Netanyahu: No need for ‘drastic’ US sanctions against settlers * Washington says West Bank violence dropped since first penalties announced * Gallant vows army will push into Rafah
The Times of Israel is liveblogging Thursday’s events as they happen.
Russia’s foreign ministry decides to make fun of Israeli hostages held in Gaza, to get back over a Russian-Belarusian band that denounces Moscow’s Ukraine invasion being welcomed in Tel Aviv after they were held in Thailand on immigration charges that had sparked fears they could be deported to Russia and face prison.
Several members of Bi-2 have dual nationalities, including Israeli and Australian.
“We understand the attempts of Israeli diplomats to show that they can free, if not the hostages, then musicians,” the Russian Foreign Ministry writes on Facebook.
Over 130 hostages, mainly civilians, have been held by the Hamas terror group in Gaza for nearly four months. Some have been killed in captivity.
The quip comes at the end of a long post in which Moscow denies having had Thailand do its bidding by detaining the band for a week.
Russian independent media had reported that Moscow’s diplomats were demanding the band be sent to Russia.
Turkish hostages freed by police while assailant in bathroom
A local official says Turkish police freed a group of hostages taken by a pro-Palestinian gunman at a plant near Istanbul owned by US consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble.
“When he went out for a bathroom break, our security forces carried out an operation without harming the hostages,” local governor Seddar Yavuz tells reporters, adding that the assailant had been detained.
Qatari claim Hamas gave initial okay to deal ‘rushed and wrong,’ Palestinian source says
A senior Palestinian source tells Lebanese news outlet Al-Mayadeen that Qatar jumped the gun in appearing to announce that Hamas had given initial approval to a ceasefire proposal.
The statement “was rushed and is incorrect,” the source says, claiming that Hamas’s leadership has yet to schedule meetings in Cairo to discuss the proposal with Egyptian mediators.
A similar quote is carried by AFP from a source close to Hamas: “There is no agreement on the framework of the agreement yet — the factions have important observations — and the Qatari statement is rushed and not true.”
In Al-Mayadeen, the source claims that the positive signals are a plot by the Israeli media to stir up public expectations about the nascent deal.
Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari earlier said that a proposed deal “has been approved by the Israeli side and now we have an initial positive confirmation from the Hamas’s side.”
The comments at Johns Hopkins University in Washington briefly triggered some celebrations in Gaza, including celebratory gunfire, and a drop in the price of crude oil.
But a Qatari official in Doha tells Reuters there is no ceasefire deal yet, and that Hamas had “received the proposal positively” but not responded yet.
And Taher Al-Nono, media adviser to Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh, tells Reuters: “We have received the proposal that was put together in Paris but we haven’t yet given a response to any of the parties.”
“We can’t say that the current stage of negotiation is zero and at the same time we can’t say that we have reached an agreement,” Al-Nono says.
Turkey’s DHA now reports that only one assailant took hostages at a Proctor and Gamble plant in Turkey.
AFP reporters say anti-riot police were seen moving closer to the plant as the crisis stretched into the night.
The attacker posted repeatedly on Instagram, including claiming that he offered to free one hostage, who refused to leave in solidarity with the others.
Relatives who gathered outside the factory had followed the Instagram account before it became accessible. They expressed anger that the attacker would choose to protest Israel’s war on Hamas by targeting workers in Turkey — a country strongly supportive of the Palestinian cause.
“He supposedly does this for Islam, but they are the ones who harm Islam the most,” Sedat Degirmenci, whose son-in-law was taken hostage, tells AFP.
“If you do this for Palestine, go and fight there,” adds Cigdem Aydemir, the mother of a 26-year-old woman taken hostage at the plant.
“What does my daughter have to do with this?” says Aydemir. “I can only pray.”
The US Senate will vote next week on a bipartisan bill that would strengthen border security and also provide more aid to Ukraine and Israel, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says.
“We cannot simply shirk from our responsibilities just because the task is difficult,” Schumer says on the Senate floor, adding that the text of the package will be released by Sunday, with the initial vote taking place no later than Wednesday.
