Mediator says talks on Gaza not ‘progressing as expected’ after momentum in recent weeks

Mediator says talks on Gaza not ‘progressing as expected’ after momentum in recent weeks
Demonstrators protest against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and call for new elections in the latest weekly protest against his handling of the Israel-Hamas war, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Feb. 17, 2024. (AP)
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Updated 18 February 2024
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Mediator says talks on Gaza not ‘progressing as expected’ after momentum in recent weeks

Mediator says talks on Gaza not ‘progressing as expected’ after momentum in recent weeks
  • New airstrikes in central Gaza on Saturday killed more than 40 people, including children, and wounded at least 50, according to Associated Press journalists and hospital officials

RAFAH, Gaza Strip: Talks on a potential ceasefire deal in Gaza “have not been progressing as expected” in the past few days after good progress in recent weeks, key mediator Qatar said Saturday, as Israel’s prime minister accused the Hamas militant group of not changing its ”delusional” demands.
Speaking during the Munich Security Conference, Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdurrahman Al Thani, noted difficulties in the “humanitarian part” of the negotiations.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is under pressure to bring home remaining hostages taken in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, said he sent a delegation to ceasefire talks in Cairo earlier in the week at US President Joe Biden’s request but doesn’t see the point in sending them again.
Hamas wants a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and the release of Palestinians held by Israel.
Netanyahu also pushed back against international concern about a planned Israeli ground offensive in Rafah, a city on southern Gaza’s border with Egypt. He said “total victory” against Hamas requires the offensive, once people living there evacuate to safe areas. Where they will go in largely devastated Gaza is not clear.
New airstrikes in central Gaza on Saturday killed more than 40 people, including children, and wounded at least 50, according to Associated Press journalists and hospital officials. Israel’s military said it carried out strikes there against Hamas.
Five people were killed in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a house outside Khan Younis in the south, according to health officials, and another five people, including three children, were killed in an airstrike on a building north of Rafah. Dr. Marwan Al-Hams, director of Abu Yousef Al-Najjar Hospital, said other bodies were being pulled from the rubble.
Israel’s air and ground offensive was triggered by the Oct. 7 attack that killed some 1,200 people in Israel and took 250 others hostage.
The Gaza Health Ministry on Saturday raised the overall death toll in Gaza to 28,858, saying the bodies of 83 people killed in Israeli bombardments were brought to hospitals in the past 24 hours. The count does not differentiate between combatants and civilians, but the ministry says two-thirds of those killed are women and children.
The war also has caused widespread destruction, displaced some 80 percent of Gaza’s population and sparked a humanitarian crisis in the Hamas-run enclave.
EGYPT CONCERNED ABOUT SPILLOVER
More than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are packed into Rafah, which Israel portrays as the last significant stronghold of Hamas fighters.
US President Joe Biden has urged Israel not to carry out an operation there without a “credible” plan to protect civilians and to instead focus on a ceasefire. Egypt has said an operation could threaten diplomatic relations.
Israel has said it has no plans to force Palestinians into Egypt. New satellite photos, however, indicate that Egypt is preparing for that scenario. The images show Egypt building a wall and leveling land near its border with Gaza.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, who also spoke at the Munich Security Conference, said “it is not our intention to provide any safe areas or facilities, but … we will provide the support to the innocent civilians, if that was to take place.”
President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi affirmed during a call with France’s leader that Egypt categorical rejected “the displacement of Palestinians to Egypt in any way, shape or form,” according to El-Sisi’s office.
Two senior Egyptian officials said Egypt is building additional defensive lines in an existing buffer zone that extends 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the border. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss details with the media.
The buffer zone, built as part of Egypt’s battle against an Daesh group insurgency, was meant to prevent weapons smuggling to and from Gaza.
ANOTHER CHALLENGE TO AID
Israel has not presented specific evidence for its claim that Hamas is diverting UN aid, and its targeted killings of Gaza police commanders guarding truck convoys have made it “virtually impossible” to distribute the goods safely, a top US envoy said in rare public criticism of Israel.
David Satterfield, the Biden administration’s special Middle East envoy for humanitarian issues, said criminal gangs are increasingly targeting the convoys following the departure of police escorts after Israeli strikes.
“We are working with the Israeli government, the Israeli military in seeing what solutions can be found here because everyone wants to see the assistance continue,” Satterfield told the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on Friday. A solution “is going to require some form of security escorts to return.”
Satterfield said Israeli officials have not presented “specific evidence of diversion or theft” of UN assistance, but that the militants have their own interests in using “other channels of assistance ... to shape where and to whom assistance goes.”
Israel has alleged repeatedly that Hamas is diverting aid, including fuel, after it enters Gaza, a claim denied by UN aid agencies. Last week, an Israeli airstrike on a car killed three senior police commanders in Rafah. Two officers were killed in another strike.
Satterfield also addressed challenges for the main UN agency aiding Palestinians in Gaza, whose director accused Israel in remarks published Saturday of trying to “destroy” the organization and warned that its operations will halt in April without more support.
ISRAELI TROOPS ENTER A HOSPITAL
In recent weeks, Israel’s military has focused on Khan Younis, Gaza’s second-largest city and a Hamas stronghold.
The army said Saturday that it had arrested 100 suspected Hamas militants at the city’s Nasser Hospital. Israel’s defense minister has said at least 20 of those detained were involved in the Oct. 7 attack.
The Health Ministry said troops turned the hospital into “military barracks” and detained a large number of medical staff. Israel says it does not target patients or doctors, but staff say the facility is struggling under heavy fire.
Nour Abou Jameh was among the thousands sheltering at Nasser Hospital who were forced to leave in the past week. “Shooting and shelling was coming from all directions,” Jameh said. “When we left at night, bodies were in the streets, and even tanks moved on them and crushed them.”


