Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the Israeli army to carry out "intensive operations" in the West Bank after explosions on empty buses near Tel Aviv yesterday, Reuters reported, quoted by BTA, citing a statement from Netanyahu's office.
There were no injuries in the blasts, which police believe were caused by a terrorist attack.
Israeli police said last night that three explosions had gone off on buses in two villages on the outskirts of Tel Aviv and that four more explosive devices had been found.
Local media reported that all the buses were parked in depots.
In a statement, the Israeli army said it was assisting police and the Shin Bet internal security agency with the investigation. Police said they were searching for suspects and urged citizens to be vigilant.
No one has yet claimed responsibility for the explosions.
Late last night, the prime minister met with the defense minister, the heads of the army and Shin Bet, and a police commissioner, his office said.
A police spokesman said that improvised explosive devices with timers had been found and all public transport vehicles were being checked for more explosives.
In response to the explosions, the Israeli army said it would step up its counterterrorism operations in the West Bank and blocked several entry points into the Palestinian territory, without specifying which ones.
Arab states face the challenge of uniting around a comprehensive solution for the Gaza Strip under pressure from US President Donald Trump's proposal to evict Palestinians from the enclave and turn it into a “Riviera of the Middle East” and under the threat of the collapse of the ceasefire between Israel and “Hamas” and the continuation of the war, BTA reported.
The leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Jordan and Egypt will meet today in Riyadh at the invitation of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for an “informal brotherly meeting”, the Saudi state news agency (SPA) reported. Joint Arab actions and all decisions will be included in the agenda of the extraordinary Arab summit, which will be held in Egypt on March 4.
The so-called “mini-summit” in the Saudi capital was delayed by a day to include all six members of the GCC - Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain. Initially, representatives from Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Palestine were expected to participate.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has already left for Riyadh, where he will present Cairo's proposal for a phased plan to rebuild the Gaza Strip without displacing its population, the Al Ahram newspaper reported. The vision is in contrast to Trump's widely rejected idea.
If approved, the plan would be presented to the United States as a collective Arab response to the future of Gaza that also takes into account Israel's security, but without displacing half of the strip's population, "as the far-right government in Tel Aviv wants," the publication notes.
According to an Egyptian official quoted by the state newspaper, the Cairo project includes two phases, the first of which will last between ten and twenty years, and the second concerns the long-term two-state solution.
The first phase, for which the support of Arab capitals is yet to be sought, envisages the complete cessation of any administrative, political or resistance functions of the radical movement "Hamas" and other armed factions and a reconstruction process financed by the Gulf states.
In press statements this week, Osama Hamdan, a leading Hamas figure, said that the movement would not make concessions in exchange for the reconstruction of Gaza and that this was not a compromise that people in the enclave or resistance factions could accept. Other Hamas figures suggested that Hamas could agree to temporarily withdraw from the administration and security of the Strip.
“Hamas” has controlled Gaza in full since 2007, when the Ramallah-based, Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority tried to ignore the results of parliamentary elections the previous year, which gave Hamas a landslide victory.
In the current situation, the radical movement is ready to agree to a neutral non-partisan committee to take over the administration of Gaza during the first phase of the Egyptian plan, but is not willing to hand over the strip to the Palestinian Authority (PA), writes “Al Ahram”. Its position is supported by Qatar, which is hosting meetings aimed at including “Hamas” in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
The Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas, for its part, categorically opposes a scenario that does not provide for exclusive control on its part. This position, in turn, has the support of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which wants “Hamas” to withdraw.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army announced that one of the four bodies handed over yesterday by “Hamas” to Israel is that of an unknown person, and not of hostage Shiri Bibas, the mother of the two dead children, as announced, reported Agence France-Presse, quoted by BTA.
During the autopsy, "it was determined that the body handed over is not that of Shiri Bibas and does not correspond to any of the other abductees. It is an unidentified body," the army announced, announcing that this was a "clear violation" of the ceasefire agreement with Hamas.
The Israeli army confirmed the identities of the two children whose bodies were returned to Israel - Ariel and Kfir Bibas. The children were killed by their captors, not by Israeli airstrikes, as the Palestinian Islamist movement claimed, the army said.
"Ariel and Kfir Bibas were brutally killed in captivity in November 2023 by Palestinian terrorists," the army said in a statement.
The children's father, Yarden Bibas, was also held hostage by Hamas and was released on February 1 as part of a hostage swap for Palestinian prisoners between Israel and the Palestinian group.