الكاتب: kafej

Release comes after mediator Qatar says Israel-Hamas truce in Gaza extended by two days.

The Israeli military says 11 hostages have been released by the Palestinian armed group Hamas and are on their way to Israel, the latest in a series of exchanges during a four-day humanitarian pause.

“Based on information that was received from the Red Cross, 11 hostages are currently on their way to Israeli territory,” the Israeli military said in a statement on Monday.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Qatar, which has played a key role in mediation efforts, said those released were six Argentinians, three French citizens and two Germans.

The release of the hostages, some of the roughly 240 people taken captive by Hamas in deadly attacks on southern Israel on October 7, comes after Qatar and Hamas said that an agreement has been reached to further extend the initial four-day truce.

Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday that Israel and Hamas had reached a deal to extend their truce for an additional two days, offering much-needed respite for Palestinians in Gaza, who have been exhausted by weeks of relentless Israeli bombardment, and hope for Israelis with loved ones held captive who they hope to see return home.

Over the past several days, Palestinian groups in Gaza have released captives in exchange for the release of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, many of whom are women and children who have been held without trial.

On Sunday, Hamas released 17 more captives – 14 Israelis and three Thais – the highest number so far. The total number of captives released since fighting began on October 7 now stands at 62, most of them since the temporary pause in the fighting began on Friday.

Israel has said that it will extend the truce by one day for every 10 hostages released, and Hamas has said it has agreed to an extended truce under “the same terms” as the original deal.

The pause in fighting has also allowed for increased shipments of aid into the Gaza Strip, where a relentless Israeli assault and siege of the territory has created a dire humanitarian crisis.

The temporary truce in Gaza between Israel and Hamas has been extended by two days, Qatar and Hamas have said.

A White House official has also told NBC News – the US partner of Sky News – that an agreement has been reached to extend the ceasefire.

The temporary truce was initially due to end at 5am UK time on Tuesday 28 November.

However, a spokesperson for the foreign ministry of Qatar – which has been involved in mediating the temporary truce – said it would last an “additional two days”.

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In a post on X, formerly Twitter, spokesperson Dr Majed al Ansari wrote: “The State of Qatar announces, as part of the ongoing mediation, an agreement has been reached to extend the humanitarian truce for an additional two days in the Gaza Strip.”

Hamas has also confirmed the truce, while Israel has yet to comment.

“The Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas announces that it has been agreed with the brothers in Qatar and Egypt to extend the temporary humanitarian truce for an additional two days under the same conditions as the previous truce,” a Hamas statement read.

Hamas had been pushing for an extension to the temporary ceasefire if “serious efforts” were made to increase the number of Palestinian prisoners released by Israel.

Under the terms of the current deal, Hamas has agreed to release a total of 50 hostages, while Israel will release 150 Palestinian detainees over four days.

Read more from Sky News:
Israel-Hamas war: Have hostages gone missing in Gaza?
Who are the first 40 Israeli hostages released by Hamas?

Israel previously said the deal allows for the truce to be extended an extra day for every additional 10 hostages freed.

Earlier, Diaa Rashwan, the head of the State Information Service of Egypt, which has also been involved in mediation, said an extension deal would include the release of 20 Israeli hostages and 60 Palestinian prisoners.

On Monday night, the Israeli military said special forces soldiers were accompanying 11 more released hostages in Israeli territory after they were handed over to the Red Cross by Hamas.

“After they undergo an initial medical assessment of their health, our forces will accompany them until they are reunited with their families,” the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said in a statement.

According to Qatari officials, 33 Palestinian prisoners are to be released in exchange.

Once they have been exchanged, it means 150 Palestinian prisoners will have been freed by Israel, while 51 Israeli hostages have been released by Hamas in exchange.

As part of a separate deal, 17 Thai and one Filipino national have also been released by Hamas.

The temporary truce has also allowed for humanitarian aid to enter into Gaza.

A spokesman for the head of the UN said he hoped to see the temporary truce turn into a full humanitarian ceasefire.

“The humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is getting worse by the day,” Stephane Dujarric said on behalf of UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres.

