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Author: AFP

  • Israel broadly agrees Gaza truce, US official says, ahead of talks

    Israel broadly agrees Gaza truce, US official says, ahead of talks

    Palestinian Territories – Israel has “more or less accepted” a proposal for a ceasefire in its attacks in the Gaza Strip, a US official said Saturday as Palestinian negotiators were expected in Cairo.

    Mediators have been scrambling to lock in a truce before Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month which begins on March 10 or 11, eyeing an end to the almost five-month conflict that has ravaged Gaza.

    In a sign of the dire humanitarian conditions as violence rages on, the besieged territory’s health ministry reported more than a dozen child malnutrition deaths in recent days.

    The US official told reporters on condition of anonymity that “there’s a framework deal” for a ceasefire which “the Israelis have more or less accepted”.

    “Right now, the ball is in the camp of Hamas,” the official said.

    A source close to Hamas told AFP a delegation from the group was headed from Qatar to Egypt on Saturday.

    Israel has yet to confirm that it has accepted the truce plan.

    Speaking on condition of anonymity, the source said that Hamas would deliver its “official answer” to the plan, which resulted from talks with Israeli negotiators in Paris late last month.

    The mediators “will resume negotiations for a Gaza truce in Cairo on Sunday,” Egypt’s AlQahera News reported.

    Earlier the United States, which provides ally Israel with billions of dollars in military aid, said it began airdropping aid into war-ravaged Gaza.

    The start of the US relief operation came a day after President Joe Biden announced the move and spoke of the “need to do more” to alleviate the dire humanitarian crisis.

    But parachuting aid cannot replace “the fundamental need to move assistance through as many land crossings as possible”, the US official said.

    ‘Unjustifiable’ shooting

    Gaza has faced dwindling deliveries of relief supplies across its land borders, which aid groups blame at least in part on Israeli restrictions.

    US Central Command, in a post on social media platform X, said the air operation was conducted jointly with Jordan and saw planes drop “over 38,000 meals along the coastline of Gaza allowing for civilian access to the critical aid”.

    Several Arab and European governments have carried out air drops over Gaza since November but Tuesday’s operation was the first involving the United States.

    At least 13 children have died from “malnutrition and dehydration”, the Gaza health ministry said Saturday, two days after a desperate rush for aid from a convoy of trucks in Gaza City ended in the deaths of dozens of Palestinians.

    The health ministry said Israeli forces shot civilians but the Israeli army insisted most died in a stampede or crush.

    A United Nations team that visited Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital reported seeing “a large number” of gunshot wounds among Palestinians in the aftermath of the aid truck storming.

    Hossam Abu Safiya, director of the city’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, said all the casualties it admitted were hit by “bullets and shrapnel from occupation forces”.

    The European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell joined calls for an “impartial international investigation” into the “tragic event” early Thursday.

    The shooting “against civilians trying to access foodstuff is unjustifiable”, he said.

    The health ministry said 116 people were killed and more than 750 wounded in the chaotic scenes, which drew widespread international condemnation.

    The aid convoy deaths helped push the number of Palestinian war dead in Gaza to 30,320, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

    ‘Destruction is everywhere’

    Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN humanitarian office OCHA, said on Friday that “a famine is almost inevitable”.

    Laerke cited the near-total closure of commercial food imports, the “trickle of trucks” coming in with food aid, and the “massive access constraints” to moving around inside Gaza.

    The International Rescue Committee said the very fact airdrops were “being considered is testament to the serious access challenges”.

    The group said parachuting aid mostly distracts “time and effort from proven solutions to help at scale”.

    AFPTV images showed people running and pedalling fast on bicycles past bomb-damaged buildings on a rutted dirt road to reach aid floating down to Gaza City.

    Hisham Abu Eid, 28, of Gaza City’s Zeitun area, said he got two bags of flour from an aid distribution and gave one to his neighbours.

    “Aid that is getting into Gaza is rare and not enough for even a small number of people. Famine is killing people,” Abu Eid said.

    As mediators seek a deal that may include more aid into Gaza and the release of hostages, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come under increasing domestic pressure over the fate of the remaining captives.

    Israelis protesters reached Jerusalem on Saturday, capping a four-day march from the Gaza border to pressure the government to secure the hostages’ release.

    The US official said a six-week ceasefire was on the table, “starting today if Hamas agrees to release the defined category of vulnerable hostages… the sick, the wounded, elderly and women”.

