Live blog: Israeli negotiators to travel to Qatar for Gaza ceasefire talks

Sunday, July 21, 2024

1802 GMT — An Israeli negotiating team will leave for Qatar on Thursday to continue talks on a Gaza ceasefire and prisoner swap deal with Palestinian factions, according to Israeli media.

A statement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he held “in-depth discussions” on efforts to reach a prisoner swap deal with Hamas.

The discussions came hours before Netanyahu will travel to Washington early Monday for talks with US officials, including President Joe Biden.

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1821 GMT — Israeli minister expects prisoner swap deal with Hamas within 2 weeks

Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen has said a prisoner swap deal with Palestinian factions in Gaza could be reached within two weeks.

“In two weeks, we should be able to outline the main points of the hostage deal while maintaining the crucial security principles for Israel,” Cohen told Israeli Channel 12.

“The military pressure being applied by the army in Gaza is very important to push Hamas to accept the deal,” he added.

1726 GMT — Israeli attacks on Yemen undermine efforts to end regional violence: Kuwait

Israeli attacks on Yemen have harmed regional security and undermined international efforts to end violence, Kuwait warned.

At least six people were killed and 83 others injured in Israeli airstrikes on Hudaida Port in western Yemen on Saturday, according to the Health Ministry.

1558 GMT — Yemen’s Houthis vow continued support for Gaza despite Israeli attacks

Yemen’s Houthis have said that Israeli attacks would not deter the group from continuing their military escalation in support of war-torn Gaza.

At least six people were killed and 83 others injured in Israeli airstrikes on the port of Hudaida in western Yemen on Saturday, according to the Health Ministry.

1409 GMT — Polio virus found in Gaza can spread across Middle East, Danish academic warns

An academic from the University of Copenhagen has warned that the recently found polio virus in Gaza has the potential to spread across the Middle East.

Flemming Konradsen, a professor of global health, told a Danish state news media outlet on Saturday:

“It is a disease that the whole world is trying to stand together to eradicate. If it spreads in the Middle East, then it is something you are nervous about.”

Konradsen expressed his concerns over the state of the health sector in Gaza.

"What is happening in Gaza now is yet another indicator that the health infrastructure and hygiene have broken down,” he said.

1352 GMT — Israeli drone strike kills 3 Palestinians in Rafah

Three Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli drone strike in Rafah in southern Gaza, according to a medical source.

The attack targeted a group of civilians in the city, witnesses said.

A medical source said the bodies of the victims were transferred to Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis.

1233 GMT — Israeli military sends draft notices for ultra-Orthodox

The Israeli military has issued call-up notices to 1,000 members of the ultra-Orthodox community in a move meant to bolster the army's ranks but which could further inflame tensions between religious and secular Israelis.

The Supreme Court ruled last month that the defence ministry could no longer grant blanket exemptions to Jewish seminary students from the conscript military.

That arrangement had been in place since around the time of Israel's establishment in 1948 when the number of ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, was tiny.

The new policy shift has been opposed by the two religious parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government, placing severe strains on the right-wing coalition as the war in Gaza continues.

1215 GMT — Two more Hezbollah fighters killed in border clashes with Israel

Two more members of the Lebanese group Hezbollah have been killed in clashes with the Israeli army, the group has announced.

In separate statements, the group identified the slain fighters as Mustafa Hassan Fawaz and Yassin Hussein Hussein.

It did not provide details about the circumstances of their death, saying only they were killed “on the road to Jerusalem,” in reference to Hezbollah’s fight in support of Palestinian resistance groups facing a devastating Israeli onslaught in Gaza.

The new fatalities brought to 375 Hezbollah fighters who have been killed in clashes with Israeli forces since October 8, 2023, according to an Anadolu Agency tally.

1208 GMT — Ex-Israeli foreign minister calls for ‘complete destruction’ of Yemeni port Hudaida

Former Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has called for the "complete destruction" of the port of Hudaida in western Yemen.

“We must completely destroy the port of Al Hudaida,” Lieberman, the head of the Yisrael Beiteinu Party, told Army Radio.

He claimed that the port is “the main gateway for the supply of Iranian weapons to the Houthis.”

1138 GMT — Iran condemns Israeli attack on Yemen's Hudaida port

Iran has condemned Israel's deadly strike on the port of Hudaida that the Houthis say killed six people and wounded dozens more.

Late on Saturday, Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani "strongly condemned" the attack saying it was "an expression of the aggressive behaviour of the child-killing Israeli regime"

Kanani added that Israel and its supporters, including the United States, were "directly responsible for the dangerous and unpredictable consequences of the continued crimes in Gaza, as well as the attacks on Yemen".

1111 GMT — UN warns of escalation risk after Israeli attacks on Yemen

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has voiced his "deep" concern over the potential for further escalation in the Middle East following Israeli raids on the port of Al Hudaida in western Yemen.

