Hamas releases two more hostages as British daughter flies to Israel

Published

2 years ago

October 24, 2023

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Hamas has released two more hostages, with the British daughter of one of the women flying to Israel and saying she’s relieved beyond words.

Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, and Nurit Cooper, 79, were taken to the Rafah crossing into Egypt and put into ambulances.

Hamas said it released them on humanitarian and “poor health grounds”, but their husbands are still being held prisoner.

Israel-Gaza war – latest updates

The group released images of masked gunmen giving the women food and drink and leading them to the handover point, where Red Cross workers met them.

More than 200 people were kidnapped during the Hamas attack but only four have been freed – the other two being a US mother and daughter last week.

Sharone Lifschitz, who lives in London, confirmed her mother was released on Monday evening and is flying out to meet her.

“While I cannot put into words the relief that she is now safe, I will remain focused on securing the release of my father and all those, some 200 innocent people, who remain hostages in Gaza,” she said.

The two women and their husbands – aged 83 and 84 – were snatched from their homes in Nir Oz, near the Gaza border, as Hamas began its massacre.

Ms Lifschitz told Times Radio her parents had complex health needs and that her father, Oded, had high blood pressure the night before the attack.

The grandson of Yocheved Lifshitz said his grandparents had spent years helping sick Gazans.

“They are human rights activists, peace activists for all their life,” said Daniel Lifshitz.

“For more than a decade, they took… sick Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, not from the West Bank, from the Gaza Strip every week from the Erez border to the hospitals in Israel to get treatment for their disease, for cancer, for anything.”

With many hostages still held prisoner, the US is understood to have asked Israel to delay its ground invasion so more can be freed.

A senior Hamas leader told Sky News all civilians among the hostages would be released if Israel reduced the intensity of bombing Gaza.

“We want to stop the random bombardments, the total destruction, the genocide so that the al Qassam soldiers can take them from their places and hand them to the Red Cross or whoever,” said Khaled Meshaal.

“We need the right conditions to allow them to be released.”

Israeli tanks and thousands of troops have been waiting for days for the order to attack – a moved that’s likely to significantly increase casualties on both sides.

Defence minister Yoav Gallant told troops on Monday “it will come” and to keep preparing.

He said the attack would be from land, air and sea but gave no timeframe.

More than 5,000 Palestinians have now been killed and 15,000 wounded in Israeli airstrikes, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

On Monday, it said more more than 400 had died in just the last 24 hours.

Hospitals are at breaking point, with vital supplies like anaesthetic running out and fears electricity generators could run out and halt lifesaving equipment like baby incubators.

Israel insists it takes great care not to injure civilians and that its only aim is to destroy Hamas – which runs the Gaza Strip.

Israel has urged people to move from northern Gaza but hundreds of thousands remain.

The aerial bombardment and blockade has also caused food and water to run perilously low in the densely-packed territory of 2.3 million.

On Monday, a third aid convoy of 20 trucks was able to enter from Egypt but aid agencies have warned it’s a fraction of what’s needed.

Despite the worsening humanitarian situation, President Biden said talk of a ceasefire-for-hostage deal was premature.

“We should have those hostages released and then we can talk,” he told reporters on Monday.

The UN Security Council is, however, expected to vote on a resolution today calling for “humanitarian pauses” in order to allow aid into Gaza.

There has been a slew of diplomatic visits to Israel in recent days as fears grow that the war could spread.

The latest to visit and meet Prime Minister Netanyahu on Tuesday will be France’s President Macron, following the Dutch leader’s visit on Monday.

The 7 October terror attack – described by some as Israel’s 9/11 – saw more than 1,400 people murdered in their homes, on the streets and at a music festival.

Graphic bodycam, phone and CCTV were played to journalists yesterday, one showed a Hamas militant throwing a hand grenade at a man trying to escape with his two young sons.

The father is killed while the boys are left injured and bleeding, one asking: “Daddy is dead… Why am I alive?… I want my mum.”