    In Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of Gazans displaced by the war have sought refuge, Israeli bombardment that hit a makeshift camp killed at least 11 people, the Gaza health ministry said.

    The strike near a hospital also left “about 50 injured, including children”, it added.

    The Israeli military said it was looking into the incident.

    An AFP journalist saw wounded people being rushed on stretchers to another Rafah hospital.

    “Destruction is everywhere and there are many martyrs,” said resident Belal Abu Jekhleh.

    burs-ami/kir

    © Agence France-Presse

  • Iran counts ballots in vote seen favouring conservatives

    Iran counts ballots in vote seen favouring conservatives

    Tehran, Iran – Iran began counting ballots on Saturday after a vote for parliament and a key clerical body, with local media estimating a low turnout and conservatives expected to dominate.

    Friday’s elections were the first since widespread protests triggered by the September 2022 death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, 22, an Iranian Kurd. She had been arrested for allegedly violating the Islamic republic’s strict dress code for women.

    Iran has also been badly affected by international sanctions that have led to an economic crisis since the last elections in 2020.

    State TV reported early Saturday the “start of vote counting” after polling stations closed at midnight. Voting hours had been extended several times during the day, the official IRNA news agency reported.

    A record figure of 15,200 hopefuls were competing for seats in the 290-member parliament. Another 144 candidates sought a place in the 88-member Assembly of Experts, which is exclusively made up of male Islamic scholars.

    The Assembly selects or, if necessary, dismisses Iran’s supreme leader. Many potential candidates for the chamber were disqualified.

    Local Fars news agency estimated turnout at “more than 40 percent”, among 61 million eligible voters.

    President Ebrahim Raisi welcomed the voters’ “enthusiastic” participation as “another historic failure to (Iran’s) enemies,” according to IRNA.

    Iran considers the United States, its Western allies and Israel enemies of the state and accuses them of seeking to intervene in its internal affairs.

    Reformist daily Ham Mihan ran an opinion piece titled “The Silent Majority”, which said turnout was “estimated to be lower than” in previous elections.

    Iran’s 2020 parliament was elected during the Covid pandemic with a turnout of 42.57 percent — the lowest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

    A state TV poll had found more than half of respondents were indifferent about this year’s elections.

    Candidates for parliament are vetted by a body, the Guardian Council, whose members are determined by the supreme leader.

    The present parliament is dominated by conservatives and ultra-conservatives, and analysts expected a similar makeup in the new assembly.

    Despite Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s appeal for people to cast ballots, many Iranians were split on whether or not to do so.

    Former reformist president Mohammad Khatami was among people who avoided the poll, according to a coalition of parties called the Reform Front.

    In February the conservative Javan daily quoted Khatami as saying Iran is “very far from free and competitive elections.”

    rkh-ap/it

    © Agence France-Presse

  • Israel forces kill more than 110 civilians rushing for food aid

    Israel forces kill more than 110 civilians rushing for food aid

    Israeli forces in Gaza opened fire on Palestinians scrambling for food aid in a chaotic melee on Thursday that the health ministry said killed more than 100 people.

    The Israeli military said a “stampede” occurred when thousands of desperate Gazans surrounded a convoy of 38 aid trucks, leading to dozens of deaths and injuries, including some who were run over by the lorries.

    An Israeli source acknowledged troops had opened fire on the crowd, believing it “posed a threat”.

    Gaza’s health ministry condemned what it called a “massacre” in Gaza City in which 112 people were killed and more than 750 others wounded.

    Türkiye accused Israel of committing “another crime against humanity” and condemning Gazans to “famine” as civilians scavenge for dwindling supplies of food.

    “The fact that Israel… this time targets innocent civilians in a queue for humanitarian aid, is evidence that (Israel) aims consciously and collectively to destroy the Palestinian people”, the Turkish foreign ministry  said in a statement.

    “We therefore call on all those with influence over the Israeli government to stop the ongoing violence in Gaza.”

    The incident adds to a Palestinian death toll from the war that the ministry said had topped 30,000, and dampens hopes a truce deal between Israel and Hamas militants could be just days away.

    There were conflicting reports on what exactly unfolded in the hours before dawn.

    A witness in Gaza City, declining to be named for safety reasons, said the violence began when thousands of people rushed towards aid trucks at the city’s western Nabulsi roundabout, with soldiers firing at the crowd “as people came too close” to tanks.

    Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said the military had fired “a few warning shots” to try to disperse a crowd that had “ambushed” the aid trucks.

    When the crowd got too big, he said the convoy tried to retreat and “the unfortunate incident resulted in dozens of Gazans killed and injured”.

    Aerial images released by the Israeli army showed what it said were scores of people surrounding aid trucks in Gaza City.

    Ali Awad Ashqir, who said he had gone to get some food for his starving family, told AFP he had been waiting for two hours when trucks began to arrive.

    “The moment they arrived, the occupation army fired artillery shells and guns,” he said.

    Hagari later denied Israeli forces carried out any shelling or strikes at the time.

     ‘Another day from hell’ 

    U.S. President Joe Biden said Washington was checking “two competing versions” of the incident, while a State Department spokesman said the United States had been in touch with Israel and was “pressing for answers” on what happened.

    The incident would complicate efforts to broker a truce, Biden said, later admitting that any deal was unlikely to happen by Monday — the timeline that he had predicted earlier this week.

    The U.S. president spoke with Qatari and Egyptian leaders in separate phone calls, the White House said, saying he discussed both the ceasefire and the “tragic and alarming” aid incident.

    The U.N. Security Council held a closed-door emergency meeting on the incident.

    The U.S. deputy ambassador to the U.N. Robert Wood condemned the incident before entering the meeting, calling it a “tragic day”.

    Saudi Arabia strongly condemned what it called the “targeting” of unarmed civilians, while Kuwait and the UAE also issued condemnations.

    Qatar warned that Israel’s “disregard for Palestinian blood… (will) pave the way for an expanding cycle of violence”.

    French President Emmanuel Macron expressed his “strongest condemnation”, while Spain’s foreign minister described the events as “unacceptable”.

    European Union foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell also denounced the “carnage”.

    Looting of aid trucks has previously occurred in northern Gaza, where desperate residents have taken to eating animal fodder and even leaves to stave off starvation.

    The chief of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said that no U.N. agency had been involved in Thursday’s aid delivery, and called the incident “another day from hell”.

  • Asia’s richest man launches lavish pre-wedding party in India

    Asia’s richest man launches lavish pre-wedding party in India

    India’s richest man has kicked off lavish pre-wedding parties for his son by feeding more than 50,000 people in his home town, with celebrations in the coming days expected to include some of the world’s most influential figures.

    Global tech chief executives, industry titans, Bollywood stars, pop icons and politicians are expected to jet in on March 1 for the main three-day celebrations hosted by billionaire tycoon Mukesh Ambani, who is building a sprawling Hindu temple complex for the event.

    Mr Ambani, 66, chairman of oil-to-telecoms giant Reliance Industries, is Asia’s richest person according to the Forbes real-time billionaires list, worth more than US$114 billion (S$153.28 billion).

    On Feb 28 evening, Mr Ambani and wife Nita – along with their son Anant and his fiancee Radhika Merchant – launched a three-day feast for villagers at the Reliance Township in his home town of Jamnagar, in India’s western state of Gujarat.

    Mr Anant, 28, who also serves as a director on the boards of several Reliance-owned firms, is expected to marry Ms Merchant, 29, the daughter of an industrialist, later in 2024.

    Mr Ambani held the most expensive wedding in India for his daughter in 2018, which reportedly cost US$100 million and saw US pop megastar Beyonce perform.

    This time, R&B star Rihanna, illusionist David Blaine and Bollywood’s Diljit Dosanjh will perform for the guests, who are expected to include Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Meta head Mark Zuckerberg, and several current and former political leaders, according to a list released by Reliance.

    Also among the invitees is Disney chief Robert Iger, following a deal agreed on Feb 28 between Reliance Industries and Walt Disney to merge their Indian media businesses.

    The merger will create a US$8.5 billion entertainment giant in the world’s most populous nation and fifth-largest economy.

    Other guests invited include Ms Ivanka Trump, former US president Donald Trump’s daughter, as well as former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt, former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper and the King of Bhutan.

    Bollywood stars Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan, cricket icons Sachin Tendulkar and M.S. Dhoni, and industry titan Gautam Adani are also invited in a who’s-who of India’s super-rich elite.

