Eylon Levy, a spokesperson for the Israeli government, said that there are about 161 people who are being held against their will in the Gaza Strip.
That number is made up of 146 Israelis and 15 people from other countries. There were 126 men and 35 women.
Levy said there are still four kids younger than 18 and 10 adults older than 75 being held. He doesn’t know how many of the hostages are soldiers.
“We promise to bring all the hostages home and we are determined to do so. We will not leave anyone behind,” Levy said at a press conference. He also said that if there is a good offer, they will think about extending the ceasefire to get more hostages released.
We are in the last day of the truce between Israel and Hamas, and people hope that the agreement will continue.
Tag: Israeli government
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Israel claims there are still 161 hostages in Gaza
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Israel’s memorial for kidnapped student from Tanzania
A memorial service was held Wednesday at a mortuary in Petah Tikva, Israel, to honor the life of Clemens Mtenga, a Tanzanian student taken hostage during a Hamas attack on Israel.
The event was attended by representatives of the Tanzanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and colleagues from the academic program in which Clemens is completing his studies. Ezekiel Kitiku, a student who lives with Mr Mtenga in Kibbutz Nir Oz, told the BBC it was a very difficult time.
“We spent a lot of time together, we cooked together and at dinner we always talked about our day together.
His sudden departure was very painful.
“But I’m a Christian, and I think I’ll meet him someday.”
Mr. Kitiku currently lives in Kiryat Malachi and continues to engage in agriculture.
Tanzania’s foreign ministry said it had contacted the Israeli government to repatriate Mtenga’s body.
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Israel names two Tanzanians detained by Hamas
The Israeli government has verified the names of two people from Tanzania who are believed to be kidnapped by the Hamas group. They have been held captive since the attack on 7 October near the Gaza border.
Joshua Loitu Mollel and Clemence Felix Mtenga went to Israel for an agricultural internship program, according to a statement from Israel’s ministry of foreign affairs on Sunday.
“They were taken by bad people called Hamas and are being kept as prisoners in Gaza. ” “Please pray with us for their safe and quick return,” the message posted on X (formerly Twitter) said.
It sent pictures of both of them.
Joshua’s dad spoke to the BBC and said that the Israeli ambassador to Tanzania had contacted them. The ambassador assured them that the government was taking action with regard to the issue. The dad had previously talked about how the family is desperately looking for Joshua.
Clemence’s family has not talked to the public yet.
The embassy of Tanzania in Tel Aviv has not given a response to the statement yet.
According to the embassy, there are more than 350 people from Tanzania living in Israel. Out of these, around 260 are students.
An unidentified person from South Africa is one of 224 people being kept by Hamas, as said by the Israeli government. -
Conditions in Gaza deteriorate hourly as new wave of protests anticipated across Middle East
There will be new protests against Israel’s blockade of Gaza in many countries in the Middle East on Friday. Aid agencies are worried because hospitals in Gaza are running out of fuel, and they are concerned that necessary aid might be delayed in Egypt for another day.
The situation in Gaza is getting worse, so Israeli leaders are getting their troops ready for a possible ground attack. On Friday morning, they told around 23,000 people to leave their homes near the border with Lebanon.
In a speech from his office in the White House, US President Joe Biden restated that his government is dedicated to supporting Israel’s fight against Hamas. He emphasized that this support is crucial for America’s safety and compared it to Ukraine’s battle against Russia’s invasion.
However, he also warned the Israeli government not to let anger control their actions and emphasized that the well-being of innocent Palestinians should not be overlooked.
Biden’s support shows that Western allies and Arab countries have a growing disagreement. There are expected to be new protests on Friday in Arab countries in support of 2. 2 million Palestinians who are stuck in Gaza. This is making people worry that there could be a bigger conflict in the region.
Around 200 trucks filled with important supplies are waiting in line outside the closed border while officials try to come to an agreement to let them through. Workers worked on fixing dangerous road holes caused by Israeli bombing so that up to 20 trucks could pass. The negotiations about this continued until Thursday.