“The dialogue that led to the agreement must continue, resulting in a full humanitarian ceasefire, for the benefit of the people of Gaza, Israel and the wider region.”

Qatar has claimed that at least 40 women and children being held hostage in Gaza are not in the hands of Hamas – and are unaccounted for.

Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al Thani said they may “never be able to reach them” – despite their communication lines with Hamas – and that locating the missing would be key to extending the current ceasefire.

Truce extension ‘close’; follow Israel-Gaza latest

Hamas leaders have previously blamed other militant groups for hostages going missing – saying they took advantage of damage done to the Israeli border from 7 October to smuggle their own captives into Gaza.

Israel has said it is “evaluating” the list of hostages still due to be freed under the current ceasefire.

So far 117 of 150 Palestinian prisoners promised by the Israelis have been freed – in exchange for 40 of the 50 hostages agreed to by Hamas.

Who might be holding them?

Although the Qataris say more than 40 hostages are missing, one of Hamas’s rival militant groups, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, has claimed it is holding 30 of them.

Hans-Jakob Schindler, senior director at the transatlantic thinktank the Counter Extremism Project, says the situation is “terribly unclear”.

“It’s important to note that Islamic Jihad and Hamas don’t have a co-operative relationship – they’re actually competitors,” he tells Sky News. “So it’s not entirely clear if Hamas can get Islamic Jihad to release any of the hostages it may be holding.

“And it seems it wasn’t just them and Hamas involved in the 7 October attack.

“There’s been a well-developed smuggling economy in Gaza for decades – long before Hamas took control – organised by networks of crime families.

“So it’s possible hostages are neither under the control of Hamas nor Islamic Jihad – but these crime organisations.”

Independent criminals would have looked to take their own hostages in the chaos of 7 October for their own gain, he adds.

Could Hamas be lying?

Qatar’s links to Hamas, hosting many of its leaders in Doha, mean that Sheikh Mohammed’s claims about missing hostages are likely to have come from the group.

Mr Schindler says he “wouldn’t put it past Hamas to lie to the Qataris” as a way of indirectly misleading Israel.

But if they are, this is a strategy they need to consider “very, very carefully”, Professor Michael Clarke, security and defence analyst, tells Sky News.

“It’s in Hamas’s interests to keep these negotiations going, for two reasons.

“First, they want Palestinians freed from Israeli prisons, but second, so they can stall Israel’s second offensive.

“So, on the one hand, they want to play mind games, but they also don’t want to ruin the arrangement.”

Read more:
The 40 Israeli hostages freed so far
Why is Qatar involved in hostage negotiations?
Four-day truce enters final 24 hours

Continuing the hostage-prisoner exchange is also important for Hamas’s legitimacy with the people of Gaza, Mr Schindler adds.

“This is a two-part negotiation. One with Israel and then one internally – to show the Palestinian community this was all worth it – Gaza destroyed, Palestinians used as human shields.

“They want to use this hostage situation to their maximum benefit – because before 7 October, 70% of Gazans said they didn’t like Hamas and I don’t think it’s going to get much better.”

Could they have died?

From late-October, Hamas has claimed that between 50 and 60 hostages have been killed in airstrikes.

Abu Ubaida, spokesperson for the Qassam Brigades, the group’s military wing, said the bodies of 23 missing Israeli hostages had been found in rubble.

Professor Clarke claims, however, that with hostages being likely held in tunnels underneath Gaza, they are safer than most in the territory and are unlikely to have been killed.

He also notes that Hamas did not identify any hostages supposedly confirmed dead.

“It would have been to their advantage to name them because it would increase pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu to pause airstrikes on Gaza, as the families could say ‘our relatives died from Israeli bombs – please stop them’.”

In a quiet graveyard in Gloucestershire, the only sounds are the bells ringing at the top of the hour, and the birds in the trees.

You look over the fence and see the River Severn, and the hills of the valley in the distance.

It is a beautiful, peaceful spot, but it is also a place linked to crime, violence and decades of anguish.

Joanna Parrish is buried here, her gravestone written in English and French.

She was murdered 33 years ago hundreds of miles away, in the French city of Auxerre.

