World
2 Israeli hostages released as efforts intensify to free people held by Hamas
Though Israel continues to intensify its bombardment of Gaza in an attempt to exert more pressure on Hamas, experts warn that negotiations are likely to be the only way to obtain their freedom.
Two elderly Israeli women were freed late on Monday, after an Israeli American mother and daughter were released on Friday – in both cases after mediation by Qatari officials – but 220 are thought to remain held in Gaza. All were taken captive during the 7 October Hamas attacks on Israel in which 1,400 people, mainly civilians, were killed.
Hamas said it had freed Yokheved Lifshitz and Nurit Yitzhak, who also goes by the name Nurit Cooper, for humanitarian reasons, in response to mediation by Qatar and Egypt. The women were airlifted to a Tel Aviv hospital to be reunited with family. The women were wheeled into the facility on a stretcher and wheelchair, as relatives gathered nearby.
In an interview with local media after her release, Lifshitz recounted being bundled onto the back of a motorbike and taken to Gaza.
“They loaded me on a motorcycle sideways so I wouldn’t fall, with one terrorist holding me from the front and the other from behind,” she said.
“They crossed the border fence into the Gaza Strip, and at first they held me in the town of Abesan, which is near Be’eri. After that, I don’t know where I was taken.”
Earlier, in a statement confirming her mother’s release, Sharone Lifschitz, Yokheved’s daughter, said: “While I cannot put into words the relief that she is now safe, I will remain focused on securing the release of my father and all those – some 200 innocent people – who remain hostages in Gaza.”
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has demanded the unconditional release of all hostages held in Gaza as Israel continues the bombardment that has so far killed more than 5,000 people, according to local health authorities in the Hamas-controlled territory.
Military experts have said there is almost no chance that a military effort to rescue the hostages would succeed. The ruined urban environment in Gaza, the presence of large numbers of civilians, a lack of clear intelligence and the scattered locations in which hostages are thought to be held would make the risk to them and rescuers unacceptable, they said.
Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades releases two hostages. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Anadolu/Getty Images
“There is no experience of rescuing hostages from Gaza in the past. In any circumstances, a kinetic tactical solution is very sensitive and the last thing we want to do if we want to maximise the chances that the hostages will stay alive,” said Timor Israeli, an Israeli special forces veteran who now teaches hostage rescue techniques in the US.
Analysts say the Israeli government is caught between its pledge to “crush” Hamas and its promise to bring back families alive.
“The Israelis want their people back but also want to deal a crippling blow to Hamas from which it will never recover. These two objectives are probably in conflict. If they want [the hostages] back, they will have to negotiate,” said Dr HA Hellyer, of Washington DC’s Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and London’s Royal United Services Institute.
Israeli officials have said they have cut off supplies of food and fuel to Gaza to force Hamas, which has ruled the territory since 2007, to make concessions and free hostages.
A trickle of humanitarian aid has now been allowed to reach Gaza but is only a fraction of what the territory’s more than 2 million people need, aid agencies say.
Experts said the tactic of piling pressure on hostage-takers was risky and could make the task of intermediaries harder.
“Negotiators will want to contain the situation, isolate the hostage-takers and begin negotiations … what we call “manipulation of anxiety” by putting on tremendous pressure may just cause people to crack and overreact,” said Zorka Martinovich, who spent 18 years as a hostage negotiator with the FBI.
“It can be calibrated but that is very difficult to do. It is easy to put on too much pressure, which has unpredictable consequences.
“With hostage-takers, you are up against their perceptions. It’s much more about what they imagine is going on, not what is actually going on.
“Any threat should be taken seriously but generally hostages are more valuable alive than dead. The release of even two is encouraging. It’s a positive indicator.”
Hamas has made a series of demands for the hostages. Officials of the organisation have said the captives could be exchanged for some or even all of the thousands of Palestinians in prisons in Israel.
