Live coverage of the war between Israel and Hamas today, Thursday 28 December
The death toll from Israeli bombings in Gaza continues to rise. Since the beginning of the response to the Hamas attacks on October 7, in which 1,150 Israelis lost their lives, more than 21,500 Palestinians have died. In the last few hours at least 35 people have been killed in the refugee camps of Nuseirat and Maghazi following bombings in the central part of the Gaza Strip. In the south, an Israeli attack hit a residential building near the Kuwaiti hospital, killing at least 20 people. According to Thomas White, director of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in Gaza, some “Israeli soldiers opened fire on a humanitarian convoy returning from the northern part of the strip “along a route designated by the Israeli army”. Below are all the updates from today, Thursday 28 December 2023, on the war between Israel and Hamas.
LIVE
8am – Hamas: “We don't want another temporary truce” – There have been no talks regarding a hostage deal in exchange for another temporary truce. This was declared, speaking to Al Jazeera, by Osama Hamdan, a representative of Hamas in Lebanon, according to whom Hamas had informed the mediators that the group's priority concerns a permanent ceasefire and that at the moment there is no talk of releasing hostages before the fighting stops. According to Hamdan, Israel leaked false information in order to fend off growing internal pressure on the government for a hostage deal. The Times of Israel reports.
5am – Media: Hamas is ready to resume talks for the release of hostages – Qatari mediators told Israel that Hamas had “agreed in principle” to resume talks on the release of around 40 hostages held in Gaza in exchange for a week, or two, pause in fighting. The Israeli newspaper Walla claims this, quoting three Israeli officials, quoted by the Guardian. The agreement would involve the release of around 40 hostages still held by Hamas in exchange for a few weeks of ceasefire. At the center of the talks would be a proposal put forward a few weeks ago by the head of the Israeli spy agency Mossad, David Barnea, during a meeting with the head of the American CIA, Bill Burns, and the Prime Minister of Qatar, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abd. al-Rahman al-Thani. The proposal called for the release of around 40 hostages, including women, men over the age of 60 and people in need of urgent medical care. In exchange, Israel would halt military operations in Gaza for a week or two and release a number of Palestinians who have been held in Israeli prisons.
1am – White House approves “urgent” sale of munitions to Israel – IThe American government announced that it had approved “urgently”, i.e. without going through congressional scrutiny, the sale of artillery ammunition to Israel for an amount of 147.5 million dollars. These are 155 mm projectiles and various military equipment taken from the US Army stockpile, according to a press release from the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency, a federal agency responsible in particular for sales of American military equipment to foreign nations.
The Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, came to the conclusion “that there is an emergency that requires this immediate sale to the Israeli government,” the statement explains. Last December 9, Washington also gave the green light to the sale to Israel of almost 14,000 tank shells used in the war against Hamas in Gaza.
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