Published Friday, April 26, 2024 | 12:58 a.m.
Updated Friday, April 26, 2024 | 5:27 a.m.
Egypt is sending a high-level delegation to Israel in the hope of reaching a cease-fire agreement with Hamas in Gaza, while warning a possible new Israeli offensive focused on the southern city of Rafah on the border with Egypt could have catastrophic consequences for regional stability, two officials said Friday.
Earlier Friday, Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group fired anti-tank missiles and artillery shells at an Israeli military convoy in a disputed area along the border, killing an Israeli civilian, the group and Israel’s military said.
On Thursday, Palestinian hospital officials said Israeli airstrikes on Rafah killed at least five people.
More than half of the territory’s population of 2.3 million have sought refuge in the city. The Israeli military has massed dozens of tanks and armored vehicles in the area in what appears to be preparations for an invasion of Rafah.
In central Gaza, four people were killed in Israeli tank shelling.
The Israel-Hamas war was sparked by the unprecedented Oct. 7 raid into southern Israel in which militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250 hostages. Israel says the militants are still holding around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.
The war has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, around two-thirds of them children and women .
Currently:
— Ship comes under attack off coast of Yemen as Houthi rebel campaign appears to gain new speed
— Satellite photos show new port construction in Gaza Strip for U.S.-led aid operation
— USC cancels graduation ceremony and dozens are arrested on other campuses as anti-war protests grow
— Chef José Andrés says aid workers killed by Israeli airstrikes represented the ‘best of humanity’
— U.N. report says 282 million people faced acute hunger in 2023, with the worst famine in Gaza
Here is the latest:
The heads of Israel’s major research universities signed a letter Friday expressing deep concern over what they viewed as a surge of antisemitism at American colleges as pro-Palestinian protests sweep campuses across the United States.
In the letter, the university heads allege that the recent demonstrations have created “a climate where Israeli and Jewish students and faculty members feel compelled to hide their identities or avoid campuses altogether for fear of physical harm.” The letter did not include specific examples.
The statement comes as pro-Palestinian protesters set up encampments at universities across the country.
Many are demanding schools cut financial ties to Israel and divest from companies they say are enabling the conflict.
Israel and its supporters have branded the protests as antisemitic, while critics of Israel say it uses such allegations to silence opponents.
While some protesters have been caught on camera making antisemitic remarks or violent threats, organizers of the protests, some of whom are Jewish, say it is a peaceful movement aimed at defending Palestinian rights and protesting the war.
“Freedom of expression and the right to demonstrate are vital to the health of any democracy,” wrote the college presidents, whose association goes by the acronym VERA in Israel. “However, these freedoms do not include the right to to engage in violence, make threats against communities, or call for the destruction of the state of Israel.”
They said that they would help Jewish students and faculty wishing to move to Israel.
CAIRO — Egypt is sending a high-level delegation to Israel in the hope of reaching a cease-fire agreement with Hamas in Gaza, while warning a possible new Israeli offensive focused on the southern city of Rafah on the border with Egypt could have catastrophic consequences for regional stability, two officials said Friday.
Egypt’s top intelligence official, Abbas Kamel, is leading the delegation and plans to discuss a “new vision” on establishing a prolonged cease-fire in Gaza with Israeli officials, an Egyptian official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to freely discuss the mission.
Kamel, who heads Egypt’s General Intelligence Service, and the rest of the delegation is expected to arrive in Israel on Friday morning.
Talks will focus at first on a limited exchange of hostages held by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners, along the return of a significant number of displaced Palestinians to their homes in northern Gaza “with minimum restrictions,” the official said.
The hope is that negotiations will then continue, with the goal of a larger deal to end the war, he said.
Hamas has said it will not back down from its demands for a permanent cease-fire and full withdrawal of Israeli troops, both of which Israel has refused. Israel says it will continue military operations until Hamas is definitively defeated and will retain a security presence in Gaza afterwards.
Israel has also been conducting near-daily raids on Rafah, a city in which more than half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million have sought refuge. The Israeli military has massed dozens of tanks and armored vehicles in the area in what appears to be preparations for an invasion of the city, which lies on the Egyptian border.
While in Israel, Kamel plans to make clear that Egypt “will not tolerate” Israel’s deployments of troops along Gaza’s borders with Egypt, the Egyptian official said.
A Western diplomat in Cairo also said that Egypt has intensified its efforts in recent days to reach a compromise and establish a short cease-fire in Gaza that will help negotiate a longer truce and avert the Rafah offensive.
The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity to freely discuss the developments.
— Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed.
BEIRUT — Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group fired anti-tank missiles and artillery shells at an Israeli military convoy in a disputed area along the border, killing an Israeli civilian, the group and Israel’s military said Friday.
Hezbollah said that its fighters ambushed the convoy shortly before midnight Thursday, destroying two vehicles.
The Israeli military said the ambush wounded an Israeli civilian doing infrastructure work, and that he later died of his wounds.
The incident took place in a disputed area known in Lebanon as the Kfar Chouba hills and in Israel as Har Dov. The area was captured by Israel from Syria during the 1967 Mideast war and is are part of Syria’s Golan Heights that Israel annexed in 1981. The Lebanese government says the area belongs to Lebanon.
Hezbollah and Israel have traded fire on a near-daily basis along the border since the start of the war in Gaza nearly seven months ago. Hezbollah says it is acting in solidarity with the Hamas, a Palestinian militant group, which triggered the war with its deadly Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel.
The low-intensity fighting has repeatedly threatened to boil over as Israel has targeted senior Hezbollah militants in recent months.
Tens of thousands of people have been displaced on both sides of the border.
On the Israeli side, the cross-border fighting has killed 10 civilians and 12 soldiers. In Lebanon, more than 350 people have been killed, including 50 civilians and 271 Hezbollah members.
