The occupation continues to bomb civilians in Gaza despite calls for a ceasefire (Anatolia)

On the 123rd day of the Israeli aggression on Gaza, the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) announced that it had submitted its response to the framework agreement regarding the exchange deal that was proposed during the Paris Quartet meeting, after consulting with the resistance factions.

Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani described Hamas' response as positive and that Doha had some observations. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said that he would discuss the movement’s response with the Israeli government tomorrow, Wednesday.

Escalation and mutual bombardment continued between the Israeli occupation army and the Lebanese Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, while the Ansar Allah movement (Houthis) carried out new attacks on two ships, British and American, in the Red Sea as part of its continued support since last November for the Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani (right) met with his American counterpart Anthony Blinken in Doha (Reuters - Archive)

Hamas responds to the agreement proposal

Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani said that Qatar received the Hamas movement’s response to the framework agreement that was presented after the Paris meeting, including the observations it included, and handed it over to the Israeli side.

The Qatari Foreign Minister confirmed - in a press conference with his American counterpart, Anthony Blinken - that the response of the Hamas movement is optimistic and generally positive, saying that he will not go into details now due to the sensitivity of the stage, and he explained that it is not in the interest of the negotiations to disclose the details of the framework agreement, but there is progress.

The movement confirmed that it had delivered its response to the framework agreement “to the brothers in Qatar and Egypt after consultation with the leadership of the movement and with the resistance factions.”

She said that she dealt with the proposal in a positive spirit, to ensure a comprehensive ceasefire, end the aggression, lift the siege, and exchange prisoners.

2,828 Israeli soldiers were injured

The Israeli occupation army announced that three soldiers were wounded on Tuesday in battles with the Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip, indicating that the number of officers and soldiers who were injured since the beginning of the war on the Strip had risen to 2,828, including 1,304 since the start of the ground attack.

Escalation in the Red Sea

The Houthis announced on Tuesday that they fired missiles at two ships in the Red Sea, causing minor damage to one of them that was sailing off the coast of the Yemeni Hodeidah Governorate.

The military spokesman for the Houthis, Yahya Saree, said - in a television speech - that the group fired naval missiles at the two ships, the British “Morning Tide” and the American “Star Nasia,” even though they respectively fly the flags of Barbados and the Marshall Islands.

He pointed out that the targeting comes as "a victory for the oppression of the Palestinian people and within the response to the American-British aggression against our country."

Blinken is on his fifth tour in the region since the start of the aggression on Gaza (Reuters)

Blinken is in the region again

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi met Tuesday in the capital, Cairo, with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who is touring the region to discuss the war in Gaza.

Blinken left the Saudi capital, Riyadh, in the morning on the first stop of his tour, which also took him to Qatar, before heading to Israel to discuss hostage release negotiations, plans related to post-war Gaza, and prospects for normalizing relations between Arab countries and Tel Aviv.

Blinken's fifth tour in the region since last October comes at a time when the United States is moving forward with its campaign to respond to factions allied with Iran that launch attacks, and last January killed American forces at a military site in Jordan.

He refused to return to the Gaza Strip

The acting head of a settlement council in the Gaza envelope settlements confirmed that the settlers will not return to their homes, until the government assures them “first and foremost, that they will receive full security upon their return to the envelope.”

The official indicated that he expects Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to "work in complete transparency with us, the heads of the authorities, in order to enable the gradual return process and certainly, without any additional harm to the population."

The occupation has escalated its arrest campaign in the West Bank since October 7 (European)

6,870 detainees in the West Bank since October 7

The Palestinian Prisoners' Club said that during the past month, the occupation forces arrested 1,236 citizens in the West Bank, including 30 women and 73 children.

The club added, in a statement, that the number of detainees in the West Bank after October 7 rose to 6,870, stressing that the detainees and their families were subjected to attacks that included severe beatings, and the use of family members, including women, as hostages to pressure a family member to surrender himself.

Mutual bombing in southern Lebanon

An Al Jazeera correspondent said that the Israeli occupation forces bombed several towns in southern Lebanon on Tuesday, while sirens sounded in Israeli areas after missiles were launched from Lebanon.

The correspondent explained that Israeli aircraft and artillery bombed the towns of Markaba, Hula, Mays al-Jabal, Blida, and Marwahin in southern Lebanon.

On the other hand, sirens sounded in Margaliot in the Galilee Finger area, and in several settlements in the Ras Naqoura area in the Western Galilee on the Lebanese border.

For its part, Lebanese Hezbollah said that its fighters targeted the Israeli Ramim military barracks with two Burkan missiles, achieving a direct hit.

The party also announced that it had targeted a gathering of Israeli soldiers in the vicinity of the Jal al-Alam site with a “Falaq-1” missile, causing direct hits on them.

The number of martyrs rose to 27,585

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza announced on Tuesday that the death toll from the Israeli war on the Strip had risen to 27,585 martyrs and 66,978 injured since October 7, 2023.

This came in a statement in which the ministry presented the latest statistics on the 123rd day of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip.

The Ministry explained that the Israeli occupation committed 12 massacres against families in the Gaza Strip, leaving 107 martyrs and 143 injured during the past 24 hours.

She pointed out that there are still a number of victims under the rubble and on the roads, and the occupation is preventing ambulance and civil defense crews from reaching them.

The siege of Nasser Hospital continues

The spokesman for the Ministry of Health in Gaza, Ashraf Al-Qudra, said that the medical staff, the wounded, and the displaced in the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis are without food, and there is a severe shortage of surgical supplies and sutures, pointing out that the electrical generators in the complex will stop within 4 days due to the lack of fuel.

He added that ambulance crews are risking their lives in order to save the wounded as a result of the occupation preventing the movement of ambulances, as the siege tightens on the Nasser Medical Complex and intensively targets its surroundings.

Al-Qudra pointed out that the occupation is putting the lives of 300 medical personnel, 450 wounded, and 10,000 displaced people in immediate danger.

For his part, the director of the Nasser Complex Surgery Hospital, Nahed Abu Taima, told Al Jazeera that the occupation forces are continuing heavy gunfire around the complex, adding that since the siege of the hospital about two weeks ago, 630 wounded have arrived, most of them seriously injured.

He explained that they are facing major and dangerous challenges, including a shortage of medical personnel and a severe fuel shortage, which puts the lives of patients and injured at risk.

Source: Al Jazeera