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Netanyahu vows to quash Gaza ‘threat’ on second day of truce

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday vowed Gaza would never again pose a threat to Israel, as a tense calm prevailed on the second day of a truce in the Palestinian territory.Three Israeli hostages, all women, were reunited with their families after Hamas fighters handed them over on Sunday, followed by the overnight release of 90 Palestinian prisoners from an Israeli jail in the occupied West Bank.In the war-battered Gaza Strip, displaced Palestinians set off on foot or by car to return home as trucks loaded with sorely needed humanitarian aid funnelled into the devastated territory.The truce mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States began on Sunday, on the eve of Donald Trump’s inauguration for a second term as US president.In a video message on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked Trump for helping to secure the hostage release deal and once more vowed to “return the remaining hostages… and to ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel”.Displaced Palestinian Ghadeer Abdul Rabbo, 30, told AFP she hopes that “with or without Trump”, the ceasefire will hold and world governments will help “maintain this calm, because we are afraid”.If all goes to plan, the first phase of the truce would last six weeks, during which the parties would negotiate a permanent ceasefire, which has not been agreed yet.Despite the risks, hundreds of Palestinians were streaming through an apocalyptic landscape in Jabalia in northern Gaza, one of the worst-hit areas in the war.”We are finally in our home. There is no home left, just rubble, but it’s our home,” said Rana Mohsen, 43.In Rafah, in the south, Ismail Madi said that “we have endured immense hardships, but we will stay here. We will rebuild this place.”In Israel, there was elation and excitement as Emily Damari, Romi Gonen and Doron Steinbrecher returned home and appeared to be in good health.”In Emily’s own words, she is the happiest girl in the world; she has her life back,” Damari’s mother Mandy said on Monday, adding that her daughter was “doing much better than any of us could have expected” even after losing two fingers.- Reunited – The initial 42-day truce should enable a surge of aid as more Israeli hostages are released in exchange for Palestinians in Israeli custody and as Israeli forces leave some areas of Gaza.During the first phase, a total of 33 hostages are to be returned from Gaza in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinians.The first group of Palestinians released under the deal left Ofer prison in the West Bank early on Monday, with jubilant crowds celebrating their arrival in the nearby town of Beitunia.Amanda Abu Sharkh, 23, said that they “feel like family to us. They are part of us.”One freed detainee, Abdul Aziz Muhammad Atawneh, described prison as “hell, hell, hell”.Another, Khalida Jarrar of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — a Marxist movement considered a “terrorist” group by Israel and some Western governments — said prison conditions were harsh and that she had been kept “in solitary confinement for six months”.The next hostage-prisoner swap should take place on Saturday, a senior Hamas official told AFP.International Committee of the Red Cross president Mirjana Spoljaric called on all sides to “adhere to their commitments to ensure the next operations can take place safely”.The relatives of the three Israeli ex-hostages called for the release of the remaining 91 captives seized during Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war, including 34 the military has said are dead.Meirav Leshem Gonen, mother of Romi Gonen, said: “We got our Romi back, but all families deserve the same outcome, both the living and the dead.”There was anxiety in Israel over the next phases of the truce, with columnist Sima Kadmon warning in the Yedioth Ahronoth daily that the coming hostage releases may be more painful.”Some of them will arrive on gurneys and wheelchairs. Others will arrive in coffins. Some will arrive wounded and injured, in dire emotional condition,” she wrote.- ‘Beautiful feeling’ -Ammar Barbakh, 35, spent the truce’s first night in a tent on the rubble of his former home in southern Gaza’s Khan Yunis.”This is the first time I sleep comfortably and I’m not afraid,” he said.”It’s a beautiful feeling, and I hope the ceasefire continues.”The war has devastated much of the Gaza Strip and displaced the vast majority of its population of 2.4 million, but Hamas on Monday vowed that they would “rise again” and “rebuild what the occupation has destroyed”.UN relief chief Tom Fletcher said 630 aid trucks had entered into Gaza in the hours after the start of the truce, with 300 of them headed to the north of the territory.Qatar said that 12.5 million litres of fuel would enter Gaza over the first 10 days of the truce.The World Food Programme said it was “trying to reach a million people” as quickly as possible.AFP journalists said Hamas police and security forces were operating again in Gaza City on Monday, some in fatigues and others dressed in black, despite Israel’s stated goal of dismantling the group’s governance capabilities.The war’s only previous truce, for one week in November 2023, also saw hostages released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and a surge in humanitarian aid.Hamas’s October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Sunday that the death toll in the war between Israel and Hamas had reached 46,913.burs-ami/jsa