Israel says it’s moving toward Lebanon ceasefire

Israel says it’s moving toward Lebanon ceasefire
Updated 25 November 2024
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Israel says it’s moving toward Lebanon ceasefire

Israel says it’s moving toward Lebanon ceasefire
  • Axios said Israel and Lebanon had agreed to the terms of a deal
  • Israel’s security cabinet was expected to approve deal on Tuesday

JERUSALEM/BEIRUT: Israel is moving toward a ceasefire in the war with Hezbollah but there are still issues to address, its government said on Monday, while two senior Lebanese officials voiced guarded optimism of a deal soon even as Israeli strikes pounded Lebanon.
Axios, citing an unnamed senior US official, said Israel and Lebanon had agreed to the terms of a deal, and that Israel’s security cabinet was expected to approve the deal on Tuesday.
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, said of a ceasefire: “We haven’t finalized it yet, but we are moving forward.” Asked for comment, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said it had nothing to say about the report.
Hostilities have intensified in parallel with the diplomatic flurry: Over the weekend, Israel carried out powerful airstrikes, one of which killed at least 29 people in central Beirut — while the Iran-backed Hezbollah unleashed one of its biggest rocket salvoes yet on Sunday, firing 250 missiles.
In Beirut, Israeli airstrikes levelled more of the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs on Monday, sending clouds of debris billowing over the Lebanese capital.
Efforts to clinch a truce appeared to advance last week when US mediator Amos Hochstein declared significant progress after talks in Beirut before holding meetings in Israel and then returning to Washington.
“We are moving in the direction toward a deal, but there are still some issues to address,” Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer said, without elaborating.
Michael Herzog, the Israeli ambassador in Washington, told Israel’s GLZ radio an agreement was close and “it could happen within days ... We just need to close the last corners,” according to a post on X by GLZ senior anchorman Efi Triger.
In Beirut, Deputy Parliament Speaker Elias Bou Saab said a decisive moment was approaching and expressed cautious optimism. “The balance is slightly tilted toward there being (an agreement), but by a very small degree, because a person like Netanyahu cannot be trusted,” he said in a news conference.
A second senior Lebanese official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Beirut had not received any new Israeli demands from US mediators, who were describing the atmosphere as positive and saying “things are in progress.”
The official told Reuters a ceasefire could be clinched this week.
The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah spiralled into full-scale war in September when Israel went on the offensive, pounding wide areas of Lebanon with airstrikes and sending troops into the south.
Israel has dealt major blows to Hezbollah, killing its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and other top commanders and inflicting massive destruction in areas of Lebanon where the group holds sway.
Diplomacy has focused on restoring a ceasefire based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war. It requires Hezbollah to pull its fighters back around 30 km (19 miles) from the Israeli border.

ENFORCEMENT
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the test for any agreement would be in the enforcement of two main points.
“The first is preventing Hezbollah from moving southward beyond the Litani (River), and the second, preventing Hezbollah from rebuilding its force and rearming in all of Lebanon,” Saar said in broadcast remarks to the Israeli parliament.
Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said Israel must press on with the war until “absolute victory.” Addressing Netanyahu on X, he said “it is not too late to stop this agreement!“
But Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter said Israel should reach an agreement in Lebanon. “If we say ‘no’ to Hezbollah being south of the Litani, we mean it,” he told journalists.
Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Qassem said last week that the group had reviewed and given feedback on the US ceasefire proposal, and any truce was now in Israel’s hands.
Branded a terrorist group by the United States, the heavily armed, Shiite Muslim Hezbollah has endorsed Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri of the Shiite Amal movement to negotiate.
Israel says its aim is to secure the return home of tens of thousands of people evacuated from its north due to rocket attacks by Hezbollah, which opened fire in support of Hamas at the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.
Israel’s offensive has forced more than 1 million people from their homes in Lebanon.
Diplomacy has focused on restoring a ceasefire based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war. It requires Hezbollah to pull its fighters back around 30 km (19 miles) from the Israeli border, and the regular Lebanese army to deploy into the frontier region.

