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    Desperation Grows in Gaza as U.N. Shutters Bakeries

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    Anxious residents rushed to obtain bags of flour as the United Nations warned that Israeli restrictions on aid deliveries were deepening the humanitarian crisis.Bilal Mohammad Ramadan AbuKresh has lost his home, his job, his wife and seven other relatives during the war in Gaza. Now, as the United Nations closes 25 bakeries across the territory, he is also losing his only reliable source of food.Before Wednesday, Mr. AbuKresh, 40, said he would leave his tent in a camp for displaced people in northern Gaza at dawn and stand in line for hours at one of the bakeries, waiting for bread for his four children.“The line was unimaginable, like the Day of Judgment,” Mr. AbuKresh said on Wednesday, the day after the World Food Program, a U.N. agency, said it had run out of the flour and fuel needed to keep the bakeries in Gaza open.But at least it was affordable, compared to the $30 he paid for a bag of pasta that he bought recently to feed his family.The lack of humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza over the past month has prompted violent competition for food and driven up prices.Mr. AbuKresh said he has resorted to selling his children’s jewelry and collecting trash to sell to scrounge up enough money just to buy a bit of food. “To secure a bag of bread for my children, I risk death a hundred times,” he said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Israel Halts Aid to Gaza and Proposes New Cease-Fire Framework

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      Israel has called for Hamas to accept a temporary extension of the existing cease-fire deal, and to release more hostages.Israel announced on Sunday that it was immediately halting the entry of all goods and humanitarian assistance into Gaza, trying to force Hamas into accepting a temporary extension of the cease-fire in the war.The move disrupts the existing, agreed-upon framework for negotiating a permanent end to the war and puts the fate of the hostages into uncharted territory. The draconian halt on goods and aid, including fuel, is also likely to worsen conditions for the roughly two million inhabitants of Gaza, after the 15-month war left much of the coastal enclave in ruins.The initial, six-week phase of the original deal between Israel and Hamas expired on Saturday. Though it was punctured by setbacks and mutual accusations of violations, it ultimately saw at least a temporary cessation in the fighting and the exchange of 25 living Israeli hostages and the remains of eight dead ones for about 1,500 Palestinian prisoners and detainees. That deal also allowed for a significant increase of aid into Gaza.The next phase of the agreement called for a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and a commitment to a permanent cease-fire in return for the release of all the remaining living hostages in Gaza, who are being held in inhumane conditions, according to reports from hostages who have been freed.Instead, hours before its announcement about the halt of aid, Israel proposed a seven-week extension of the temporary cease-fire, during which Hamas must release half the remaining living hostages as well as the remains of half the deceased ones. Upon conclusion of that extension, if agreement were reached on a permanent cease-fire, then all the remaining hostages would have to be released, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.“Israel will not allow a cease-fire without the release of our hostages,” Mr. Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on Sunday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Anxiety in Gaza and Israel as Cease-Fire Nears End of First Phase

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      A series of hostage-for-prisoner swaps agreed under the first phase of the cease-fire is complete, and no one knows how long the uneasy calm will last.Shamekh al-Dibs has not begun rebuilding his home in northern Gaza, which was destroyed last year. He is living in a nearby school turned into a shelter for displaced Gazans, grappling with a deep uncertainty over whether this tense calm will last.The first phase of the cease-fire elapses on Saturday night and there have been few signs of progress in talks on the next steps. This leaves both Israelis and Palestinians in limbo, not knowing how long the truce will hold after the first series of hostage-for-prisoner exchanges was completed early Thursday morning.“Our only hope is that the cease-fire continues,” said Mr. al-Dibs, 36 and currently unemployed.For now, the first six-week phase of the cease-fire is set to conclude without a clear framework to take its place. That does not necessarily mean an immediate return to war: The agreement says the truce can continue as long as negotiators are working on the next steps. But it makes the already fragile pause in the fighting more precarious.Israel was sending a delegation to Cairo on Thursday to see whether it could find a formula with Hamas to extend the cease-fire in exchange for the release of more hostages, government officials said, without providing further details.Extending the deal will entail tackling much thornier issues, such as a permanent end to the war and the reconstruction of Gaza. Under the terms of the phased agreement, Israel would effectively have to declare an end to its war against Hamas in order to secure the release of some two dozen hostages believed to still be alive.For the families of Israeli captives, the prospect of their loved ones’ release is both closer than ever before and agonizingly distant. They are well aware that formidable obstacles remain to securing their freedom given the lack of an agreement on the second phase of the deal.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Hamas ‘monsters’ will feel full force of the military if hostages not released, Israeli minister warns

