Israel-Hamas war: IDF pulls most troops from southern Gaza

Thousands of protesters rallied outside the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in Jerusalem on Sunday, demanding the release of around 130 hostages still held in Gaza after six months of Israel's war against Hamas.

When Hamas gunmen burst into southern Israel on October 7, they killed around 1,200 people and seized 253 hostages.

Around half of them remain captive while the rest were released as part of a short cease-fire deal in late November.

Relatives of the hostages have grown frustrated by the lack of progress towards a fresh truce, which could include the release of the remaining hostages.

Some relatives called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to do more to bring home the hostages.

Many Israelis believe the veteran leader has been dragging his feet in securing a deal, which he strongly denies.

"Their families and everybody here has had enough," said protester Michal Nachshon. "People need to understand that and the world needs to stand up and get them back ... it's a humanitarian issue and that's what we're here to shout today."

Also Sunday, weeping relatives gathered at the site of a music festival in southern Israel where more than 300 people were killed by Hamas militants on October 7.

Israeli troops that pulled out of southern Gaza on Sunday did so to prepare for future operations, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said.

Those operations include the planned ground assault on Rafah, he added in a statement from his office.

"The forces are exiting and preparing for their next missions, we saw examples of such missions in the al-Shifa operation, and also of their coming mission in the Rafah area," Gallant said at a meeting with military officials.

Israel's military said early Sunday that it had pulled most of its troops out of southern Gaza, leaving just one brigade in the Hamas-run territory.

Israel has been warned by several allies, including the United States and Germany, against launching an offensive in Rafah due to a worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

More than a million Gaza residents have been displaced to Rafah, one of the last safe places in the strip.

An advisor to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has vowed retaliation for the bombing of the country's embassy in Syria, which was been blamed on Israel.

General Yahya Rahim Safavi, a former commander of Iran's elite army forces, warned that Israeli diplomatic missions could become targets for attack.

"The [anti-Israeli] resistance front is ready for all possible retaliation scenarios and no Israeli embassy worldwide is safe from it," Safavi was cited by state broadcaster Al-Alam as saying.

Despite his comments, many analysts in Iran consider an attack on Israeli embassies to be unlikely.

The airstrike on the Iranian embassy in Damascus killed two generals and five officers of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

Israel's military has not claimed responsibility for the strike but says the compound was not a civilian embassy.

Aid agencies have described Gaza as "beyond catastrophic" after six months of war between Israel and Hamas.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 33,175 people in the territory, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.     

"Six months is an awful milestone," the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said, warning that "humanity has been all but abandoned."

UNICEF chief Catherine Russell pointed out that more than 13,000 children were reportedly among those killed.

"Homes, schools and hospitals in ruin. Teachers, doctors and humanitarians killed. Famine is imminent," she said on X on Saturday." The level and speed of destruction are shocking. Children need a cease-fire NOW."

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the October 7 attack on Israel "does not justify the horrific ongoing bombardment, siege and health system demolition by Israel in Gaza, killing, injuring and starving hundreds of thousands of civilians, including aid workers."

The UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths insisted Saturday that there needed to be "a reckoning for this betrayal of humanity."

Israel's leadership vowed to destroy Hamas — considered a terrorist organization by the US, the EU and other governments — following the large-scale terror attacks it launched on October 7 in which around 1,200 people were killed and some 250 were taken hostage.

Since then, Israel's military has been engaged in an intensive ground offensive that has seen expanded military action across the Palestinian territory.

The Israeli military's troop reduction in the southern Gaza Strip appears to be a "rest and refit," White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told ABC News.

On the six-month anniversary of the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel, the Israeli military said it had cut its presence in the south of the territory to just one brigade — typically several thousand troops.

"As we understand it, and through their public announcements, it is really just about rest and refit for these troops ...  and not necessarily that we can tell indicative of some coming new operation for these troops," Kirby said when asked about the step.

Speculation is rising that the troop withdrawal could be linked to an impending Israeli offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians have been displaced due to the war.

TheUnited States and other allies of Israel have been pressuring Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to proceed with the offensive due to the grave humanitarian situation.

At least 33,175 people have been killed in Gaza over the past six months, according to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country was "one step away from victory" in the Gaza war and vowed there would be no truce until Hamas releases all hostages.

He was speaking in a cabinet meeting marking six months of the war that broke out with the attack on Israel by Hamas on October 7.

"We are one step away from victory," Netanyahu said. "But the price we paid is painful and heartbreaking."

Speaking as truce talks were expected to resume in Cairo with international mediators, he said: "There will be no cease-fire without the return of hostages. It just won't happen."

He called for international pressure to be directed against Hamas rather than Israel to end the war.

Israel has faced stiff criticism for the humanitarian crisis caused by its offensive against Hamas in Gaza. There was further outrage over the killing of seven aid workers in an airstrike on April 1.       

The Israeli military said Sunday it has withdrawn most of its ground troops from the southern Gaza strip.

A military spokesperson said just one brigade — typically made up of several thousand troops — would remain in the city of Khan Younis for now.

The military wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that during their offensive in Khan Younis, Israeli troops found and destroyed three tunnels used by the Hamas militant group.

It was unclear whether the withdrawal would delay an incursion into the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to target Rafah, despite the city becoming the last refuge for displaced Gaza residents.

More than 1 million Palestinians are currently sheltering from fighting elsewhere in the sealed-off Gaza Strip.

The threat has been met with fierce international opposition due to the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

The UK has deployed a Royal Navy ship to the Mediterranean to help set up a maritime aid corridor to Gaza.

