A new report published in the U.K. medical journal The Lancet indicates that far from exaggerating the human suffering in Gaza, the ministry has likely underestimated the true number of the dead by as much as 41 percent.

Why aren’t you in The Hague? Why aren’t you in The Hague ... to receive food aid in Deir al Balah in the central Gaza Strip on Thursday.Credit...Eyad Baba/Agence France-Presse — Getty ...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday that a deal to return hostages held in the Gaza Strip has been reached. The announcement early came a day after Netanyahu’s office said there were last minute snags in talks to free hostages in return for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of Palestinian prisoners.

Negotiations between Israel and Hamas hit a last-minute snag, delaying the expected announcement of a ceasefire agreement to pause the devastating 15-month war in the Gaza Strip.

Chaos erupted at Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s final press conference Thursday after an announced Israel-Hamas cease-fire and hostage deal, with State Department employees forcibly removing reporters who accused the cabinet official of allowing a “genocide” in Gaza.

Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip have meanwhile killed at least ... The International Criminal Court, a separate body also based in The Hague, has issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu ...

Netanyahu is under pressure from right-wing members of his coalition government to resume bombardment of the Gaza Strip until Hamas is destroyed. Several have said they received assurances from Netanyahu that after the first phase of the truce ends, Israeli troops and fighter jets will once again launch in and over Gaza.

Israel says it has killed thousands of the armed group’s members and destroyed much of its infrastructure, but since the cease-fire started Hamas has shown it still holds power in the enclave.

Both the Trump and Biden administrations have publicly claimed credit for pushing the agreement over the line.

Inside a lavish clubhouse on Doha’s waterfront, tensions strained by months of fruitless back-and-forth weighed on negotiators as the hour neared 3 a.m.

Israel’s leaders claimed the right to self-defence against Hamas, but as Omer Bartov, a major historian of the Holocaust, recognised in August 2024, they sought from the very beginning “to make the entire Gaza Strip uninhabitable,