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      Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.Read moreA senior Israeli minister tipped as one of the favourites to become her country’s next ambassador to the UK has said she considers Hamas to be “monsters” and warned her country “will use full force” if hostages are not released.Israeli deputy foreign minister Sharren Haskel, a Knesset member for the New Hope Party in Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition, also welcomed Donald Trump’s controversial plan for the US to take over Gaza, relocate the Palestinians and redevelop it into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.She told The Independent: “I think that in this extreme situation, I welcome that kind of thinking and that way of working thinking outside of the box. We have to keep an open mind and an open heart, because everything we’ve tried until now didn’t work.”Israel MP Sharren Haskel unfurls an Israeli flag at a demonstration by students of Oxford University in the city centre More

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      Israeli Troops Withdraw From Netzarim Corridor in Gaza

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      Israel’s military withdrew from the Netzarim Corridor under the cease-fire with Hamas. During the war, troops patrolled the zone that splits the territory, preventing evacuated Palestinians from returning north.Israel’s military withdrew Sunday from a key corridor dividing the Gaza Strip, leaving nearly all of the territory’s north as required by a tenuous cease-fire with Hamas ahead of any negotiations for a longer-lasting agreement.The military’s departure from the Netzarim Corridor in Gaza came as the Israeli government sent a delegation to Qatar over the weekend to discuss the next group of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners to be freed during the cease-fire agreement’s initial phase, which came into effect last month and is ongoing. The gaunt appearances of three Israeli hostages who were released on Saturday, stoking public comparisons to Holocaust victims, heaped new pressure on the negotiations.In a statement on Sunday, the Israeli military said troops were “implementing the agreement” to leave the corridor and allow hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to continue returning home to northern Gaza.Two Israeli military officials and a soldier in Gaza who were not authorized to discuss the situation publicly or by name said the troops had already left the Netzarim Corridor by Sunday morning.Hamas also said that Israeli troops had departed from the Netzarim Corridor, saying in a statement that it was “a victory for the will of our people.”A drone view after Israeli forces withdrew from the Netzarim Corridor on Sunday.ReutersWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      West Bank Settlement Supporters Have Big Hopes for Trump’s Presidency

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      As Donald J. Trump nominates staunch supporters of Israel to key positions, advocacy groups are taking aim at the departing administration’s policies.The Biden administration this week imposed sanctions on more groups and individuals it accuses of having ties to Israeli settlers inciting violence in the occupied West Bank, a last-ditch show of disapproval of Israelis’ annexation of land there before U.S. policy on the issue most likely swings the other way under the next administration.When President-elect Donald J. Trump returns to the White House next year, he could easily revoke the February executive order authorizing the sanctions or, even, some pro-settlement activists hope, use the order to go after Palestinian organizations instead.Texans for Israel, a Christian Zionist group, and several other settler supporters and organizations this month renewed a challenge to President Biden’s order in federal court, arguing that it was being applied unconstitutionally, targeting Jewish settlers and violating the rights of Americans exercising freedom of religion and speech in support of them.The case highlights the growing international controversy over West Bank settlement amid the war in the Gaza Strip and the great expectations of the settler movement and its supporters of another Trump presidency.Israel seized control of the West Bank from Jordan in a war in 1967, and Israeli civilians have since settled there with both the tacit and the explicit approval of the Israeli government, living under Israeli civil law while their Palestinian neighbors are subject to Israeli military law. Expanding Israel’s hold over the West Bank is a stated goal of many ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government.The international community largely views the Israeli settlements as illegal, and Palestinians have long argued that they are a creeping annexation that turns land needed for any independent Palestinian state into an unmanageable patchwork.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      U.S. Envoy Visits Lebanon, Seeking Truce Between Israel and Hezbollah