However, even though Biden and Egyptian officials said that aid would be given on Friday as scheduled, some sources told CNN that it might be postponed. A person from the US warned that the situation is constantly changing.
Life in Gaza is getting harder for many people as there is not enough food, water, medicine, and fuel.
A team of experts from the United Nations has accused Israel of committing serious crimes against humanity during its latest campaign.
The military operation taking place in Gaza, along with the difficult evacuation orders and forced population moves, breaks the rules of international law that protect people in times of conflict. The UN Human Rights Office stated on Thursday through a press release that it is incredibly cruel.
Doctors Without Borders, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), said on Thursday that the main hospital in Gaza, called Al-Shifa Hospital, only has enough fuel to last for 24 hours.
Guillemette Thomas, a medical coordinator in Jerusalem, said that if there is no electricity, many patients will die. Many Palestinians are going to Al-Shifa hospital to stay safe because they are being bombed all the time.
Many stores don’t have any more food to sell, and people have to wait in long lines for hours to get food and water while bombs are being dropped nearby.
The number of people living in the southern part of Gaza has increased a lot recently. This happened because the Israeli military asked about one million people living in the northern part of Gaza to leave, as they were planning to invade that area.
The oldest church in Gaza is called St. X (ten). The Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church in the center of Gaza City said that it was targeted by an Israeli airstrike on Thursday night.
The Hamas-run Ministry of Interior and National Security stated that an Israeli airstrike destroyed a building owned by the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, causing many people to get hurt.
The Israel Defense Forces admitted that they hit a church and caused damage while attacking a Hamas control center.Israel has been continuously attacking Gaza because Hamas went on a killing spree on October 7, where they killed around 1,400 people in Israel. Most of the victims were innocent civilians. This event has been referred to as the most horrific mass killing of Jewish people since the Holocaust.
Since then, Israeli attacks have resulted in the deaths of over 3,700 individuals in Gaza, as reported by the Health Ministry in Gaza, which is under the control of Hamas. Hundreds of women and children have died.
There were thoughts and guesses about a potential ground invasion when Israel caught and arrested over 60 people believed to be part of Hamas on Thursday morning in the West Bank.
Meanwhile, the Israeli Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, spoke to troops who were near the Gaza Strip on Thursday. He told them that they will be “inside” the area soon and will see it for themselves.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to soldiers who are stationed in a different area next to the Gaza Strip, assuring them that the entire country supports them. We will hit our enemies hard to win. “Are you ready for victory. ” he asked
On Friday morning, CNN reporter Nic Robertson saw more soldiers and equipment near the border between Israel and Gaza.
I saw some light flares coming down in the distance. There were also red bullets being shot from a machine gun with a loud noise.
CNN doesn’t know what the military was doing at night.
Israeli warplanes have continuously bombed and destroyed many homes, causing hundreds of thousands of people to lose their homes. This has led to an increase in protests across the Middle East.
Egypt’s government-supported political parties and institutions have planned for protests across the country on Friday to show their support for Palestinians. This is unusual since Egypt has had strict laws against protests for the past ten years.
Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, said on Thursday that there is a real possibility of the Israel-Hamas war causing problems in nearby regions.
We have noticed that people in Arab countries are very angry, and this has happened in many places in the region. Hamas wanted this to happen. And this could ruin the recent and important improvement in relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors,” von der Leyen said during a speech at the Hudson Institute in Washington.
Protests against Israel became stronger this week after many Palestinians died on Tuesday in an explosion at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza.
Palestinian officials say that Israel attacked the hospital, but Israel says that this is not true. Israeli and US spies think that the explosion happened because a rocket from a different group in Gaza was shot in the wrong direction.
Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Iraq expressed their criticism towards Israel and accused its military of attacking the hospital.
There are protests against Israel increasing in the Middle East. People are worried that there could be more conflicts, especially on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. Hezbollah, a powerful group in Lebanon, has recently been fighting with Israel’s military. -
Israel’s judicial reform ignites military crisis as proportion of reservists climbs
Israeli reservists, the backbone of the Israeli military, are threatening to skip work as the country descends into turmoil following the passage of the first bill of a contentious judicial overhaul by the country’s parliament. Furthermore, the Israeli government is raising the alarm over its readiness for war.