“The Secretary-General remains deeply concerned about the risk of further escalation in the region and continues to urge all to exercise utmost restraint,” said a statement issued by the office of his special envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg.

He called on all concerned parties “to avoid attacks that could harm civilians and damage civilian infrastructure.”

1101 GMT — Israel’s Eilat Port to lay off half of its workers amid Houthi attacks

The Port of Eilat in southern Israel plans to lay off half of its workforce this week due to Houthi attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea, its chief executive officer has said.

“Eilat Port is Israel's southern gateway to the Far East, Australia, and Africa,” Gideon Golber told Israeli daily Maariv.

“All activity stopped because ships could no longer pass in any direction to reach Eilat Port or travel towards Europe through the Suez Canal. Therefore, the port halted its operations and income stopped,” he added.

1055 GMT — Netanyahu to meet Israeli negotiating team before Washington trip: Media

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet with the Israeli negotiating team on Sunday before his trip to Washington, the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation has reported.

"Efforts are underway in Israel to finalise the response to the hostage deal with Hamas today (Sunday),” it said without providing further details.

0934 GMT — Israel must face consequences to deter others from 'such cruelty': Turkish President Erdogan

Israel must face punishment for its actions severe enough to deter anyone "from considering such cruelty again," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said.

"Israel must face the consequences of its actions, ensuring that the punishment serves as a stark deterrent against anyone considering such cruelty again," Erdogan told reporters on the plane returning from the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

Erdogan also commented on an advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that affirmed Palestinians' right to self-determination and ruled that Israeli settlements in occupied territories must be evacuated.

"I hope this decision and previous ones not implemented by Israel will bring an awakening in the international community," he said.

0925 GMT — Palestinian death toll in Israel's war on Gaza nears 39,000

The Israeli army has killed 64 more Palestinians in attacks in Gaza, taking the overall death toll to 38,983 since October 7, the Health Ministry in the enclave has said.

A ministry statement added that some 89,727 others have been injured in the assault.

"Israeli forces killed 64 people and injured 105 others in four 'massacres' against families in the last 24 hours," the ministry said.

"Many people are still trapped under rubble and on the roads as rescuers are unable to reach them," it added.

0749 GMT — Palestinian journalist killed in Israeli bombing in central Gaza

Another Palestinian journalist has been killed in an Israeli attack on central Gaza, bringing the death toll to 162 since October 7, 2023.

Medical sources at Al Awda Hospital in central Gaza told Anadolu Agency that the Israeli army targeted the Ghorab family house north of the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza.

The attack killed journalist Moatasem Ghorab and four of his family members, including two girls, sources said.

0645 GMT — Houthis claim strikes on southern Israel, US ship

Yemen's Houthis have said that they carried out strikes targeting southern Israel and a US ship in the Red Sea.

"Our naval operations will not stop unless the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip stops," Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said in a televised speech.

Saree claimed that the group launched an attack targeting "vital areas in Eilat, southern Israel with ballistic missiles, achieving direct hit."

He stated that they also hit the US vessel in the Red Sea with ballistic missiles and drones.

0404 GMT — Israel military says intercepts missile fired from Yemen

The Israeli military has said it intercepted a missile fired from Yemen towards the Red Sea resort town of Eilat, after Israel bombed a port held by the Houthis.

"The projectile did not cross into Israeli territory. Rocket and missile sirens were sounded following the possibility of falling shrapnel," a military statement said, two days after a Houthi drone strike killed one person in Tel Aviv.

0017 GMT — Israeli air strikes kill ten Palestinians in central Gaza homes

Ten Palestinians were killed in Israeli air strikes that targeted two houses in central Gaza.

The Al Awda Hospital said in a statement that it received four bodies and several victims who were injured as a result of an Israeli aircraft targeting a house in the Nuseirat refugee camp.

Gaza's Civil Defense also reported via Telegram that six Palestinians were killed and others injured in an Israeli shelling of a house in the Bureij camp.

2344 GMT — No legitimacy to Washington’s plans for Gaza: Palestine presidency

The Palestinian presidency has said that leaks about Washington discussing plans for Gaza with unnamed parties "will not have any legitimacy" and emphasised that "the priority is to halt the aggression against Gaza."

Presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said in a statement by the official Palestinian news agency, WAFA, that Israel persists in "its crimes against the Palestinian people and their land, exceeding international legitimacy due to the blind and unjustified support from the American administration, which provides Israel with financial and military aid."

Rudeina said Israel's presence in Gaza and the occupied West Bank is illegitimate, in response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who dismissed an International Court of Justice's advisory opinion on the occupation's illegality and Palestinian self-determination.

For our live updates from Saturday, July 20, 2024, click here.