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COP28: Calls for more nuclear and less 'destructive' methane

By - Dec 02,2023 - Last updated at Dec 02,2023

Participating world leaders and delegates pose for a family photo during the COP28 United Nations climate summit in Dubai on Friday (AFP photo)

DUBAI — The United States led calls at UN climate talks on Saturday for efforts to curb methane emissions but also pushed a deeply controversial drive to boost nuclear energy to curb global warming.

With smoggy skies in Dubai highlighting the challenges facing the world, other pledges are expected at the COP28 conference, including stepping up the deployment of renewable energy.

The use of nuclear power as a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels is highly controversial as environmental groups are concerned about safety and the disposal of nuclear waste.

But more than 20 nations ranging from the US to Ghana, Japan and several European countries said in a declaration that it plays a "key role" in the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by mid-century.

They called for the tripling of nuclear energy capacity by 2050 from 2020 levels.

"We are not making the argument to anybody that this is absolutely going to be a sweeping alternative to every other energy source," US climate Envoy John Kerry said at COP28.

“But we know because [of] the science and the reality of facts... that you can’t get to net zero 2050 without some nuclear”, he said.

The other signatories include Britain, France, South Korea, Ukraine and the United Arab Emirates. But nuclear powers Russia and China did not sign up.

Environmental group 350.org said the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan highlighted the dangers of atomic power.

“While we appreciate that the Biden administration is looking to invest in alternatives to fossil fuels, we don’t have time to waste on dangerous distractions like nuclear energy,” said its North American Director Jeff Ordower.

Experts point to the fact that nuclear plants can take decades to go into service.

“Nuclear energy takes much longer than renewable energy to be operational,” 350.org added.

 

Fossil fuel expansion ‘frightening’ 

 

The declaration came as more than 50 world leaders took the stage at COP28 for the second day in a row, though US President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are skipping the talks.

US Vice President Kamala Harris announced a $3 billion contribution to a global fund to help developing countries with the energy transition and the effects of climate change, its first pledge to it since 2014.

“Today, we are demonstrating through action how the world can and must meet this crisis,” Harris said.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said energy transition “has to be now”, adding: “We all have to demonstrate the same determination to phase out fossil fuels, beginning with coal.”

Meanwhile Colombia became one of the largest fossil fuel producers to join a group of climate-vulnerable island nations calling to end new development of planet-heating coal, oil and gas.

Colombia said its decision to join the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative was an important step in its climate plans. 

Colombian Environment Minister Susana Muhamad said it was “frightening” that governments continued to plan to expand their fossil fuel exploitation.

While nations are locked in contentious negotiations on a phase out or phase down of fossil fuels, there is broad backing for the tripling of renewable energy by 2030, an issue that will feature highly on Saturday.

The US and China, the world’s two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, will later hold a summit with the UAE on methane emissions, the second driver of global warming after fossil fuels.

“The science must be simple: To turn down the heat, you simply have to turn down the methane,” said Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley.

Washington has announced it will tighten curbs on methane emissions from the oil and gas industry.

The new standards would phase in eliminating routine flaring of natural gas produced by oil wells and require comprehensive monitoring of methane leaks from wells and compression stations.

Methane emissions also come from the agriculture sector, with cows and sheep releasing the gas during digestion and in their manure.

Methane “is the most destructive gas”, Kerry said.

 

Israeli strikes rock Gaza for second day after truce collapse

Health ministry in Gaza says nearly 200 people had been killed since pause expired early Friday

Dec 02,2023 - Last updated at Dec 02,2023

A photo taken from southern Israel near the border with the Gaza Strip on Saturday, shows smoke billowing over the Palestinian territory during Israeli bombardment (AFP photo)

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories (AFP) — Israel carried out deadly bombardments in Gaza for a second day on Saturday after a week-long truce with Hamas collapsed despite international calls for an extension.

Clouds of grey smoke from the strikes hung over Gaza, where the health ministry said nearly 200 people had been killed since the pause in hostilities expired early on Friday.

Both sides blamed each other for breaking the truce, with Israel claiming that Hamas had tried to fire a rocket before it ended and failed to produce a list of further hostages for release.

