| UPDATE: Accused in Saif Ali Khan stabbing case sent to 5-day police custody n18oc_indiaNews18 Mobile App – https://onelink.to/desc-youtube
After hours of delay, the Gaza ceasefire came into effect on Sunday after Hamas released the names of the first three Israeli hostages to be freed, pausing a 15-month-old war that has brought devastation and seismic political change to the Middle East. Israel said a truce with Hamas began in Gaza at 11:15 am local time (09:15 GMT and 2:45 pm IST), nearly three hours after initially scheduled, following a last-minute delay on the orders of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
During the delay, Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli strikes killed eight people. The Israeli military also confirmed it was continuing “to strike within the Gaza area” following Netanyahu’s directive.
Gaza civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said three people were killed in the north of the territory and five in Gaza City, with 25 wounded.
In a statement issued less than an hour before the truce had been set to start, Netanyahu’s office said he had “instructed the IDF (military) that the ceasefire… will not begin until Israel has received the list” of hostages to be freed.
Hamas, meanwhile, attributed the delay in sharing the list to “technical reasons”, as well as the “complexities of the field situation and the continued bombing”, ultimately publishing the names of three Israeli women to be released on Sunday nearly three hours after the deadline.
A Palestinian official familiar with the matter told Reuters the delay occurred because mediators had asked for 48 hours of “calm” before the ceasefire’s implementation, but continued Israeli strikes right up until the deadline had made it difficult to send the list.
Two hours after the deadline, Israel confirmed it had received the list and was “checking the details”, before confirming shortly afterwards that the truce would begin at 11:15 am local time.
Hamas has reportedly named the hostages it was to release on Sunday as Romi Gonen, Doron Steinbrecher and Emily Damari.
A Mumbai court today granted the city police five-day custody of Shariful Islam Shehzad, who has been arrested for allegedly breaking into the home of actor Saif Ali Khan and injuring him and his staff during a burglary attempt late on Wednesday night.
The accused, a Bangladeshi national, was arrested early this morning after police tracked him down to Thane. Shariful, police have said, crossed into India illegally and had been living in Mumbai for the past few months under the false name of Bijoy Das.
Hours after his arrest, he was produced in court. Police told the court that Shariful entered India illegally and added that they were investigating who helped him and aided him here. The court is also probing the accused’s acquaintances in Mumbai.
Seeking Shariful’s 14-day custody, police said they found out he was a Bangladeshi national after his arrest.
The 54-year-old actor has suffered six stab injuries, one of them near his spine, in the shocking attack. Police have said the knife used in the attack broke into three pieces, one of which is yet to be found. One of the shards has been recovered from Mr Khan’s body.
Police also told the court that they suspect that Shariful has hidden the clothes he wore that day because they had blood stains after his fight with Mr Khan. They said the clothes need to be recovered so that blood samples could be matched.
The public prosecutor said the accused was aware of the fact that the Bandra locality where Saif Ali Khan lives with his family was home to several celebrities and tight security was in place. Despite this, he managed to break into the actor’s house, police said, stressing that the accused acted on a plan.
The lawyer representing the accused told the court that the allegations against him were false and that the matter is in focus because a celebrity has been targeted. The accused’s lawyer said he was being made a scapegoat in the high profile case.
Dinesh Prajapati, who represented the accused, told the media, “We have said in his defence that nothing has been recovered from him. They have not produced any document to prove he is a Bangladeshi national.