Due to a new rule that went into effect on Wednesday, the court no longer has the authority to overturn government decisions if it deems them to be “unreasonable.” Polls indicated that millions of people were opposed to the proposal, which opponents claimed would weaken the independence of the judiciary and destroy Israel’s democracy.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the IDF’s chief spokesperson, told reporters on Tuesday that the IDF is competent at the moment but conceded that the readiness of the nation’s armed forces could be impacted.
“The army’s capability will suffer if reservists don’t show up for a while. According to the presence of the reservists, the process would change gradually, he said.
The military has begged for reservists to stay in their positions because analysts think the scope of the threat is unprecedented.
In response to reservists who skipped out on duty on Tuesday, IDF Chief of General Staff Herzi Halevi remarked, “The IDF needs you. Only together will we protect our common home.”
Before the contentious “reasonableness” bill was passed on Monday, about 10,000 military reservists declared that they would not sign up for duty under its terms. Additionally, more people are refusing, according to Hagari.
Israeli Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant and US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin spoke over the phone, and Austin reaffirmed the US’ commitment to Israel’s security. But he added that maintaining democracy required “wide consensus through political dialogue.”
Israel is at a historical “inflection point,” according to Chuck Freilich, a senior researcher at The Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv who spent more than 20 years working in Israel’s national security establishment, where “extreme measures may have to be taken to endure Israel’s fundamental character of democracy.”
Freilich remarked of reservists who refused, “On the one hand, it is admirable.” However, he added, “it is a horrible thing for the IDF.” He continued that it was astonishing that one of the best militaries in the world “is threatening to come apart at the seams over domestic changes.”
After the vote was approved on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the IDF to “stay out of any political controversy,” claiming that “the call for refusal harms the security of all citizens of the country.”
Israel, a nation that started fighting wars soon after its formation in 1948, has been involved in seven wars and numerous other smaller conflicts with its neighbours.
An institution that is strongly ingrained in many Israelis’ sense of identity and nationhood is the requirement that every Jewish, Druze, or Circassian Israeli over the age of 18 serve in the military. Among others, those who are ultra-Orthodox Jews and Palestinian Israeli citizens are excused from swerving.
IDF reservists and veterans’ protest group Brothers and Sisters in Arms leader Yiftach Golov stated that “by definition, the reservists are the backbone of the IDF.”
According to Golov, “They comprise the majority, the bigger fraction of the IDF,” and they are stronger not just because of their sheer numbers but also because of their greater skill.
The nation’s reserve army, which has over 400,000 soldiers and is available for call-up at any time, is an option for soldiers once they have completed their mandatory service. Israelis may stay in the reserve well into their forties or even beyond.
More than 1,000 reserve members of the Israeli Air Force, which Golov refers to as one of the military’s “main, major forces,” defining its aerial capabilities, are among those threatening to leave. One-third of the IDF’s personnel are in the Israeli Air Force.
One reservist, who has been volunteering for 23 years, told CNN at a demonstration in Jerusalem on Tuesday, “We feel like we are doing the right thing and that we are fighting for the democracy of Israel.”
An further reserve member urged the administration to “stop the madness, stop the destruction of the army.”
Freilich noted that despite a little decline in influence over time, the military continues to play a significant role in Israeli culture and that more than half of Israelis today had served in the IDF. Military duty is a rite of passage for many Israelis.
According to Freilich, reservists are likely to report for service if there is a genuine threat to national security, but their protest still hurts the IDF.
“This isn’t a refusal to serve,” he declared. These are individuals who are fully devoted to Israel’s defence; if a security emergency arises tomorrow, they will all immediately report for service.
“What they’re saying is that this crisis is so important that there is a higher morality they have to report to,” he continued.
In addition to rising border tensions, Israel is currently experiencing an internal crisis.
Formally, the nation is still at war with a number of its neighbours, including Syria and Lebanon. Israeli soldiers and Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, as well as Palestinian terrorists in Gaza, frequently engage in violent clashes.
