Israeli security cabinet set to discuss hostage release deal and Gaza
Israel’s prime minster Benjamin Netanyahu will convene his security cabinet at 4pm to discuss the situation in Gaza and potential plans to reach a hostage release deal.
Netanyahu’s office told The Times of Israel that the meeting will take place, but it did not clarify whether raise the ceasefire and phased hostage-release proposal that Hamas said it accepted last week. However, local Hebrew media reports that it is not on the agenda.
This comes as Israeli defence minister Israel Katz has vowed to press on with the offensive against Gaza City, according to The Independent. He said be razed unless Hamas agrees to end the war on Israel’s terms and release all hostages.
Hamas said in a statement on Sunday that Israel’s plans to take over Gaza City showed it wasn’t serious about a ceasefire. It said a ceasefire would be the “only way” hostages would be released.
Key events
Peter Beaumont
In case you missed it yesterday, my colleague Peter Beaumont has this analysis on why Israel’s attack on a hospital in Gaza may constitute a war crime on many fronts:
Israel’s twin strike on the Nasser hospital in Gaza, which killed five journalists including staff working for the Associated Press, Reuters, NBC and Al Jazeera, is a potential violation of international law writ large.
The attack targeted a civilian building, specifically a hospital, in a reckless double-tap strike that killed civilians, with rescue workers and journalists among them. All categories that should be protected under international law.
While the Israel Defense Forces, which have killed about 200 journalists already in the Gaza war, immediately attempted to suggest the killing of civilians had been in error, the reality is that it appears to be policy and not a mistake.
What is striking about this incident is that each individual element – the targeting of a working hospital, of journalists and rescue workers, of civilian injured already under treatment – would be expected to draw accusations of a war crime in its own right.
Taken together it points to something far darker, a “horrific” incident in the words of the British foreign secretary, David Lammy.
Read on here:
The death toll in Gaza has risen, with least 75 Palestinians, including 17 aid seekers, being killed in the last 24 hours according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
It said that the total death toll since 7 October 2023 has now risen to 62,819, with 158,629 people wounded.
This comes after international condemnation of the killing of at least 20 people, including five journalists, after Israel struck Nasser hospital in Gaza on Monday (25 August).
Israeli security cabinet set to discuss hostage release deal and Gaza
Israel’s prime minster Benjamin Netanyahu will convene his security cabinet at 4pm to discuss the situation in Gaza and potential plans to reach a hostage release deal.
Netanyahu’s office told The Times of Israel that the meeting will take place, but it did not clarify whether raise the ceasefire and phased hostage-release proposal that Hamas said it accepted last week. However, local Hebrew media reports that it is not on the agenda.
This comes as Israeli defence minister Israel Katz has vowed to press on with the offensive against Gaza City, according to The Independent. He said be razed unless Hamas agrees to end the war on Israel’s terms and release all hostages.
Hamas said in a statement on Sunday that Israel’s plans to take over Gaza City showed it wasn’t serious about a ceasefire. It said a ceasefire would be the “only way” hostages would be released.
A human rights group says US military personnel could face legal liability for assisting Israeli forces who commit war crimes in Gaza.
According to Human Rights Watch, direct participation by US forces since October 2023, including providing intelligence and involvement in coordination and planning makes the United States party to the conflict between Israel and Palestinian armed groups.
The group argue that US forces could be “jointly responsible for participating in laws-of-war violations by Israeli forces, and US personnel implicated could be held individually responsible for war crimes.”
“International law holds a country legally complicit when it knowingly assists another nation to commit serious laws-of-war violations and other abuses,” said Sarah Yager, Washington director at Human Rights Watch.
“The US public should know that US weapons provided to Israel are directly enabling atrocities in Gaza, deeply entangling the United States in the laws-of-war violations that Human Rights Watch and others are documenting.”
Israeli hostage families block roads to call for release of relatives
Families are demanding the Israeli government enter an agreement with Hamas to end the war and secure the release of the hostages still held in Gaza. Major roads, including Route 1 and Route 443, both of which connect Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, were closed on Tuesday by the protests.
Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar has accused “left-wing” governments of trying to “force” Palestinian state on to Israel.
During his first official visit to the US since taking office last year, he said at the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in New York that the move would amount to “suicide”.
As Times of Israel reports, he said: “Left-wing governments in various countries, including France, Britain, Canada, and Australia, are trying to force a Palestinian state on Israel.”
“Israel cannot allow this. For us, it would be an act of suicide,” he says, then accusing western capitals of “trying to build momentum” through their recently announced plans to recognise a Palestinian state.
Elsewhere in the briefing, Sa’ar also said that Israel stands in a strategically better than it did two years ago, from a military standpoint. He also noted “the Iranian axis that militarily surrounded Israel has been greatly weakened.”
“What was once a military siege is now turning into an attempt at a political siege of the State of Israel, with a clear goal: to force a Palestinian state upon us,” he added.
Here are some of the latest images from Gaza:
All roads across Israel have now reopened after a morning of protests, according to local police.
A statement from police said: “Freedom of protest and expression is not freedom to harm many others’ freedom of movement.
“Blocking roads without permission and in a manner that may endanger road users or harm citizens’ freedom of movement will not be allowed.”
This comes after there was a planned national “day of struggle”, planned by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum in hopes of securing a deal to free the captured. The day began at 6.29am, the time Hamas launched its 7 October attack, and saw protesters close down highways and block pavements outside politician’s homes.
Major roads were closed across the country, including sections of Route 1 and Route 443, both of which connect Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
Opening summary
Hello, we are restarting our live coverage of the Israel-Gaza war and wider Middle East crisis.
The killing of at least 20 people, including five journalists, after Israel struck Nasser hospital in Gaza on Monday (25 August) has sparked international condemnation.
Reuters cameraperson Hussam al-Masri , photographer Mohammed Salama, who worked for Al Jazeera, and NBC’s Moaz Abu Taha were among those killed.
Victims on the fourth floor of the hospital were killed in a double-tap strike with one missile hitting first. Another strike hit as rescuers began to arrive, according to health officials.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office claimed the strike was a “tragic mishap” – and said that the military will investigate the incident.
Meanwhile, Canada said it is “horrified” by the Israeli strikes on Nasser hospital, with the foreign ministry posting on X saying “Israel has the obligation to protect civilians, including journalists and healthcare workers, operating in Gaza.
“Canada urges an immediate and permanent ceasefire, the protection of civilians, the unconditional release of the remaining hostages, and scaled-up UN-led humanitarian aid which can pass freely to those in need.”
This comes as mass protests are being planned in Tel Aviv, as the The Hostages and Missing Families Forum are lead a national “day of struggle” today (26 August) with the aim of securing a hostage release deal.
The Times of Israel reports that protesters have blocked highways, with some pitched outside the homes of government ministers. In Ness Ziona, people are reading out the names of the hostages outside the home of foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar.
Elsewhere, demonstrators block pavement outside the home of economy minister Nir Barkat with long strings of hostage posters.
Relatives of the captured gathered in Hostages Square in Tel Aviv to deliver speeches for the day’s press conference. “We have a wonderful people but no government … The government has abandoned, but the people will bring them back!” said Einav Zangauker, mother of Matan Zangauker, Al Jazeera reports.
In other developments:
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Amnesty International says the Israeli military destruction of civilian property in southern Lebanon should be investigated as a war crime, AFP reports. “The Israeli military’s extensive and deliberate destruction of civilian property and agricultural land across southern Lebanon must be investigated as war crimes,” Amnesty’s statement reads.
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Australia’s prime minister Anthony Albanese has accused Iran of being behind a pair of 2024 antisemitic attacks. At a press conference in Canberra, Albanese said the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) “has now gathered enough credible intelligence to reach a deeply disturbing conclusion that the Iranian government directed” at least two of the recent attacks on Australia’s Jewish community.
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Australia has now announced it will suspend Tehran’s ambassador and is pulling diplomats from Iran. It also plans to pass legislation to list the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terror group.