Netanyahu says Gaza war will not end until Hamas disarms
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Israel's war on Gaza would not end until Hamas disarms in a Saturday night TV interview. It came as the US State Department said it had "credible reports" that Hamas was planning an attack against Gaza civilians, warning that would be a "ceasefire violation". No details of the threat were provided.
Hamas will not disarm until they are all dead - the writing is on the wall! Or is it? Maybe they are holding out for a big, fat paycheck?
The war in Gaza would not be over until Hamas was disarmed and the Palestinian territory demilitarised, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Saturday.
On Sunday, Israel announced the identity of one of two dead hostages returned by Hamas the previous day as 54-year-old Ronen Engel.
The military "informed the family of hostage Ronen Engel... that their loved one has been returned to Israel and his identification has been completed", Netanyahu's office said in a statement.
Israel would spare no effort "until all the fallen hostages are repatriated", it added.
The issue of the dead hostages still in Gaza has become a sticking point in the implementation of the first phase of the ceasefire. Israel has linked the reopening of the key Rafah crossing to the territory to the recovery of the hostages' remains.
Netanyahu cautioned that completing the ceasefire's second phase was essential to ending the war and involved the disarming of Hamas and the demilitarisation of the Gaza Strip.
"When that is successfully completed – hopefully in an easy way, but if not, in a hard way – then the war will end," he added in an appearance on right-wing Israeli Channel 14.
Hamas has so far resisted the idea and since the pause in fighting has moved to reassert its control over Gaza.
The US State Department on Saturday said it had "credible reports" that Hamas was planning an imminent attack against civilians in Gaza, warning that would be a "ceasefire violation".
"Should Hamas proceed with this attack, measures will be taken to protect the people of Gaza and preserve the integrity of the ceasefire," it said in a statement, without elaborating on the nature or target of such an attack.
Rafah crossing closed
Under the ceasefire deal brokered by US President Donald Trump, Hamas has so far released all 20 living hostages, along with the remains of nine Israelis and one Nepalese.
In exchange, Israel has released nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and 135 other bodies of Palestinians since the truce came into effect on October 10.
Hamas has said it needs time and technical assistance to recover the remaining bodies, which it says are buried under Gaza's rubble.
Netanyahu's office said he had "directed that the Rafah crossing remain closed until further notice".
"Its reopening will be considered based on how Hamas fulfils its part in returning the hostages and the bodies of the deceased, and in implementing the agreed-upon framework," it said, referring to the week-old ceasefire deal.
Hamas warned late Saturday that the closure of the Rafah crossing would cause "significant delays in the retrieval and transfer of remains".
Digging latrines
Further delays to the reopening could also complicate the task facing Tom Fletcher, the UN head of humanitarian relief, who was in northern Gaza on Saturday.
"To see the devastation – this is a vast part of the city, just a wasteland – and it's absolutely devastating to see," he told AFP.
Fletcher said the task ahead for the UN and aid agencies was a "massive, massive job".
He said he had met residents returning to destroyed homes who were trying to dig latrines in the ruins.
"We have a massive 60-day plan now to surge in food, get a million meals out there a day, start to rebuild the health sector, bring in tents for the winter, get hundreds of thousands of kids back into school."
Gaza killings continue
Some violence has persisted despite the ceasefire.
Gaza's civil defence agency, which operates under Hamas authority, said on Saturday that it had recovered the bodies of nine Palestinians – two men, three women and four children – from the Shaaban family after Israeli troops fired two tank shells at a bus.
Two more victims were blown apart in the blast and their remains have yet to be recovered, it said.
At Gaza City's Al-Ahli Hospital, the victims were laid out in white shrouds as their relatives mourned.
"My daughter, her children and her husband; my son, his children and his wife were killed. What did they do wrong?" demanded grandmother Umm Mohammed Shaaban.
The Israeli military said it had fired on a vehicle that approached the so-called "yellow line", to which its forces withdrew under the terms of the ceasefire, and gave no estimate of casualties.
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Europe imposes 'snapback' sanctions on Iran's nuclear program
Sept. 28 (UPI) -- A decade after they were lifted, economic and military sanctions were reimposed on Iran Sunday over its nuclear program.
Britain, France and Germany have accused Iran of "continued nuclear escalation," and reactivated what is known as a "snapback mechanism" over Iran's lack of cooperation to de-escalate the country's nuclear program.
Iran suspended inspections of its nuclear facilities under terms of a 2015 deal after Israel and the United States bombed several of the country's nuclear sites in June.
Iranian President Masound Pezeshkian has continued to maintain that his country has no intentions of developing nuclear weapons, and made the claim again last week.
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Pezeshkian has called the reimposition of sanctions "unfair, unjust and illegal," and a setback to Iran's fledgling relations with the West.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action limits Iran's nuclear facilities, stockpiles of enriched uranium and the amount of research it is allowed to undertake. It allows Iran to develop nuclear infrastructure, but not weapons.
Iran escalated its nuclear program after President Donald Trump pulled out of the JCPOA during his first term in 2018.
European negotiators told the U.N. Security Council in August that Iran had violated "the near entirety of its JCPOA commitments," and gave the country a month's warning to scale back its nuclear program before Russia assumed control of the Security Council in October.
Several meetings with Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi have produced no progress in meeting key European demands, including evidence that Iran is working on a diplomatic solution, complying with inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency and disclosing the whereabouts of more than 400 kg of highly enriched uranium.
The European nations have also called for resumed talks between Iran and the United States.
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