Here’s what you need to know about the situation on Thursday, November 23, 2023.
Latest development status
- Stuart Seldowitz, a former presidential adviser to President Obama, was arrested by New York police on Wednesday on multiple charges, including hate crimes, after a video of him harassing a halal cart vendor went viral. While threatening distributors, Seldowitz also said that not enough Palestinian children were being killed.
- Israeli official Tzachi Hanegbi said late Wednesday that no Israeli prisoners would be released by Hamas by Friday, adding that discussions over their release were “always in progress and continuing.” National Security Council spokesman Adrian Watson said Wednesday that the United States is “hopeful” that implementation of the ceasefire agreement will begin on Friday.
- At a press conference in London on Wednesday, the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan announced the extension of the cease-fire agreement and the first step towards a complete cessation of hostilities, including resuming talks towards a two-state solution. said it should be.
- On Wednesday, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group Al Quds Brigades said it had targeted 11 Israeli military vehicles in the Gaza Strip.
- Concerns about censorship in Hollywood are growing after Oscar-winning actor Susan Sarandon and Scream star Melissa Barrera were fired by their agencies over comments they made about Israel, according to the Associated Press.
Human influence and combat
- Five Hezbollah members, including the son of a Lebanese parliamentarian, were killed in an attack by Israeli forces in southern Lebanon, the group confirmed late Wednesday.
- Israel continues to bombard Gaza as the clock ticks toward the start of a cessation of fighting. At least six different areas within the enclave were attacked, according to reports by Al Jazeera Arabic and the Palestinian news agency Wafa. There were also deadly attacks in Jabalia refugee camp in the north, and 15 people were killed in Khan Yunis.
- U.S. Central Command said Wednesday that the warship Thomas Hudner shot down several “one-way attack drones” launched from Yemen’s Houthi-held territory while patrolling the Red Sea.
- A total of 190 patients were evacuated from Al Shifa Hospital in southern Gaza on Wednesday. Dialysis patients were taken to Abu Yousef Al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah, while other patients were transferred to European Hospital, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.
diplomacy
- US President Joe Biden thanked Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi for Cairo’s efforts to reach a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas during a phone conversation on Wednesday. “Under no circumstances will the United States allow the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank, the siege of Gaza, or the redrawing of the Gaza border,” he reassured Sisi, according to a White House statement. I let it happen.
- U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken thanked Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani for brokering a ceasefire deal in Doha in a separate phone call Wednesday, the White House said. expressed. The two sides also discussed securing the release of the remaining prisoners and increasing the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
- White House briefings on various calls since the agreement was announced have noted discussions about achieving peace and stability, but not a long-term ceasefire, which has come under increasing public pressure.
- Democratic U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren issued a statement Wednesday supporting the ceasefire and calling for its extension. She also criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s military strategy for causing a “humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, the deaths of thousands of civilians” and endangering the region’s long-term stability.
- The European Commission welcomed the ceasefire in a statement on Wednesday and said it would step up aid deliveries to Gaza during the four-day cessation of fighting.
- The head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, said in a general audience on Wednesday that the fighting between Israel and Hamas has gone beyond war and has become “terrorism.” He also met individually with the families of Palestinian and Israeli prisoners of war, according to the Associated Press. According to Wafa, he told the Palestinian delegation that he was in daily contact with churches in the Gaza Strip.
Arrests and attacks in the West Bank
- At least nine different areas across the occupied West Bank faced Israeli military assaults overnight, Al Jazeera Arabic and Wafa reported.
- A 17-year-old Palestinian was shot in the head and another Palestinian man was shot in the back and injured, the Palestinian Red Crescent said. Israeli forces also detained Red Crescent rescue workers who tried to contact the victims and confiscated their keys and mobile phones, the organization said Thursday.
- Israeli forces destroyed six homes, a sheep pen and a well, and destroyed water networks and crops in a village near Hebron on Wednesday, Wafa news agency reported. Local sources said the activity was part of the expansion of the Abigal settlement built adjacent to the village.