Israel vows to increase military pressure on Hamas in ‘coming days’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel will increase the “military pressure” on Hamas in a bid to secure the release of hostages held in Gaza.

“In the coming days, we will increase the military and political pressure on Hamas because this is the only way to free our hostages,” Mr Netanyahu said in a video statement on Sunday, the eve of the Jewish holiday of Passover.

He threatened to “deliver additional and painful blows”.

Military spokesman Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a televised statement later on Sunday that “the chief of staff has approved the next steps for the war”, without offering details.

“On Passover, it will be 200 days of captivity for the hostages … we will fight until you return home to us,” Admiral Hagari said.

– AFP

Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah said on Sunday it downed an Israeli drone that was on a combat mission in southern Lebanon.

The drone that was brought down above Al Aishiyeh area in southern Lebanon was “waging its attacks on our steadfast people”, a statement said by the group said.

Hezbollah said the drone was an Israeli Hermes 450, a multi-payload drone made by Elbit Systems, an Israel-based weapons manufacturer.

At least five rockets were launched from Iraq’s town of Zummar towards a US military base in north-eastern Syria on Sunday, two Iraqi security sources told Reuters.

The attack is the first since early February when Iranian-backed groups in Iraq stopped their attacks against US troops.

It comes on the same day Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani returned from a visit to the US where he met President Joe Biden at the White House.

Two security sources and a senior army officer said a rocket launcher fixed on the back of a small lorry had been parked in Zummar border town with Syria.

The military official said the truck caught fire with an explosion from unfired rockets at the same time as warplanes were in the sky.

Senior Israeli minister Benny Gantz has said the “moment of truth” is approaching regarding how to respond militarily to Hezbollah.

The Lebanese militant group opened a “pressure front” along the Israeli border in support of its ally Hamas a day after Israel’s war on Gaza started.

“This is the operative front with the greatest and most urgent challenge, and this is how we must treat it,” Mr Gantz, a member of Israel’s war cabinet, said in a speech on Sunday afternoon, as reported by The Jerusalem Post.

“I appeal from here to the evacuees, who will also celebrate Seder night outside their homes, and I promise – we see you,” he said.

“We recognise the enormous difficulty and your great courage. We will work to bring you home safely, even before the start of the school year.”

Mr Gantz was referring to the tens of thousands of Israelis who have been displaced from the northern border by the violence.

Hezbollah has increased its attacks against Israeli military positions in recent days, with tension across the region surging after Iran’s unprecedented assault on Israeli soil.

Read more

Lemma Shehadi reports:

The UK and Jordan have discussed efforts to “significantly step up” humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak spoke with King Abdullah II on Sunday and discussed Britain’s participation in Jordan-led aid deliveries by air, land and sea to Gaza, Downing Street said.

Seeking to ease fears of a regional escalation after hostilities between Iran and Israel this week, Mr Sunak stressed the UK’s “staunch support for Jordanian and wider regional security, in the face of recent threats”.

“A significant escalation is not in anyone’s interests,” Downing Street said.

It said the UK remains committed to finding an immediate humanitarian pause “to get more aid in, release the hostages, and lead to a longer-term sustainable ceasefire”.

A viable two-state solution remained the UK’s “ultimate goal”, the Prime Minister told the Jordanian leader, with support for a “reformed Palestinian Authority to deliver stability and prosperity across the Palestinian territories”.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei praised the country’s armed forces for their “success”, in his first public comments since Tehran launched its first direct attack on Israel last week.

“The armed forces showed a good image of their abilities and power and an admirable image of the Iranian nation,” Mr Khamenei told Iranian military commanders on Sunday.

“They also proved the emergence of the power of the Iranian nation’s determination at the international level.”

His remarks were also the first since a reported Israeli attack on a military airbase in central Isfahan province on Friday.

“The armed forces’ recent achievements have created a sense of splendour and magnificence about Islamic Iran in the eyes of the world,” Mr Khamenei said on his official X account.

“,The sister of Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh has been indicted on terrorism charges, Israel’s State Attorney’s Office said on Sunday. 

Sabah Haniyeh, 57, was detained this month and is accused of incitement and solidarity with a terrorist group. 

Ms Haniyeh, an Israeli citizen, “sent dozens of contacts, her brother included, WhatsApp messages that included words of praise, sympathy, and encouragement for the actions of Hamas and its part in the mass atrocities that constitute acts of terrorism,” Israeli media quoted the office as saying. 

There was no comment from her lawyer. 

Israeli troops arrested 50 Palestinians during a days-long operation at Nur Shams refugee camp, Palestinian authorities said on Sunday.

The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club noted “serious and horrific attacks” that included using “defenceless citizens as human shields and hostages, severely beating them, and torture operations” in a statement quoted by the Wafa news agency.

Wounded Palestinians were among those detained, it said, adding that most Palestinians were later released by the army.

It said Tulkarm governorate has been subjected to the largest campaign of raids since the Second Intifada.

Nur Shams and the Tulkarm refugee camp have been raided many times since October 7.

A British MP whose family escaped Gaza said she and her family feel “incredibly lucky” to be among the hundreds who fled from the territory.Layla Moran, the first British MP of Palestinian heritage, helped her mother’s family out of Gaza after months of waiting.

“We got them out, which I still can’t quite believe. It took months to get the paperwork in,” she told the BBC on Sunday.

