US, Israel ‘committed to the mass expulsion of Palestinians’
Mohamad Elmasry, a professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, says Gaza has been “bombed into oblivion” and accuses both Israel and the United States of being “committed to the mass expulsion of the Palestinians”.
“For a long time, it was unstated,” he told Al Jazeera. “But the Israelis and the Americans have both made that clear. They’ve stated it, explicitly on numerous occasions over the past several months.”
He also questioned the Israeli government’s priorities, claiming that the safe return of captives held in Gaza has not been central to its strategy.
According to Elmasry, Hamas has also made several offers for a ceasefire since October 2023.
“That proposal also includes Hamas relinquishing power in Gaza, and giving power over to a technocratic government,” he said, adding that a long-term ceasefire was on the table. “Hamas, on different occasions, has posed a five-year and also a 10-year truce with Israel. Israel rejected all of that.”
He said this rejection suggested that the Israeli government is “not very interested in the captives, and that they’re not a high priority”.
Israeli military says it seized weapons in southern Syria
The Israeli army says its forces have carried out a raid on four sites in southern Syria and confiscated weapons.
According to a statement posted on social media, Israeli forces “completed an operation to interrogate several suspects involved in arms trafficking in the Khader area of southern Syria”.
The statement added that soldiers “raided four areas simultaneously and located numerous weapons in which the suspects were trading”.
The Syrian government has not yet responded to the incursion into the country’s territory.
