Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Photo: Sean Gallup / Getty Images) 
The foreign ministers of several Muslim and European countries would meet in Madrid on Friday to discuss how to implement a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said the Spanish and Norwegian governments.
The World Health Organization said on Thursday it had carried out a rare evacuation of 97 people, around half of them children, from Gaza to the United Arab Emirates for medical treatment, and urged the resumption of regular such transfers.
World must pressure Hamas on Gaza deal, says Netanyahu
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that more pressure should be put on Hamas to accept a new Gaza deal proposal, after the Palestinian militant group said it was only willing to implement a ceasefire free of new conditions.
The chief US negotiator, CIA head William Burns, said on Saturday that a more detailed ceasefire proposal would be made within several days.
On Wednesday, Hamas’ negotiation team met the Qatari and Egyptian mediators in Doha and reiterated their readiness to implement an “immediate” ceasefire with Israel in Gaza based on a previous US proposal without new conditions from any party, the group said.
“Hamas is trying to hide the fact that it continues to oppose a hostage release deal, and is obstructing it,” said Netanyahu.
He said Israel had accepted the most recent proposal, while “Hamas rejected it and even murdered six of our hostages in cold blood. The world must demand that Hamas free our hostages immediately.”
The sides have failed to reach a deal to end the 11-month-old war, instead trading blame for introducing new demands that have impeded agreements.
Lingering issues include control of the Philadelphi corridor, a narrow stretch of land on Gaza’s border with Egypt, as well as the release of some of the Palestinian prisoners who have been convicted of deadly violence.
The original proposal put forward by US President Joe Biden in May laid out a three-phase ceasefire that would include the release of Israeli and foreign hostages.
The war started when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Israeli forces have thus far killed at least 41,000 Palestinians, the Gaza health ministry says.
Spain to host meeting on Palestinian statehood
The foreign ministers of several Muslim and European countries would meet in Madrid on Friday to discuss how to implement a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said the Spanish and Norwegian governments.
Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares will host the meeting, which will be attended by his European counterparts, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and members of the Arab-Islamic Contact Group for Gaza.
The two-state solution set out in the 1991 Madrid Conference and the 1993-95 Oslo Accords has long been seen by the international community as the best way to settle the decades-long conflict, but the peace process has been moribund for years.
However, the search for a peaceful solution has been given new urgency by the 11-month war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas and escalating violence in the occupied West Bank.
On 28 May, Spain, Norway and Ireland formally recognised a unified Palestinian state ruled by the Palestinian Authority comprising the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, with East Jerusalem as its capital. With them, 146 of the 193 member states of the United Nations now recognise Palestinian statehood.
Albares hosted a diplomatic meeting with the Gaza Contact Group on 29 May in which participants discussed the next steps towards actively implementing the two-state solution.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has repeatedly described the coexistence of two sovereign states on the territory of the former Mandatory Palestine as the only viable path to peace in the region.
The West Bank, including East Jerusalem, was captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war and has been occupied since, with expanding Jewish settlements complicating the issue. Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1980 in a move generally not recognised internationally.
Israel also says guarantees on its security are of paramount importance.
Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa would attend the meeting in Madrid.
Issues that need resolving, Barth Eide said, included the “actual establishment of the Palestinian state or a very credible path to it” and the strengthening of Palestinian institutions.
They also included the demobilisation of Hamas — which controlled Gaza before the war — “so that they’re out of business as a military actor”.
The normalisation of ties between Israel and some other states, notably Saudi Arabia, was also important for Israel, he said.
The Gaza Contact Group — an initiative of the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation — includes Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey.
WHO evacuates nearly 100 patients from Gaza
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday it had carried out a rare evacuation of 97 people, around half of them children, from Gaza to the United Arab Emirates for medical treatment, and urged the resumption of regular such transfers.
The Israel-Hamas conflict has decimated Gaza’s health system and only 17 out of 36 hospitals are currently partially functioning, the WHO estimates. The main Rafah crossing for medical transfers out of Gaza to Egypt has been shut since May when Israel ramped up its military campaign in southern Gaza.
“This was the largest evacuation yet from Gaza since October 2023,” Richard Peeperkorn, the WHO representative for the occupied Palestinian territory told reporters of the operation, which took place on Wednesday.
The patients included people suffering from cancer, blood and kidney diseases and trauma, he said.
They were evacuated by road and then by air from Israel’s Ramon airport.
“Gaza needs medical corridors. We need a better organised and sustained system,” he said, adding that more than 10,000 Gazans were awaiting transfer.
Peeperkorn also said that more than 500,000 children in Gaza had been vaccinated in the first phase of a polio campaign set to end in northern Gaza on Thursday. The first case of the disease in Gaza in 25 years emerged last month.