As hostilities resumed, Hamas's armed wing received "the order to resume combat" and to "defend the Gaza Strip", according to a source close to the group who asked not to be named because they were not authorised to speak to the media.

International leaders and humanitarian groups condemned the return to fighting.

"I deeply regret that military operations have started again in Gaza," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on X, formerly Twitter.

Fears of a wider regional conflict grew after the Syrian defence ministry said Israeli strikes had hit Damascus on Saturday and the militant group Hizbollah said one of its members had been killed in an Israeli strike on Lebanon on Friday. The United States said it is working with regional partners to reach another ceasefire.

“We’re going to continue to work with Israel and Egypt and Qatar on efforts to reimplement the pause,” US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters in California on Friday.

Israeli forces said on Friday that five of the hostages seized by Hamas had died, and that the group was still holding “136 hostages, including 17 women and children”.

Seven days of hostage-prisoner exchanges had yielded tearful reunions of Israeli families with their released relatives and jubilation in the streets of the occupied West Bank as Palestinian prisoners walked free from Israeli jails.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters in Dubai that the United States remained “intensely focused on getting everyone home, getting hostages back” and “pursuing the process that had worked for seven days” during the truce.

But Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy told reporters: “Having chosen to hold onto our women, Hamas will now take the mother of all thumpings.”

Israeli forces said that “ground, air and naval forces struck terror targets in the north and south of the Gaza Strip, including in Khan Yunis and Rafah”.

Outside the Al Ahli hospital in Gaza City, a man in a blue sweater bellowed in grief and turned his face and hands to the sky after viewing a dead boy in a body bag, AFPTV footage showed.

“What did he do wrong? God, what did we do to deserve this?” he yelled.

 

‘Horror movie’ 

 

Guterres has warned of a “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza, where the United Nations says 1.7 million people are displaced and short of food, water and other essentials.

“The healthcare service is on its knees,” Rob Holden, a World Health Organisation senior emergency officer, told journalists from Gaza as explosions were heard in the background.

“It is like a horror movie.”

On a bed at Khan Yunis’s Nasser hospital, Amal Abu Dagga wept, her beige veil covered in blood.

“I don’t even know what happened to my children,” she said. A relative, Jamil Abu Dagga, told AFP the family had been at home when the bombs started falling.

In Israel, sirens warning of potential missiles sounded in several communities near Gaza. Authorities said they were restarting security measures in the area, including closing schools.

A rocket strike destroyed a van in one Israeli community near Gaza.

 ‘Evacuation zones’ 

 

Mediation efforts by Qatar and Egypt were ongoing, said a source briefed on the talks who asked not to be named.

During the seven-day truce, Hamas freed 80 Israeli hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners, and more aid entered Gaza.

Twenty-five other hostages, mostly Thais, were also freed in separate arrangements.

Israeli forces published a map of “evacuation zones” in the Gaza Strip that it said would enable residents to “evacuate from specific places for their safety if required”.

Residents in various areas of Gaza were sent SMS warnings on Friday.

Israeli forces “will begin a crushing military attack on your area of residence with the aim of eliminating the terrorist organisation Hamas”, the warnings said.

“Stay away from all military activity of every kind.”

On Thursday, eight Israeli hostages, some holding dual nationality, were released in the seventh round of exchanges under the truce.

The country’s prison service later said another 30 Palestinian prisoners, 23 minors and seven women, had been freed.

Hamas said it had offered to hand over the bodies of a mother and her two sons, one of them a baby, in talks to extend the now-expired truce.

Deadly fighting resumes in Gaza as truce expires

By - Dec 01,2023 - Last updated at Dec 02,2023

A woman holding a child mourns her baby girl killed in an Israeli strike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, as she waits to receive the body for burial in the courtyard of the al-Najjar hospital on Friday, after battles resumed between Israel and the Hamas movement. A temporary truce between Israel and Hamas expired on Friday, with the Israeli army saying combat operations had resumed, accusing Hamas of violating the operational pause. (AFP Photo by Mohammad Abed)

Gaza Strip, Palestinian Territories – Intense fighting erupted once again in Gaza on Friday as a week-long truce expired and Israel resumed its deadly bombardment of suspected Hamas positions in the densely inhabited Palestinian territory.

