Israel, Hamas look to extend truce

TEL AVIV, Nov 27 (AP/Reuters/AFP): International mediators were pressing to extend a cease-fire in Gaza that has halted the deadliest Israeli-Palestinian violence in decades but is set to expire after Monday, as Israel and Hamas prepared for a fourth exchange of militant-held hostages for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
Israel has said it would extend the cease-fire by one day for every 10 additional hostages released. Hamas has also said it hopes to extend the four-day truce, which came into effect Friday after several weeks of indirect negotiations mediated by the United States, Qatar and Egypt.
But Israel also says it remains committed to crushing Hamas' military capabilities and ending its 16-year rule over Gaza. That would likely mean expanding its ground offensive from devastated northern Gaza to the south, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have crammed into United Nations shelters, and where dire conditions persist despite the ramping up of aid delivery under the truce.
The release of dozens of people - mostly women and children - who were among the roughly 240 captured by Hamas in its wide-ranging Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel that ignited the war has rallied Israelis behind calls to return the rest of them.
Sixty-two hostages have been released, one was freed by Israeli forces, and two were found dead inside Gaza.

Palestinians demand Israel give
news of detained Gazans
Palestinian authorities have demanded the Israeli military release information about more than 100 people thought to have been detained in Gaza during its assault on the territory following Hamas attacks.
The head of the Palestinian Authority's commission for prisoners, Qaddura Fares, said on Sunday that Israeli officials had told him at one point their side had made 105 arrests.
But he said Israel had not announced the number publicly and there was "no detail about what has become of these people".
"We fear they may have been killed after being detained and interrogated," he told AFP.
The Israeli military told AFP on Monday that it could not comment on the issue at this stage.

Biden hopes for extension
of temporary truce
US President Joe Biden said he hoped the temporary truce between Israel and Hamas can go on as long as hostages are being released, after the militant group freed 17 more people, including a 4-year-old Israeli-American girl.
Hamas said it wanted to extend the pause in fighting, which will enter its fourth day and final agreed day on Monday, if serious efforts were made to increase the number of Palestinian detainees released by Israel.
Thirty-nine teenage Palestinian prisoners were released by Israel on Sunday, taking the total since the truce began to 117.
Hamas said it had handed over 13 Israelis, three Thais and one with Russian citizenship, and the International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed it had successfully transferred them from Gaza on Sunday.

Representatives of European, Arab
countries meet to discuss war
Delegations from European Union member states and Middle Eastern and north African countries are meeting Monday in Barcelona, Spain, to discuss the crisis in Gaza, where a fragile pause in fighting is set to expire.
Forty-two delegations are scheduled to gather at the event hosted by the Union for the Mediterranean, with many represented by their foreign ministers. The meeting is chaired by the EU's foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, and Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi.
Israel is not attending the meeting, which in past years has largely become a forum for cooperation between the EU and the Arab world. Monday's gathering was supposed to focus on the role of the union 15 years after its founding, but it has taken on new significance since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel and Israel's ensuing war in the Gaza Strip.

Three Palestinian students
shot near US campus
The families of three Palestinian students shot on Saturday in the US state of Vermont have urged police to investigate the attack as a hate crime. Hisham Awartani, Tahseen Ahmed and Kinnan Abdalhamid were confronted and shot by a man near University of Vermont Campus, Burlington police said.
Officers are investigating a possible motive, but say the victims were wearing keffiyeh - a traditional scarf - and speaking Arabic when attacked. A suspect has been arrested. Burlington police have named the suspect as Jason J Eaton, aged 48, reports CBS News, the BBC's media partner in the US.
Local police chief Jon Mura earlier said two victims were in a stable condition; the third has suffered much more serious injuries. All three students attended Ramallah Friends School, a Quaker-run private non-profit school in Ramallah, according to family members.
Mr Abdalhamid, was named by Haverford College in Pennsylvania as one of its students. The other two have been named as Brown University student Mr Awartani and Mr Ahmed, who attends Trinity College in Connecticut.