    The Ambanis are building a Hindu temple complex in Jamnagar, to keep “India’s rich cultural and spiritual identity at the heart of the wedding festivities”, the Reliance Foundation said on social media.

    The main celebrations, running from March 1-3, will have different themes, events and dress codes – including a “jungle fever” day with a visit to an animal rescue centre run by Mr Ambani, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported. AFP

  • Iran Launches Imaging Satellite From Russia

    Iran Launches Imaging Satellite From Russia

    Iran announced on Thursday the launch of a remote sensing and imaging satellite into orbit from Russia, according to state media.

    The launch of “Pars-I” with the Russian Soyuz-2.1b launcher was broadcast live by state television in Iran.

    The satellite was launched “from Russia’s Vostochny launch base”, some 8,000 kilometres (5,000 miles) east of Moscow, according to the official IRNA news agency.

    Iran’s telecommunications minister Issa Zareppur said “Pars-I” was “fully domestically developed” in Iran, which he said carried out a dozen satellite launches over the past two years.

    In January, Iran said it simultaneously launched three satellites into orbit, nearly a week after the launch of a research satellite by its Revolutionary Guards.

    Western governments including the United States have repeatedly warned Iran against such launches, saying the same technology can be used for ballistic missiles, including ones designed to deliver a nuclear warhead.

    Iran has countered that it is not seeking nuclear weapons and that its satellite and rocket launches are for civil or defence purposes only.

    In August 2022, Russia launched Iran’s remote-sensing Khayyam satellite into orbit from Kazakhstan amid controversy that Moscow might use it to boost its surveillance of military targets in its war in Ukraine.

    Moscow has sought to strengthen its alliances with other countries ostracised by the West, including Iran, which has been accused of supplying Moscow with armed drones for its offensive in Ukraine.

    This month, the United States said it would soon impose new sanctions on Iran over its backing for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    Tehran denies the allegations.

  • Death toll in Gaza exceeds 30,000 as Israeli attacks continue and famine looms

    Death toll in Gaza exceeds 30,000 as Israeli attacks continue and famine looms

    Palestinian Territories – The health ministry of Gaza said Thursday more than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 7 as Israel intensified its attacks on the besieged strip.

    While mediators say a truce deal between Israel and Hamas could be just days away, aid agencies have sounded the alarm of a looming famine in Gaza’s north.

    Children have died “due to malnutrition, dehydration and widespread famine” at Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital, said the health ministry, whose spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra has called for “immediate action” from international organisations to prevent more of these deaths.

    Citing the deteriorating conditions in Gaza, USAID head Samantha Power said Israel needed to open more crossings so that “vitally needed humanitarian assistance can be dramatically surged”.

    “This is a matter of life and death,” Power said in a video posted on social media platform X.

    The latest overall toll for Palestinians killed in the war came after at least 79 people died overnight across the war-torn Gaza Strip, the health ministry said Thursday.

    Mediators from Egypt, Qatar and the United States have been seeking a six-week pause.

    Negotiators are hoping a truce can begin by the start of Ramadan, the holy Muslim month that kicks off March 10 or 11, depending on the lunar calendar.

    The proposals reportedly include the release of some Israeli hostages held in Gaza in exchange for several hundred Palestinian detainees held by Israel.

    Short of the complete withdrawal Hamas has called for, a source from the group said the deal might see Israeli forces leave “cities and populated areas”, allowing the return of some displaced Palestinians and humanitarian relief.

    US President Joe Biden is “pushing all of us to try to get this agreement over the finish line”, said his secretary of state, Antony Blinken.

    Famine ‘imminent’

    The crucial southern Gaza city of Rafah is the main entry point for aid crossing the border from neighbouring Egypt.

    But the World Food Programme said no humanitarian group had been able to deliver aid to the north for more than a month, accusing Israel of blocking access.

    Neighbouring Jordan has coordinated efforts to air-drop supplies over southern Gaza.

    “If nothing changes, a famine is imminent in northern Gaza,” the World Food Programme’s deputy executive director Carl Skau said.

    Israeli officials have denied blocking supplies, and the army on Wednesday said “50 trucks carrying humanitarian aid” had made it to northern Gaza in recent days.

    Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has left hundreds of thousands displaced, with nearly 1.5 million people now packed in Rafah.

    In a sign of growing desperation among Gazans over living conditions, a rare protest was held Wednesday by residents over the soaring prices of commodities.