At the same press conference, the WHO said at least one quarter, or 22,500, of those Palestinians injured in the Gaza conflict had suffered life-changing injuries such as missing limbs that would require rehabilitation services for years to come.
Israel names Hamas gunmen it says were targeted in strike that killed UNRWA staff
The Israeli military on Thursday named nine men it said were Hamas soldiers killed in Gaza airstrikes that the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA said had left six of its staffers dead.
The military said three of the Hamas men had doubled as UNRWA workers. Reuters was unable to independently verify their identities. There was no immediate comment from Hamas.
UNRWA said six staffers were killed in two airstrikes that hit a school in central Gaza on Wednesday, the highest death toll among its staff in a single incident.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday condemned the attack, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said, adding that the attack had killed at least 18 people, including the UNRWA staff, women and children. He said it took the total number of UNRWA staff killed in the conflict to 220.
“This incident must be independently and thoroughly investigated to ensure accountability,” said Dujarric. “The continued lack of effective protection for civilians in Gaza is unconscionable.”
UNRWA said the school compound in central Gaza had been serving as a shelter for displaced people. The Israeli military said it was also being used by Hamas.
Guterres called upon all parties to refrain from using schools, shelters, or the areas around them for military purposes, Dujarric said.
UNRWA Director of Communications Juliette Touma said on Thursday that Israeli authorities had not asked the agency for a list of the staff killed in the attack on the school. The Israeli military said it did submit such a request.
“The names that appear on today’s statement from the Israeli Army have not been flagged to us before by the Israeli authorities in previous occasions prior to today,” said Touma.
Gazans burn plastic waste to produce fuel
With Israel blocking the entry of almost all fuel into Gaza to prevent its use by Hamas, some Palestinians in the north of the shattered territory have turned to using plastic waste to make their own.
“We walk for long distances to collect plastic and bring it from collapsed buildings and towers. Sometimes I’m afraid of reconnaissance [by the Israeli military] and I’m afraid of rubble falling on me while I’m walking,” said Mostafa Mosleh (16), holding items he’d picked up during his 13-hour daily rounds.
His relative, Mahmoud Mosleh, sorts out the items with other workers, cuts them into smaller parts and then burns them in a makeshift oven set up between the remains of buildings.
“I had the idea, and thank God, we managed with the help of God to turn plastic into gasoline and fuel,” the 35-year-old displaced Gazan said. “We turned to this work due to the acute shortage of petroleum products.”
Other Palestinians, like 53-year-old driver Farid Gomaa, head to Beit Lahia in the northern part of the strip to get some of the fuel produced by burning plastic, braving clashes between Hamas and Israeli forces and widespread Israeli airstrikes.
“We come here amid the danger and we take a long commute to get a litre of fuel, which is cheaper than in other places,” he said.
Turkey seeks arrest warrants over citizen killed in West Bank
Turkey had opened an investigation into the death of a Turkish-American activist believed to have been shot by Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank and would request international arrest warrants, Ankara said on Thursday.
The body of the woman, Aysenur Ezgi Eygi (26), would arrive in Turkey on Friday, the Foreign Ministry said.
Israel has taken responsibility for the death of Eygi, who was killed last Friday while taking part in a protest against Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank.
The Foreign Ministry said she “was deliberately targeted and killed by Israeli soldiers during a peaceful demonstration in solidarity with Palestinians. We will make every effort to ensure that this crime does not go unpunished.”
Israel has said it was highly likely its troops had fired the shot that killed her but that her death was unintentional.
Turkish Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said the Ankara chief prosecutor’s office was investigating “those responsible for the martyrdom and murder of our sister Aysenur Ezgi Eygi”.
He told reporters that Turkey had evidence regarding the killing and would make international arrest requests.
Gaza economy shrinks to less than a sixth of its pre-war size
Gaza’s economy had shrunk to less than a sixth of its size when the Israel-Hamas war began nearly a year ago, while unemployment in the occupied West Bank had nearly tripled, aUN report said on Thursday, underscoring the challenges of reconstruction.
The report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) described Gaza’s economy as “in ruins” more than 11 months after Israel launched a military campaign there that has reduced much of the Strip to rubble in response to the deadly 7 October attacks on southern Israel by Hamas.
The UN trade body said the Palestinian Authority (PA), which exercises limited self-rule under Israeli occupation in the West Bank, was under “immense pressure” that was jeopardising its ability to function.
“The Palestinian economy is in freefall,” Unctad Deputy Secretary-General Pedro Manuel Moreno told reporters in Geneva.
“The report calls for the international community to halt this economic freefall, address the humanitarian crisis, and lay the groundwork for lasting peace and development,” he said, calling for a comprehensive recovery plan.
More than 300,000 jobs had been lost in the West Bank since the war began, Unctad said, driving up the unemployment rate there from 12.9% to 32%. DM
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