Israelis rally for hostage release, Netanyahu ouster

A water cannon is used against demonstrators during a protest calling for the release of hostages kidnapped in the deadly October 7 attack on Israel by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas from Gaza, in Tel Aviv, Israel, March 9, 2024. (REUTERS)
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A water cannon is used against demonstrators during a protest calling for the release of hostages kidnapped in the deadly October 7 attack on Israel by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas from Gaza, in Tel Aviv, Israel, March 9, 2024. (REUTERS)
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Updated 10 March 2024
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Israelis rally for hostage release, Netanyahu ouster

Israelis rally for hostage release, Netanyahu ouster
  • Saturday’s gathering bore some resemblance to mass protests against Netanyahu’s controversial legal overhaul before the war in Gaza — “a century ago,” as one protester put it with a sigh
  • Israel has killed 30,960 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the Hamas-ruled territory’s health ministry

TEL AVIV: Shouting “Elections now!” and “Bring back the hostages now!,” thousands of Israeli demonstrators gathered in Tel Aviv Saturday to demand the departure of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after five months of war in Gaza.
With t-shirts and banners featuring the names and pictures of hostages seized during Hamas’s October 7 attack, the crowd demanded swift action to rescue the remaining captives.
The attack on southern Israel that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli figures.




An aerial view shows mourners watching as medical personnel prepare the bodies of 47 Palestinians, that were taken and later released by Israel, during a mass funeral in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on March 7, 2024, amid ongoing battles between Israel and the militant group Hamas. (AFP)

Israel’s retaliatory campaign to destroy Hamas has killed 30,960 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the Hamas-ruled territory’s health ministry.
Around 100 hostages remain in Gaza alive and 31 are presumed dead, Israel has said, a key source of demonstrators’ despair.
“We are a broken country,” said Ora, a psychologist in her 60s who did not want to give her full name.
Some protesters called for an immediate ceasefire, a position Netanyahu’s government has so far rejected, arguing it would amount to a victory for Hamas.
“Ceasefire? yes, we don’t have any choice,” said Israel Alva, a former soldier who now sells medical equipment, adding that there was no “political plan” for after the war.
Mediators have been pushing for a new truce deal before the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, set to begin in the coming days.
But US President Joe Biden said on Friday that a breakthrough was “looking tough.”

Shai Gill, a 50-year-old airline pilot who joined the Tel Aviv rally, said Netanyahu’s government — already hit by a massive protest wave before the war — “cannot stay in power” after the October 7 attack.
“They don’t have the trust of the people and we have to go for an election,” Gill said.
He accused the government of being “driven by the motivation to stay in power, and not by what is good for the country. They just are clinging to their seats.”
Police later said they arrested 16 protesters for public disturbances, while the force used water canons to disperse the crowd as they blocked a highway.
Saturday’s gathering bore some resemblance to mass protests against Netanyahu’s controversial legal overhaul before the war in Gaza — “a century ago,” as one protester put it with a sigh.
Israel’s top court in January ruled against a key component of the changes, which have largely been shelved.
Netanyahu had argued that they were necessary to rebalance powers between judges and elected officials.
But his detractors warned the multi-pronged package could have paved the way for authoritarian rule and be used by Netanyahu to quash possible corruption convictions against him.
Netanyahu was dealt a new blow this week when a probe found that the premier “bears personal responsibility” for a 2021 stampede in northern Israel that killed 45 Jewish pilgrims.
Netanyahu’s Likud party said in response that the investigation was politically motivated.
“Netanyahu has always governed the same way, with this attitude of ‘I’m not responsible’,” Gill said.
 

