large parts of Yemen, which has been gripped by war since 2014, and is part of Iran’s anti-Israel alliance alongside militant groups across much of the Middle East. (Punch)

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Shooter kills 2 children in Minneapolis church, 17 people injured

A gunman opened fire Wednesday on school children attending church in Minneapolis, killing two pupils and wounding 17 people, police said, in the country’s latest violent tragedy.

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara told a media briefing that the shooter, in his early twenties, sprayed bullets into the Annunciation Church as dozens of students were at Mass to celebrate their first week back to school.

The church sits next to an affiliated school in the south of the city, the largest in the state of Minnesota.

“Two young children, ages eight and 10, were killed where they sat in the pews,” O’Hara said, adding that 17 others were injured, including 14 children.

Two were in critical condition, he said.

The gunman fired a rifle, shotgun and pistol before he took his own life in the parking lot, according to the police chief.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz wrote on X earlier that he was “praying for our kids and teachers whose first week of school was marred by this horrific act of violence.”

Live video footage showed panicked parents retrieving their young children and fleeing amid a major emergency response.

“This was a deliberate act of violence against innocent children and other people worshiping. The sheer cruelty and cowardice of firing into a church full of children is absolutely incomprehensible,” O’Hara said.

“Our hearts are broken for the families who have lost their children, for these young lives that are now fighting to recover, and for our entire community that has been so deeply traumatized by this senseless attack,” he added.

Wednesday’s violence is the latest in a long line of school shootings in the United States, where guns outnumber people and attempts to restrict access to firearms face perennial political deadlock.

“Don’t just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now. These kids were literally praying. It was the first week of school. They were in a church. These are kids that should be learning with their friends,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey told reporters.

“They should be playing on the playground. They should be able to go to school or church in peace without the fear or risk of violence.”

President Donald Trump said he had been briefed on the “tragic shooting” and that the FBI was responding.

“The White House will continue to monitor this terrible situation. Please join me in praying for everyone involved!” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.

The confirmed shooting comes after a wave of false reports of active shooters at US college campuses around the country as students return from summer break. (Channels)

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Israeli PM Netanyahu approves Gaza City seizure despite ceasefire talks

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he will give final approval for the seizure of Gaza City while also restarting negotiations with Hamas aimed at returning all the remaining captives and ending the nearly two-year-old war, but on “terms acceptable to Israel”.

Speaking to soldiers near Gaza on Thursday, Netanyahu said he was still set on approving plans for seizing Gaza City, the densely populated centre at the heart of the Palestinian enclave, forcibly displacing close to 1 million people and carrying out the systematic demolitions of Palestinian homes.

“At the same time I have issued instructions to begin immediate negotiations for the release of all our hostages and an end to the war on terms acceptable to Israel,” Netanyahu said, adding: “We are in the decision-making phase.”

The wide-scale operation in Gaza City could start within days after Netanyahu grants final approval at a meeting with senior security officials later on Thursday.

Israeli forces have already stepped up attacks there, and thousands of Palestinians have left their homes as Israeli tanks edged closer to Gaza City over the last 10 days.

Hamas said earlier this week that it had agreed to a ceasefire proposal from mediators Qatar and Egypt, which, if accepted by Israel, could forestall the assault.

Israel’s army plans to call up 60,000 reservists and extend the service of 20,000 more.

The proposal on the table calls for a 60-day ceasefire and the release of 10 living captives held in Gaza by Hamas and of 18 bodies. In turn, Israel would release about 200 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

Once the temporary ceasefire begins, the proposal is for Hamas and Israel to begin negotiations on a permanent ceasefire that would include the return of the remaining captives.

Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst, has likened Netanyahu’s announcement about relaunching purported truce talks while the military escalates its assault on Gaza City to “negotiation under fire”.

“There will be no stoppage of the fighting. There will be no breaks in the genocide. Hamas is going to have to make up its mind as Israel kills dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Palestinians moving forward [and] as it transfers a million Palestinians southward in Gaza,” Bishara said.

“Israel is now dictating all the terms, and it’s not listening to anyone, and it has a green light from Washington.”

At least 48 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza since dawn, including 16 aid seekers who were the latest victims of shootings at GHF aid distribution points.

Meanwhile, two more people have starved to death in Gaza in the past 24 hours, the Health Ministry said on Thursday. The new deaths raised the number of Palestinians who have died from Israeli-induced hunger to 271, including 112 children, since the war began.

A renewed Israeli offensive could bring even more casualties and displacement to the famine-struck territory. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) estimated that 90 percent of Gaza’s residents have been displaced, warning that shelters are deteriorating and any further displacement will worsen the catastrophic situation.

The Palestinian Ministry of Interior denounced Israel’s push to seize Gaza City as a “death sentence” for the more than one million people living there.

The Palestinian Health Ministry also released a statement responding to what it says is an Israeli push to transfer health system resources to the south of the enclave.

“The Ministry of Health expresses its rejection of any step that would undermine what remains of the health system following the systematic destruction carried out by the Israeli occupation authorities,” it said.