Hamas has also called for fuel and other supplies to be reconnected to Gaza, the opening of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt and a suspension of Israeli airstrikes and shelling in return for the release of some or all of the hostages.
“There are ongoing discussions with the Qataris about different pockets of individuals,” said Christopher O’Leary, an expert with the Soufan Group and former director of hostage rescue and recovery for the US government.
“Hamas is not a monolithic organisation. Different groups – women and children, elderly, wounded, foreign nationals and Israeli civilians – are all going to be treated differently. Where Hamas are likely to dig their heels in will be people in uniform.”
Analysts suggest that the number of hostages taken on 7 October exceeded Hamas expectations.
“Even taking 20 hostages would have been an achievement for Hamas. What happened took the Israelis by surprise but also, I think, took Hamas by surprise. Any plans were probably predicated on taking only a fraction of that number of hostages. I don’t think they were prepared for this, and I don’t see how Hamas can formulate any kind of strategic response at the moment,” said Hellyer.
O’Leary disagreed. “Hamas is a terrorist organisation that is very experienced in hostage-taking and very calculated in how it will proceed. Hamas understands the leverage it has with just one hostage and when they have 230 that is substantial,” he said.
“The release of the two US hostages was not for humanitarian reasons, as [Hamas] claimed, but to eclipse some of the horrors from the attacks a couple of weeks ago and demonstrate that they are a legitimate partner in any negotiations.”
It is also unclear if Hamas holds all the hostages. Some may be held by other smaller extremist factions or by criminal gangs, complicating negotiations further.
Many of the hostages were citizens or dual nationals of countries around the world, including Israel’s closest allies. At least some of the 10 US citizens still unaccounted for after the 7 October attack are believed to being held in Gaza. There are also 17 Thais among the hostages, and eight Germans. Seven British nationals and seven French citizens are still classified as missing, and some of them are believed to be hostages too.
Several countries are involved in negotiations. Qatar has taken the lead in negotiations, but Hakan Fidan, the foreign minister of Turkey, said “a variety of countries” had also asked Ankara to intervene to help free their citizens, Al Jazeera reported.
“We have started discussing … with the political section of Hamas,” Fidan said. “We’ve been putting a lot of effort to make sure that children and foreigners especially are released.”
The New York judge presiding over President-elect Donald Trump’s hush money case, on Friday, set sentencing for 10 days before his January 20 inauguration and said he was not inclined to impose jail time.
Judge Juan Merchan said Trump, the first former president ever convicted of a crime, can appear either in person or virtually at his January 10 sentencing.
In an 18-page decision, Merchan upheld Trump’s conviction by a New York jury, rejecting various motions from Trump’s lawyers seeking to have it thrown out.
The judge said that instead of incarceration he was leaning towards an unconditional discharge –- meaning the real estate tycoon would not be subject to any conditions.
The sentence would nevertheless see Trump entering the White House as a convicted felon.
The 78-year-old Trump potentially faced up to four years in prison but legal experts — even before he won the November presidential election — did not expect Merchan to send the former president to jail.
“It seems proper at this juncture to make known the Court’s inclination to not impose any sentence of incarceration,” the judge said, noting that prosecutors also did not believe a jail term was a “practicable recommendation.”
Trump is expected to lodge an appeal that could potentially delay his sentencing.
Trump was convicted in New York in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election to stop her from revealing an alleged 2006 sexual encounter.
Trump’s attorneys had sought to have the case dismissed on multiple grounds, including the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling last year that former US presidents have sweeping immunity from prosecution for a range of official acts committed while in office.
Merchan rejected that argument but he noted that Trump will be immune from prosecution once he is sworn in as president.
“Finding no legal impediment to sentencing and recognizing that Presidential immunity will likely attach once Defendant takes his Oath of Office, it is incumbent upon this Court to set this matter down for imposition of sentence prior to January 20, 2025,” the judge said.
“This lawless case should have never been brought and the Constitution demands that it be immediately dismissed,” Cheung said in a statement.