 


Netanyahu says France assures Israel its firms can take part in Paris Air Show

Netanyahu says France assures Israel its firms can take part in Paris Air Show
Updated 8 sec ago
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Netanyahu says France assures Israel its firms can take part in Paris Air Show

Netanyahu says France assures Israel its firms can take part in Paris Air Show
JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Sunday that French President Emmanuel Macron had given him assurances that Israeli companies would be able to take part in the Paris Air Show.
The two had a phone conversation during which the assurance was given, according to a statement by the prime minister’s office.
Separately, Macron’s office said in a statement that the presence of Israeli companies at the air show “could be favorably considered, as a result of the ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon.”
Israeli defense companies were last year banned from participating in a defense industry exhibition held in Paris as Macron called for Israel to cease some military operations in Gaza.
That ban strained relations, but a French court in October overturned a government ban on Israeli companies taking part in a naval arms exhibition near Paris.
The Paris Air Show, the world’s largest, is held every two years, alternating every other year with Farnborough in Britain. It is due to take place from June 16 until June 22. Leading aerospace, aviation and defense companies from around the world typically take part in both events.
A ceasefire agreement reached this month between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas, which it has been fighting in Gaza, remains in effect, as does another truce agreement struck last year between Israel and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. (Reporting by Alexander Cornwell, additional reporting by Leigh Thomas in Paris Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Hugh Lawson)

Emirati explorer circles Antarctica in two helicopters with adventurers

Emirati explorer circles Antarctica in two helicopters with adventurers
Updated 26 January 2025
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Emirati explorer circles Antarctica in two helicopters with adventurers

Emirati explorer circles Antarctica in two helicopters with adventurers
  • The journey took a month and covered 19,050 kilometers
  • Explorers encounter massive icebergs, frozen rivers and strong winds

LONDON: Emirati explorer Ibrahim Sharaf Al-Hashemi participated in an air mission that completed the first circular flight around Antarctica using two helicopters.

Al-Hashemi is the first Emirati to participate in this historic expedition, which launched on Dec. 4, 2024, and concluded on Jan. 17, 2025, according to WAM, the official news agency of the UAE.

The journey covered 19,050 kilometers and took a month, starting and ending at Union Glacier Camp. The trip reportedly took seven years of meticulous planning to tackle the region’s logistical challenges and extreme weather.

The team flew over remote icy landscapes under explorer Frederik Paulsen’s leadership, encountering massive icebergs, frozen rivers and strong winds.

Al-Hashemi’s endeavor illustrates the UAE’s growing role in global missions and long-haul flights in harsh environments, WAM added.


Palestinian health ministry in Gaza Strip says war toll at 47,306

Palestinian health ministry in Gaza Strip says war toll at 47,306
Updated 26 January 2025
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Palestinian health ministry in Gaza Strip says war toll at 47,306

Palestinian health ministry in Gaza Strip says war toll at 47,306
  • New bodies are found under the rubble
  • Health ministry said war had also left 111,483 people wounded

GAZA STRIP: The Palestinian health ministry in the Gaza Strip said on Sunday the death toll from the war with Israel had reached 47,306, with numbers rising in spite of a ceasefire as new bodies are found under the rubble.
The ministry said hospitals in the Gaza Strip had received 23 bodies in the past 72 hours — 14 “recovered from under the rubble,” five who “succumbed to their injuries” from earlier in the war, and four new fatalities.
It did not specify how the new fatalities occurred.
The ministry said the war had also left 111,483 people wounded.
Some Gazans have died from wounds inflicted before the ceasefire, with the health system in the Palestinian territory largely destroyed by more than 15 months of fighting and bombardment.
The ministry again reiterated its appeal for Gazans to submit information about dead or missing people to help update its records.
The war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas was sparked by the militant group’s October 7, 2023 attack, which resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people on the Israeli side, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.


Sudan army chief visits HQ after recapture from paramilitaries

Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan. (File/AFP)
Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan. (File/AFP)
Updated 26 January 2025
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Sudan army chief visits HQ after recapture from paramilitaries

Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan. (File/AFP)
  • Army’s recapture of the General Command of the Armed Forces is its biggest victory in the capital since reclaiming Omdurman
  • Attack on Friday on Saudi Hospital in the besieged North Darfur state capital El-Fasher killed 70 people: WHO