Joanna was 20 years old, a university student teaching in France as part of her degree.

She went missing and then, not long after, her body was found in the River Yonne.

Nobody has ever been convicted of her murder, but we know who did it.

A serial killer called Michel Fourniret, who was already in prison for seven murders, admitted to killing Joanna five years ago, but died before he could be put on trial.

But now, after decades of despair and tragic errors, justice may be within sight.

Because Fourniret did not act alone.

He was helped in his murders by his wife, Monique Olivier, who lured girls and young women and allowed them to be attacked, raped and murdered by Fourniret.

She is still alive, now aged 74 and serving a 28-year sentence for complicity in the murders.

She once confessed to seeing Fourniret murder a young woman in Auxerre – clearly Joanna – but then retracted that statement.

Now, though, she is about to go on trial for being an accomplice in three further murders, including that of Joanna.

It has taken a third of a century, but perhaps justice is finally going to be delivered, for Joanna and for the parents who have spent decades searching for a form of closure.

Lives changed forever

At home in Gloucestershire, Pauline Murrell tends to her pet budgie and offers us a cup of tea.

From the sofa, her former husband, Roger Parrish, asks for a coffee.

The pair have been divorced for decades, but are still evidently close, caring and friendly. They finish each other’s sentences.

Their lives changed, instantly and horribly, when they were told that their daughter had been murdered.

“It’s impossible to take in,” says Pauline. “They said she was found in the water, and I was staring out of a window and I simply couldn’t take it in. I couldn’t cry for six months.

“Then I got the post-mortem report and I opened it on a Sunday morning, and I wasn’t able to get out of bed.”

Roger wipes away a tear, the memories still so haunting. “She deserved a long and happy, fulfilled life. She worked hard and she deserved it. She was helpful, part of the community. People still remember her. She did well.”

Pauline’s last phone call with her had ended with a declaration of love from the parents to their daughter. It is a memory that offers some solace.

The devastation of grief was followed by frustration about the police investigation.

Roger and Pauline heard little from the French authorities. Instead, they went to France themselves and started asking questions, looking for information and demanding more effort.

And then came the arrest of Fourniret, and the pieces began to fall into place.

As it slowly became apparent that his wife had helped him, so Roger and Pauline became convinced that he had killed their daughter.

“Jo was a kind person,” says Roger, “but she was also bright and smart.

“She was not likely to have trusted a man who was by himself.

“When we found out that there was a female accomplice, I remember thinking that we had never thought of that. Why would we have done? But right from that moment, I thought, ‘this is it – this is the person’.”

But still the police could not put together the evidence to link Fourniret with Joanna’s murder.

In fact, they had bungled the investigation, mishandling the crime scene and mislaying crucial forensic evidence.

French police ‘lost some really important evidence’

Bernie Kinsella was a detective who worked as a liaison between British and French police.

He discovered an investigation that struggled to link multiple crimes, or to manage its resources. He’s still in touch with Roger and Pauline.

“The French lost some really important evidence,” he told me. “The semen sample from the original rape had just been lost, which is unthinkable in terms of any major investigation like that.

“Losing an exhibit like that is a glaring error, so that had a massive impact on their ability to investigate this properly.”

Desperate, Pauline even took the step of writing to Monique Olivier.

“I remember just saying that, from one mother to another mother, I wanted to know what happened. Her lawyers said it was a trick, that it wasn’t proper, and I was upset about that.

“It wasn’t a trick. It was heartfelt.

“It’s just such a horrible, horrible thing. I can’t imagine that any mother would be able to live with themselves.

“And now she’s pushing the victim bit, but I certainly don’t consider her the victim.” Her voice echoes with contempt.

Olivier has always suggested that she was coerced and intimidated by Fourniret, a claim that has been roundly dismissed by prosecutors.

When she was first convicted, in 2008, the court concluded that, far from being easily influenced, she was highly intelligent and capable.

The convictions of Olivier and Fourniret did not bring justice for Joanna. Olivier had originally made a statement linking her husband to the murder, but she then withdrew it.

The case went quiet and was eventually closed.

