LIVE | Israel-Hamas War Day 34: Israel agrees to 4-hour daily pauses in Gaza

Amid a drumbeat of international concern over dire conditions inside Gaza, mediators were closing in on a possible deal for a three-day ceasefire in exchange for the release of around a dozen hostages held by Hamas, according to two Egyptian officials, a United Nations official, and a Western diplomat. The deal would also allow a small amount of fuel to enter the territory, which is currently reliant on generators for electricity, for the first time since the war began.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said any temporary ceasefire would have to be accompanied by the release of hostages. Israel has said around 240 hostages are currently held in Gaza. Their plight has galvanized Israeli support for the war despite growing international concerns.

The possible cease-fire deal is being brokered by the United States, Egypt and Qatar, a Persian Gulf country that mediates with Hamas.

A senior US official said the Biden administration has suggested Israel tie the length of a pause to a certain number of hostages being released in a formula that could be used for additional pauses. All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of impacting the delicate, ongoing negotiations.

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen declined to elaborate on any emerging deal in an interview with Israel's army radio, saying “I’d recommend not talking about what we’ve agreed to — it hurts the negotiations.” (AP)

The trickle of aid entering Gaza from the south is largely barred from going north, which has been without running water for weeks. The UN aid office said all the bakeries there have shut down for lack of fuel, water and flour. Hospitals running low on supplies are performing surgeries without anaesthesia.

More than two-thirds of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million have fled their homes since the war began, with many heeding Israeli orders to flee to the southern part of the besieged enclave. But the conditions there are also dire.

There are clashes and shelling near the road, and evacuees reported seeing corpses alongside it, the UN office said. (AP)

Israeli troops are around 3 km from Shifa Hospital in the heart of downtown Gaza City, the hospital’s director Mohammed Abu Selmia said. Tens of thousands are sheltering alongside patients in the hospital.

The Israeli military says Hamas’s main command centre is located in and under the hospital complex and that senior leaders are hiding there, using the facility as a shield. Hamas and hospital staff deny the claims and say the military is creating a pretext to strike it.

Scores of wounded people were rushed to Shifa overnight, Abu Selmia told The Associated Press on Thursday. “At dawn, a shell landed very close to the hospital, but thank God only a few people had minor injuries," he said.

“The conditions here are disastrous in every sense of the word," he said. “We're short on medicine and equipment, and the doctors and nurses are exhausted. … We're unable to do much for the patients." International journalists who entered the north on a tour led by the Israeli military on Wednesday saw heavily damaged buildings, fields of rubble and toppled trees along the Mediterranean shoreline. (AP)

Israel “urgently” needs hundreds of thousands of workers to continue with construction projects and the contractors have made a strong plea to the government to bring in labourers from abroad, including from India, to meet their needs.

“We urgently need more workers. In any case, the government is the one who will decide where the missing workers will come from,” a spokesman of the Israeli Contractors Association told PTI.

Informed sources told PTI that the bulk of this gap could be fulfilled by bringing in workers from India.

“Israel’s Minister of Economy, Nir Barkat, during his trip to India in April this year had spoken to officials and his counterpart in New Delhi about hiring Indians in various sectors, including in the construction sector,” a source here said.

“The discussions revolved around bringing in almost like 160,000 people,” the source said.

The Israeli construction industry employs foreign workers in specific fields where there is a lack of Israeli workers. The largest group of about 80,000 workers in the construction industry come from the Palestinian Authority. Another group of about 7,000 come from China and some 6,000 from Eastern Europe.

There are about 20,000 Indians working in Israel, mostly as caregivers. Most of them decided to stay back in Israel and did not leave the country during the war because “they felt quite secure” and “also because the salaries are quite attractive”. (PTI)

French President Emmanuel Macron opened a Gaza aid conference on Thursday with an appeal for Israel to protect civilians as it fights Hamas, saying “all lives have equal worth” and that fighting terrorism “can never be carried out without rules.”

The gathering in Paris brought together officials from Western and Arab nations, the United Nations and NGOs, with the aim of providing urgent aid to civilians in the Gaza Strip that is being pounded by Israel in its war against Hamas. Israeli authorities weren't participating in the talks, Macron’s office said.

Macron reiterated calls for a humanitarian pause in Israel's operations. He said that by attacking Israel on October 7, Hamas “shouldered the responsibility for exposing Palestinians to terrible consequences,” and he again defended Israel's right to defend itself.

But Macron also stressed that civilians must be protected. “It’s absolutely essential. It is non-negotiable,” he said. “All lives have equal worth and there are no double standards for those of us with universal and humanist values,” he said.