Palestinians are known to be paying at least $5,000 an adult for evacuation permits to Egypt, which can take weeks to come through.

Many overseas relatives are helping them to make the application, pay the bill and apply for visas elsewhere.

Read more

Joshua Longmore reports from Pittsburgh:

Early on a crisp spring morning in the US city of Pittsburgh, with coffee and bagels laid out on a table, a group of campaigners are figuring out how best to canvas in the largely Jewish neighbourhood of Squirrel Hill.

They are backing Summer Lee, a progressive Democratic congresswoman who has championed the Palestinian cause since the Hamas-led October 7 attacks on Israel.

But in this leafy neighbourhood, home to many kosher supermarkets and synagogues, the lawn signs and political posters mostly endorse Ms Lee’s pro-Israel opponent, Bhavini Patel.

“We’re definitely losing the sign war,” one activist says as campaigners mingle and discuss US politics and the conflict in Gaza.

Read more

Robert Tollast reports:

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian played down Friday’s Israeli attack on Isfahan, saying the drones used were more like “toys” than weapons.

His comments came as analysts said the Israeli strike may have damaged or destroyed valuable Iranian air defences.

Chris Biggers, who works with HawkEye 360, a private US satellite imagery company, studied synthetic aperture radar imagery provided by Umbra Space, a Nasa and Darpa contractor, which appeared to show damage to a Russian-made 30N6E target engagement radar.

The radar works alongside the Russian-made S-300 air defence system, bought by Iran in 2007.

Read more

The UK’s Minister of State for the Middle East, Lord Tariq Ahmed, has condemned an Israeli air strike on a building in Rafah – the last place of refuge in Gaza.

The strike killed nine people, including six children, according to medical authorities in Gaza.

“Appalled by the Israeli strike on a residential apartment in the densely populated Rafah in Gaza, which resulted in more children being killed,” Lord Ahmed wrote on X.

“We must stop this fighting immediately and bring an end to this conflict.”

Israeli officials have repeatedly stated their intention to invade Rafah in southern Gaza, despite concerns from the US and UK that this would lead to many civilian casualties.

Nada Atallah reports from Beirut:

Israeli aircraft bombed the Jabbour heights, a region close to the Western Bekaa, where Hezbollah holds sway, Lebanese media reported on Sunday.

Since October 8, Israel and Hamas ally Hezbollah have exchanged daily fire. The strikes have been largely confined to the border area between the two countries — although Israel has on occasion launched attacks deeper inside Lebanon.

The violence has killed at least 375 people in Lebanon, mostly fighters but including 70 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

In northern Israel, 10 soldiers and eight civilians have been killed, according to the army.

The head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has called for humanitarian and medical workers to be protected after a volunteer paramedic was killed in the occupied West Bank on Saturday.

Mohammed Allah Musa was the 18th member of the Palestine Red Crescent to be killed since the war began in October. 

“How many more?” asked Jagan Chapagain, secretary general of the IRFC.

“I cannot stress this enough: Humanitarian and healthcare workers must be respected and protected. It is a moral and legal obligation.”

The death toll in Gaza has risen to 34,097 after 48 Israeli air strikes killed 48 Palestinians in 24 hours.

Almost 80 others were wounded, taking the total number of injured to 76,980, the Gaza Health Ministry announced.

Almost 500 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank, where army raids and violence killed 17 people on Saturday.

Shops, schools and universities have closed across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem in protest after a deadly Israeli raid in Tulkarm.

Fourteen people were killed in a two-day operation on Nur Shams refugee camp, where Israeli soldiers “carried out extensive demolition and destruction of infrastructure and properties, targeted the camp’s bakery, commercial shops, houses, and walls, and destroyed several vehicles”, according to the official Wafa news agency.

Palestinian businesses across Jerusalem have closed, while banks, factories and shops closed across the West Bank.

Public transport was also cancelled.

Israel will summon several foreign envoys on Sunday over their countries’ support for a UN resolution calling for Palestine to be given full UN membership.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry called the move a “prize for terrorism”.

It will summon the ambassadors of France, Japan, South Korea, Malta, Slovenia and Ecuador on Sunday after they supported a UN vote, vetoed by the US, calling for Palestine to be made a full member of the body.

The diplomats “will be summoned for a demarche, and a strong protest will be presented to them,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein.

“A political gesture to the Palestinians and a call to recognise a Palestinian state – six months after the October 7 massacre – is a prize for terrorism,” he said on X.

Read more

An Israeli raid at Nur Shams refugee camp near Tulkarm in the occupied West Bank claimed 14 of 17 lives taken in a spate of shootings and militant attacks.

Wafa, the official Palestinian Authority news agency, called the raid on Nur Shams a 48-hour onslaught where Israeli forces “carried out extensive demolition and destruction of infrastructure and properties, targeted the camp’s bakery, commercial shops, houses, and walls, and destroyed several vehicles”.Clashes on Sunday were followed by an attempted attack on an Israeli checkpoint at Beit Einun junction near Hebron, which left two suspected attackers dead.

In the village of Al Sawiya, south of the city of Nablus, a Palestinian ambulance driver was reported to have been killed by Israeli soldiers.

The Israeli military claimed 10 members of armed groups had been killed during the raid on Nur Shams.