Relatives of freed Gaza hostages call for release of remaining captives

The relatives of the three Israeli hostages released from Gaza by Palestinian militants Hamas called on Monday for all those remaining in the territory to be freed.Speaking at a press conference at the Sheba hospital where the three women are being treated, they gave no details on the conditions in which their relatives had been held for 471 days or on their health.Romi Gonen, Emily Damari and Doron Steinbrecher were released on Sunday as part of the first round of exchanges that also saw around 90 Palestinian prisoners freed from Israeli jails.Meirav Leshem Gonen, the mother of Romi Gonen, said: “We got our Romi back, but all families deserve the same outcome, both the living and the dead. Our hearts go out to the other families.””We are a people who desire peace but are ready for war when needed,” she added.Yamit Ashkenazi meanwhile passed on a message from her sister Doron Steinbrecher.”Everyone needs to return, until the last hostage comes home. Just as I was fortunate to return to my family, so must everyone else.”Mandy Damari, the mother of British-Israeli Emily Damari, said her daughter was “in high spirits”.She called for all the hostages to be released and for humanitarian aid that was going into the Gaza Strip to also go to the remaining captives.Of the 251 hostages taken during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, 91 remain in Gaza, including 34 the military has said are dead.A further two hostages who are presumed alive have been held in Gaza since 2014 and 2015 respectively, as has the body of a soldier killed in the 2014 Gaza war. The three are also due to be released as part of the deal.Before the press conference, the Israeli military released new footage of the moment the three freed hostages were reunited with their mothers at an Israeli military base.In the footage, the three women are seen embracing their mothers tightly as they meet for the first time after their release.

Trump vows trade policy of ‘tariff and tax’ on other countries

US President Donald Trump promised tariffs and taxes on other countries Monday, in a nationalistic inaugural address after being sworn in as the 47th president.”I will immediately begin the overhaul of our trade system to protect American workers and families,” he said at the US Capitol.”Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we …

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Joy short-lived for wife of Palestinian prisoner to be exiled upon release

Palestinian Iman Nafeh had been eagerly awaiting her husband’s return ever since she heard he would be released from prison as part of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.But her joy was cut short when she learned he would be expelled from the Palestinian territories immediately after he was freed.After spending 44 years behind bars in Israeli custody, 34 of them consecutively, Nael Barghouthi holds the record for the lengthiest detention among Palestinians, according to advocacy group the Palestinian Prisoners Club.Nafeh’s home in the village of Kubar, in the occupied West Bank, is decorated with photos of Barghouthi — some old, some recent, all taken during his decades of detention.”Imagine a person who has spent 44 years in prison, and now they’re imposing a new punishment on him: exile,” Nafeh said.Barghouthi was arrested in 1978 and sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of an Israeli officer and attacks on Israeli sites.At the time, he was a member of Fatah, the movement of current Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and a rival of the Islamist group Hamas.- Expulsion ‘unacceptable’ -After more than 15 months of war in the Gaza Strip and a protracted, halting negotiation process, a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas finally went into effect on Sunday.In the first phase of the deal, Hamas is expected to release 33 Israeli hostages — 31 of whom were taken during the group’s October 7, 2023 attack — in exchange for around 1,900 detained Palestinians.Of those, more than 230 are serving life sentences for deadly attacks on Israelis, and will be permanently expelled from the Palestinian territories upon their release, according to a list made public by Israeli authorities.Two Hamas officials have said they will be deported mainly to Qatar or Turkey.”This decision is unacceptable to us,” said Nafeh. “I’m convinced that he (Barghouthi) will refuse it, and that he would prefer to remain in prison rather than be expelled.”Barghouthi was released once before, in 2011, as part of an exchange of Palestinian prisoners in return for an Israeli soldier captured by Hamas.He was arrested again in 2014, and defected from Fatah to join Hamas in prison.- ‘Waiting for him’ -Nafeh was herself arrested last year and held for three months in administrative detention — but she was by no means a stranger to Israeli prisons.She was arrested in 1987 for “resisting the occupation”, she said, and spent 10 years in prison.It was then that Barghouthi first saw her, on television from his cell, and decided to marry her.”I didn’t know about that yet. After my release in 1997, his family came to ask me to marry him, but for personal reasons, it didn’t happen,” Nafeh said.”I hadn’t met him before. We met when he was released in 2011. One month after he got out, we were married, but we only lived together for 32 months.”Nafeh recalls her wedding as an “expression of hope” for Palestinians.”It was a national wedding,” she said. “Everyone was happy for us.”Following his 2011 release, Barghouthi had been placed under house arrest, where he tended to orange and olive trees he planted in their garden in Kubar.Now, with his release imminent, “I am waiting for him,” said Nafeh, “so that he can eat from the fruits of the trees he planted.”