Israel, Hamas due to release more people amid efforts to extend truce - The Straits Times

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories - Hamas and Israel were expected to release more hostages and prisoners on Nov 29, the last day of a prolonged six-day truce in the Gaza war.

Attention has focused on whether mediator Qatar could negotiate another extension.

Israeli media, citing the prime minister’s office, reported that Israel received a list of hostages expected to be released by Hamas on Nov 29. The prime minister’s office had no immediate comment.

The Palestinian armed group Hamas and its allied group Islamic Jihad freed 12 hostages on Nov 28.

It brought the total number of people released since Nov 24, when the initial four-day truce began, to 81.

Those released so far by Hamas have been mostly Israeli women and children, and foreign citizens.

After they were handed over by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the Israeli military said Nov 28’s freed hostages, comprising 10 Israeli women and two Thai citizens, received initial medical checks.

They then moved to Israeli hospitals where they were to meet their families.

The hostages were aged 17 to 84 and included a mother-daughter pair.

A short time later, Israel released 30 Palestinians from Ofer Prison in the occupied West Bank and a Jerusalem detention centre.

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2023-11-29 02:12:45Z
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Hamas releases more hostages, as Israel frees Palestinian prisoners - CNA

BURYING THE DEAD

More than two-thirds of Gaza's 2.3 million people have lost their homes to Israeli bombardments, with thousands of families sleeping rough in makeshift shelters with only the belongings they could carry.

Many are using the truce to return to abandoned or destroyed homes, like Abu Shamaleh, who was picking through the rubble of his flattened home in Khan Younis, looking for anything recoverable.

He said 37 family members had been killed and that there was no machinery to excavate the body of a cousin still buried in the ruins.

"The truce is the time to lift the rubble and search for all the missing people and bury them. We honour the dead by burying them. What use is the truce if the bodies remain under the rubble?" he said.

Among Israeli hostages yet to be freed was 10-month-old baby Kfir Bibas, along with his brother Ariel, 4, and their parents Yarden and Shiri, seized from a kibbutz by gunmen on Oct 7.

Yarden's sister told reporters relatives had learned the family would not be in the group to go free on Tuesday. Israeli officials said they believed the family was being held by a militant group other than Hamas.

"Kfir ... is a child who still doesn't even know how to say 'Mommy'", Jimmy Miller, a cousin, told Channel 12 TV. "We in the family are not managing to function ... The family hasn't slept for a long, long time already - 51 days."

When the war resumes, Israel has made clear it intends to press on with its assault from the northern half of Gaza into the south. U.S. officials said they have told their ally to be more careful protecting civilians as its forces press on.

Israel's siege has led to the collapse of Gaza's health care system, especially in the north where no hospitals remain functioning. The World Health Organization said more Gazans could soon be dying of disease than from bombing.

There were already a very high number of cases of infants suffering from diarrhoea, said WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris: "No medicines, no vaccination activities, no access to safe water and hygiene and no food."

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2023-11-28 20:33:00Z
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All 41 Indian workers trapped in tunnel for 17 days rescued: Minister - CNA

"EFFORT AND SACRIFICE"

Indian billionaire Anand Mahindra paid tribute to the men at the rock face who squeezed into the narrow pipe to clear the rocks by hand.

"After all the sophisticated drilling equipment, it's the humble 'rathole miners' who make the vital breakthrough," Mahindra said on X, formerly Twitter.

"It's a heartwarming reminder that at the end of the day, heroism is most often a case of individual effort and sacrifice."

Last week, engineers working to drive a metal pipe horizontally through the earth ran into metal girders and construction vehicles buried in the rubble, snapping a giant earth-boring machine.

A separate vertical shaft was also started from the forested hill above the tunnel, as well as from the far side of the road tunnel, a much longer route estimated to be around 480 metres.

Before Tuesday, the workers were seen alive for the first time last week, peering into the lens of an endoscopic camera sent by rescuers down a thin pipe through which air, food, water and electricity were delivered.

Arnold Dix, president of the International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association, who had been advising the engineers, told reporters ahead of the rescue that the men were in good spirits, and that he had heard they had been "playing cricket".

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2023-11-28 15:04:00Z
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Indian rescuers just 5m from 41 trapped in tunnel - CNA

"LAST HOPE"

Rajput Rai, a drilling expert, told the Press Trust of India that three-person teams were taking turns working at the rock face inside a metal pipe, just wide enough for someone to squeeze through.

While one worker drills, a second scoops up the rubble by hand, and the third places it on a wheeled trolley to be pulled out, Rai said, according to PTI's Tuesday report.

Rescuers have brought in a superheated plasma cutter to slice through metal rods that have repeatedly impeded progress.