“Fighting terrorism can never be carried out without rules. Israel knows that. The trap of terrorism is for all of us the same: giving in to violence and renouncing our values," he added.

French officials said they are also considering evacuating injured people to hospital ships in the Mediterranean off the Gaza coast. Paris sent a helicopter carrier off the Cyprus coast and is preparing another with medical capacities on board for that purpose.

Thursday’s discussions will also include financial support and other ways to help Gaza’s civilians. Over 50 nations were expected to attend, including several European countries, the United States and regional powers such as Jordan, Egypt, and the Gulf countries, the French presidency said. Also attending is Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh. (AP)

UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman has launched a war of words with the Metropolitan Police with a tough-talking newspaper article on Thursday that accuses the force of not tackling the “hate marchers” protesting on the streets of London against the Israel-Hamas conflict.

The Indian-origin Cabinet minister has come under strong criticism from the Opposition benches for accusing the country’s largest police force of having a “double standard” in dealing with aggression during the protests, by ignoring some actions of pro-Palestinian protesters.

In a warning to the police, Braverman pointed out that if a planned pro-Palestinian protest march goes ahead this weekend, an “assertive and proactive approach to any displays of hate” will be expected from the officers on duty.

“There have been dignified vigils in London held by Britain’s Jewish community, but that is not what has tested our capacity to maintain public order,” Braverman wrote in ‘The Times’ newspaper.

“It is the pro-Palestinian movement that has mobilised tens of thousands of angry demonstrators and marched them through London every weekend. From the start, these events have been problematic, not just because of violence around the fringes but because of the highly offensive content of chants, posters and stickers. This is not a time for naiveté,” she noted.

“We have seen with our own eyes that terrorists have been valorised, Israel has been demonised as Nazis and Jews have been threatened with further massacres… I do not believe that these marches are merely a cry for help for Gaza. They are an assertion of primacy by certain groups – particularly Islamists – of the kind we are more used to seeing in Northern Ireland,” she wrote. (PTI)

Israel is allowing parents to circumvent usual legal procedures to have the sperm of their fallen soldier sons, or civilian sons killed during the war with Hamas to be retrieved before burial to increase its chances of viability when it is later unfrozen and used to fertilize an egg, media reports have said.

Posthumous sperm retrieval (PSR) during normal times can be done at the request of a widow without any need for legal bureaucracy, but parents who want their dead son’s sperm to be retrieved and preserved must obtain an order from a family court.

The Israeli Health Ministry has exempted this requirement, at least temporarily, The Times of Israel newspaper reported.

Sperm has been retrieved from 33 men in the last month, four of them civilians and the rest soldiers, a report in the Ha'aretz newspaper said. (PTI)

Officials from Western and Arab nations, the UN and NGOs are gathering in Paris on Thursday for a conference on how to provide aid to civilians in the Gaza Strip during Israel’s war with Hamas, including proposals for a humanitarian maritime corridor and floating field hospitals.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who has called for a “humanitarian pause” in the war, wants the conference to address the besieged Palestinian enclave’s growing needs including food, water, health supplies, electricity and fuel.

Over 50 nations are expected to attend including several European countries, the United States and regional powers like Jordan, Egypt and the Gulf countries, the French presidency said. Also attending is Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh.

Israeli authorities won’t participate in the conference, the Elysee said.

The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, the UN’s top aid official and the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross are expected to provide details about urgent needs in the Gaza Strip.

Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides will present his plan for a humanitarian sea corridor to Gaza which he has said aims for a “sustained, secure high-volume flow of humanitarian assistance to Gaza in the immediate, medium and long term.” Ships would deliver the aid from Cyprus' main port of Limassol, some 255 miles away (410 km.) French officials said they are also considering evacuating injured people onto hospital ships in the Mediterranean off the Gaza coast. Paris sent a helicopter carrier off the Cyprus coast and is preparing another with medical capacities on board for that purpose.

Thursday’s discussions will also include financial support and other ways to help Gaza’s civilians.

France is expected to announce some additional funding. Since the Hamas attack on October 7, Paris has provided an additional 20 million euros (USD 21.4 million) in humanitarian aid for Gaza, through the UN and other partners and sent 54 tons of aid via three flights to Egypt.

On Tuesday, the German government said it will provide 20 million euros in new funding, in addition to releasing 71 million euros already earmarked for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees following a review it launched after the Hamas attack.

European Council President Charles Michel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen are also attending the conference. The 27-nation bloc is the world's top aid supplier to the Palestinians. It has sent almost 78 million euros this year. (AP)