PORT SUDAN: Sudan’s army chief visited on Sunday his headquarters in the capital Khartoum, two days after forces recaptured the complex, which paramilitaries had encircled since the war erupted in April 2023.
“Our forces are in their best condition,” Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan told army commanders at the reclaimed headquarters close to the city center and airport.
The army’s recapture of the General Command of the Armed Forces is its biggest victory in the capital since reclaiming Omdurman, Khartoum’s twin city on the Nile’s west bank, nearly a year ago.
In a statement on Friday, the army said it had merged troops stationed in Khartoum North (Bahri) and Omdurman with forces at the headquarters, breaking the siege of both the Signal Corps in Khartoum North and the General Command, just south across the Nile River.
Since the early days of the war, when the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) quickly spread through the streets of Khartoum, the military had to supply its troops inside the headquarters via airdrops.
Burhan was himself trapped inside for four months before emerging in August 2023 and fleeing to the coastal city of Port Sudan.
The recapture of the headquarters follows other gains for the army.
Earlier this month, troops regained control of Wad Madani, just south of Khartoum, securing a key crossroads between the capital and surrounding states.
The war in Sudan has unleashed a humanitarian disaster of epic proportions.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed and, according to the United Nations, more than 12 million uprooted.
Famine has been declared in parts of Sudan but the risk is spreading for millions more people, a UN-backed assessment said last month.
Particularly in the country’s western Darfur region and in Kordofan in the south, families have been forced to eat grass, animal fodder and peanut shells to survive.
During Sunday prayers in Rome, Pope Francis lamented how the country has become the site of “the most serious humanitarian crisis in the world.”
He called on both sides to end the fighting and urged the international community to “help the belligerents find paths to peace soon.”
Both sides have been accused of targeting civilians and indiscriminately shelling residential areas, with the RSF specifically accused of ethnic cleansing, systematic sexual violence and laying siege to entire towns.
The United States announced sanctions this month against RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, accusing his group of committing genocide.
A week later, it also imposed sanctions against Burhan, accusing the army of attacking schools, markets and hospitals, as well as using food deprivation as a weapon of war.
Across the country, up to 80 percent of health care facilities have been forced out of service, according to official figures.
A deadly attack late Friday on the Saudi Hospital in the besieged North Darfur state capital El-Fasher killed 70 people and injured 19 others, the World Health Organization said on Sunday.
“At the time of the attack, the hospital was packed with patients receiving care,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X.
In a rare statement addressing the targeting of health care in Sudan, Saudi Arabia also condemned the attack as a “violation of international law and international humanitarian law.”
AFP could not independently verify which of Sudan’s warring sides had launched the attack.
However, local activists reported that the hospital was hit by a drone after the RSF issued an ultimatum demanding army forces and their allies leave the city in advance of an expected offensive.
The WHO chief said that another facility in North Darfur’s Al-Malha, just north of El-Fasher, had also been attacked in recent days.
“We continue to call for a cessation of all attacks on health care in Sudan, and to allow full access for the swift restoration of the facilities that have been damaged,” Ghebreyesus said.
“Above all, Sudan’s people need peace. The best medicine is peace,” he added.


Pope Francis says Sudan's war 'most serious humanitarian crisis'

Pope Francis says Sudan's war 'most serious humanitarian crisis'
Updated 26 January 2025
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Pope Francis says Sudan's war 'most serious humanitarian crisis'

Pope Francis says Sudan's war 'most serious humanitarian crisis'
  • A drone attack on a hospital in El-Fasher killed at least 70 people
  • Pope Francis appeals to warring parties in Sudan to cease hostilities

VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis said during Sunday prayers that the horror of the Holocaust can not be “forgotten or denied” as he also highlighted current suffering caused by Sudan’s civil war.
Speaking on the eve of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, he called on the entire world to “work together to eliminate the scourge of anti-Semitism as well as all forms of religious discrimination and persecution.”
Turning to Sudan, Francis said it was the “most serious humanitarian crisis in the world.”
“I renew my appeal to the warring parties in Sudan to cease hostilities and agree to sit at a negotiating table,” he said at the Sunday Angelus service.
The conflict in Sudan between the army and the Rapid Support Forces militia has triggered a huge humanitarian disaster, killing tens of thousands of people, uprooting more than 12 million and causing widespread starvation in parts of the country.
A drone attack on a Saudi-run hospital in El-Fasher in Sudan's Darfur region killed at least 70 people and wounded 19 others, according to the World Health Organization on Sunday.