Mossad chief David Barnea attends a ceremony marking the anniversary of the October 7 Hamas attack
New Delhi:
Israel's Mossad chief is set to visit Qatar to discuss the release of hostages in Gaza, even as Egypt proposed a two-day truce in the Palestinian enclave, as regional tensions simmered.
Here are today's top developments in the multi-front war:
- Chief of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency David Barnea will head to Qatar's Doha on Sunday to discuss the release of hostages in Gaza, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. Barnea will meet with US Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, against the background of the latest developments.
- Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced a proposed two-day truce and limited hostage exchange in Gaza aimed at securing "a complete ceasefire" after more than a year of war between Israel and Hamas. The proposal includes exchanging four Israeli hostages held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, and would be followed by more negotiations within 10 days, Sisi said at a news conference in Cairo.
- An emergency UN Security Council meeting will take place on Monday at Iran's request, with Tehran calling for it to condemn the strikes that killed four soldiers.
- A truck crashed into a crowd of people at a bus stop in central Israel, killing one man and injuring more than two dozen people. Police did not immediately say whether the incident, near the Mossad spy agency's headquarters and other Israeli intelligence sites, was an attack or an accident.
- The Hebrew language account opened by Iran's leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on social media platform X has been suspended after just two posts, as per Jerusalem Post. The latest post from Sunday read, "The Zionist regime made a mistake, and erred in its calculation regarding Iran. We will make it understand what power, ability, initiative and desire the Iranian nation has."
- Heavy bombing continued in Gaza. The Israeli military said it had killed another 40 militants in the territory. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed deep concern for the fate of Gaza's civilians. "The plight of Palestinian civilians trapped in north Gaza is unbearable," Guterres's spokesman said.
- Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said that Israel's airstrikes on Iran should not be magnified nor downplayed. While Israel would like to amplify the impacts of its actions against Iran, Khamenei said, adding it would also not be right for Iran to dismiss the strikes as insignificant, CNN reported. "They still haven't been able to correctly understand the power, capability, ingenuity, and determination of the Iranian people. We need to make them understand these things," he said.
- Lebanon continued to receive donations from different countries to support the Lebanese government amid the escalation of the Hezbollah-Israeli conflict. Lebanon received a second airplane from Pakistan carrying 17 tons of food and medical supplies, according to the Lebanese official National News Agency (NNA). It also received from Saudi Arabia the 14th airplane carrying relief aid, including food, shelter, and medical supplies, and two planes carrying humanitarian aid provided by Jordan and the first shipment of the second fuel grant provided by Qatar.
- Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said he had "received indications" hours before Israel launched an attack on military sites. "We had received indications since the evening about the possibility of an attack that night," Araghchi told reporters without specifying the nature of the indications. Araghchi said the "necessary measures" were taken when the attack unfolded, adding that he had been in contact with military officials and that "messages were also exchanged with different parties" whom he did not name.
- Oil prices tumbled with markets relieved by various factors, among them that Israel's strikes on Iran had avoided the country's energy infrastructure. Oil prices fell as much as five percent in early trade before paring some of their losses.
