Washington: With pressure from Egypt, Qatar and the US mounting, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has indicated that a ceasefire deal might be on the cards. The deal, if struck, would see the release of dozens of hostages still held by Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Netanyahu is presently in Washington where he is due to address the Congress and meet top leadership. Speaking in the US capital on July 22 to families of hostages, he said: "The conditions (for a deal) are undoubtedly ripening. This is a good sign".
"I am doing everything in my power to combine the necessary humanitarian objective and the imperative to return the hostages, and at the same time, preserve the existence of the State of Israel," Netanyahu said after the meeting. "I am not prepared in any way to give in on the victory over Hamas. If we give up on this, we will be in danger in the face of Iran's entire axis of evil," he added.
It comes as the Israeli military, in the latest move, ordered the evacuation of a part of the Gaza Strip it earlier designated as a humanitarian zone. The death toll in Palestine since the outbreak of the war nine months ago has now topped 39,000, as per Hamas claims.
As of now, 120 hostages are still held by Hamas. Of these 120, about a third are already dead and approximately 85 are alive. The Israeli military announced earlier this week that two more hostages had died in captivity.
70 dead as Israel sends tanks back into Gaza's Khan YounisAt least 70 Palestinians were killed, Gaza medics said on July 22, as Israel sent tanks back into the greater Khan Younis area after ordering evacuations of some districts it said had been used for renewed attacks by militants. According to Al Jazeera, about 150,000 Khan Younis residents were forced to flee in one day, with many saying they barely got a couple of minutes to escape to areas with little or no infrastructure. The Gaza health ministry said the dead included several women and children and that at least 200 other people had been wounded. |