Another shows Hamas breaking into communities, moving to different houses, killing residents and even pets – while a dashcam clip appears to show fighters shooting and killing civilians on the road.

World

At least 93 killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza, say local medics

Published

6 hours ago

May 16, 2025

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At least 93 killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza, say local medics

Israeli strikes on Gaza killed at least 93 people and injured hundreds on Friday, according to local medics.

Heavy strikes were reported in the northern town of Beit Lahia and the nearby Jabalia refugee camp.

Israel said it had killed several militants in an observation compound.

Its forces also struck Khan Younis and the outskirts of Deir al Balah in southern Gaza.

Officials at Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital said at least 66 bodies had been brought there, while 16 are said to have been taken to the Nasser Hospital further south.

More than 250 people have now been killed in Israeli strikes since Thursday, according to local health authorities.

Israel, which had dropped leaflets on Beit Lahia ordering residents to leave, said its airforce had struck more than 150 military targets across Gaza in recent days.

This week, Israel said it had bombed the European Hospital because it was home to an underground Hamas base, but expert analysis has cast doubt on its evidence.

Tom Fletcher, head of the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs, warned the Security Council this week it must “act now” to “prevent genocide” – a claim Israel vehemently denies.

Donald Trump spoke about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as he wrapped up his trip to the Middle East.

In Abu Dhabi, the US president said: “We’re looking at Gaza, and we got to get that taken care of.

“A lot of people are starving, a lot of people. There’s a lot of bad things going on.”

While most of his four-day visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates focused on trade deals, he also chose to recognise the new government in Syria and urged Iran to engage in nuclear talks.

There had been hope Mr Trump’s visit could bring about a ceasefire deal or renewal of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

An Israeli aid blockade of the territory is now in its third month.

Israel says the blockade is to pressure Hamas to release the remaining hostages and that it won’t allow aid back in until a system is in place that gives it control over distribution.

Earlier this week, a new humanitarian organisation said it expected to begin operations before the end of the month after what it described as key agreements from Israeli officials.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – which has US backing – identified several US military veterans, former humanitarian coordinators and security contractors that it said would lead the delivery effort.

Many in the humanitarian community, including the UN, said the system does not align with humanitarian principles and will not be able to meet the needs of Gaza’s people.

The war began when Hamas militants killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages in the 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel.

Israel has killed nearly 53,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the start of May that Israel was planning an expanded offensive against Hamas as his cabinet approved plans that could involve seizing the entire Gaza Strip and controlling aid.

A defence official said at the time that it would not begin before President Trump finished his visit to the Middle East.

World

‘A shortage of everything except death’: How Israel has escalated Gaza bombing campaign

Published

8 hours ago

May 16, 2025

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'A shortage of everything except death': How Israel has escalated Gaza bombing campaign

A wave of deadly strikes in northern Gaza has marked a significant escalation in Israel’s offensive.

The Israeli military (IDF) says it has struck “over 150 terror targets” across the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours – an average of one airstrike every ten minutes.

At least 109 people have been killed in the strikes, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, bringing the total number killed this week to 284.

That number may rise further. On Friday morning, the director of Gaza City’s Al Shifa hospital told Al Jazeera that more than 250 people had been killed in the previous 36 hours alone.

Nurse and his family killed in strike

The impact of this new bombardment is cataclysmic, as this video of an Israeli airstrike in Jabalia, northern Gaza, verified by Sky News, shows.

Other videos show huge smoke clouds rising from airstrikes on residential neighbourhoods surrounding the city’s Indonesian Hospital.

The hospital’s director, Dr Marwan al Sultan, told Sky News: “There is a shortage of everything except death.”

Among those killed in Jabalia on Friday was 42-year old Yahya Shehab, a nurse for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF).

