CAIRO (AP) — The Hamas militant group says it has accepted an Egyptian-Qatari cease-fire proposal to halt seven-month war with Israel.
It issued a statement Monday saying its supreme leader, Ismail Haniyeh, had delivered the news in a phone call with Qatar’s prime minister and Egypt’s intelligence minister. The two Middle Eastern nations have been mediating months of talks between Israel and Hamas. There was no immediate comment from Israel.
The announcement came hours after Israel ordered Palestinians to begin evacuating the southern Gaza town of Rafah ahead of an Israeli military operation. Israel says Rafah is Hamas’ last stronghold.
News of Hamas’ announcement sent people in Rafah cheering in the streets.
Details of the proposal were not immediately released. But in recent days, Egyptian and Hamas officials have said the cease-fire would take place in a series of stages in which Hamas would release hostages it is holding in exchange for Israeli troop pullbacks from Gaza.
It is not clear whether the deal will meet Hamas’ key demand of bringing about an end to the war and complete Israeli withdrawal.
Counterprotesters at DePaul’s Lincoln Park campus reportedly tried to clash with pro-Palestinian protesters, who used de-escalation tactics to keep peace. Nationwide, more than 2,500 protesters have been arrested since April 18.
Police said the museum asked them to clear the encampment on Saturday, hours after organizers set up tents in the Art Institute’s North Garden which they said were intended to pressure the school regarding the “occupation of Palestine.”
On a mostly peaceful day, tensions briefly bubbled over when counter-protesters confronted the demonstrators at the university’s Edward Levi Hall. An altercation prompted campus police to respond.
Las protestas contra la guerra han invadido los campus universitarios en las últimas semanas. Los estudiantes apoyan a los palestinos en los ataques de Israel contra Gaza, denuncian lo que llaman censura por parte de sus universidades y piden a las instituciones que dejen de invertir en fabricantes de armas y empresas que apoyan a Israel.
Protesters’ demands have focused on divestment — demanding universities cut ties with Israel and businesses supporting the war in Gaza.
Classes disrupted, fellow students threatened, clashes with police, and the yo-yo story has to wait.
Tensions were higher Tuesday when hundreds of New York police officers raided Columbia University and City College of New York while a group of counterprotesters attacked a student encampment at UCLA.
The backlash comes days after the university made an agreement with encampment organizers to take steps toward divesting from Israel.
“I remember coming out of my apartment one day and spotting Chicago cops dragging young protesters out of one section of Lincoln Park and shoving them into trucks, while nearby poet Allen Ginsberg was chanting in a circle of peaceful protesters not far away from the radical Abby Hoffman,” remembers Dan Webb, who later became a U.S. attorney.
El campus se une a las protestas en todo el país para pedir a las universidades que dejen de invertir en empresas que apoyan a Israel.
Anti-war protests have swept college campuses in recent weeks as students support Palestinians in Israel’s attacks on Gaza, decry what they call censorship from their universities and call on institutions to divest from weapons manufacturers and companies supporting Israel.
They are willing to risk the completion of degrees or acquiring police records as allies of suffering civilians in Gaza, a reader from Hyde Park says.
The campus joins protests across the country calling on universities to divest from companies supporting Israel.
The two-part, four-hour film on WTTW comes just in time for the 750th anniversary of a key event in Dante’s life.
Déjà vu is a heck of a thing. Whether it’s 1970 or 2024, war weighs heavily on campuses — and on athletes.
Hundreds of University of Chicago students set up an encampment in the Main Quadrangle on Monday, joining groups on over 100 university campuses nationwide in support of Palestinians.
“Bad actors are using the cover of free speech in this moment of tension to normalize dangerous ideas that cause real harm to Jewish students and communities,” the museum said. But a member of Chicago’s Jewish Voice for Peace said the protesters are saying what Jewish institutions are “afraid to say.”
As the death toll mounts in the war in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis worsens, protesters at universities all over the U.S. are demanding that schools cut financial ties to Israel and divest from companies they say are enabling the conflict.
Hundreds of protesters from the University of Chicago, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Columbia College Chicago and Roosevelt University rallied in support of people living in Gaza.
Students linked arms and formed a line against police after Northwestern leaders said the tent encampment violated university policy. By 9 p.m. protest leaders were told by university officials that arrests could begin later in the evening.
The joint statement is the latest attempt at public pressure to advance negotiations over a potential cease-fire with Israel.
The video is the first proof of life of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was captured Oct. 7 in southern Israel. His parents have Chicago ties. Last week, his mother was named one of Time magazine’s most influential people of 2024.
A window of the Andersonville feminist bookstore displaying a Palestine flag and a sign calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war was shattered early Wednesday. Police are investigating.
The Democratic president Wednesday reached the end of a long, painful battle with Republicans to secure urgently needed replenishment of aid for Ukraine.
The continuing bloody war in Gaza — the 33,000 Palestinians killed and the unknown fate of Israeli hostages — casts a pall over Passover celebrations.
Chicago Reps. Delia Ramirez, Jesus ‘Chuy’ Garcia and Jonathan Jackson, all Democrats and the most pro-Palestinian members of the Illinois delegation, voted no on aid to Israel. GOP Rep. Darin LaHood split from his party to support aid to Ukraine.
“There’s all kinds of dangers that can happen,” said Itai Segre, a teacher who lives in Roscoe Village with family in Jerusalem.
The strike came just days after Tehran’s unprecedented drone-and-missile assault on Israel.
Democrats are deeply focused on Wisconsin and Michigan to help bolster President Joe Biden’s re-election chances — and officials, in town for meetings hosted by the Democratic National Convention Committee, say they plan on showing voters a deep party contrast.
Rachel Goldberg was named for her extensive campaign calling for the release of her son and the other hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7. She grew up in Streeterville.