Netanyahu rejects prisoner exchange deal as Israel pounds Gaza, kills scores

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his rejection of a prisoner exchange deal with Hamas, despite the military supporting the idea, Hebrew media reported on Monday.

Netanyahu said in a statement carried by Channel 12 that "no deal currently exists" and reportedly refused to vote during a security cabinet meeting on a partial prisoner release.

He added that there was no need to vote on a deal because it was not on the meeting’s agenda.

Israel’s far-right and extremist National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, along with other ministers, also sought to vote against the partial prisoner release deal, reports said.

The latest development comes as Israel on Monday continued to pound the Gaza Strip, killing at least 17 Palestinians across the enclave.

Eight of those killed were sheltering in refugee camps in the al-Nafaq area and al-Shati.

Hamas issued another urgent statement calling on the Arab League, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and the UN to halt the "brutal genocide", a day after Israel announced that it had killed the movement’s military spokesperson, Abu Obeida.

Abu Obeida was one of the group's most prominent on-screen figures, responsible for delivering messages and statements for years.

Gaza’s ministry of health also announced that seven more people had died of starvation due to Israel’s restrictions on aid. This brings the total malnutrition and starvation-related deaths to 339, including 124 children.

Israel’s attacks on journalists have also killed at least 247 in Gaza since the start of the war, the enclave’s media office said. The latest journalist to be killed on Sunday was Islam Abed.

The annihilation of the enclave’s healthcare infrastructure has caused hospitals to overflow with patients, while a severe wave of influenza is also spreading rapidly among children.

Meanwhile, the US administration said it has suspended approvals for almost every type of visitor visa for Palestinian passport holders.

US officials told The New York Times that the measure was taken after the US blocked Palestinian officials from being able to attend the upcoming UN General Assembly in New York.

The decision to suspend the visa approvals means that Palestinians will no longer be able to get visas for medical treatment, university, family or business visits.

US President Donald Trump is also reportedly working on a plan to place Gaza under American control after forcibly transferring the Palestinian population, The Washington Post revealed.

The report states that the population of two million people will be relocated abroad or forced into zones for at least a decade while Gaza is being reconstructed.

In a 38-page proposal titled Gaza Reconstruction, it states that investors would receive returns on $100bn projects, including luxury resorts, and AI-powered "smart cities", while Palestinian landowners would receive digital tokens redeemable for property in new developments or to finance life abroad.

The proposal has been lambasted as ethnic cleansing by activists and commentators.

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed over 63,000 Palestinians since October 2023 and plunged the enclaveinto a deep humanitarian crisis.

The war has been determined to be a genocide by UN experts and leading rights groups, including Amnesty International.