    “Everyone is suffering inside these tents,” said Amal Zaghbar, who was displaced and sheltering in a makeshift camp.

    “We’re dying slowly.”

    Israel has repeatedly threatened a ground offensive on Rafah, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying a truce would only delay it, as such an operation was needed for “total victory” over Hamas.

    Egypt — which borders Rafah — says an assault on the overcrowded city would have “catastrophic repercussions”.

  • Israel minister says Arab trade ties unphased by Gaza war

    Israel minister says Arab trade ties unphased by Gaza war

    Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates – Israel’s economy minister on Tuesday said trade relations with Arab states had not been affected by the Gaza war, the cost of which he added his country was able to bear.

    “There is no change at all” in trade relations, Nir Barkat told journalists on the sidelines of the World Trade Organization’s 13th ministerial meeting in Abu Dhabi.

    “Things are very stable… I think the leadership understands we have the same goal, which is to collaborate in a peaceful way.”

    When asked about Israel’s economic losses due to the war, Barkat said it could add “anywhere between 150 to 200 billion shekels ($42-55 billion)” to the country’s national debt.

    “That’s not something Israel cannot bear mid- to long-term,” he said.

    In January, Israel’s cabinet approved an additional 55 billion shekels ($15 billion) to meet the cost of the war, while the mobilisation of reservists and the displacement of communities on the borders with Gaza and Lebanon have disrupted the economy.

    The war began when the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

    Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas and responded with a relentless offensive in Gaza. ccording to health ministry, at least 29,878 people, mostly women and children, have been killed.

    Confronted with the conflict, Arab countries that have normalised relations with Israel in recent years have been forced to balance diplomacy with fiercly pro-Palestinian Arab public opinion.

    They include the United Arab Emirates, which normalised ties with Israel in 2020 as part of the US-brokered Abraham Accords.

    Barkat said the Gaza war could help Israel boost sales of military technology, noting there is “high interest” from many countries, without specifying if Arab states were among them.

    “Especially after this war we are probably going to be leading many, many initiatives… of how next-generation warfare is going to look like,” he said.

    “Anybody that thinks they are threatened by regimes of Iran then they would have to tap us to better understand what we have learnt and what the solutions and security challenges are,” he added.

    “We are way ahead of everyone.”

    apo-ho/dcp/dv

    © Agence France-Presse

  • Nearly 500 rhinos killed as poaching increases in South Africa

    Nearly 500 rhinos killed as poaching increases in South Africa

    Johannesburg (AFP) – Almost 500 rhinos were killed by poachers in South Africa last year, up 11 percent on 2022, despite government efforts to tackle the illicit trade in horns, ministers said Tuesday.

    The country is home to a large majority of the world’s rhinos and a hotspot for poaching, which is driven by demand from Asia, where horns are used in traditional medicine for their supposed therapeutic effect.

    The environment ministry said 499 of the thick-skinned herbivores were killed in 2023, mostly in state-run parks.

    The lion’s share were poached in eastern KwaZulu-Natal province, with the Hluhluwe–Imfolozi park — Africa’s oldest reserve — alone losing 307 animals.

    “This is the highest poaching loss within this province,” said Environment Minister Barbara Creecy.

    “Multi-disciplinary teams continue to work tirelessly in an attempt to slow this relentless pressure”.

    In recent years, authorities have tightened security particularly around the Kruger National Park, a tourist magnet bordering Mozambique that has seen its rhino population fall drastically over the past 15 years.

    This has resulted in lower losses there — 78 rhinos were killed in 2023, 37 percent fewer than in 2022.

    But it has also pushed poachers towards regional and private reserves like Hluhluwe–Imfolozi.

    Law enforcement agencies arrested 49 suspected poachers in KwaZulu-Natal last year, Creecy said.

    Across the country, 45 poachers and horn traffickers were convicted in court, she added.

    Among them was a former field ranger sentenced to 10 years behind bars for killing a rhino he later claimed had charged him.

    As of 2023, the national parks authority requires new employees to take a lie detector test amid concerns that some workers might be in cahoots with poachers.

    Rhino horns are highly sought in black markets where the price per weight rivals that of gold and cocaine.

    Nevertheless, in September last year the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reported that thanks to conservation efforts rhino numbers had grown across Africa.

