Israel-Hamas war: IDF declares 4 Gaza hostages dead

Slovenia officially recognized the State of Palestine on Tuesday night after its parliament voted overwhelmingly in favor of the move.

"Today is a historic day," Slovenia's Foreign Minister Tanja Fajon said on the social media platform X. "The National Assembly of Slovenia has officially recognized Palestine. This recognition is an expression of our commitment to peace and justice. Slovenia is on the right side of history, contributing to the two-state solution for lasting peace."

Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob recalled Slovenia's own independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991 in his remarks to parliament.

"We Slovenians have dreamed of this right for 1,000 years. We got it 33 years ago," he said. "Unfortunately, the Palestinian nation has not yet received this right." 

The opposition boycotted the vote except for one lawmaker who attended but abstained. The conservative Slovenian Democratic Party claimed the move "causes long term damage to Slovenia by supporting the terrorist organization Hamas."

Slovenia's decision came days after Spain, Norway and Ireland also recognized a Palestinian state. With Slovenia adding its name to the list, it means 146 out of 193 UN member states now recognize Palestine as a state in its own right.

Two ultra-Orthodox Jewish political parties in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition have come out in support of a cease-fire deal that was announced by US President Joe Biden.

Shas, the fourth-largest party in the Knesset, said in a statement it "supports the proposal and encourages the prime minister and the war cabinet to resist all pressures, conclude this agreement and save the lives of many of our brothers and sisters."

Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf, who is the leader of United Torah Judaism, also said on social media that he had told the families of the hostages taken on October 7 "that we will support any proposal that leads to the release of the hostages."

"Our position is that there is nothing greater than the value of life and the commandment to redeem captives, because their lives face a real and present danger," Goldknopf said.

The two parties together hold 18 of the 72 seats controlled by Netanyahu's expanded emergency government.

A senior Hamas official said that the group could not agree to a deal that does not secure a "clear position" from Israel on a permanent cease-fire in Gaza.

"We asked the mediators to get a clear Israeli position to commit to a permanent cease-fire and a complete withdrawal from Gaza," Hamas official Osama Hamdan told a press conference in Beirut.

He added that Israel's response to mediators regarding a cease-fire proposal that Hamas accepted on May 6 "speaks to opening the door to endless negotiations on everything."

Hamas is classified as a terrorist organization by the US, the EU, Germany and a number of other countries.

Israel has announced that it has signed a $3 billion (€2.76 billion) deal to buy a third squadron of 25 advanced F-35 stealth fighter jets from US manufacturer Lockheed Martin.

"At a time when some of our adversaries aim to undermine our ties with our greatest ally, we only further strengthen our alliance," Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in a statement.

"This sends a powerful message to our enemies across the region."

The Israeli Defense Ministry said delivery of the jets is slated to commence in 2028 at a rate of three to five jets per year.

That would bring the total number of F-35s in the Israeli fleet to 75.

The Israeli military said on Tuesday that ground forces were conducting "a precision operation" against Hamas targets in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.

Israeli fighter jets also struck targets from the air.

Local hospital officials said 11 Palestinians were killed in a strike on the refugee camp, including three children and a woman, the Associated Press news agency reported.

Qatar's Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Majed al-Ansari, said neither Israel nor Hamas have given a clear response to a three-phase Gaza cease-fire plan that US President Joe Biden outlined last week. 

Qatar, the US and Egypt have been mediating negotiations between Israel and Hamas, the Islamist militant group ruling Gaza that Israel, Germany and several other countries have classified as a terrorist organization. 

"We have read and seen the contradictory statements coming in from Israeli ministers, which doesn't give us much confidence of there being a unified position in Israel over this current proposal on the table," al-Ansari told a regular press conference.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday the plan presented by Biden was a "partial outline," and stressed that Israel's main goal remains eliminating Hamas, along with freeing dozens of Israeli hostages held in Gaza.

Netanyahu's far-right coalition partner, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, has threatened to pull out of the coalition if the prime minister agrees to a plan that does not include destroying Hamas.  Opposition leader Yair Lapid has urged the government to accept the cease-fire deal. 

