The Times of Israel is liveblogging Friday’s events as they unfold.
Hamas official: Freed hostage got plastic surgery, thinking she wasn’t pretty enough to have been assaulted
Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan in an interview with the Hezbollah-linked Mayadeen TV said yesterday that one of the Israeli hostages underwent plastic surgery after her release because she thought she might not have been attractive enough to have been sexually assaulted.
Hamdan blasted the report compiled by the United Nation’s envoy on sex crimes, which indicated that rape and gang rape likely occurred during the October 7 Hamas onslaught against southern Israel, that “clear and convincing” evidence shows that hostages were raped while being held in Gaza and that those currently held captive are still facing such abuse.
“The UN report has three essential problems that necessitate the dismissal of [UN envoy Pramila Patten] who published it,” Hamdan said, according to translations from the Middle East Media Research Institute.
“The first problem is that the report is not based on any evidence. The second issue is that only the Israeli narrative was heard, not the counter-narrative, which includes many details about what happened – none of those were adopted,” Hamdan said.
“The third scandal is that what was written in the report is the opposite of the facts. She wrote that the Israeli women who were taken captive by the resistance were [sexually assaulted].”
“When these women were released, they said themselves that they were not attacked. I can say as an anecdote that one of them underwent cosmetic surgery because she thought that she was not assaulted because she was not pretty enough. In other words, they say one thing, and then the committee says the opposite. This is a scandal in the halls of the UN,” Hamdan said, without citing any proof for his allegations.
Osama Hamdan Rejects UN Report on Hamas’s Sexual Violence on October 7: The Woman who Wrote It Should Be Fired; One Female Hostage Had Cosmetic Surgery because She Thought She Was Not Pretty Enough to Be Sexually Assaulted #Hamas #Gaza #Palestinians @USGSRSGPatten pic.twitter.com/4wwzB17Euv
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) March 7, 2024
CIA chief arrives in Qatar after quietly spending day in Egypt to push mediators on hostage deal
US Central Intelligence Agency Director Bill Burns has reportedly arrived in Qatar after quietly spending the past day in Egypt, as the Biden administration makes what may be a last-ditch attempt to secure a hostage agreement before Ramadan begins at the beginning of next week.
The talks appeared to reach an impasse earlier today as a Hamas delegation left Cairo without any breakthrough reported in the talks being brokered by Egypt, Qatar and the US.
Burns was not planning to make a stop in Israel during his regional tour, a US official told CNN, adding that there was also not slated to be another four-way meeting in Doha with the intelligence chiefs from the US, Egypt and Israel along with Qatar’s prime minister.
CNN said hopes were fading for a deal to be reached before Ramadan but the Walla news site said US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told visiting hostage families in Washington on Wednesday that the US would continue working to secure a deal even after the holy month begins around Monday.
Sullivan told the families that the deal on the table was reasonable and that the US would continue to try and put pressure on Hamas via Egypt and Qatar over the weekend, Walla said.
An Israeli official told the Ynet news site, though, that Jerusalem’s assessment is that Hamas has made a decision to stonewall and allow the war to continue into Ramadan.
UN hails US plan to establish Gaza maritime aid corridor
International focus should be on large-scale distribution and entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza by land, but any way to deliver more aid is “obviously good,” the United Nations says after the US announced plans to build a temporary pier off the coast of Gaza.
“Any way to get more aid into Gaza, whether by sea or airdrop, is obviously good,” says UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric when asked about the plan for a temporary port on Gaza’s Mediterranean coast to receive humanitarian assistance.
Delivery of aid by land, however, is more cost- and volume-effective, Dujarric says, and “we need more entry points and we need a larger volume of aid to come in by land.”
The UN has warned that at least 576,000 people in Gaza – one-quarter of the population – are on the brink of famine.
Some aid can enter Hamas-run Gaza via the Rafah crossing from Egypt and Kerem Shalom from Israel.
Before the conflict, Gaza relied on 500 trucks with supplies entering daily.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.