 

 


Egypt says 17 missing after Red Sea tourist boat capsizes

Egypt says 17 missing after Red Sea tourist boat capsizes
Updated 25 November 2024
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Egypt says 17 missing after Red Sea tourist boat capsizes

Egypt says 17 missing after Red Sea tourist boat capsizes
  • Governor Amr Hanafi said that some survivors were rescued by an aircraft, while others were transported to safety aboard a warship

CAIRO: Egyptian authorities said 17 people including British nationals and other foreigners were missing after a tourist yacht capsized off the country’s Red Sea coast on Monday, with 28 others rescued.
The vessel, which was carrying 31 tourists of various nationalities and a 14-member crew, sent out a distress call at 5:30 am (0330 GMT), said a statement from Egypt’s Red Sea governorate.
An AFP tally confirmed that tourists involved in the incident include nationals from the UK, China, Finland, Poland and Spain.
The “Sea Story” embarked on Sunday on a multi-day diving trip from Port Ghalib near Marsa Alam in the southeast, and had been due to dock on Friday at the town of Hurghada, 200 kilometers (124 miles) north.
Governor Amr Hanafi said that some survivors were rescued by an aircraft, while others were transported to safety aboard a warship.
“Intensive search operations are underway in coordination with the navy and the armed forces,” Hanafi added in a statement.
Authorities have not confirmed the nationalities of the tourists.
Beijing’s embassy in Egypt said two of its nationals were “in good health” after being “rescued in the cruise ship sinking accident in the Red Sea,” Chinese state media reported.
The Finnish foreign ministry confirmed to AFP that one of its nationals is missing.
Polish foreign ministry spokesman Pawel Wronski said authorities “have information that two of the tourists may have had Polish citizenship.”
“That’s all we know about them. That’s all we can say for now,” he told national news agency PAP.The Red Sea governor’s office did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment about the possible cause of the accident.
According to a manager of a diving resort close to the rescue operation, one surviving crew member said they were “hit by a wave in the middle of the night, throwing the vessel on its side.”
Authorities in the Red Sea capital of Hurghada on Sunday shut down marine activities and the city’s port due to “bad weather conditions.”
But winds around Marsa Alam had remained favorable until Sunday night, the diving manager told AFP, before calming again by morning.
By Monday afternoon, it became increasingly “unlikely that the 17 missing would be rescued after 12 hours in the water,” he said, requesting anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The Marsa Alam area saw at least two similar boat accidents earlier this year but there were no fatalities.
The Red Sea coast is a major tourist destination in Egypt, a country of 105 million that is in the grip of a serious economic crisis. Nationally, the tourism sector employs two million people and generates more than 10 percent of GDP.
Dozens of dive boats criss-cross between coral reefs and islands off Egypt’s eastern coast every day, where safety regulations are robust but unevenly enforced.
Earlier this month, 30 people were rescued from a sinking dive boat near the Red Sea’s Daedalus reef.
In June, two dozen French tourists were evacuated safely before their boat sank in a similar accident.
Last year, three British tourists died when a fire broke out on their yacht, engulfing it in flames.


Israel says it’s moving toward Lebanon ceasefire

Israel says it’s moving toward Lebanon ceasefire
Updated 59 min 26 sec ago
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Israel says it’s moving toward Lebanon ceasefire

Israel says it’s moving toward Lebanon ceasefire
  • Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, said of a ceasefire: “We haven’t finalized it yet, but we are moving forward”

JERUSALEM/BEIRUT: Israel is moving toward a ceasefire in the war with Hezbollah but there are still issues to address, its government said on Monday, while two senior Lebanese officials voiced guarded optimism of a deal soon even as Israeli strikes pounded Lebanon.
Axios, citing an unnamed senior US official, said Israel and Lebanon had agreed to the terms of a deal, and that Israel’s security cabinet was expected to approve the deal on Tuesday.
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, said of a ceasefire: “We haven’t finalized it yet, but we are moving forward.” Asked for comment, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said it had nothing to say about the report.
Hostilities have intensified in parallel with the diplomatic flurry: Over the weekend, Israel carried out powerful airstrikes, one of which killed at least 29 people in central Beirut — while the Iran-backed Hezbollah unleashed one of its biggest rocket salvoes yet on Sunday, firing 250 missiles.
In Beirut, Israeli airstrikes levelled more of the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs on Monday, sending clouds of debris billowing over the Lebanese capital.
Efforts to clinch a truce appeared to advance last week when US mediator Amos Hochstein declared significant progress after talks in Beirut before holding meetings in Israel and then returning to Washington.
“We are moving in the direction toward a deal, but there are still some issues to address,” Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer said, without elaborating.
Michael Herzog, the Israeli ambassador in Washington, told Israel’s GLZ radio an agreement was close and “it could happen within days ... We just need to close the last corners,” according to a post on X by GLZ senior anchorman Efi Triger.
In Beirut, Deputy Parliament Speaker Elias Bou Saab said a decisive moment was approaching and expressed cautious optimism. “The balance is slightly tilted toward there being (an agreement), but by a very small degree, because a person like Netanyahu cannot be trusted,” he said in a news conference.
A second senior Lebanese official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Beirut had not received any new Israeli demands from US mediators, who were describing the atmosphere as positive and saying “things are in progress.”
The official told Reuters a ceasefire could be clinched this week.
The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah spiralled into full-scale war in September when Israel went on the offensive, pounding wide areas of Lebanon with airstrikes and sending troops into the south.
Israel has dealt major blows to Hezbollah, killing its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and other top commanders and inflicting massive destruction in areas of Lebanon where the group holds sway.
Diplomacy has focused on restoring a ceasefire based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war. It requires Hezbollah to pull its fighters back around 30 km (19 miles) from the Israeli border.