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron warned the prospect of famine "is real," and the UK needed to "explore all options" to "ease the desperate plight of some of the world's most vulnerable people" in the territory.

Cameron said his country was working with the US, Cyprus and others to set up a "new temporary pier off the coast of Gaza to get aid in as quickly and securely as possible."

The maritime operation to get food into Gaza by sea was first announced by US President Joe Biden last month. Israeli officials will run security checks before aid enters Gaza.

Talks over a hostage deal and a cease-fire in Gaza between Israel and Hamas were scheduled to resume in Cairo on Sunday, according to Egypt's state-owned Al Qahera TV. 

CIA Director Bill Burns and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani were to mediate the latest round of talks.

Hamas said on Saturday that it would send a delegation to Cairo for the latest discussions. 

Hamas has insisted on linking a phased end to the war to any agreement releasing hostages. It has said it will agree to release 40 people as part of an initial six-week cease-fire deal that would include the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.

Hamas also seeks the return of displaced people to devastated northern Gaza and more aid.

Israel has offered to allow 2,000 displaced Palestinians — mainly women, children and older people — to the north daily during a six-week cease-fire.

Hamas has been classified as a terrorist organization by Germany, the United States, Israel and other governments.  

Israel targeted sites in eastern Lebanon early on Sunday, saying the strikes were in response to the shooting down of a drone by the Iran-backed Hezbollah on Saturday.

The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that fighter jets struck a military complex and three other infrastructure sites belonging to Hezbollah in the city of Baalbek.

A source close to Hezbollah told AFP news agency that "Israeli strikes targeted two areas in the Bekaa Valley, Janta and Sifri."

According to a source in Lebanon's Civil Defense Department, there were no casualties from the strikes.

Hezbollah earlier claimed responsibility for downing the Israeli drone.

"The drone belonging to the Israeli army, which was shot down by the Islamic resistance fighters over Lebanese territory on the evening of Saturday, April 6, 2024, is of type Hermes 900," Hezbollah said in a statement.

Israel and Hezbollah have traded cross-border fire almost daily since the Palestinian militant group Hamas carried out a deadly attack on southern Israel on October 7, triggering the Israeli ground offensive in Gaza.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has called for an end to the war between Israel and the Hamas Islamist militant group.

"We continue to stand by Israel's right to defeat the threat from Hamas terrorists and defend their security. But the whole of the UK is shocked by the bloodshed," he said in a statement.

"This terrible conflict must end. The hostages must be released. The aid — which we have been straining every sinew to deliver by land, air and sea — must be flooded in," he added.

"Today marks six months since the terrorist outrage of 7th October — the most appalling attack in Israel's history, the worst loss of Jewish life since the Second World War," Sunak said.

"Six months later, Israeli wounds are still unhealed. Families still mourn and hostages are still held by Hamas."

Sunak called for an immediate "humanitarian pause" in Gaza followed by a "long-term sustainable cease-fire."

"That is the fastest way to get hostages out and aid in, and to stop the fighting and loss of life," he said.

"For the good of both Israelis and Palestinians — who all deserve to live in peace, dignity and security — that is what we will keep working to achieve," he added.

Later, Foreign Secretary David Cameron stressed that London's support for Israel is not unconditional.

It comes after an Israeli airstrike killed seven aid workers, among them three British citizens.

The Israel Defense Forces said the strike was a "grave mistake stemming from a serious failure" and dismissed two officers.

Cameron said there is "no doubt where the blame lies," adding: "This must never happen again."

On Friday, he urged for there to be a "a wholly independent review to ensure the utmost transparency."

President Isaac Herzog has said Israel is fighting a "bloody and difficult war" in a statement marking six months since the start of the conflict between Israel and Hamas on October 7.

"Tomorrow at 6:29 am [0329 GMT], we mark six months since the cruel terror attack and the horrific massacre," Herzog said on Saturday, referring to Hamas's October 7 attacks on southern Israel which started the war.

"Half a year since this crime against our sisters and brothers, against our state, this crime against humanity. Six months of a bloody and difficult war," he said.

The office of president is largely ceremonial.

Herzog's statement came after the army announced it had recovered the body of a hostage who had been taken into Gaza by Hamas militants on October 7.

Hamas is deemed a terror organization by not only Israel, but also the US, Germany, EU and other governments. 

Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets of Israeli cities to protest against the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Demonstrators called for more efforts to negotiate the release of hostages held by the Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas.

Chants of "elections now" were heard at the protests, with many demonstrators demanding Netanyahu's resignation.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid took part in a rally in the city of Kfar Saba in central Israel.

"They haven't learnt anything, they haven't changed," he said at that rally. "Until we send them home, they won't give this country a chance to move forward."

Israeli media said clashes broke out between protesters and police at a rally in Tel Aviv. Police said one protester was arrested.

Earlier Saturday, Israel's army announced that troops had discovered the body of a hostage in the Gaza Strip.

Six months ago, Hamas launched attacks on southern Israel in which almost 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed, and 250 people were taken hostage.

In response, Israel launched an offensive in the Gaza Strip in which at least 33,000 people have been killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory. The ministry's toll does not differentiate between civilians and combatants. 

According to Israeli estimates, 129 hostages are still being held in Gaza, including 34 who are believed to be dead. A November cease-fire deal resulted in the release of 105 hostages. 

Before the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in October, Netanyahu's government had already faced mass protests over a controversial judicial reform.

sdi/wd (Reuters, AFP, AP, dpa)