On Monday, Egypt said Hamas had initially reacted "positively" to the plan. But al-Ansari said there was no "concrete approval" from either side.

However, "the process is progressing and we have been working with both sides on proposals on the table," he said.

The UN's human rights,chief, Volker Türk, has demanded an end to a surge of violence in the occupied West Bank.

Around 500 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the start of the war between Israel and the Hamas militant Islamist group in the Gaza Strip, according to UN figures.

The war started on October 7 when Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking over 200 hostages.

In response, Israel launched airstrikes and a ground offensive in Gaza that health authorities in the Hamas-run territory say have killed at least 36,400.

"As if the tragic events in Israel and then Gaza over the past eight months were not enough, the people of the occupied West Bank are also being subjected to day-after-day of unprecedented bloodshed," Türk said.

"It is unfathomable that so many lives have been taken in such a wanton fashion." 

He called for "accountability" for killings by settlers and Israeli forces.

"Pervasive impunity for such crimes has been commonplace for far too long in the occupied West Bank. Such impunity has created an enabling environment for more and more unlawful killings by [Israeli security forces]," he said.

"International law must be respected and enforced, and accountability must be ensured."

Türk said Israeli forces had used "lethal forces as a first resort against Palestinian protesters throwing stones, incendiary bottles, and firecrackers at [Israeli] armored vehicles, in cases where those shot clearly did not represent an imminent threat to life."

The rights chief also accused Israel of denying or delaying access to medical treatment for Palestinians injured in security operations.

The landlocked West Bank has been under Israeli occupation since 1967. The city of Jenin in the north of the territory is considered a stronghold for Palestinian militant groups and has been the site of multiple Israeli raids.

Parts of the West Bank have been run by the Ramallah-based Palestinian National Authority since the adoption of the 1993 Oslo Accords.

In March, Israel's Finance Ministry declared 800 hectares (1,977 acres) of the West Bank near an Israeli settlement state territory.

The Israeli ambassador to Japan has not yet been invited to Nagasaki's annual peace ceremony, city officials have said.

The southern Japanese city invited dozens of countries and territories to the event on the anniversary of the US nuclear strike that killed 74,000 people toward the end of World War II. The ceremony is set to be held on August 9.

"The situation [in Israel] is changing day by day […] so we have put sending an invitation letter on hold," Nagasaki mayor Shiro Suzuki told reporters.

"Given the critical humanitarian situation in Gaza, and public opinion in the international community, there are concerns about the risk of unexpected incidents during the ceremony," he said, insisting it should be "safe and smooth."

Nagasaki instead sent a letter to the Israeli Embassy in which the city called for an "immediate cease-fire" in the Gaza Strip, Suzuki said.

"As the Ukraine situation has not changed, we are not inviting Russia or Belarus," Suzuki said.

He said Nagasaki will "issue an invitation swiftly" if city officials decide in the coming month there is no issue with inviting Israel.

The Palestinian envoy to Japan has been invited to the ceremony, the Agence France-Presse news agency cited local officials as saying.

Japanese media reported that both the Palestinian and Israeli envoys are normally invited to the yearly event.

Meanwhile, the city of Hiroshima, which was also hit by a US atom bomb in 1945, invited Israel to its yearly commemoration while calling for a "cease-fire as soon as possible and resolution through dialogue" in the invitation letter.

A majority of people in Germany do not support Israel's military operations in Gaza, according to a survey by the Forsa polling institute and published in Germany's weekly Stern magazine.

The survey found that 61% of the population opposes Israel's offensive in the Palestinian enclave.

It showed that public support for Israel's operations had dropped significantly after several months of war.

In November, 62% favored Israel's military actions in Gaza, compared to just 33% in the most recent survey.

The survey involved 1,003 people and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3%.

The war started on October 7 when the Hamas militant Islamist group attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking over 200 hostages.

In response, Israel has hit Gaza with airstrikes and a ground offensive in which over 36,400 people have been killed to date, according to the health authorities in Hamas-run Gaza.