He was killed alongside his wife Tamara, 37, and their five children: Sarah, 18, Anas, 16, Maryam, 14, Aya, 12 and Abdul, 11.

He is survived by his niece Huda, 27, a civil engineer, who lives nearby with her husband Ahmad Ngat, 31, and their two young sons, Mohammed, seven, and Yusuf, four.

Ahmad remembers Yahya as kind and generous, and that he would use his skills as a nurse to treat Mohammed and Yusuf whenever they were sick.

“His kids were great too,” Ahmad says. “May God have mercy on them.”

Operation Gideon Chariot

An Israeli official said Friday’s strikes were preparatory actions in the lead-up to a larger operation.

Earlier this month, Israel’s security cabinet approved “Operation Gideon Chariot” – a plan to “capture” all of Gaza and force its entire population to move to a small enclave in the southern Gaza Strip.

At the time, a defence official said the operation would go ahead if no hostage deal was reached by the end of US President Donald Trump’s visit to the Middle East. That visit ended on Friday, 16 May.

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Hamas had proposed releasing all hostages in exchange for a permanent end to the war. Last month, Hamas turned down Israel’s offer of a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the militant group laying down its weapons and releasing half the living hostages.

Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, who sits in the security cabinet, said of Operation Gideon Chariot that Gaza would be “entirely destroyed”, and that its population will “leave in great numbers to third countries”.

Ahmad says he is ready to leave Gaza with his family at the earliest opportunity.

“We want to live our lives,” he says.

His wife Huda grieving the loss of her uncle Yahya, is seven months pregnant. The family are constantly struggling to find enough food for her and the children, he says.

“Unfortunately, she suffers greatly,” Ahmad says. “She developed gestational diabetes during this pregnancy.”

Israel has prevented the entry of all food, fuel and water since 2 March. On Monday, a UN-backed report warned that one in five people in Gaza were facing starvation.

Satellite imagery may show new aid hubs

Under new proposals backed by the US, Israel now intends to control the distribution of aid via private military contractors.

The proposals, set to start operating by the end of May, would see aid distributed from militarised compounds in four locations around the Gaza Strip.

Satellite imagery from recent weeks shows Israel has constructed four compounds which could be used for aid distribution.

Construction began in April and was completed by early May.

Three of these are clustered together in the southwest corner of the Gaza Strip, with one in the central Netzarim corridor.

None are located in northern Gaza, where Ahmad and Huda’s family live.

The UN has called this a “deliberate attempt to weaponise” aid distribution and has refused to participate.

The planned aid distribution system is being coordinated by a new non-profit, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which was set up in February in Switzerland.

Its board includes a former head of World Central Kitchen, as well as people with close ties to the US military and private military contractors.

Proposals drawn up by the GHF say the four planned aid distribution sites could feed around 1.2 million people, approximately 60% of Gaza’s population.

The GHF later requested that Israel establish additional distribution points.

Speaking to the UN Security Council on Tuesday, UN Relief chief Tom Fletcher said the plan “makes starvation a bargaining chip”.

“It is cynical sideshow. A deliberate distraction. A fig leaf for further violence and displacement,” he said.

Large areas of Gaza have already been razed in recent weeks, including vast tracts of the southern city of Rafah, where many had fled during the war’s early stages.

Sky News analysis of satellite imagery shows approximately two-thirds of Rafah’s built-up area (66%) has been reduced entirely to rubble, with buildings across much of the rest of the city showing signs of severe damage.

On Thursday, Human Rights Watch executive director Federico Borello said the UK and US have a duty, under the Genocide Convention, to “stop Israeli authorities from starving civilians in Gaza”.

He said: “Hearing Israeli officials flaunt plans to squeeze Gaza’s two million people into an even tinier area while making the rest of the land uninhabitable should be treated like a five-alarm fire in London, Brussels, Paris, and Washington.”

Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said on Friday that Israel’s new offensive is intended to secure the release of its hostages. “Our objective is to get them home and get Hamas to relinquish power,” he said.

