France, Germany and the United States have condemned a conference attended by Israeli far-right ministers and Knesset members wherein they called for establishment of colonies in the Gaza Strip and the forced displacement of its population.
The conference was held on Sunday, January 28, 2024, reports say quoting WAFA News Agency.
Last month two far-right Israeli ministers, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, had said Palestinians should be encouraged to emigrate from Gaza. They called for Jewish settlers to return to the besieged territory.
Meanwhile, reports quoting the US Department of Defence said the three US soldiers killed in the drone attack on a US military outpost in Jordan were identified on Monday as Sgt. William Rivers, 46, of Carrollton, Georgia; Specialist Kennedy Sanders, 24, of Waycross, Georgia; and Specialist Breonna Moffett, 23, of Savannah, Georgia.
According to the Associated Press, the US forces may have mistaken an enemy drone for an American one and let it pass unchallenged into a desert base in Jordan where it killed the three soldiers and wounded a dozen more.
Details of the Sunday attack emerged as President Joe Biden faced a difficult balancing act, blaming Iran and looking to strike back in a forceful way without causing any further escalation of the Gaza conflict, AP said.
So far, at least 26,637 people have been killed and 65,387 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. The death toll in Israel from the October 7 Hamas attacks stands at 1,139.
Despite an interim ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) last week calling on Israel to do all within its power to limit civilian casualties, 215 Palestinians were killed in Gaza in the past 24 hours, The Guardian has reported quoting the territory's ministry of heatlh.
Among the dead were six family members of a 6-year-old girl called Hind, who was the only survivor after Israeli forces shot at the car she was in with her family, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS). The dead included four children, the agency said.
Hostage Deal
Al Jazeera quoted Qatar’s prime minister as saying that “good progress” was made during a meeting between intelligence officials from Egypt, Israel and the United States over the weekend to discuss a possible deal to secure a truce in the Israel-Hamas war and the release of captives held by Palestinian groups in Gaza.
According to The Guardian, US secretary of state Antony Blinken described the proposal on the table for a new hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas as “strong and compelling”.
Blinken noted “the less said the better” in terms of negotiations on a new hostage deal, but that the work that is being done is “important and hopeful”.
He said Hamas “will have to make its own decisions”, and that it is his “strong assessment” that Israel would “very much like to see this process of hostages coming out”. He added: I can say that very important, productive work has been done, and there is some real hope going forward.