When Israel and extremists in southern Lebanon exchanged a barrage of rockets in April, tensions along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon increased after years of peace. It was the worst escalation between the two sides since 2006. Israel attributed the rocket attacks to Hamas.
Some of Israel’s adversaries have been paying close attention to the turmoil.
Israel is “on a path of collapse, fragmentation, and disappearance,” according to Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in a speech broadcast on television on Monday, according to Reuters.
According to some of its citizens, today in particular is the worst day in Israel’s history.
Netanyahu and others have cautioned against skipping military duty, but Golov of Brothers and Sisters in Arms claims that the prime minister is using this as part of a “divide and conquer” strategy.
When the patriots turn traitors, the government will attempt to instill a sense of “an opposite world,” according to Golov.
According to Freilich, Nasrallah, Iran, Gaza, and the West Bank would take “a lot of pleasure in potentially witnessing Israel tear itself apart.”
“However, the demonstrators are not the issue. The administration and the prime minister are to blame for this, he claimed. “He (Netanyahu) is prepared to pay any cost to advance this.”
Golov interprets the threat of reservists abstaining from duty as a portent of far greater things.
Golov declared, “This is just the beginning.” But you’ll see that this movement is now affecting a large portion of the ground brigades, generally known as the army.
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Over 160,000 people demonstrated against Netanyahu’s judicial reforms
According to CNN’s Ofer Grinboim Liron, a crowd specialist, over 160,000 people protested in Tel Aviv on Saturday night against the Israeli government‘s plans to weaken the nation’s legal system.
That would then rank among the largest individual protests against the law to date.By 8 p.m. local time, Grinboim Liron, the CEO of Crowd Solutions, which focuses on crowd dynamics at events and venues, estimated the size of the gathering using drone pictures (1 p.m. ET).
An additional 130,000 protesters, according to the protest’s organizers, took part in other rallies held across the nation on Saturday night.
The figures provided by the organizers have been greater than those provided by unbiased specialists like Grinboim Liron.Tel Aviv and other cities around Israel have been seeing regular Saturday night demonstrations against the judicial overhaul plans for eight weeks.
The package of legislation would give Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, the power to overrule Supreme Court decisions with a simple majority. It would also give the government the power to nominate judges, which currently rests with a committee composed of judges, legal experts and politicians. It would remove power and independence from government ministries’ legal advisers, and take away the power of the courts to invalidate “unreasonable” government appointments, as the High Court did in January, forcing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to fire Interior and Health Minister Aryeh Deri.
Four legislative clauses that are part of the overhaul took steps forward this week. The bills allowing Knesset override of Supreme Court decisions and removing the court’s power to rule government appointments unreasonable both passed early stages of the process on Wednesday and now go to the committee stage. Two other clauses passed first readings on Monday and require two more readings to become law.
Critics accuse Netanyahu of pushing the legislation in order to get out of corruption trials he is currently facing. Netanyahu denies that, saying the trials are collapsing on their own, and that the changes are necessary after judicial overreach by unelected judges.
About two out of three (66%) Israelis believe the Supreme Court should have the power to strike down laws incompatible with Israel’s Basic Laws, and about the same proportion (63%) say they support the current system of nominating judges, a poll for the Israel Democracy Institute found last week.
People who say they voted for opposition parties were far more likely than voters for the parties in the coalition to oppose the changes. Nearly nine out of 10 (87%) people who voted for the opposition said the Supreme Court should have the power to strike down laws incompatible with Basic Laws, while only 44% of coalition voters said it should. The percentage was slightly higher among people who voted for Netanyahu’s Likud party, with nearly half (47%) saying the Supreme Court should have that power.
Israel does not have a written constitution, but a set of what are called Basic Laws.
The survey, which was released February 21, found that about half (53%) of Israelis believed that removing the political independence of the judiciary would harm Israel’s economy – as Israeli economists and businesspeople have been warning. About a third (35%) do not believe the changes would harm the economy.
The online and telephone survey of 756 adults in Israel was carried out between February 9 to 13, 2023, and has a margin of error of 3.56 points.