Tunnel expert Chris Cooper, who is advising the rescue teams said Monday that progress depended on "how the ground behaves", warning they may yet have to cut through heavy-duty girders that had been meant to hold the collapsed roof up.

Last week, engineers working to drive a metal pipe horizontally through the 57m of rock and concrete ran into metal girders and construction vehicles buried in the rubble, snapping a giant earth-boring machine.

In a separate effort, a drilling machine was brought up to a forested hill above the tunnel on a specially constructed track.

Vertical drilling from that location is now nearly halfway through the 89m needed to reach the stranded men, a risky route in an area that has already suffered a collapse.

Digging, blasting and drilling have also begun from the far side of the road tunnel, a much longer third route estimated to be around 480m.

The workers were seen alive for the first time on Tuesday, peering into the lens of an endoscopic camera sent by rescuers down a thin pipe through which air, food, water and electricity are being delivered.

"Our only source of strength is God, as it is the last hope for us," said mother-of-three Musarrat Jahan, whose husband Mohd Sabah Ahmad is a migrant worker trapped inside.

"We have more faith in God than anything", she told AFP by phone from her home in the eastern state of Bihar, one of India's poorest.

Though trapped, the workers have plenty of space in the tunnel, with the area inside 8.5m high and stretching about 2km in length.

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2023-11-28 05:11:00Z
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[VIDEO] Boy Stabs E-Hailing Uncle Before Getting Off Ride In Sungai Petani - SAYS

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1. [VIDEO] Boy Stabs E-Hailing Uncle Before Getting Off Ride In Sungai Petani  SAYS
2. Saved by seatbelt: E-hailing driver escapes unharmed after being stabbed by 13-year-old  New Straits Times
3. 13-year-old nabbed for trying to stab ehailing driver in robbery attempt  The Star Online
4. Cops arrest teen who pulled knife on elderly e-hailing driver  Free Malaysia Today
5. E-hailing driver escapes unharmed after confronting 13-year-old knife-wielding boy  New Straits Times
6. View Full coverage on Google News

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2023-11-28 04:37:05Z
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Israel-Hamas truce in Gaza extended by 2 days, more hostages may be released on Nov 28 - The Straits Times

CAIRO/JERUSALEM - A four-day truce between Israel and Hamas in Gaza was extended by two days, mediator Qatar said on Nov 27.

It raised the prospect that Hamas would free more hostages beyond the 69 that have been released since the truce began on Nov 24.

Israel’s Army Radio reported the government has received a list of hostages expected to be released on Nov 28. The report cited the Israeli prime minister’s office.

The Axios news website reported the list contained 10 hostages.

There was no immediate comment from the prime minister’s office.

The truce is the first pause in a war that has lasted more than seven weeks so far.

The latest escalation of violence was sparked after Hamas gunmen attacked southern Israel on Oct 7. Israel said 1,200 people were killed and more than 240 taken hostage.

In response, Israel vowed to destroy Hamas and launched an aerial and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip, which the armed group controls. Officials in the enclave say the Israeli operation has killed more than 15,000 people.

Each day since the four-day truce began, Hamas has released some of the hostages while Israel has freed some of Palestinians it holds in its prisons.

Israel previously said it would extend the truce by one day for every 10 more hostages released, providing some respite to Palestinians in the Mediterranean seaside strip from the war.

“An agreement has been reached to extend the humanitarian pause for an additional two days in the Gaza Strip,” a Qatari foreign ministry spokesman said in a post on social media platform X. Hamas also said it had agreed a two-day extension.

There was no immediate comment from Israel, but a White House official confirmed agreement had been reached.

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2023-11-28 01:40:43Z
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Qatar: Israel and Hamas agree to extend truce for two more days - CNA

UN pushing for full humanitarian ceasefire

Meanwhile, the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is pushing for a full humanitarian ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas instead of a temporary truce, as the "humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is getting worse by the day".

Egyptian, Qatari and US negotiators have been working on an extension to the original four-day truce in Gaza that expired on Monday, Egyptian security sources said, amid growing global pressure to roll over a deal which has paused seven weeks of fighting. 

"The dialogue that led to the agreement must continue, resulting in a full humanitarian ceasefire, for the benefit of the people of Gaza, Israel and the wider region," Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.

"The United Nations will continue to support these efforts in every possible way," he said.

Guterres again called for the remaining hostages held by Hamas to be released immediately and unconditionally, Dujarric said. 

The United Nations has scaled up the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza over the past four days during the truce and sent aid to some northern areas of the coastal enclave that had been largely cut off for weeks, Dujarric said.

"But this aid barely registers against the huge needs of 1.7 million displaced people. The humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is getting worse by the day," he said.

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2023-11-27 17:31:59Z
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