German officials have said Berlin supports Israel as its "reason of state" as a result of the murder of millions of Jews under the Nazi dictatorship.

Last week, human rights lawyer Alexander Schwarz told DW there was "reasonable grounds to believe" Israel was committing war crimes in Gaza with German weapons.

Israel has denied comitting war crimes, saying it has targeted Hamas militants.

Hamas is designated as a terrorist organization by the US, the EU, Germany, Israel and several other governments.

The US has called for the UN Security Council to support a Gaza cease-fire and hostage release plan announced by President Joe Biden.

US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Washington sent a draft resolution to the other 14 council members on the proposal.

"Numerous leaders and governments, including in the region, have endorsed this plan and we call on the Security Council to join them in calling for implementation of this deal without delay and without further conditions," she said.

The draft resolution would call on Hamas "to accept [the cease-fire proposal] fully and implement its terms without delay and without condition."

The Hamas militant Islamist group has said it views the plan "positively."

 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his far-right coalition partners that the proposal could be implemented while Israel achieves its war aim of eliminating Hamas.

He also said  Biden had not provided all the details of the deal and that there were "gaps."

However, Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir of the ultranationalist Jewish Power party and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich of the Religious Zionism party have threatened to topple the government if Netanyahu agrees to a deal that doesn't involve eliminating Hamas.

Biden said the first phase of the deal would last for six weeks and include a "complete" cease-fire," the withdrawal of Israeli forces from population areas of Gaza and the release of some hostages.

In a second phase, all other hostages would be released. A third phase would entail reconstruction efforts in Gaza.

The US president said if Hamas lives up to its commitments through the phases, the temporary cease-fire would lead to a permanent cessation of hostilities.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has reiterated his call for the government of Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a cease-fire deal with the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Olmert, who led the government of  Israel between 2006 and 2009, told DW in an interview that the current military offensive in Gaza will not help free the remaining hostages.

"We have reached a point where we have achieved most of what we set out to achieve in the military operation in the first place and that we don't need to continue the war," he said.

"We need to stop the war now," he added. "And we have to accept the proposal which was presented by President Biden [...] and that hopefully will bring us to the point where we can make an exchange of all the hostages so that we'll bring them back."

Olmert said Netanyahu is beholden to some of the members of his Cabinet who are strongly in favor of the military operation in Gaza.

"The Israeli prime minister is held, and he's squeezed, perhaps he's extorted, by his political partners that say in the most explicit manner that they will leave the government and they will break down the coalition" if Israel accepts the cease-fire, he said.

Olmert went on to criticize Netanyahu's leadership during the war.

"Netanyahu doesn't think about what's good for Israel, but what's good for Netanyahu," he said. "And it appears that it's not good for Netanyahu to end the war now because he will lose his government."

The Israeli army has announced that four of the remaining hostages who were kidnapped by Hamas during the October 7 terror attacks in southern Israel are now dead.

The four men were identified as Chaim Peri, 80, Yoram Metzger, 80, Amiram Cooper, 84, and Nadav Popplewell, 51. Three of them were filmed alive in hostage videos posted earlier by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Israel's military spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said the military believes the hostages were killed "a number of months" ago "at the time IDF forces were operating in Khan Younis."

"We are thoroughly examining the circumstances of their deaths and checking all possibilities. We will present soon the findings, first to their families, and then to the public," Hagari said. "We will present them with transparency, as we have done until now."

Hamas claimed last month that Popplewell died after being wounded in an Israeli airstrike. It did not present any evidence for this claim. Hamas is classified as a terrorist organization by Israel, Germany, the EU, the US and other governments.

After the military's announcement, the Israeli grassroots group Hostages Forum called on the government to immediately approve the cease-fire plan outlined by US President Joe Biden last week.

"It is time to end this cycle of sacrifice and neglect," the group wrote in a statement. "Their murder in captivity is a mark of disgrace and a sad reflection on the significance of delaying previous deals."

Around 80 hostages are believed to still be alive in Hamas captivity.

sdi, mf/nm, rmt (AFP, AP, Reuters, dpa)