The Hamas-run health ministry in the Gaza Strip said 29 people had been killed in the first hours after the pause in hostilities ended at 0500 GMT.

An AFPTV live camera feed showed an explosion and large grey cloud rising over northern Gaza. Israeli forces said its warplanes were "striking" Hamas targets in Gaza, where AFP journalists reported bombings in the north and south.

Combat resumed shortly after Israeli forces said it had intercepted a rocket fired from Gaza, the first from the territory since a missile launched minutes into the start of the truce on November 24.

A source close to Hamas told AFP the group's armed wing had received "the order to resume combat" and to "defend the Gaza Strip", with heavy fighting reported in parts of Gaza City.

In Khan Yunis, a group of men chanted "God is greatest" as they rushed through the streets carrying a body wrapped in a white shroud.

The "war has returned, even more fierce", Anas Abu Dagga, 22, told AFP at a hospital in the city in southern Gaza.

In Israel, sirens warning of potential missiles sounded in several communities near Gaza, and authorities said they were restarting security measures in the area including closing schools.

Qatar, which helped to broker the trace with diplomatic support from the US and Egypt, called for the violence to stop.

Its foreign ministry said the bombing "complicates mediation efforts and exacerbates the humanitarian catastrophe in the Strip" and it urged "the international community to move quickly to stop the violence".

 

Talks 'ongoing'

 

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said fighting had restarted after Hamas "violated" the truce.

"The Government of Israel is committed to achieving the goals of the war: Releasing the hostages, eliminating Hamas and ensuring that Gaza never again constitutes a threat to the residents of Israel," it said.

Despite the resumption of fighting, talks between Qatari and Egyptian mediators were "ongoing", said a source briefed on the talks.

During the seven-day truce Hamas freed 80 Israeli hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners, and more aid entered Gaza, where about 80 per cent of the population is displaced and short of food and water.

Another 25 hostages, mostly Thais, were also freed outside the scope of the truce agreement.

On Thursday, Washington's top diplomat Antony Blinken, meeting Israeli and Palestinian officials, called for the truce to be extended, and warned any resumption of combat must protect Palestinian civilians.

Other world leaders, and aid groups, had also sought an extended pause in the fighting that began on October 7 when Hamas broke through Gaza's militarised border into Israel.

During the unprecedented attack, Hamas killed about 1,200 people, and kidnapped about 240, according to Israeli authorities.

Israel vowed to eliminate Hamas and unleashed an air and ground military campaign in Gaza that the Hamas government says has killed more than 15,000 people, mostly civilians.

 

'Coming back'

 

On Thursday eight more Israeli hostages, some holding dual nationality, were released.

It was fewer than the 10 hostages a day promised under the truce deal. A source close to Hamas said it was counting two Russian-Israeli women released on Wednesday as part of the seventh batch.

The release brought relief for Keren Shem, whose daughter Mia was among those freed. The family released footage showing Keren weeping with joy as she was informed by phone of her daughter's imminent freedom.

"Mia is coming back," she cried out.

Not long after the hostages arrived in Israel, the country's prison service said another 30 Palestinian prisoners, 23 minors and seven women, had been freed.

After meeting leaders in Israel and the occupied West Bank, Blinken said Washington wants "to see this process continue to move forward".

"We want an eighth day and beyond," he said. Blinked left Israel early Friday.

A source close to Hamas said the group backed another extension and mediators were working to prolong the pause, but the negotiations appeared to have failed.

Israel had made clear it viewed the truce as a temporary pause to secure the release of hostages.

"We swore... to eliminate Hamas, and nothing will stop us," Netanyahu said in a video released by his office, after meeting with Blinken.

His government has come under increasing pressure, however, to account for how it will protect civilians in the territory, which is under blockade, with no way for people to escape.

 

'Protection plans'

 

Blinken had warned that any resumed military operation by Israel "must put in place humanitarian civilian protection plans that minimise further casualties of innocent Palestinians".

Specifically, Israel must "clearly and precisely" designate areas "in southern and central Gaza, where they can be safe and out of the line of fire", he said.

