Israeli military has
also presented
a plan for evacuating civilians
from the areas of fighting in Gaza.
Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu's office
says the IDF presented
the war cabinet
with an upcoming operational plan,
but it doesn't specifically mention
the southern
Gaza city of Rafah,
where Israel is being planning
a potential ground offensive.
This comes as talks are expected
to resume in Qatar today
to try to secure the release
of more hostages in
Gaza in exchange for a pause
in the fighting.
Journalist Eliot Cohen joins us.
Let's start
with those hostage talks then,
because you're describing how that does
appear still to be some momentum
behind them.
That does,
we have these
talks in Paris on Friday and Saturday.
And we had Jake Sullivan
of the National Security Council
coming out after saying there's
an understanding on the contours
of a potential deal had been reached.
So now it seems that in Doha,
they're going to be trying to deal
with the thornier
issues to try to deal with those details
and come to some kind of compromise.
Now, up
until these talks, the sticking point,
at least so far as Israel was concerned,
was Hamas
demands that there be a complete
cessation of hostilities
and the release of thousands
of Palestinian
prisoners,
demands that Prime Minister
Netanyahu described as delusional.
So the hope now is that
perhaps they are inching towards
some kind of compromise,
which, as you say,
would lead to the freeing of some,
but probably not
all of those Israeli hostages.
More than just round about 100
believed to still be alive
and being held in captivity
in the Gaza Strip
after being kidnaped on October
the seventh
in exchange
for the freeing of Palestinian prisoners.
And, of course,
the all important humanity
and pause of around about six weeks.
And, of course, at the same time
is that a surge in humanitarian
aid to go where it's desperately needed
in terms of the Palestinian Authority
What's the latest situation there
in terms of leadership?
So we heard just this morning
that the prime
minister, Mohammed Shtayyeh,
submitted his resignation
along with that of his entire government
to Mahmoud
Abbas, the president
of the Palestinian Authority.
Now, he still needs to
offer his resignation in person.
That still needs to be accepted.
But this is seen to be
perhaps one
step towards the
revitalization, the reconstitution
of the Palestinian Authority,
to enable it
to be palatable to the Americans
and perhaps less
unpalatable to the Israelis
for taking control of the Gaza Strip
that they after this war.
Now, he will probably be asked to stay on
as a caretaker
prime minister
And there's no indication
that whoever replaces him
will be any different.
And, of course,
the real change
for the Palestinian Authority least,
it won't be seen as changing
to any serious degree
until such time as Mahmoud
Abbas is no longer president.
He, of course, is in now
the 19th year of a four year term.
He's widely reviled among Palestinians.
He's widely
seen as being corrupt as well.
So I think for the Palestinian Authority
to be seen to be really changing
that,
Mahmoud Abbas
would probably be expected to go as well.
Okay, Eliot, thank you so much.
The death
toll from
this conflict
is also rising outside of Gaza.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health
says more than 400 Palestinians
have now been killed
in the occupied West Bank
and East Jerusalem
since
October 7th, either
by Israeli forces or settlers.
That would include three Palestinians
killed in the Jenin refugee camp
this past week, which the IDF confirmed
as part
of what they described
as a counter terrorism raid.
Our Nic
Robertson met
with the father of slain
Palestinian-American teen Tawfiq Abdul
Jabbar, who was shot in the West Bank
last month.
His father says their family
is still struggling for answers
and trying to bring the person
responsible for his son's
killing to justice.
Yeah, so this dirt road,
you see it down here?
Yeah. This is where we are.
Tawfiq was shot at an American father,
Hafez Abdul Jabbar, showing us his family
land where he says his son was murdered.
By an Israeli settler in January.
He wasn't going to do anything wrong,
simply a barbecue
Friday prayer and come back home.
And he's not a terrorist.
He's a American.
Palestinian kid full of life
wanted to do so much in his life.
His son Tawfiq, was 17 years
old, studying towards his dream job.
Nasser engineer.
The family, left Louisiana last spring,
returning temporarily
to their roots in the occupied West Bank.
