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19-02-2025
JERUSALEM/ GAZA: Israel’s Defence Ministry says it is establishing a government body for the “voluntary departures” of Palestinians from Gaza as it pushes forward with the ethnic cleansing plan proposed by US President Donald Trump.
Israeli media reports say the military is preparing to receive the bodies of four captives taken to Gaza on Thursday as part of phase one of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal.
Israel’s military has also begun pulling some troops out of Lebanon, officials say, but will remain in five “strategic points” in the south of the country, past the deadline for a full withdrawal stipulated in the truce deal with Hezbollah.
Gaza’s Health Ministry has confirmed that Israel’s war on Gaza has killed 48,271 Palestinians. Including people missing and presumed dead, the Government Media Office says the death toll is at least 61,709. At least 1,139 people were killed during Hamas-led attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023, and more than 200 were taken captive.
Palestinian rights group Al-Haq has shared a video on social media of Israeli forces questioning its researcher after stopping his car at a “flying checkpoint” near an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank.
Sami Huraini said he was detained for “around one hour” during which Israel soldiers “humiliated me, conducted intrusive searches, and screamed at me”.
He says the “flying checkpoint” he was stopped at was removed after he was detained.
“Sami has lost count of the number of times the [Israeli army] have detained him, in an attempt to intimidate and silence his work as a human rights defender,” Al-Haq said in a post on X.
Israel is expecting to receive the bodies of four Israeli captives killed after October 7 on Thursday, in exchange for half of the women and children that Israeli forces took from Gaza and disappeared since the war.
We do not know how many Palestinians will be released, because Israel has not disclosed how many people it has taken from Gaza.
This is an implementation of phase one of the agreement.
So there isn’t anything out of the ordinary but it is an indication that mediator efforts are bearing fruit. That talks are continuing.
There is no movement though on phase two of the agreement. Negotiations on that are two weeks behind schedule. The Israeli prime minister is reported to have pledged to only move forward after a cabinet vote.
Where there is movement though is the Israeli ministry of defence, where the minister Israel Katz has formed a directorate to facilitate the implementation of Donald Trump’s plan to displace the population of Gaza and takeover the enclave.
As Palestinians have returned to their destroyed communities in northern Gaza over recent weeks, the markers of Israel’s months-long campaign of indiscriminate attacks can be seen everywhere.
At one destroyed residential building in Beit Lahiya, which once housed more than 200 people, many bodies remain buried under the rubble, unable to be recovered by rescue crews.
The six-storey structure was completely levelled in October last year one of countless residential buildings destroyed by Israeli forces during its assault on the area killing 93 people.
Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz announced the establishment of a new government agency, which he said will provide Palestinians with “extensive assistance” to “voluntarily” leave Gaza. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