Senate negotiators have been in the talks on the package for months. Former US president Donald Trump has urged lawmakers to reject the deal and Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has also voiced skepticism about the talks.
Johnson is set to meet early next week with Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, freed hostage Emily Hand and relatives of some still held in the Strip.
Hundreds of protesters are marching in Warren, Michigan, outside Detroit seeking to pressure visiting US President Joe Biden to end support for Israel as it fights Hamas in Gaza.
“We won’t vote on election day,” marchers chant, driving home Democratic concerns of how the administration’s stance could affect Biden’s chances of carrying the key swing state in November, home to the US’s largest concentration of Arab-Americans.
Signs accuse Israel of war crimes and repeat the “from the river to the sea” mantra viewed by many Jews as a call for the elimination of Israel.
Activists with the “Abandon Biden” movement said earlier that demonstrators are “on standby” and that protests will be held at the president’s events once they determine the locations.
“Eventually we will find out and we will make sure to give him a proper reception,” said Khalid Turaani, co-chair of the Abandon Biden campaign in Michigan.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tells reporters that senior administration officials will travel to Michigan later in February to hear from community leaders on the conflict in Israel and Gaza.
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron says his country could officially recognize a Palestinian state after a ceasefire in Gaza without waiting for the outcome of what could be years-long talks between Israel and the Palestinians on a two-state solution.
UK recognition of an independent state of Palestine, including in the United Nations, “can’t come at the start of the process, but it doesn’t have to be the very end of the process,” Cameron, a former British prime minister, tells The Associated Press.
“It could be something that we consider as this process, as this advance to a solution, becomes more real,” Cameron says. “What we need to do is give the Palestinian people a horizon towards a better future, the future of having a state of their own.”
That prospect is “absolutely vital for the long-term peace and security of the region,” he says.
Cameron says the first step must be a “pause in the fighting” in Gaza that would eventually turn into “a permanent, sustainable ceasefire.”
He adds that in order for his country to recognize a Palestinian state, the leaders of the Hamas terror group would need to leave Gaza “because you can’t have a two-state solution with Gaza still controlled by the people responsible for October 7,” referring to the deadly Hamas attack on Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Hamas has so far taken the position that its leaders would not leave the enclave as part of a ceasefire deal.
Houthis fire missiles at Bermuda-owned cargo ship in Red Sea
Two anti-ship ballistic missiles were launched from Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen, likely towards the M/V KOI ship in the Red Sea, the US Central Command says.
“The missiles impacted in the water without hitting the ship,” it says, adding there were no injuries and no damage reported to the Liberian flagged, Bermuda-owned cargo vessel M/V KOI, nor to the coalition ships in the area.
The Houthis claim to have targeted a “British merchant vessel” in the Red Sea.
Hamas: Talks are moving, but not yet inked
A Hamas official tells Reuters that talks on a truce deal with Israel have advanced, but are short of the finish line.
“We cannot say the current stage of negotiation is zero and at the same time we cannot say that we have reached an agreement,” the official says.
The official says the matter is still being studied, and no answer has been given to any party.
State Department: Settler violence has dropped since first sanctions imposed
US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller says the US has seen a reduction in settler violence since it last imposed sanctions over the issue, but does not think Israel is doing enough to address the issue.
“We have seen the level of extremist settler violence come down somewhat, not come down enough, we want to see more, but the interventions we have made have made a difference,” he says.
Noting that Israel has its own laws against violence, Miller says that “we have seen them take some steps to reign in settler violence but we don’t think those steps have been sufficient.”
Miller says “dozens” of settlers have been hit with visa bans since sanctions were first announced in December, though he is unable to detail how many or if the four individuals sanctioned Thursday are also banned.
He says the sanctions on the four will have an impact on them whether or not they have assets in the US, given the wide reach of the US financial system.
Miller says the US will take additional steps if necessary, but refuses to detail if sanctions on dual US-Israeli citizens will be considered.
“We think it’s important that those involved in [settler violence] be dealt with regardless of nationality,” he says.
