On Monday, Hamas released a new video announcing the deaths of two Israeli hostages, men who were kidnapped in southern Israel on October 7 and held in the Gaza Strip since then, AFP reported.

In a video released by the Palestinian Islamist movement, a young woman, also a hostage, can be seen under pressure to declare that the two men she was holding are dead.

In a separate statement, the armed wing of Hamas said they “died during the Zionist bombardment of Gaza.”

Three Palestinians were killed in clashes with Israeli forces

Three Palestinians were killed in the occupied West Bank on Monday during clashes with the Israeli army in two different areas, the Palestinian Ministry of Health announced.

Two men in their 20s were killed in an Israeli army operation in Dura, in the southern sector of Hebron, witnesses told AFP, saying they saw Palestinian youths throwing stones and heard gunfire.

“Suddenly, soldiers arrived in our town and started shooting people without any warning,” Doura hospital director Mohammed Rabai told AFP.

Nine people were injured, four of them are in serious condition, the Ministry of Health reports.

The Israeli military, which contacted the AFP agency, did not give any comments.

In the north, in the Tulkarem sector, according to the Ministry of Health, one more Palestinian was killed.

Since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, the Gaza Strip, in the West Bank occupied by Israel since 1967, has seen a level of violence not seen since the Second Intifada (2000-2005).

University raid

The Israeli army also carried out a security operation at Al-Najah University in Nablus on Sunday evening, arresting several students, Israeli and Palestinian sources said.

According to the Israeli army, “nine wanted” “members of student groups of Hamas” were “hiding” in the university.

The Israeli army added that it “detains many other suspects” in connection with this action against “terrorist groups formed by students from Hamas cells (…) operating in universities” in the occupied West Bank.

The representative of the university announced the arrest of 25 people, demanding their immediate release.

The UN Secretary General calls for an “immediate” ceasefire in Gaza

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday called for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip after more than 100 days of war between Israel and Hamas.

“We continue to call for rapid, safe, unrestricted, expanded and uninterrupted humanitarian access to and through Gaza,” António Guterres said in a speech to the media, adding that “nothing can justify the collective punishment inflicted on the Palestinian people.”

“The specter of hunger hangs over the people of Gaza,” the UN Secretary General warned on Monday.

He said an immediate ceasefire was necessary for humanitarian reasons “to ensure the delivery of sufficient aid to those in need” and “to facilitate the release of hostages”.

Antonio Guterres also expressed concern that the conflict could spread to neighboring Lebanon and beyond, calling for a ceasefire “to put out the flames of a wider conflict”.

“The longer the conflict in Gaza continues, the greater the risk of escalation and miscalculations,” the Secretary General said.