Source: THE AS­SO­CI­AT­ED PRESS

Large protests con­tin­ued in Tel Aviv, Is­rael, for a third con­sec­u­tive night Tues­day as hun­dreds took to the street to call on the gov­ern­ment to reach a cease-fire deal that would bring home the re­main­ing hostages held in Gaza.

The protests have come af­ter the Is­raeli mil­i­tary said six hostages were killed by their cap­tors in Gaza just as troops were clos­ing in on their lo­ca­tion. Many Is­raelis blame Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu for the mount­ing num­ber of dead hostages and are call­ing for a cease-fire agree­ment to free the re­main­ing hostages.

Mean­while, the U.S. says it is work­ing on a new cease-fire and hostage deal pro­pos­al with its Egypt­ian and Qatari coun­ter­parts. And the Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil plans to con­vene on Wednes­day to dis­cuss the war.

Ear­li­er Tues­day, the Is­raeli mil­i­tary an­nounced it has killed a Hamas mil­i­tant who ap­peared in a wide­ly viewed video from Oct. 7, where he was seen drink­ing from a bot­tle of co­la in front of two chil­dren wound­ed in a grenade at­tack that had just killed their fa­ther.

The mil­i­tary iden­ti­fied the mil­i­tant as Ahmed Fozi Wa­dia, a com­man­der in a Hamas com­man­do bat­tal­ion. The Is­raeli mil­i­tary said air­craft on Sat­ur­day struck a com­pound in Gaza City where Hamas mil­i­tants were op­er­at­ing, killing eight mil­i­tants, in­clud­ing Wa­dia.

Hamas-led mil­i­tants killed 1,200 peo­ple and took 250 as hostages in their Oct. 7 at­tack, which trig­gered the war in Gaza which is now in its 11th month and has killed more than 40,000 peo­ple, ac­cord­ing to Gaza health of­fi­cials. —(AP)

For­mer mem­bers of Ne­tanyahu’s cab­i­net say Is­rael doesn’t need to con­trol Gaza’s bor­der with Egypt

TEL AVIV, Is­rael — Two for­mer mem­bers of Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu’s war cab­i­net have re­ject­ed the Is­raeli leader’s claim that Is­rael must re­tain con­trol over Gaza’s bor­der with Egypt.

Ben­ny Gantz, a for­mer de­fense min­is­ter and mil­i­tary chief of staff, said Is­rael should fo­cus on bring­ing the re­main­ing hostages held in Gaza back home safe­ly. Hamas has de­mand­ed an Is­raeli with­draw­al from the area as part of any deal.

Gantz told a news con­fer­ence Tues­day that Is­rael has the ca­pa­bil­i­ty of re­turn­ing to the “Philadel­phi cor­ri­dor” if need­ed.

“Philadel­phi is an op­er­a­tional chal­lenge, not an ex­is­ten­tial threat,” he said. “We need to bring back the hostages, even at a heavy cost.”

He was joined by his po­lit­i­cal part­ner, Ga­di Eisenkot, an­oth­er for­mer mil­i­tary chief. Both men re­signed from the war cab­i­net in June, ac­cus­ing Ne­tanyahu of mis­man­ag­ing the war and putting his own po­lit­i­cal sur­vival ahead of the coun­try’s in­ter­ests.

Ne­tanyahu’s of­fice dis­missed the crit­i­cism. “Those who do not con­tribute to the vic­to­ry and the re­turn of our hostages would do bet­ter not to in­ter­fere,” it said.

Pro­test­ers gath­er in Tel Aviv again to call on gov­ern­ment to reach a cease-fire deal

TEL AVIV, Is­rael — Hun­dreds of pro­test­ers have gath­ered in cen­tral Tel Aviv for a third con­sec­u­tive night, call­ing on the gov­ern­ment to reach a cease-fire deal that would bring home the re­main­ing hostages held in Gaza.

A new wave of protests erupt­ed Sun­day af­ter Is­rael said it re­cov­ered the bod­ies of six hostages who were killed by Hamas mil­i­tants in cap­tiv­i­ty. The army said the hostages were killed as sol­diers were clos­ing in on the tun­nel where they were be­ing held, and foren­sics ex­perts say they were shot at close range.

Tues­day’s protest took place a day af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu re­it­er­at­ed his in­sis­tence that Is­rael re­tain con­trol of Gaza’s bor­der with Egypt. Hamas has de­mand­ed a full Is­raeli with­draw­al as part of any deal.