“This step would deprive more than one million people of their right to treatment and put the lives of residents, patients and the wounded at imminent risk.”

Some Palestinian families in Gaza City have left for shelters along the coast, while others have moved to central and southern parts of the enclave, according to residents there.

“We are facing a bitter, bitter situation, to die at home or leave and die somewhere else. As long as this war continues, survival is uncertain,” Rabah Abu Elias, 67, a father of seven, told the Reuters news agency.

“In the news, they speak about a possible truce, on the ground, we only hear explosions and see deaths. To leave Gaza City or not isn’t an easy decision to make,” he said.

Meanwhile, Israeli air attacks also destroyed a tent camp in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, where many people have sought refuge. Residents said the Israeli military warned them to flee shortly before the attacks set the camp ablaze.

Families, many with children, could later be seen sifting through the ashes for the belongings they had managed to take with them during earlier evacuations.

Mohammad Kahlout, who had been displaced from northern Gaza, told The Associated Press they were given just five minutes to gather what they could and flee.

“We are civilians, not terrorists. What did we do, and what did our children do, to be displaced again?” (AlJazeera)

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Cambridge Dictionary adds TikTok terms ‘skibidi’, ‘delulu’, others

The rise of TikTok trends and social media slang has prompted Cambridge Dictionary to update its online edition with 6,000 fresh entries in the past year, including buzzwords like “skibidi,” “delulu,” and “tradwife.”

For those less immersed in digital culture, some of the sample sentences the UK-based dictionary provides may sound baffling. The term skibidi was popularised through Skibidi Toilet, a surreal YouTube animation series featuring human heads popping out of toilets.

Phrases such as “that wasn’t very skibidi rizz of you” or “As Gen Z say, I’ve entered my ‘delulu era?’” can appear like another language entirely.

According to Cambridge, skibidi is defined as “a word that can have different meanings, such as ‘cool’ or ‘bad,’ or can be used with no real meaning as a joke.” (Punch)

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Gaza talks to focus on releasing hostages all in one go, Netanyahu hints

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has indicated that Gaza ceasefire efforts are now focused on a comprehensive deal to release all the remaining hostages at once.

The plan previously being pushed was for an initial 60-day truce and partial release of living hostages.

Hamas says a delegation of its leaders is in Cairo for “preliminary talks” with Egyptian officials.

Reports say that mediators see a window of opportunity in the coming weeks to try to push a deal through.

After indirect talks between Israel and Hamas broke down last month, Israel announced a controversial plan to widen its military offensive and conquer all the Gaza Strip – including the areas where most of its two million Palestinian residents have sought refuge.

However, Israeli media do not expect the new operation to begin until October – allowing time for military preparations, including a mass call-up of reservists.

Meanwhile, intense Israeli strikes have continued in Gaza, and the Hamas-run health ministry said at least 123 Palestinians have been killed in the past day.

Witnesses say that Israel has stepped up its attacks on Gaza City in particular with air strikes destroying homes.

Footage shows large explosions caused by the strikes and demolitions in the Zaytoun area, to the east of Gaza City.

Early on Wednesday, al-Shifa Hospital said seven members of one family, five of them children, were killed when tents were targeted in Tel al-Hawa, in the south of the city. Al-Ahli Hospital said 10 people were killed in a strike on a house in the Zaytoun area, to the city’s east.

The Israeli army said it had begun new operations in Zaytoun.

Israeli military chief Lt Gen Eyal Zamir also “approved the main framework for the IDF’s operational plan in the Gaza Strip”, a statement released by the army said.

In an interview with the i24News Israeli TV Channel shown on Tuesday, Netanyahu was asked if a partial ceasefire was still possible.

“I think it’s behind us,” he replied. “We tried, we made all kinds of attempts, we went through a lot, but it turned out that they were just misleading us.”

“I want all of them,” he said of the hostages.”The release of all the hostages, both alive and dead – that’s the stage we’re at.”

Palestinian armed groups still hold 50 hostages taken in the Hamas-led attack on 7 October 2023 that triggered the war. Israel believes that around 20 of them are still alive.

Netanyahu is under mounting domestic pressure to secure their release as well as over his plans to expand the war.

Last week, unnamed Arab officials were quoted as saying that regional mediators, Egypt and Qatar, were preparing a new framework for a deal that would involve releasing all remaining hostages at the same time in return for an end to the war and the withdrawal of Israeli troops.

However, this will be difficult to do in a short time frame as Israel is demanding that Hamas give up control of Gaza as well as its weapons.

This is likely to be why, at a news conference on Tuesday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty told journalists that Cairo was still “making great efforts” with Qatar and the US – the other mediators – to revive the earlier phased plan.

“The main goal is to return to the original proposal – a 60-day ceasefire – along with the release of some hostages and some Palestinian prisoners, and the flow of humanitarian and medical aid into Gaza without obstacles or conditions,” Abdelatty said.

The Israeli prime minister says Israel’s goals have not changed. He says that the war will end only when all hostages are returned and Hamas surrenders.

Netanyahu has said that, ultimately, Israel must keep open-ended security control over Gaza. (BBC)