International bodies have called for more time to get medical supplies, food and fuel into Gaza, where an estimated 1.7 million people have been forced from their homes.

The truce had allowed people to return to the ruins of their homes to pick through the rubble for remaining belongings and provided a sense of safety after weeks of daily bombardment.

The violence in Gaza has also raised tensions in the West Bank, where nearly 240 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers since October 7, according to the Ramallah-based Palestinian health ministry.

The New York Times reported that Israeli authorities were aware Hamas was planning a major assault, and had obtained a blueprint for the attack, which the group appears to have largely followed on October 7.

Intelligence and military officials dismissed the plan as aspirational, even after a warning that the group had carried out a training exercise in line with the plan, according to the report.

 

Yahya Sinwar: Hamas Gaza leader and ‘dead man walking’

By - Dec 01,2023 - Last updated at Dec 01,2023

Yahia Al-Sinwar (C), the Gaza Strip chief of the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement, addresses supporters during a rally marking Al-Quds Day, a commemoration in support of the Palestinian people celebrated annually on the last Friday of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, in Gaza City, on April 14 (AFP photo)

GAZA STRIP Palestinian Territory — After a career in the shadows, spent in Israeli prisons and the internal security apparatus of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar rose to lead the Islamist movement in the Gaza Strip.

Now, Israeli officers say, he is a “dead man walking”.

Sinwar stands accused of masterminding the group’s October 7 sudden attacks, the worst in Israel’s history, which officials say left around 1,200 people dead and about 240 dragged back to Gaza as hostages.

It was probably a year or two in the planning, “took everyone by surprise” and “changed the balance of power on the ground”, said Leila Seurat of the Arab Centre for Research and Political Studies (CAREP) in Paris.

The ascetic 61-year-old has not been seen since October 7. Known for his secrecy, Sinwar is a security operator “par excellence”, according to Abu Abdallah, a Hamas member who spent years alongside him in Israeli jails.

“He makes decisions in the utmost calm, but is intractable when it comes to defending the interests of Hamas,” Abu Abdallah told AFP in 2017 after his former co-detainee was elected Hamas’s leader in Gaza.

 

Punishing collaborators 

 

After October 7, Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht called Sinwar the “face of evil” and declared him a “dead man walking”.

Born in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in southern Gaza, Sinwar joined Hamas when Sheikh Ahmad Yassin founded the group around the time the first Palestinian intifada began in 1987.

Sinwar set up the group’s internal security apparatus the following year, and went on to head an intelligence unit dedicated to flushing Palestinians accused of providing information to Israel.

A graduate of the Islamic University in Gaza, he learned perfect Hebrew during his 23 years in Israeli jails, and is said to have a deep understanding of Israeli culture and society.

He was serving four life terms for the killing of two Israeli soldiers when he became the most senior of 1,027 Palestinians released in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011.

Sinwar later became a senior commander in the Ezzedine Al Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, before taking overall leadership of the movement in Gaza.

While his predecessor had encouraged efforts by Hamas to present a moderate face to the world, Sinwar has preferred to force the Palestinian issue to the fore by more violent means.

Gaza’s Hamas government says Israel’s withering aerial and ground assault has killed nearly 15,000 people in the Palestinian territory, most of them civilians.

 

‘Radical and pragmatic’ 

 

Sinwar dreams of a single Palestinian state bringing together the Gaza Strip, the occupied West Bank, controlled by President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fateh party, and occupied East Jerusalem.

According to US think tank the Council on Foreign Relations, he has vowed to punish anyone obstructing reconciliation with Fateh, the rival political movement with which Hamas engaged in factional fighting after elections in 2006.

That coming together remains elusive, but the prisoner releases resulting from the current truce agreement with Israel have seen Hamas’s popularity soar in the West Bank.

Sinwar has pursued a path of being “radical in military planning and pragmatic in politics”, according to Seurat.

“He doesn’t advocate force for force’s sake, but to bring about negotiations” with Israel, she said.

The Hamas chief was added to the US list of the most wanted “international terrorists” in 2015, as was Mohammed Deif, the current commander of the Ezzedine Al Qassam Brigades and another alleged October 7 mastermind.