“President Trump must be allowed to continue the Presidential Transition process and to execute the vital duties of the presidency, unobstructed by the remains of this or any remnants of the Witch Hunts,” he said.
“There should be no sentencing, and President Trump will continue fighting against these hoaxes until they are all dead,” Cheung added.
Trump also faced two federal cases brought by special counsel Jack Smith but both were dropped under a long-standing Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting president.
In those cases, Trump was accused of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden and removing large quantities of top secret documents after leaving the White House.
Trump also faces racketeering charges in Georgia over his alleged efforts to subvert the 2020 election results in the southern state, but that case will likely be frozen while he is in the White House.
China is facing a growing health crisis with a surge in respiratory illnesses, including human metapneumovirus (HMPV), five years after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Reports obtained by Core News indicate that hospitals are overwhelmed, particularly children’s facilities, as multiple viruses spread rapidly across the country.
A Surge in Viral Infections
Social media posts and videos show overcrowded hospitals, with one widely shared claim stating, “China is battling a surge in Influenza A, HMPV, Mycoplasma pneumoniae, and COVID-19. Hospitals and crematoriums are under strain, and cases of pneumonia and ‘white lung’ syndrome are on the rise.”
Speculation of a state of emergency has surfaced online, but Chinese authorities have not confirmed this.
New Monitoring System in Place
In response to the outbreak, China’s National Disease Control and Prevention Administration is testing a system to track pneumonia of unknown origin. The aim is to strengthen early detection and establish protocols for handling new pathogens—a gap identified during the early days of COVID-19.
State broadcaster CCTV reported that this system involves laboratories reporting cases, which disease control agencies then verify and manage. Officials say respiratory illnesses, particularly among children under 14, have been on the rise, with northern provinces seeing the highest numbers.
Winter Adds to the Pressure
As the country heads into winter, experts warn of an expected increase in respiratory infections. Alongside HMPV, other viruses like rhinovirus and Mycoplasma pneumoniae are contributing to the surge. However, authorities predict fewer total cases this year compared to 2024.
No Vaccine for HMPV
Medical experts are urging caution in the use of antiviral drugs, as there is currently no vaccine for HMPV. The virus causes symptoms similar to the common cold but can lead to severe illness in vulnerable populations, including children and the elderly.
A Critical Test for China’s Health System
This outbreak underscores the ongoing challenges of managing infectious diseases. While China’s new monitoring system aims to provide better preparedness, the country’s healthcare system faces a critical test in the months ahead as infections continue to rise.
Health officials and the global community are closely watching how China addresses this growing crisis.
A ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah has come into effect hours after United States President Joe Biden said a proposal to end the “devastating” conflict had been reached, promising to halt nearly 14 months of cross-border fighting that has killed thousands of people.
The ceasefire began at 4am local time (02:00 GMT) on Wednesday amid concerns as to whether the truce would hold and lead to the permanent end of fighting between Israel’s military and Hezbollah forces.
“The fighting across the Lebanese-Israeli border will end — will end. This is designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities,” Biden said when announcing on Tuesday night that an agreement had been reached.
“Civilians on both sides will soon be able to safely return to their communities and begin to rebuild their homes, their schools, their farms, their businesses and their very lives,” Biden said.
Hezbollah, which did not participate in any direct talks on the ceasefire – with Lebanese parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri mediating on the group’s behalf – has yet to formally comment.
Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said he told Biden that he welcomed the deal to end hostilities between the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah and Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also told the US president that his government had approved the truce and that he appreciated his “understanding that Israel will maintain its freedom of action in enforcing it”, his office said.
As part of the ceasefire agreement, Israel will “gradually withdraw” its forces from southern Lebanon over the next 60 days, and the Lebanese Army and state security forces would deploy to the territory.
Biden released a joint statement with French President Emmanuel Macron that emphasised both countries “will work with Israel and Lebanon to ensure this arrangement is fully implemented and enforced”.