They visited their ancestral hilltop
village home most years.
All around the village,
there are murals of Cow Fig
remembered immortalized, and underneath
it says the smiling martyr.
Tough weeks trauma
increasingly common in the West Bank.
And this is getting worse
and worse in the worst since October.
That way, worse.
They're turning it more like into Gaza.
Exactly. They want to turn up to Gaza.
You see the bullet? Yes.
A month after Tawfik
death, Hafez is struggling
to get justice.
The single shot
that killed his son, an exploding bullet
entering the back of his head,
clear in the CT scan of his brain.
Photos of the crime scene
and an investigation
by the Palestinian Authority document.
Ten shots.
Video shows what Hafez says
is a soldier taking the final shot.
An eyewitness says
a settler took the first shot.
Israeli investigators say an off duty
police officer
and an off duty soldier were also present
at the time of 12 week's killing,
but have yet to charge any of them.
They say the investigation is ongoing.
That's the problem that I'm facing
right now that we all face in here.
That when they do such a thing
and they're not stopped
and they're not questioned, it's okay
for them to do it again
and again and again.
And that's what keeps happening here.
This is not the first kid
that got shot and killed in the same area
since October 7th.
Nearly 400
Palestinians have been killed
by Israeli soldiers and Israeli settlers.
There are currently 9000
Palestinians being held in Israeli
prisons and jails.
Sari Bashi is an Israeli
human rights expert
living in the West
Bank, has been tracking
Israeli security force
tactics there for more than a decade.
Hamas says brutal October 7th attacks.
She believes became a watershed
for unprecedented
Israeli violence in the West Bank.
We have seen things piloted
in Gaza
and later moved to the West Bank
in terms of the levels of violence.
The airstrikes, the drone strikes
in Gaza
are starting
to become much
more frequent in the West Bank.
And not just more aggressive
and more frequent,
but more audacious
to not to mention possibly illegal,
according to U.N.
experts
like this, covert Israeli
special forces up in a hospital
that killed three militants
believed to be planning an attack.
The hospital says the men were sleeping
when shot.
IDF diggers gouging out West
Bank streets,
rendering them unusable
akin to Gaza's battle torn thoroughfares.
Also deepens fears
the West Bank is worsening
the impact of Israel's actions
according to respected
Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki,
is enabling groups like Hamas.
The West Bank is becoming more
militant today
than Gaza was before the war or today
because of what the Israeli
government is doing here,
because of what
the Israeli government is doing,
what the army is doing,
and what the settlers are doing.
While we support in such a regime
like that, Hafez is angry.
President Joe
Biden isn't doing more to pressure Israel
to rein in radical settler leaders,
like Security Minister Ma Ben-gvir,
whose party has called
for the annexation of the West Bank.
The Israeli government
maintains
its military operations
only target terror suspects, but
settler violence
has spiraled in recent months.
These officials on TV
from the Israeli governments
making these comments and passing weapons
from being a four year
old to these settlers,
that's why they feel like
they can do anything
without being charged
or without being stopped.
Impunity
that is ripping
irreversibly through his family.
How can they forget their brother?
Can they ever forget their brother?
Can they ever forget
who shot their brother?
No.
Well, I told my wife
I want to have another Tawfik
and I want my older son to get married
and have another two feet
across the square from his family home.
That predates Israel's creation
by more than 70 years.
Is the town's cemetery to fix
where Tawfik is buried?
Feet from two of Hafez's uncles whom
he says were killed by settlers
36 years ago.
That's a message to them,
to the Israeli government.
We're not going nowhere.
Even if you put all of us right here,
generations will come.
And for to this country from you guys.
Defiance. Yes.
But beneath it a father struggling.
When do I see him again?
Want to see my 17 years old
again?
When?
When do I get to see him again?
That's.
That's the minute that I
right now I think about.
I don't think about money.
I don't think about business anymore.
I don't think about anything else
other than
when do I see my son again?
Nic Robertson, CNN, the West Bank.