People attend a rally demanding a cease-fire deal and the immediate release of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Ariel Schalit

Pro­test­ers say that time is run­ning out to save the hostages still alive in Gaza. Is­rael es­ti­mates that Hamas is hold­ing about 65 liv­ing hostages, in ad­di­tion to the re­mains of some 35 oth­ers.

Emona Or, the sis­ter of hostage Avinatan Or, said the gov­ern­ment needs to “make sure that they do every­thing to bring them back alive, not like we saw peo­ple re­turn­ing this week, God for­bid.”

Many pro­test­ers held blue and white Is­raeli flags and yel­low flags meant to sym­bol­ize sol­i­dar­i­ty with the hostages. “Seal the deal,” said one poster.

Po­lice briefly scuf­fled with some pro­test­ers, ar­rest­ing at least one man.

White House work­ing on new cease-fire and hostage deal

WASH­ING­TON — The White House says it is de­vel­op­ing a new cease-fire and hostage deal pro­pos­al with its Egypt­ian and Qatari coun­ter­parts to try to bring about an agree­ment be­tween Is­rael and Hamas to end the war in Gaza.

Na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty spokesper­son John Kir­by said the “ex­e­cu­tions” of six hostages, in­clud­ing one Amer­i­can, by Hamas, “un­der­scores the sense of ur­gency” in the talks. Kir­by de­clined to frame the lat­est pro­pos­al as a “fi­nal” or “take-it-or-leave-it” of­fer to the par­ties, but he al­so de­clined to spec­u­late on what might hap­pen if the lat­est press for a deal wasn’t suc­cess­ful.

Re­spond­ing to Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu’s in­sis­tence that Is­rael would main­tain a mil­i­tary pres­ence along the en­tire­ty of Gaza’s bor­der with Egypt, Kir­by not­ed that Is­rael had al­ready agreed that, as part of the first phase of a cease-fire deal, it would pull its troops from dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed ar­eas, in­clud­ing in the so-called Philadel­phi cor­ri­dor. That has emerged as a late ob­sta­cle to an agree­ment.

“That’s the pro­pos­al that Is­rael had agreed to,” he said.

Kir­by de­clined to ad­dress wide­spread protests in­side Is­rael call­ing on Ne­tanyahu to reach an agree­ment, say­ing, “I’ll let the Is­raeli peo­ple speak for them­selves.”

UN Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil to dis­cuss Is­rael-Hamas war in the wake of hostage killings

UNIT­ED NA­TIONS — The Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil will dis­cuss the con­flict be­tween Hamas and Is­rael and the cri­sis in the Pales­tin­ian ter­ri­to­ries on Wednes­day in the wake of the killing of six hostages in Gaza. Even rou­tine bu­reau­crat­ic ques­tions about the meet­ing are spark­ing dis­agree­ments be­tween U.N. mem­bers.

Is­rael’s U.N. am­bas­sador Dan­ny Danon’s wrote on X ear­ly Tues­day that, “fol­low­ing my ur­gent re­quest, the UN Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil will fi­nal­ly con­vene on Wednes­day for the first time since the Oc­to­ber 7 mas­sacre to hold an of­fi­cial dis­cus­sion on the hostages.”

The U.N. am­bas­sador from Mal­ta, which served as Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil pres­i­dent in April, wrote back to Danon on X that the coun­cil had adopt­ed a Nov. 15 res­o­lu­tion that called for the re­lease of all the hostages dur­ing hu­man­i­tar­i­an paus­es in the fight­ing be­tween Is­rael and Hamas.

“At the time of adop­tion your rep­re­sen­ta­tive stat­ed in the Coun­cil that Is­rael will not im­ple­ment the res­o­lu­tion,” she wrote. “Stop spread­ing mis­in­for­ma­tion.”

France, the Unit­ed King­dom and the Unit­ed States backed Is­rael’s re­quest for a Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil meet­ing. Is­rael wrote in a press re­lease Tues­day that “the Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil must con­demn the ter­ror­ist or­ga­ni­za­tion Hamas and de­mand the im­me­di­ate re­lease of the ab­ductees.”

Al­ge­ria, an­oth­er Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil mem­ber, sep­a­rate­ly re­quest­ed a meet­ing on the Mid­dle East cri­sis that will be part of Wednes­day’s meet­ing.

The Is­raeli Health Min­istry said au­top­sies had de­ter­mined the hostages were shot at close range and died on Thurs­day or Fri­day. The army said the bod­ies were re­cov­ered from a tun­nel in the south­ern Gaza city of Rafah.