Security sources outside Gaza say that both Sinwar and Deif have taken refuge in the network of tunnels built under the territory to withstand Israeli bombs.

Vowing earlier this month to “find and eliminate” Sinwar, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant urged Gazans to turn Sinwar in, adding “if you reach him before us, it will shorten the war”.

UN climate talks open in UAE with pressure for urgent action

By - Dec 01,2023 - Last updated at Dec 01,2023

Delegates attend the opening cremony of the COP28 United Nations climate summit in Dubai on Thursday (AFP photo)

DUBAI — The UN climate conference opened on Thursday in United Arab Emirates with nations urged to make faster cuts to planet-warming emissions and phase out fossil fuels.

The two-week-long negotiations in a vast exhibition venue in Dubai come at a pivotal moment, with emissions still climbing and the UN saying this year is likely to be the hottest in human history.

World leaders, Britain's King Charles III and activists and lobbyists are among more than 97,000 people jetting into the flashy Gulf city, which boasts the world's tallest skyscraper one of its busiest airports, and an indoor ski slope.

Double the size of last year's conference, COP28 is billed as the largest-ever climate gathering and the UN and hosts the UAE say they will be the most important since Paris 2015.

There, nations agreed to limit global warming to well below 2ºC since the pre-industrial era, and preferably to a safer limit of 1.5ºC.

But scientists say the world is off-track, and the nearly 200 nations gathering for COP28 must commit to accelerating climate action or risk the worst impacts of a warming planet.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said leaders should aim for a complete "phaseout" of fossil fuels, a proposal opposed by some powerful nations that has dogged past negotiations.

"Obviously, I am strongly in favour of language that includes [a] phaseout, even with a reasonable time framework," Guterres told AFP before flying to Dubai.

A central focus will be a stocktake of the world's limited progress on curbing global warming, which requires an official response at these talks.

On Thursday, nations were expected to formally approve the launch of a "loss and damage" fund to compensate climate-vulnerable countries after a year of hard-fought negotiations over how it would work.

Christiana Figueres, who was UN climate chief when the Paris deal was reached, questioned the role of fossil fuel companies at COP and said she was “giving up hope” they could be part of the solution to warming.

“A very clear signal that the era of fossil fuels needs to end very rapidly is our litmus test for COP28,” said Romain Ioualalen, global policy campaign manager at Oil Change International.

Rallying a common position on the matter will be difficult at COP where all nations, whether dependent on oil, sinking beneath rising seas or locked in geopolitical rivalry, must take decisions unanimously.

The UAE hopes to marshal an agreement on the tripling of renewable energy and doubling the annual rate of energy efficiency improvements by 2030.

Nations will navigate a range of thorny issues between November 30 and December 12, and experts say geopolitical tensions and building trust could be a huge challenge.

At the opening of the conference, delegates were asked to pause for a minute’s silence for civilians killed in the Gaza conflict.

 

US warship shoots down drone launched from Yemen

By - Dec 01,2023 - Last updated at Dec 01,2023

This handout satellite photo taken and released on Tuesday courtesy of Maxar Techonologies shows the recently seized Galaxy Leader ship anchored offshore of As Salif, Yemen, with a support tender vessel positioned nearby (AFP photo)

WASHINGTON — A US Navy warship shot down a drone on Wednesday launched from a part of Yemen controlled by Iran-backed Houthi rebels, the American military's Central Command said.

The Houthis, who control much of Yemen and are part of an "axis of resistance" arrayed against Israel, have launched a series of drones and missiles since the start of the Hamas-Israel war last month.

"At approximately 1100 [Sanaa time], while in the South Red Sea, the Arleigh-Burke Class Guided Missile Destroyer USS Carney [DDG 64] shot down an Iranian-produced KAS04 unmanned aerial vehicle launched from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen," CENTCOM said in a statement.

"Although its intentions are not known, the UAV was heading toward the warship," which was escorting a US Navy oiler and a US-flagged ship carrying military equipment, it said, adding that "there were no injuries to US personnel and no damage to US vessels".

US warships have shot down drones or missiles launched from Yemen on several occasions in recent weeks.