The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

World

First Russia-Ukraine talks since 2022 agree POW swap – but last less than two hours

Published

8 hours ago

May 16, 2025

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First Russia-Ukraine talks since 2022 agree POW swap - but last less than two hours

Russia and Ukraine failed to agree to a ceasefire in their first direct talks since 2022 – as European leaders called Moscow’s approach “unacceptable” after the discussions lasted less than two hours and Vladimir Putin stayed away.

The meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, was set up at short notice on President Putin‘s behest, but he declined a challenge from Volodymyr Zelenskyy to meet him in person and instead sent relatively junior representatives.

A source in the Ukrainian team told Sky News that Russia had threatened “eternal war” during the talks.

They said the Russians were not ready to talk about technical details of a ceasefire and were waiting for superiors to approve them.

Latest updates on Istanbul talks

Both countries said they had agreed to trade 1,000 prisoners of war each in what would be the biggest such exchange yet of the conflict.

But Kyiv wants the West to impose tighter sanctions unless Moscow accepts a proposal from Donald Trump for a 30-day ceasefire.

President Zelenskyy said after the meeting that he had spoken to Mr Trump by phone – alongside Sir Keir Starmer and the leaders of France, Germany and Poland – who all met in Albania on Friday.

In a post on X, he said Ukraine was “ready to take the fastest possible steps to bring real peace” and that “tough sanctions must follow” if Russia continues to resist a month-long truce.

Frustration over Russia‘s perceived stalling in holding serious negotiations was also clear from the European leaders gathered in Tirana.

“The Russian position is clearly unacceptable, and not for the first time,” said Sir Keir.

“So as a result of that meeting with President Zelenskyy and that call with President Trump we are now closely aligning our responses and will continue to do so.”

The UK prime minister said the no-show by Russia’s leader was “more evidence that Putin is not serious about peace” and has “been dragging his heels”.

NATO secretary-general Mark Rutte, who was also in Albania, said President Putin had made a “big mistake” by sending low-level delegates to Istanbul.

A list of representatives ahead of the meeting listed presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, deputy foreign minister Galuzin Mikhail Yuryevich and deputy defence chief Alexander Fomin.

Ukraine’s delegation was led by defence minister Rustem Umerov.

President Zelenskyy had called the Russian team “a theatre prop” ahead of the summit in the Dolmabahce Palace.

However, Turkey’s foreign minister heralded it as “an important day for world peace” and said Russia and Ukraine had agreed to swap 1,000 POWs each as a “confidence-building measure”.

Hakan Fidan shared a picture of the delegations and said they had “agreed to share with the other side in writing the conditions that would make it possible to reach a ceasefire”.

Russia’s Vladimir Medinsky said his team had “taken note” of the Ukrainian request for direct talks between Mr Putin and Mr Zelenskyy.

“We have agreed that each side will present its vision of a possible future ceasefire and spell it out in detail,” said Mr Medinsky.

Hopes ahead of the meeting were low after Mr Trump and his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, played down the prospect of meaningful progress.

The US president told reporters on Air Force One on Thursday “nothing’s going to happen until Putin and I get together”, while Mr Rubio said a “breakthrough” was unlikely until the US and Russian presidents meet.

No date for such a meeting has been proposed, but Mr Trump has said it will happen “as soon as we can set it up”.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that top-level talks were “certainly needed” but arranging it would take time.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov was a notable absentee, despite attending Ukraine-focused talks with the US in Saudi Arabia in February.

Russia has so far failed to agree to a 30-day unconditional ceasefire – proposed by European leaders who have threatened Moscow with “massive” sanctions if it doesn’t sign up. The US also supports the plan.

The Kremlin has ambitions to keep swathes of Ukrainian land as part of any long-term truce, an idea that Kyiv firmly rejects.

Russia also wants an end to Ukraine’s NATO ambitions and a promise it will stay neutral.