Middle East

Paul Adams: Why the Gaza ceasefire is under growing strain11 February 2025Paul AdamsBBC diplomatic correspondentHamas freed more hostages, including Eli Sharabi, on SaturdayWhy has Hamas announced a delay just days before it is due to release the next group of hostages?
In one of its official statements, released on Telegram, the group called its announcement a “warning” to Israel and said it was giving mediators “ample time to pressure the occupation [Israel] into fulfilling its obligations”.
It said the “door remains open” for the next scheduled releases to go ahead on Saturday.
The group appears to be giving time for the impasse to be resolved.
But what exactly is the impasse?
Hamas lists a series of complaints, from delaying the return of displaced people, continuing to open fire on them and failing to allow the entry of certain types of humanitarian aid.
Other Palestinian officials not connected with Hamas have cited Israel’s reluctance to allow caravans into Gaza to house the vas..

Hamas says it will postpone hostage release, blaming Israel2 days agoRaffi Berg & Ruth ComerfordBBC NewsA spokesman for the armed wing of Hamas says the group is postponing the next scheduled release of Israeli hostages, blaming what he says are Israeli violations of the ceasefire deal.
Three hostages held in Gaza are due to be freed on Saturday in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.
Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz called the Hamas announcement a “complete violation of the ceasefire agreement”.
Key Israeli ally US President Donald Trump has suggested the ceasefire should be cancelled if “all” the hostages held in Gaza are not returned by Saturday.
“I’d say they ought to be returned by 12 o’clock on Saturday… all of them, not in dribs and drabs, not two and one and three and four and two,” he said.
“I’m speaking for myself,” he stressed. “Israel can override it.”
Seventy-three hostages taken during Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, and three others..

Elderly hostage in Gaza was killed in 7 October attack, Israel says3 days agoDavid GrittenBBC NewsShlomo Mansour’s body is being held captive by Hamas in GazaThe Israeli military has said an elderly Israeli man was killed during Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel and that his body is being held hostage in Gaza.
Iraq-born Shlomo Mansour, 86, was abducted by gunmen at his home in Kibbutz Kissufim. His wife, Mazal, managed to escape.
The military said the decision to confirm Shlomo’s death was based on intelligence gathered in recent months and was approved by an expert committee of the ministry of health.
His name is on the Israeli government’s list of 33 hostages to be released by Hamas during the first phase of a ceasefire deal that is coming under growing strain.
So far, 16 living Israeli hostages have been freed in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails since 19 January. Hamas has also handed over five Thai hostages.
The remaining 17 Israel..

WFP says worker died in detention in Houthi-controlled Yemen3 days agoAlex SmithBBC NewsThe Houthi movement controls much of north-western Yemen, including the capital SanaaA World Food Programme (WFP) worker has died while in detention in Houthi-controlled northern Yemen, according to the UN agency.
The WFP said the man was one of seven Yemeni staff “arbitrarily detained” by local authorities since 23 January. It is unclear when or how he died.
His death was announced a day after the UN said it would be pausing all operations in the northern governorate of Saada, a stronghold of the Iran-backed Houthi movement, over safety concerns.
The UN said it followed the detention by the Houthis of eight additional UN personnel, including six in Saada. More than 60 staff from the UN, international non-governmental organisations and foreign embassies were already being held.
“This extraordinary and temporary measure seeks to balance the imperative to stay and deliver with the need to have the saf..

Why does Trump want to take over Gaza and could he do it?7 days agoPaul AdamsDiplomatic correspondentDonald Trump has shocked the world by suggesting that the US could “take over” and “own” Gaza, resettling its population in the process.
The proposal could mark the biggest shift in US policy on the Middle East in decades and upend the international consensus on a Palestinian state comprising Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Trump has suggested that under his plan, Gaza would be handed over to the US by Israel and its residents encouraged to move elsewhere with no right of return.
The proposal has drawn condemnation, including from across the Middle East, close US allies and the United Nations. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, welcomed the “revolutionary vision” for Gaza.
If Donald Trump is right about one thing, it is that decades of US diplomacy on Israel and the Palestinians have failed to resolve the conflict.
Peace proposals and presidents have come and gone ..

Jordan’s King rejects Trump proposal to displace Palestinians from Gaza4 days agoBernd Debusmann Jr & Tom Bateman at the White HouseBBC NewsRachel HaganReporting fromLondonKing Abdullah of Jordan has rejected Donald Trump’s plan to resettle Palestinians in the kingdom.
Following a meeting with Trump at the White House on Tuesday, Abdullah wrote on X that Jordan remained “steadfast” against “the displacement of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. This is the unified Arab position.”
It was the first meeting between the pair since Trump announced his proposal to take over Gaza and move its population of two million Palestinians to other countries in the region, including Jordan.
Earlier this week, Trump suggested he could withhold aid to Jordan and Egypt unless they agreed to take in those Palestinians from Gaza.
Jordan, a key US ally in the Middle East, is already home to millions of Palestinians.
While the King volunteered to accept up to 2,000 Palestinian children from Gaza in nee..

Israel says Gaza ceasefire will end if Hamas does not free hostages by Saturday6 days agoDavid GrittenBBC NewsReporting fromLondonYolande KnellBBC Middle East CorrespondentReporting fromJerusalemBenjamin Netanyahu said he had ordered Israeli forces to amass inside and around GazaThere is growing concern that fighting could resume in Gaza after Israel’s prime minister warned Hamas it would end the ceasefire if the Palestinian armed group “does not return our hostages by Saturday”.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet met on Tuesday after Hamas said it was postponing freeing more hostages until further notice, claiming Israel had violated the terms of the three-week-old ceasefire deal.
It remains unclear whether Netanyahu is demanding the release of all 76 remaining hostages, or just the three due to be freed this Saturday.
Hamas responded by saying it remained committed to the ceasefire deal and that Israel was “responsible for any complications or delays”.
The group has demanded medi..

Egypt to present ‘vision’ to rebuild Gaza without displacement6 days agoDavid GrittenBBC NewsAlmost 70% of the buildings in Gaza are estimated to be damaged or destroyedEgypt has said it is working on a “comprehensive vision” for the reconstruction of the war-torn Gaza Strip that guarantees Palestinians the right to stay on their land, unlike the proposal put forward by US President Donald Trump.
The Egyptian foreign ministry said it hoped to co-operate with the Trump administration to reach “a just settlement of the Palestinian cause”.
It followed Trump’s meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah on Tuesday, where he doubled down on his plan for the US to take over Gaza and permanently move the two million Palestinians living there to Jordan, Egypt and other locations.
Abdullah said every Arab state rejected the idea, and that Egypt would present an alternative.
The UN has warned that any forced displacement of the territory’s population would be illegal under international law and “tantamo..

Swedish woman convicted of genocide for IS crimes against Yazidis3 days agoEve WebsterJihadist group Islamic State killed about 5,000 Yazidis and enslaved thousands moreA Swedish woman has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for committing genocide and war crimes against the Yazidi people after she joined jihadist group Islamic State (IS) in Syria.
Lina Ishaq, 52, was found guilty of holding three Yazidi women and six Yazidi children as slaves in Raqqa between 2014-2016 in September last year.
It is the first time IS crimes against the Yazidis, one of Iraq’s religious minorities, have been tried in Sweden.
Ishaq joined IS and moved her family to Syria in 2013. She is already serving jail sentences for taking her two year-old son to Syria and “failing to prevent” IS from using her 12-year-old son as a child soldier. He died in 2017, aged 16.
Ishaq forced her prisoners to wear a veil and practise Islam, and she physically assaulted them.
“The convicted woman was part of the large-sca..