But in 2018, 28 years after he killed her, Fourniret admitted to the murder.

A court case beckoned before being delayed by the pandemic. Then, to the frustration of Roger and Pauline, Fourniret died.

“When he died, it wasn’t a great surprise because we knew he’d been ill, but we did feel cheated. I wanted to face him in court and that was taken away.

“We’re glad that he died. The world is a better place without a person like that but, at the same time, we would have wanted to face him – to look him in the eye.”

‘Trial is the last hurdle’

Now they have another chance. Both parents will be travelling to Nanterre, just outside Paris, for the trial.

“We probably look on it as the last hurdle,” says Roger. “It’s been a long time. It’s over 30 years so we’re glad it’s taking place.

“Until it’s over, we can’t get to whatever will be the next stage of our lives.”

Pauline adds: “I keep saying that it’s not going to bring her back.

“It’s almost as if you feel that once it’s over, everything will go back to normal. But it’ll never be like that.”

“No, it won’t be,” says Roger, nodding, holding his head.

“But it will stop us having to think all the time about what we are going to do next, what’s the next step, what are we going to do.

“Hopefully, that will be it – that it will clear our heads a little bit. We’ll never forget Jo. She’ll always be there.”

Roger and Pauline are warm, charming people, whose lives have been blighted in the most horrendous way.

If Olivier is convicted, it will surely bring some kind of closure.

But you wonder – after waiting so long for something so important, can it ever really be enough?

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is said to have planned to use pre-COP28 summit meetings to pitch oil and gas deals to foreign governments, according to leaked documents obtained by the Centre for Climate Reporting (CCR).

More than 150 pages of prepared briefings for meetings held by Sultan Ahmed al Jaber, COP28 president, earlier this year, reportedly show conversations about opportunities to increase exports, the CCR claimed.

Mr al Jaber, who is also the CEO of Abu Dhabi’s national oil company, Adnoc, is said to have planned to discuss commercial interests with almost 30 countries ahead of the summit, according to the CCR.

Read more: What is COP28 and what’s at stake?

Talks with countries such as Brazil, China, and Egypt were also reportedly planned as a means of discussing how deals on fossil fuel trade could be made.

Many of the officials who reportedly held discussions with Mr al Jaber will also be attending the COP28 summit, which begins in Dubai on 30 November.

Under the UNFCCC’s code of conduct, appointed officers should avoid using their role as a means to seek “private gain or obtain private pecuniary advantages or other remuneration”.

In one instance, briefing notes of a meeting between Mr al Jaber and Zhao Yingmin, China’s minister of ecology and environment, reportedly showed that Adnoc “remains a committed energy partner” to the country with the possibility of partnering on more international gas projects.

In another, notes prepared by the COP28 team ahead of a meeting with Egypt’s minister of foreign affairs, claimed to say that Adnoc “stands ready to support the supply of petrochemicals” to the country, the CCR said.

Meanwhile, a briefing ahead of a meeting with John Kerry, the US special presidential envoy for climate, claimed to hope it could “garner support” for Masdar – the UAE state-owned renewable energy company, chaired by Mr al Jaber.

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Sky News were unable to verify the leaked documents used in the CCR’s investigation with the BBC.

A COP28 spokesperson said that the documents referred to were “inaccurate,” “unverified” and “not used by COP28 meetings”.

The appointment of Mr al Jaber as the head of the UN’s climate conference back in January, has been met with fierce criticism.

Climate activist Greta Thunberg called the move “ridiculous” while a group of 100 US and EU politicians sought to oust him – to no avail.

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Teresa Anderson, global lead on climate justice at the ActionAid charity, said at the time: “This appointment goes beyond putting the fox in charge of the hen house.

“The UN Climate Summit is supposed to be a space where the world holds polluters to account, but increasingly it’s being hijacked by those with opposing interests.”

In defence of his appointment to the role, a spokesperson for the UAE Office of the Special Envoy for Climate Change told Sky News’ US partner network NBC News his experience “uniquely positions him to be able to convene both the public and private sector to bring about pragmatic solutions to achieve the goals and aspirations of the Paris Climate Agreement”.