The parties to the Gaza talks are continuing their consultations to reach a ceasefire agreement in the near future, Egyptian television channel Al-Qahira al-Ikhbariya said.
According to a Cairo source, Doha and Washington are currently in close coordination on a ceasefire in Gaza and the exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners. Egyptian negotiators are calling on all parties to "show the necessary flexibility to reach an agreement", the channel stressed. Its source added that Cairo is now seeking to "unite the views of the parties to the current conflict in order to restore the ceasefire" in Gaza.
On Monday, an Israeli political source said that "Israel is in intensive talks with mediators to return the abductees". At the same time, he said, the conditions set by the Palestinian Hamas movement are "unacceptable" for Israel, which "will continue to exert military pressure on the terrorists until all the goals approved by the Israeli government more than a year ago are achieved". These include the return of the hostages, the destruction of Hamas's military and administrative structures, and ensuring that the Gaza Strip no longer poses a threat to Israel.
On May 25, Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said that indirect talks between Hamas and Israel to resolve the conflict in the Gaza Strip had reached a dead end. He specified that during the consultations held in Doha, a situation arose in which Israel intends to conclude a deal only for the release of hostages held in the Palestinian enclave, while Hamas insists on a complete cessation of hostilities.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised last night to return all hostages - – "living and dead" - without mentioning the American proposal for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, mentioned earlier by "Hamas", reported Agence France-Presse, quoted by BTA.
"If we can't do it today, we will do it tomorrow, and if not tomorrow, then the day after, we will not give up. "We intend to return everyone, the living and the dead," Netanyahu said in his speech at the "Jerusalem Day" celebrations.
"Our mission to win the war, including the mission to return the hostages, is with us every day and every night, tonight too, and we will not give up on it," he added.
Earlier yesterday, the Israeli prime minister said in a video message posted on his channel on the "Telegram" app that he "hopes" to make a statement related to the hostages "today or tomorrow", without giving further details, AFP recalls.
Clashes broke out last night during a large rally in Jerusalem dedicated to the capture of the eastern part of the city by Israel during the 1967 war, after far-right Israeli Jews fought and attacked Palestinians, Israeli citizens and journalists, Reuters reported, quoted by BTA.
The annual "March of the Flags" drew thousands of people chanting, dancing and waving Israeli flags after far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir visited the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, a long-standing source of Israeli-Palestinian tension.
The violence erupted in East Jerusalem's walled Old City in the early afternoon when young protesters harassed the few Palestinian shopkeepers who had not yet closed ahead of the march, witnesses told Reuters.
The protesters, most of them young Israeli citizens living in settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, then targeted left-wing Israeli activists and journalists covering the rally. They chanted nationalist slogans and called for violence against Palestinians, chanting "Death to the Arabs." A Palestinian woman and journalists were spat at by a group of young settlers, while Israeli police officers stationed nearby did not intervene, witnesses said. Moshe, a 35-year-old Israeli settler in the West Bank and a supporter of the current right-wing government, walked through the Palestinian quarter of Jerusalem's Old City, carrying a rifle and his daughter on his shoulders. "It was a very happy day," he told Reuters, because all of Jerusalem was "under Israeli rule." Police have not yet reported any arrests during the demonstration. A police officer who was at the scene said that the young Israeli demonstrators were not detained because they were under the age of 18.
Left-wing opposition leader Yair Golan, a former deputy chief of staff of the armed forces, described the scenes of violence in the Old City as shocking. "This is not what love for Jerusalem looks like. This is what hatred, racism and harassment look like," he said.
"We will keep Jerusalem united, whole and under Israeli sovereignty," Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu said at a cabinet meeting in East Jerusalem earlier in the day.
A spokesman for the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank condemned the march and Ben Gvir's visit to Al-Aqsa.
Israel's ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, "repeated incursions into the Al-Aqsa mosque compound" and provocative actions such as raising the Israeli flag in occupied Jerusalem threaten the stability of the entire region," Nabil Abu Rudeina said in a statement.
The US-Israeli-backed organization "Gaza Humanitarian Foundation" opened its first centers in the Gaza Strip today to deliver humanitarian aid, Reuters and the Associated Press reported, quoted by BTA.
More trucks are expected to deliver supplies to the centers later in the day.
"Gaza Humanitarian Foundation" has been rejected by the United Nations and other humanitarian organizations, which have accused Israel of using food as a weapon. They said the new aid distribution system would not be effective.
The Gaza Strip is facing a growing humanitarian crisis after Israel imposed a nearly three-month blockade on humanitarian aid deliveries to pressure the Palestinian organization Hamas, the AP noted.
Israel has drawn up an alternative plan for distributing supplies after accusing the Palestinian group of confiscating humanitarian aid. However, the UN denied that the armed group had diverted large quantities of the supplies.
German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil said that Berlin plans to put more political pressure on Israel, which is stepping up its military operations in Gaza, DPA reported, quoted by BTA.
Klingbeil, who is the leader of the SPD, the junior partner in Germany's ruling coalition, made the statement after a meeting with EC Vice-President Stefan Séjourné.
"There was also an agreement within the coalition that we will do this, and this is the right decision," Klingbeil said, adding that he could support what Chancellor Friedrich Merz had said earlier. Germany must make clear "what is no longer acceptable", he stressed.
Klingbeil added that further steps would be discussed jointly within the government. He declined to comment on the issue of demands for an embargo on arms supplies to Israel.
Earlier, Merz stressed Germany's partnership with Israel, but warned that "the Israeli government should not do something that its best friends are no longer prepared to accept".
Yesterday, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said that Sweden would summon the Israeli ambassador to protest Israel's refusal to allow free entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza, AFP reported.
""We do not support the actions of the Israeli government, which is currently denying access to Gaza", he stressed. "There is no doubt that the pressure is now increasing. And for very good reasons," the Swedish leader added.
Faced with growing international outrage over the blockade, which has led to severe shortages of food and medicine, Israel last week began allowing aid into the enclave, but in small quantities, for the first time since March 2.
The Swedish prime minister added that he supports a review of the association agreement between the European Union and Israel. The European Commission will initiate this process to verify whether Israel respects human rights and democratic principles in accordance with Article 2 of the agreement, AFP recalls.