2024-05-03 02:38:06
Colombia breaks off relations with Israel over Gaza war. A Hamas leader probably doesn’t trust the new negotiation offer. More information in the news blog.
The most important things at a glance
TV station: Hamas leader doesn’t trust negotiation offer
5:25 a.m.: According to a media report, the leader of the Islamist Hamas in the embattled Gaza Strip, Jahia al-Sinwar, is skeptical about the latest offer to negotiate a hostage deal. It is not an offer from the Egyptian mediators, but an Israeli one “in American guise” that contains a number of pitfalls, a source close to the Hamas leader told the Israeli television station Channel 12 on Wednesday evening. The current draft contains no guarantee that the war will end.
As part of mediation efforts in Cairo, Hamas was presented with a proposal for a ceasefire in return for the release of hostages. An answer is still pending. The Islamist organization has so far insisted on an end to the war, which Israel rejects. The Israeli government has announced a rapid start to the controversial offensive in Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip on the border with Egypt if an agreement is not reached.
Lebanon-based Hamas representative Osama Hamdan told the Al-Manar television station, which is controlled by the pro-Iranian Shiite militia Hezbollah in Lebanon: “Our position on the current negotiating document is negative,” as the “Times of Israel” reported on Thursday night. According to the Hamas press office, this does not mean a break in negotiations. According to the newspaper, the organization planned to submit a response to the latest proposal in the next few hours.
Statements by Hamas leaders in exile should not be viewed as official positions of the Islamist organization, al-Sinwar’s confidant told the Israeli broadcaster Channel 12. The Gaza leader now only relies on two close followers who control the Gaza Strip on his decisions had left the order before Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel on October 7th last year. According to the Times of Israel, there have been recent statements by exiled Hamas leaders in favor of a ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip.
Colombia breaks off relations with Israel over Gaza war
1.12 a.m.: Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro has announced a break in diplomatic relations with Israel. Israel has a “genocidal” government, Petro said on Wednesday at a Labor Day rally in Bogotá. “If Palestine dies, humanity dies, and we will not let them die,” emphasized the left-wing politician in front of thousands of people in the Plaza de Bolívar in Colombia’s capital. The severance of relations applies from this Thursday.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz called Petro “anti-Semitic and hateful” in a statement. He decided to “side with humanity’s most despicable monsters who burned babies, murdered children, raped women and kidnapped innocent civilians,” Katz wrote on the X platform, formerly Twitter, in Hebrew and Spanish. The President will not change the fact that relations between the two countries have always been warm.
Petro had sharply criticized Israel several times in recent months and threatened to break off relations. Already in October he had compared the actions of the Israeli army with the crimes of the German National Socialists and the Gaza Strip with the Auschwitz extermination camp and the Warsaw Ghetto. A spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry then announced a cessation of exports to Colombia in the security sector. Israel has been a key supplier of military equipment to the South American country, whose armed forces are battling guerrilla groups.
Israel’s military: preparing “offensive in the north”.
9:16 p.m.: According to Chief of General Staff Hersi Halevi, Israel is preparing “an offensive in the north.” He did not give any details during an assessment of the situation at the Lebanese border. He also explains that the offensive in the Gaza Strip will be “continued with force.”
Blinken in Israel: Determined for a ceasefire in the Gaza war
2:44 p.m.: During a visit to Israel, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed his determination to achieve a rapid ceasefire in the Gaza war and the release of more hostages from the Islamist Hamas. In Jerusalem, Blinken met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The US Secretary of State had previously met with President Izchak Herzog in Tel Aviv. The release of the hostages is currently the “highest priority.”