Israel said that it would send a delegation to Qatar on Monday in an effort to advance the negotiations around the ceasefire in Gaza, while Hamas reported positive signals in talks with Egyptian and Qatari mediators on starting negotiations on the truce's delayed second phase. The statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office gave no details except to say it had accepted the invitation of US-backed mediators. Hamas spokesman Abdel-Latif al-Qanoua also gave no details. Talks on the second phase should have started a month ago. There was no immediate comment from the White House, which on Wednesday made the surprise confirmation of direct US talks with Hamas. Over the past week, Israel has pressed Hamas to release half of the remaining hostages in return for an extension of the first phase, which ended last weekend, and a promise to negotiate a lasting truce. Hamas is believed to have 24 living hostages and the bodies of 35 others. Israel last weekend cut off all
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The Trump administration's cuts to USAID have frozen hundreds of millions of dollars in contractual payments to aid groups, leaving them paying out of pocket to preserve a fragile ceasefire, according to officials from the U.S. humanitarian agency. The cutbacks threaten to halt the small gains aid workers have made combatting Gaza's humanitarian crisis during the Israel-Hamas ceasefire. They also could endanger the tenuous truce, which the Trump administration helped cement. USAID was supposed to fund much of the aid to Gaza as the ceasefire progressed, and the Trump administration approved over $383 million on January 31 to that end, according to three USAID officials. But since then, there have been no confirmed payments to any partners in the Middle East, they said. The officials, who have survived multiple rounds of furloughs, spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. Two senior officials at aid organizations confirmed they have not received any of the promised .
Indian workers were lured to a village in the West Bank with job promises, where their passports were confiscated. Israeli authorities have since rescued them, and they are now in a safe location
The workers were stuck in A-Za'im for more than one month before the Population and Immigration Authority rescued them
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The initiative aims to shield US from a rapidly evolving array of aerial threats, including a range of ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles
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The seven weapons experts were booked to travel from Moscow to Tehran aboard two flights on April 24 and September 17 last year
Netanyahu praised Trump as the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House
The attack in Israel happened amid heightened regional tensions over the ceasefire situation in Gaza
Israel halts aid to Gaza after the cease-fire phase ends, pressuring Hamas for a hostage deal. The move raises fears of worsening humanitarian crisis amid Ramadan
The deceased has been identified as 47-year-old Thomas Gabriel, a resident of Thumba, near Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala
Israel faced sharp criticism as it stopped the entry of all food and other supplies into Gaza and warned of additional consequences for Hamas if a fragile ceasefire isn't extended. Mediators Egypt and Qatar on Sunday accused Israel of violating humanitarian law by using starvation as a weapon. The ceasefire's first phase saw a surge in humanitarian aid after months of growing hunger. Hamas accused Israel of trying to derail the next phase Sunday hours after its first phase had ended and called Israel's decision to cut off aid a war crime and a blatant attack on a truce that took a year of negotiations before taking hold in January. In the second phase, Hamas could release dozens of remaining hostages in return for an Israeli pullout from Gaza and a lasting ceasefire. Negotiations on the second phase were meant to start a month ago but haven't begun. Israel said Sunday that a new US proposal calls for extending the ceasefire's first phase through Ramadan the Muslim holy month that
Israel said that it supports a proposal to extend the first phase of the ceasefire through Ramadan and Passover, or April 20
Israel's defence ministry has said the military has been instructed to prepare to defend a Druze settlement in the suburbs of Damascus, asserting that the minority it has vowed to protect was under attack by Syrian forces. The Saturday's statement, citing an order from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz, follows an Israeli warning last weekend that the forces of neighbouring Syria's new government and the insurgent group that led last year's ouster of former President Bashar Assad should not enter the area south of Damascus. Saturday's statement indicates that Israeli forces could push farther into Syria as its new authorities try to consolidate control after more than a decade of civil war. Israeli forces recently set up posts in a buffer zone and on strategic Mt Hermon nearby. There have been no major clashes between Israeli troops and Syria's new forces. We will not allow the terrorist regime of radical Islam in Syria to harm the Druze. If the regi
Israel "is trying to reset the situation to zero by mixing the cards" and hasn't given a commitment to fully withdraw from Gaza, Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said
The Trump administration has approved a major nearly USD 3 billion arms sale to Israel, bypassing a normal congressional review to provide the country with more of the 2,000-pound bombs that it has used in the war against Hamas in Gaza. In a series of notifications sent to Congress late Friday, the State Department said it had signed off on the sale of more than 35,500 MK 84 and BLU-117 bombs and 4,000 Predator warheads worth USD 2.04 billion. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has determined and provided detailed justification that an emergency exists that requires the immediate sale to the Government of Israel of the above defence articles and defense services in the national security interests of the United States, thereby waiving the Congressional review requirements, the department said. Deliveries are set to begin next year, it said. Using the same justification, the department also said Rubio had approved another munitions sale to Israel worth USD 675.7 million to be delivered .
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