Netanyahu says Hamas ‘rejected everything’ in Gaza truce talks

OCCUPIED AL-QUDS: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that Hamas had rejected all elements of a proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza that would help facilitate the release of hostages.

“Hamas has rejected everything... I hope that changes because I want those hostages out,” Netanyahu told a news conference, casting doubt on the possibility of a breakthrough one day after the State Department said it was “time to finalise that deal”.

Netanyahu has come under added domestic and international pressure to seal a deal that would free Israeli hostages after authorities announced on Sunday the deaths of six whose bodies were recovered from a tunnel in southern Gaza.

Also unanswered, he said, were questions over how many Palestinian prisoners would be freed in exchange for hostages, whether Israel could veto the release of certain prisoners and where released prisoners should go.

“The whole thing has not been resolved,” he said.Meanwhile, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer defended on Wednesday his government´s partial suspension of arms exports to Israel over fears they could be used in a breach of humanitarian law as “a legal decision”.Starmer said that Monday´s announcement to suspend 30 of 350 arms exports licences did not signify a change in UK support for Israel´s right to self-defence.

He also said that allies “understand” the UK´s move.

“This is a difficult issue, I recognise that, but it´s a legal decision, not a policy decision,” Starmer told lawmakers during the weekly Prime Minister´s Questions session in parliament.

He said the decision was taken following a review by the foreign ministry into Israel´s conduct of its war against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

The review was begun shortly after Starmer´s centre-left Labour party swept to power in a landslide general election victory over the Conservatives in early July.

“We will of course stand by Israel´s right to self-defence but it´s important that we are committed to the international rule of law,” Starmer said.

“We´ll let other nations decide for themselves if they´re going to support Israel and to what degree,” Kirby told reporters. “That´s what sovereignty is all about.”

He added that for its part there had been “no determination” by the United States that Israel had violated humanitarian law.

In London, Starmer told MPs: “We have talked this through with our allies, they understand, they have a different legal system, that is the point they have made.”Climate activist Greta Thunberg and several others were arrested on Wednesday after occupying a University of Copenhagen building to call for an academic boycott of Israeli universities, Danish media reported.

Images on the daily Ekstra Bladet website showed the 21-year-old activist, wearing a black-and-white keffiyeh shawl draped over her shoulders, being escorted out of a campus building by police.

Thunberg herself shared images on Instagram of riot police entering a building where the group “Students against the Occupation” were staging a protest.

“I can´t confirm the names of those arrested, but six people have been arrested in connection with the demonstration,” a Copenhagen police spokesman told AFP.

Three of them “are suspected of forcing their way into the building and blocking the entrance”, he said.