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      The envoy, Amos Hochstein, said an end to the fighting was “within our grasp” after meeting in Beirut with Lebanon’s Parliament speaker, a key interlocutor with Hezbollah.A top U.S. envoy to the Middle East on Tuesday signaled progress in negotiations between Israel and Hezbollah on a cease-fire proposal that, if agreed upon, could potentially ease hostilities in a region already on edge over Israel’s war in Gaza.The envoy, Amos Hochstein, said at a news conference in Beirut, Lebanon, that the gaps between the two sides had “narrowed” in discussions in recent weeks, though ultimately any results from the negotiations would be “the decision of the parties.”“We have a real opportunity to bring this conflict to an end,” Mr. Hochstein said. That outcome is “within our grasp,” he added.Mr. Hochstein’s visit was widely considered a sign that the United States’ efforts to broker a truce were moving forward. He met earlier on Tuesday with Nabih Berri, the Lebanese Parliament speaker who is a key interlocutor between the United States and Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group and political party in Lebanon that is at war with Israel.Though both Mr. Hochstein and Lebanese officials have spoken of progress in the discussions, it is unclear whether those talks have ironed out details. Previous U.S.-led negotiations on a cease-fire stalled in September as the war escalated.Amos Hochstein, a U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, speaking at a news conference in Beirut on Tuesday.Wael Hamzeh/EPA, via Shutterstock More

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      Iran Debates Whether It Could Make a Deal With Trump

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      Some in Iran’s new, more moderate government think the result of the presidential election provides an opportunity to make a lasting deal with the United States.President Donald J. Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear pact between Iran and world powers, imposed tough economic sanctions on Iran and ordered the killing of its top general. And Iran, federal prosecutors said on Friday, plotted to assassinate Mr. Trump before November’s election.Yet despite that charged history, many former officials, pundits and newspaper editorials in Iran have openly called for the government to engage with Mr. Trump in the week since his re-election. Shargh, the main reformist daily newspaper, said in a front-page editorial that Iran’s new, more moderate president, Masoud Pezeshkian, must “avoid past mistakes and assume a pragmatic and multidimensional policy.”And many in Mr. Pezeshkian’s government agree, according to five Iranian officials who asked that their names not be published because they were not authorized to discuss government policy. They say Mr. Trump loves to make deals where others have failed, and that his outsize dominance in the Republican Party could give any potential agreement more staying power. That might give an opening for some kind of lasting deal with the United States, they argue.“Do not lose this historic opportunity for change in Iran-U.S. relations,” wrote a prominent politician and former political adviser to Iran’s government, Hamid Aboutalebi, in an open letter to Iran’s president. He advised Mr. Pezeshkian to congratulate Mr. Trump on winning the election and set a new tone for a pragmatic and forward-looking policy.President Masoud Pezeshkian in Tehran in September. Some in Mr. Masoud’s government are calling on him to engage President-elect Donald J. Trump.Arash Khamooshi for The New York TimesStill, critical decisions in Iran are made by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and he banned negotiations with Mr. Trump during his first term. In Iran’s factional politics, even if Mr. Pezeshkian wanted to negotiate with Mr. Trump, he would have to get Mr. Khamenei’s approval.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Arab American Voters in Dearborn, Michigan, Heard Trump’s Case 

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      After supporting Joe Biden in 2020, the majority-Arab American city outside Detroit delivered an unlikely win for Donald Trump, who promised to bring peace to the Middle East.Ameen Almudhari was one of thousands of people in the majority-Arab community of Dearborn, Mich., who helped Joe Biden win the city and defeat Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election.Four years later, Mr. Almudhari had had enough.This week, he joined thousands of other Dearborn residents in voting for Mr. Trump, helping him score a stunning win in a place that seemed an unlikely source of support in the former president’s bid to return to the White House.Standing next to his 10-year-old son outside an elementary school on the north side of Dearborn on Tuesday evening, Mr. Almudhari, 33, explained his change of heart, part of a remarkable turnabout in Dearborn, which is just outside Detroit.He was, he said, fed up with Mr. Biden’s support of Israel and Ukraine and said the death and destruction being underwritten by the United States drove his decision to back Mr. Trump.“The first time we vote for Joe Biden, but what we see right now, he didn’t stop the genocide in Gaza,” said Mr. Almudhari, a Yemeni American, who faulted the president for spending American money to support the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. His son, Khaled, interrupted him with a smiling comment: “Trump will end the war!”Indeed, Mr. Trump has said as much, and the promise was among a host of reasons cited by voters in Dearborn for the wave of support from Arab and Muslim Americans for Mr. Trump.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More