The US and France also committed “to lead and support international efforts for capacity-building of the Lebanese Armed Forces as well as economic development throughout Lebanon to advance stability and prosperity in the region”.
Lebanon began striking Israel on October 8, 2023, in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. Cross-border attacks persisted for months. Then, at the start of last month, Israel invaded southern Lebanon.
At least 3,768 Lebanese have been killed and 15,699 wounded since the fighting began.
Ongoing fighting
Despite the anticipated ceasefire, Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon continued to rage on Tuesday, with Israeli warplanes pounding Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Reporting from the Lebanese capital, Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi said Israeli strikes continued in the minutes immediately after Biden spoke.
“Right now, all of the politics we’ve heard in the last half hour to one hour, none of that matters,” Basravi said. “This evening, tonight in Beirut, in the capital of Lebanon, across multiple areas in this country, the war is still very much going.”
“Within five minutes or so of Biden completing his speech, we heard loud explosions in Beirut. Once again, sirens started sounding in northern Israel,” he said.
“In upper Galilee, Hezbollah fired a large amount of rockets across the border into Israeli territory, fulfilling a pledge that if the Israelis strike inside central Beirut, that Hezbollah will strike Israel,” he said.
Earlier in the day, the Israeli military said that one barrage of strikes had hit 20 targets in the city in just 120 seconds.
Seven people were killed and 37 others wounded in Israeli attacks on a Beirut building housing displaced people, the National News Agency reported, citing Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health.
“The Israeli strike on the Nweiri area in Beirut destroyed a four-storey building housing displaced people,” Lebanon’s official news agency said.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said earlier that Israeli strikes had killed at least 31 people on Monday, mostly in the south of the country.
A new push for a Gaza ceasefire
Reporting from the White House, Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett noted that the ceasefire announcement comes in the waning days of Biden’s term.
Republican President-elect Donald Trump is set to take office on January 20.
The Biden administration has repeatedly sought to broker a ceasefire agreement in Gaza but has come up short. It has repeatedly refused to leverage US military aid to Israel in its push for peace.
“The fact is [Tuesday’s ceasefire] falls short of the Biden administration’s goal, in that it does not in any way speak to the conflict in Gaza,” Halkett said.
Still, during the address, Biden pledged to “make another push with Turkey, Egypt, Qatar, Israel and others to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza” in his final days in office.
He also said he would work towards forging new normalisation agreements between Israel and several Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, a goal which had been set back amid the war in Gaza.
Russia’s defence ministry said its military shot down five ATACMS missiles and damaged one more. Fragments fell on the territory of an unspecified military facility, the ministry said. The falling debris sparked a fire but didn’t cause any damage or casualties, it said.
Speaking at the G20 summit in Brazil, Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said: “That ATACMS was used repeatedly overnight … is of course a signal that they [the US] want escalation,” he said. “And without the Americans, use of these high-tech missiles, as Putin has said many times, is impossible.”
“We will be taking this as a renewed face of the Western war against Russia and we will react accordingly,” he told a press conference.
The missile launch took place as Ukraine marked 1,000 days of war, with battle-fatigued troops at the front, its cities besieged by airstrikes, a fifth of Ukrainian territory in Moscow’s hands and doubts about the future of Western support as Donald Trump heads back to the White House. US officials have expressed dismay at Russia’s deployment of North Korean troops to help it fight, particularly around Kursk, where around 50,000 Russian troops have massed.
Asked about his response to Russia ramping up the nuclear threat, prime minister Sir Keir Starmer said “the quickest way for this conflict to end is for Russia to cease”.
Britain has its own long-range Storm Shadow missiles, which Ukraine could use to strike inside Russia, but they typically rely on US technology for targeting. They have only been used to date on Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine. The authorisation to use them inside Russia is yet to come but Sir Keir said Britain would “ensure Ukraine has whatever is needed for as long as it’s needed to be put in the strongest possible position”.
