Israeli and Qatari officials were set to meet in Norway on Saturday in an effort to revive talks about the release of hostages held in Gaza in return for a ceasefire and the freeing of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.

Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani was due to meet David Barnea, director of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, in Oslo, the report added, citing people familiar with the matter. Barnea is also likely to meet with Egyptian officials, the Journal reported.

Significant obstacles impede a resumption of negotiations on a new hostage deal including disagreements over the possible terms within Hamas, the report added, citing people familiar with the talks.

LONDON (Reuters) - British defence minister Grant Shapps said on Saturday that a navy ship HMS Diamond shot down a suspected attack drone targeting merchant shipping in the Red Sea.

"HMS Diamond shot down a suspected attack drone which was targeting merchant shipping in the Red Sea," Shapps said on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

"One Sea Viper missile was fired and successfully destroyed the target."

Danish intelligence services and the Copenhagen Police made several arrests on Thursday in a coordinated effort against a suspected terrorist attack. Israeli authorities said the suspects had been acting on behalf of Hamas, with the aim of killing civilians on European soil.

"In recent years, and even more so after the murderous attack on October 7, Hamas strives to expand its operational capabilities around the world, and in Europe in particular," Israeli authorities said, "to realize its ambitions to strike Israeli, Jewish, and Western targets at any cost."

The arrests were "carried out in close collaboration with our foreign partners," Flemming Drejer, who heads Denmark's Security and Intelligence Service, said, according to the AP. "Persons abroad have been charged."

"This is extremely serious," Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said to reporters at the European Union Summit in Brussels. "It is of course, completely unacceptable in relation to Israel and Gaza, that there is someone who takes a conflict somewhere else in the world into Danish society."

The lower house of the Swiss parliament has voted to cancel the funding it provides the UN agency for Palestinian refugees amid persistent accusations that the organization glorifies terror against Israel.

The decision made Tuesday sees Switzerland move to cut some $21 million in annual funding from the United Nations Relief Works Agency. Switzerland was the ninth-biggest donor.

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A recent IMPACT-se study found that several UNRWA staffers have expressed praise for the atrocities committed by the Hamas terror group on October 7, when terrorists stormed across the border from Gaza, killing some 1,200 people in Israel, mainly civilians massacred in their homes and at a music festival, and taking some 240 hostages.

The report detailed social media posts by numerous Gaza- and West Bank-based members of UNRWA, which provides welfare and humanitarian services for Palestinian refugees from the 1948 and 1967 wars and their descendants. The posts by staff members, including teachers and educational staff, expressed praise or approval of the devastating onslaught.

Antisemitic incidents in the US hit an unprecedented record in the two months since Hamas’s shock attack on Israel on October 7, the Anti-Defamation League announced Monday.

The organization said it recorded 2,031 incidents between October 7 and December 7, the highest ever two-month number since the ADL began tracking antisemitism in the country in 1979. It also represented a 337 percent increase over the same period in 2022.

Details on the incidents can be found on an interactive map posted on the ADL website.

The cases in question included 40 incidents of physical violence, 749 of verbal attacks, 337 cases of vandalism and 905 rallies that featured antisemitic speech, support for terrorism or anti-Zionism, the latter being defined by the ADL as an expression of antisemitism for denying the Jewish right to self-determination. The data also showed 250 incidents that targeted Jewish institutions including synagogues and campus Hillels, and 400 incidents on campuses.

Hamas has been unresponsive to overtures made in recent days to try to restart hostage negotiations, a source familiar with the efforts told CNN, as the US and other mediators try to resurrect talks that would see more hostages who were abducted on October 7 be released from captivity.

Qatar – which continues to play the role of interlocutor – has relayed to Hamas new ideas to try to get more hostages out of Gaza, including a potential deal that would include the release of not just the remaining women hostages, but men as well, according to one source familiar with the efforts and a senior US official. “There’s not an active negotiation, but there’s a real exploration of ideas for how to get this going,” the senior US official said.

But Hamas has not been responsive to the outreach, the source familiar said.

Qatar speaks with Hamas political officials in Gaza who then relay messages to the group’s leadership inside the strip who are actively trying to avoid detection by Israel. US officials had said getting answers from Hamas was an incredibly cumbersome process during the first round of negotiations that led to a series of hostages being released. It may now be even harder for Hamas leaders to engage in talks now given the Israeli focus on hunting them down.

At the same time, Israel, which resumed its military operation against Hamas after a seven-day truce, believes that its offensive targeting southern Gaza – and particularly Khan Younis – should exert additional pressure on Hamas that could prove to be helpful in the release of more hostages, sources said. Some US officials agree the military pressure may have the effect of eventually driving Hamas back to the negotiating table.

Israel's ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan held a sign showing the phone number of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s Hamas office at a UNGA meeting on Tuesday.

"You want a real cease-fire?” Erdan declared as he admonished the members of the UNGA as he held up a sign depicting Sinwar's office phone number and told them to ask him directly, as Sinwar and Hamas bear the true responsibility for the current conflict.

בדיון הדחוף בעצרת הכללית הבהרתי לכל השגרירים לפני ההצבעה: אם אתם רוצים הפסקת אש אמיתית, תתקשרו למשרדי חמאס בעזה ותבקשו את יחיא סינוואר. תגידו לו שכאשר חמאס יניחו את נשקם, יסגירו את עצמם ויחזירו את כל החטופים, אז תהיה הפסקת אש אמיתית שתימשך לתמיד.צפו ורטווטו>> pic.twitter.com/1KDWtEm11R
— Ambassador Gilad Erdan גלעד ארדן (@giladerdan1) December 12, 2023

“Call… and ask for Yahya Sinwar. Tell Hamas to put down their arms, turn themselves in, and return our hostages. This will bring a complete ceasefire that will last forever,” said Erdan.

To the editor: The authors of the op-ed article, "Does Israel’s treatment of Palestinians rise to the level of apartheid?" neglect to mention that more than 20% of Israel's citizens are Arab, including Muslims, Druze and Christians. These Israelis have voting rights and are represented in every branch of government, including in the Knesset and on Israel's Supreme Court.

In contrast, neighboring countries have expelled or otherwise forced out their Jewish populations. The authors do not accuse these countries of apartheid or ethnic cleansing.

Mansour Abbas, a Muslim member of the Israeli Knesset and leader of the United Arab List, has rejected the term:

"I prefer to describe the reality in objective ways. If there is discrimination in a certain field, then we will say that there is discrimination in that specific field."