Israel to shut down TV news station Al Jazeera’s operations – cabinet statement

Israel’s cabinet has decided to close Qatari TV station Al Jazeera’s operations in Israel, according to a statement on Sunday morning.

Al Jazeera broadcasts in multiple languages on news and topics related to the Arab and Muslim world, and has been an important source of news on the war in Gaza. More details will follow on this development.

It comes as Hamas leaders held a second day of truce talks with Egyptian and Qatari mediators on Sunday, with no apparent progress reported as the Islamist group maintained its demand that any agreement must end the war in Gaza, Palestinian officials said.

One Palestinian official, close to the mediation effort, said the Hamas delegation had arrived in Cairo with a determination to reach a deal “but not at any price”.

“A deal must end the war and get Israeli forces out of Gaza and Israel hasn’t yet committed it was willing to do so,” the official told Reuters, asking not to be named.

Israel wants a deal to free at least some of the around 130 hostages held by Hamas but an Israeli official signalled on Saturday that its core position was unchanged, saying Israel would “under no circumstances” agree a deal to end the war, which it has pursued with the aim of disarming and dismantling Hamas for good.

Another Palestinian official said the negotiations are “facing challenges because the occupation (Israel) refuses to commit to a comprehensive ceasefire” but added that the Hamas delegation was still in Cairo in the hope mediators could press Israel to change its position.

As the latest talks were underway, residents and health officials said Israeli planes and tanks continued to pound areas across the Palestinian enclave overnight, killing and wounding several people.

The war began after Hamas stunned Israel with a cross-border raid on Oct. 7 in which 1,200 people were killed and 252 hostages taken, according to Israeli tallies.

More than 34,600 Palestinians have been killed and more than 77,000 have been wounded in Israel’s assault, according to Gaza’s health ministry. The bombardment has devastated much of the coastal enclave and caused a humanitarian crisis.

Qatar, where Hamas has a political office, and Egypt are trying to mediate a follow-up to a brief November ceasefire, amid international dismay over the soaring death toll in Gaza and the plight of its 2.3 million inhabitants.

Egyptian sources said CIA director William Burns, who has also been involved in previous truce talks, arrived in Cairo on Friday. Washington – which, like other Western powers and Israel, brands Hamas a terrorist group – has urged it to enter a deal.

Israel has given a preliminary nod to terms that one source said included the return of between 20 and 33 hostages in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and a truce of several weeks.

That would leave around 100 hostages in Gaza, some of whom Israel says have died in captivity. The source, who asked not to be identified by name or nationality, said their return may require an additional deal.

Thousands of Israelis protested on Saturday, demanding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accept a ceasefire agreement with Hamas that would see the remaining hostages brought home.

Israel this week briefed Biden administration officials on a plan to evacuate Palestinian civilians ahead of a potential operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah aimed at rooting out Hamas militants, according to U.S. officials familiar with the talks.

Speaking anonymously, the officials said that the plan detailed by the Israelis did not change the U.S. administration’s view that moving forward with an operation in Rafah would put too many innocent Palestinian civilians at risk.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to carry out a military operation in Rafah despite warnings from President Joe Biden and other western officials that doing so would result in more civilian deaths and worsen an already dire humanitarian crisis.

The Biden administration has said there could be consequences for Israel should it move forward with the operation without a credible plan to safeguard civilians.

Meanwhile, a well-known British Palestinian surgeon who volunteered in Gaza hospitals said he was denied entry to France on Saturday to speak at a French Senate meeting about the Israel-Hamas war.

Dr Ghassan Abu Sitta was placed in a holding zone in the Charles de Gaulle airport and will be expelled, according to French senator Raymonde Poncet-Monge, who had invited him to speak at the Senate.

‘’It’s a disgrace,’’ Poncet-Monge posted on X.

A French official said that Abu Sitta was turned away because he is barred from entry to all Schengen zone countries based on a German request.

Abu Sitta posted on social networks that he was denied entry in France because of a one-year ban by Germany on his entry to Europe. Germany denied him entry last month, and France and Germany are part of Europe’s border-free Schengen zone. Abu Sitta posted Saturday that he was being sent back to London.

The French Foreign Ministry, Interior Ministry, local police and the Paris airport authority would not comment on what happened or give an explanation.

Abu Sitta had been invited by France’s left-wing Ecologists group in the Senate to speak at a colloquium Saturday about the situation in Gaza, according to the Senate press service. The gathering included testimony from medics, journalists and international legal experts with Gaza-related experience.

Last month Abu Sitta was denied entry to Germany to take part in a pro-Palestinian conference. He said he was stopped at passport control, held for several hours and then told he had to return to the U.K. He said airport police told him he was refused entry due to “the safety of the people at the conference and public order.”

Abu Sitta, who recently volunteered with Doctors Without Borders in Gaza, has worked during multiple conflicts in the Palestinian territories, beginning in the late 1980s during the first Palestinian uprising. He has also worked in other conflict zones, including in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

France has seen tensions related to the Mideast conflict almost daily since the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas incursion into Israel. In recent days and weeks police have cleared out students at French campuses holding demonstrations and sit-ins similar to those in the United States.

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