“Russia is the aggressor in Ukraine and today is the day that marks 1,000 days of the conflict,” he added. “That is 1,000 days of Russian aggression, 1,000 days of Ukraine suffering from that aggression, and we’ve said throughout that we stand firmly with Ukraine.”
President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine was working with all partners to win their support for longer-range strikes and he called out Germany in particular.
“I think after statements about nuclear weapons, it is also time for Germany to support corresponding decisions,” Mr Zelensky said during a briefing in Kyiv with Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen.
Mr Zelensky earlier warned that North Korea could grow its deployment of troops in Russia from 11,000 to as many as 100,000.
He said a string of recent airstrikes were evidence that Mr Putin has no interest in ending the war. US president-elect Donald Trump has said he will look to end the war in 24 hours when he enters the White House. Despite the hyperbole, Kyiv is concerned it could be railroaded into an agreement that would force it to give up territory occupied by Russia, something Mr Zelensky has said he would not do.
A third Russian strike in three days hit a civilian residential area in Ukraine, killing at least 12 people, including a child, officials said on Tuesday. The strike by a Shahed drone in the northern Sumy region late on Monday hit the dormitory of an educational facility in the town of Hlukhiv and wounded 11 others, including two children, authorities said, adding that more people could be trapped under the rubble.
On Sunday, a Russian ballistic missile with cluster munitions struck a residential area of Sumy in northern Ukraine, killing 11 people and wounding 84 others. On Monday, a Russian missile barrage sparked apartment fires in the southern port of Odesa, killing at least 10 people and wounding 43.
“Each new attack by Russia only confirms Putin’s true intentions. He wants the war to continue. Talks about peace are not interesting to him. We must force Russia to a just peace by force,” Mr Zelensky said.
Separately, Germany and Finland said the damage to two undersea internet cables in the Baltic sea must be seen as an act of sabotage.
United States President-elect Donald Trump has picked 27-year-old Karoline Leavitt as the White House press secretary.
She has had a meteoric rise since getting her break as a student assistant for Fox News during his 2016 campaign for the White House.
After serving as an assistant press secretary during Trump’s first stint as president, she is set to return as the youngest person ever in the high-pressure top press job.
“Leavitt is smart and tough and has proven to be a highly effective communicator. I have the utmost confidence she will excel at the podium and help deliver our message to the American People,” Trump said in a statement announcing her appointment
The conservative from New Hampshire has been a regular presence at Trump’s side in 2024, serving as his campaign spokeswoman at his rallies, as well as his multiple court appearances.
The mother-of-one, who took nine days off to give birth to her son during the campaign in July, is a fervent believer in Trump’s “America First” anti-immigrant agenda and shares his disdain for traditional media companies.
She told a Fox News podcast posted online on Friday that she had spent the campaign “battling a lot of ‘fake news’ reporters. I hate to call them that, but it’s true.”
“There are a lot of journalists who aren’t interested in journalism anymore, and we deal with them every day,” she added.
As press secretary, she will face enormous pressure from Trump, who is known to closely scrutinize cable news coverage.
Leavitt began her rise through the Republican party ranks after Trump and other contenders for the 2016 presidential nomination visited her university campus in Manchester, New Hampshire, for a primary debate that was broadcast by Fox News.
“As one of the lone conservatives on campus, they appointed me to be an assistant running around that week for Fox News. I was just running around backstage, and that’s when I decided what I wanted to do with my career,” she said on the network’s “The Untold Story” podcast.
She went on to pen a column for the student newspaper at Saint Anselm College entitled “Why Donald Trump just keeps on winning, and the media doesn’t get it,” where she opposed the “identity politics” professed by many of her fellow students.
“I didn’t believe … that the colour of your skin or your gender can hold you back in this country. I don’t believe that’s true. That’s the foundation of my conservative beliefs,” she told the podcast.
After leaving the White House following Trump’s election defeat in 2020, she ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the House of Representatives representing New Hampshire during the 2022 midterm elections.
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