ENFORCEMENT
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the test for any agreement would be in the enforcement of two main points.
“The first is preventing Hezbollah from moving southward beyond the Litani (River), and the second, preventing Hezbollah from rebuilding its force and rearming in all of Lebanon,” Saar said in broadcast remarks to the Israeli parliament.
Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said Israel must press on with the war until “absolute victory.” Addressing Netanyahu on X, he said “it is not too late to stop this agreement!“
But Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter said Israel should reach an agreement in Lebanon. “If we say ‘no’ to Hezbollah being south of the Litani, we mean it,” he told journalists.
Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Qassem said last week that the group had reviewed and given feedback on the US ceasefire proposal, and any truce was now in Israel’s hands.
Branded a terrorist group by the United States, the heavily armed, Shiite Muslim Hezbollah has endorsed Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri of the Shiite Amal movement to negotiate.
Israel says its aim is to secure the return home of tens of thousands of people evacuated from its north due to rocket attacks by Hezbollah, which opened fire in support of Hamas at the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.
Israel’s offensive has forced more than 1 million people from their homes in Lebanon.
Diplomacy has focused on restoring a ceasefire based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war. It requires Hezbollah to pull its fighters back around 30 km (19 miles) from the Israeli border, and the regular Lebanese army to deploy into the frontier region.


Arrest Warrant: UK would follow ‘due process’ if Netanyahu were to visit – foreign minister

Arrest Warrant: UK would follow ‘due process’ if Netanyahu were to visit – foreign minister
Updated 25 November 2024
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Arrest Warrant: UK would follow ‘due process’ if Netanyahu were to visit – foreign minister

Arrest Warrant: UK would follow ‘due process’ if Netanyahu were to visit – foreign minister
  • ICC issued arrest warrants on Thursday against Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu
  • Several EU states have said they will meet commitments under the statute if needed

FIUGGI: Britain would follow due process if Benjamin Netanyahu visited the UK, foreign minister David Lammy said on Monday, when asked if London would fulfil the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant against the Israeli prime minister.
“We are signatories to the Rome Statute, we have always been committed to our obligations under international law and international humanitarian law,” Lammy told reporters at a G7 meeting in Italy.
“Of course, if there were to be such a visit to the UK, there would be a court process and due process would be followed in relation to those issues.”
The ICC issued the warrants on Thursday against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Ibrahim Al-Masri for alleged crimes against humanity.
Several EU states have said they will meet their commitments under the statute if needed, but Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has invited Netanyahu to visit his country, assuring him he would face no risks if he did so.
“The states that signed the Rome convention must implement the court’s decision. It’s not optional,” Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, said during a visit to Cyprus for a workshop of Israeli and Palestinian peace activists.
Those same obligations were also binding on countries aspiring to join the EU, he said.

 

 


Turkiye man kills seven before taking his own life

Turkiye man kills seven before taking his own life
Updated 25 November 2024
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Turkiye man kills seven before taking his own life

Turkiye man kills seven before taking his own life

Istanbul: A 33-year-old Turkish man shot dead seven people in Istanbul on Sunday, including his parents, his wife and his 10-year-old son, before taking his own life, the authorities reported on Monday.
The man, who was found dead in his car shortly after the shooting, is also accused of wounding two other family members, one of them seriously, the Istanbul governor’s office said in a statement.
The authorities, who had put the death toll at four on Sunday evening, announced on Monday the discovery near a lake on Istanbul’s European shore of the bodies of the killer’s wife and son, as well as the lifeless body of his mother-in-law.
According to the Small Arms Survey (SAS), a Swiss research program, over 13.2 million firearms are in circulation in Turkiye, most of them illegally, for a population of around 85 million.