    Nearly 23,300 specimens roamed the continent at the end of 2022, up 5.2 percent on 2021, IUCN said, adding the increase was the first bit of “good news” for the animals in over a decade.

    About 15,000 live in South Africa, according to a separate estimate by the International Rhino Foundation.

    “While these updated IUCN populations figures provide hope, these gains remain tenuous as long as the poaching crisis continues,” Jeff Cooke of the World Wildlife Fund said Tuesday.

    And he described the spike in killings in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal, in particular, as “of grave concern”.

  • Biden hopes for ceasefire in Gaza by next week, lasting through Ramadan

    Biden hopes for ceasefire in Gaza by next week, lasting through Ramadan

    US President Joe Biden said Monday he hoped a ceasefire in Gaza could start by the beginning of next week, adding that Israel was ready to halt operations during the Muslim month of Ramadan as part of any deal.

    Amid a spiraling humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian territory, representatives from Egypt, Qatar, the United States, France and others have acted as go-betweens for Israel and Hamas, seeking a halt to the fighting and the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza.

    Asked during an election campaign trip to New York when such an agreement might start, Biden replied: “I hope by the end of the weekend.”

    “My national security advisor tells me that we’re close, we’re close, we’re not done yet. My hope is by next Monday we’ll have a ceasefire,” Biden told reporters.

    Biden, 81, gave more details of what a deal could look like when he spoke on the issue in an interview with late-night US television show host Seth Meyers.

    “There is a path forward, with difficulty,” he told Meyers when asked about how to end the conflict.

    Mediators have been hoping to get a deal in place before the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in about two weeks.

    “Ramadan’s coming up and there’s been an agreement by the Israelis that they would not engage in activities during Ramadan as well, in order to give us time to get all the hostages out,” Biden said.

    Biden has previously spoken of a six-week ceasefire.

    ‘Temporary ceasefire’

    The US president said such a deal “gives us time to begin to move in directions that a lot of Arab countries are prepared to move” in terms of normalizing relations with Israel.

    “I think that if we get that temporary ceasefire, we’re going to be able to move in a direction where we can change the dynamic,” he said.

    Biden has firmly supported Israel despite the soaring death toll in its offensive in Gaza following the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7.

    But he has been increasing pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to limit civilian casualties, particularly in Israel’s planned offensive in Rafah.

    Israel had “made a commitment” to evacuate significant parts of Rafah before they “go and take out the remainder of Hamas,” Biden added.

    But overall Biden warned that the “only way Israel ultimately survives” was to reach a deal that gives “peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians.”

    Amid mounting tensions with Netanyahu, Biden told Meyers that if Israel continued with its “incredibly conservative government they have… they’re going to lose support from around the world.”

    Biden’s comments come after his National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Sunday that representatives from several parties — although not Gaza’s rulers Hamas — met in Paris over the weekend and reached an understanding about the “basic contours” of a temporary ceasefire.

    Israel’s military campaign has killed at least 29,782 people in Gaza since October 7, mostly women and children, according to the ministry.

    dk/ssy

    © Agence France-Presse

  • US Welcomes Palestinian Authority Reform After PM Quits

    US Welcomes Palestinian Authority Reform After PM Quits

    The United States on Monday praised reforms by the Palestinian Authority as a step toward reuniting the West Bank with war-ravaged Gaza after the prime minister stepped down.

    “We do welcome steps for the PA to reform and revitalize itself,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters, using the Palestinian Authority’s initials.

    Miller said Secretary of State Antony Blinken had encouraged the Palestinian Authority “to take those steps” during talks with president Mahmud Abbas.

    “We think those steps are positive. We think they’re an important step to achieving a reunited Gaza and West Bank under the Palestinian Authority,” Miller said.

    He declined to comment directly on the resignation of prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh, saying it was an internal matter for Palestinians.

    Shtayyeh submitted his resignation to 88-year-old Abbas, pointing to the need for change due to the “new reality” in the Gaza Strip, ruled by rivals Hamas.

    Israel launched a relentless military campaign into Gaza after Hamas on October 7 carried out the deadliest attack ever on Israeli soil.

    The Palestinian leadership has been divided since 2007, with the Palestinian Authority exercising limited power in the West Bank.

    Blinken has called for the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority to exert control over the Gaza Strip after the war, an idea that has not been met with enthusiasm from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right government, which has voiced opposition to creating a Palestinian state.