The US Navy downed multiple drones on November 23, one drone on November 15, and both missiles and drones on October 19, while the Houthis shot down an American drone earlier this month.

The drone and missile launches and shootdowns are related to the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza which began after Hamas' sudden attack on October 7. Israel responded to the attack with a relentless land and air campaign on Hamas-controlled Gaza that the group's officials say has killed nearly 15,000 people.

Those deaths have provoked widespread anger in the Middle East and provided an impetus for attacks against American troops in the region as well as on Israel by armed groups opposed to both.

Israel has faced drone and missiles launched from Lebanon and Yemen, while American forces in Iraq and Syria have been targeted in a series of attacks that have injured dozens of US personnel.

Washington has blamed the attacks on its personnel on Iran-backed forces and responded with air strikes on multiple occasions.

Hamas claims responsibility for Jerusalem shooting that killed 3

By - Dec 01,2023 - Last updated at Dec 01,2023

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Hamas claimed responsibility for a shooting attack in Jerusalem that killed three people on Thursday, shortly after the extension of a truce between Israel and the fighter group that rules the Gaza Strip.

Police said the two gunmen who carried out the attack were from occupied East Jerusalem and were shot dead at the scene, near a bus stop on the western side of the city, where there are no checkpoints controlling entry.

Israeli occupation officials identified those killed as a 73-year-old rabbi, Elimelech Waserman, along with Hana Ifergan, 67, and Livia Dikman, 24.

In a statement issued hours later claiming responsibility, Hamas called the attack "a natural response to the unprecedented crimes of the occupier in the Gaza Strip and against children in Jenin", in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Footage circulating on social media and broadcast on Israeli television showed two men emerging from a white car and opening fire on people waiting for a bus, before security personnel and bystanders intervene and return fire.

AFP was unable to immediately verify the footage.

Meanwhile, two Israeli soldiers were slightly injured in a ramming attack at a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank, the army said, adding “soldiers at the scene shot and neutralised the assailant”.

Violence has surged in the West Bank since the Hamas sudden attacks on southern Israel on October 7 and Israel’s retaliatory assault on the group in the Gaza Strip.

That attack was also claimed by the armed wing of Hamas, the Ezzedine Al Qassam Brigades.

 

5 premature babies found dead in Gaza hospital: Hamas health ministry

By - Nov 30,2023 - Last updated at Nov 30,2023

KHAN YUNIS, Palestinian Territories — Five premature babies have been found dead at a hospital in Gaza City during a pause in fighting between Israel and Hamas, the Hamas-run health ministry said on Wednesday.

Before a temporary truce in the seven-week war came into force on Friday, several hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip had been targeted by Israeli raids, with some evacuated on the orders of the Israeli army.

Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf Al Qudra told AFP that Israeli soldiers had blocked access to the intensive care unit at Al Nasr paediatric facility, and doctors were finally “able to get into the ward on Tuesday night”.

There, Qudra said, “the occupation [Israeli] forces left five premature babies” who were found “partly decomposed”.

“The soldiers forbade the families from going near” the newborns before Tuesday, he said.

Israeli forces said it was unable to immediately comment on the matter when contacted by AFP.

Earlier this month, the world followed the fate of 39 premature babies trapped in another major Gaza City hospital, Al Shifa, which was besieged and ultimately raided by Israeli forces.

Eight of the infants died due to a lack of electricity to run their incubators, the Hamas-run health ministry said.

Another 31 were evacuated, most of whom went on to Egypt for treatment.

 

Gazans in midst of 'epic humanitarian catastrophe' — UN chief

By - Nov 30,2023 - Last updated at Nov 30,2023

A wounded Palestinian woman from the Baraka family is surrounded by her children upon their arrival at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip following Israeli air strikes that hit their building on November 13 (AFP photo)

UNITED NATIONS, United States — Gazans are "in the midst of an epic humanitarian catastrophe before the eyes of the world", UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday, while calling for an expansion of the current pause in the Israeli war on Gaza. 

"Intense negotiations are taking place to prolong the truce, which we strongly welcome, but we believe we need a true humanitarian ceasefire," he said at a United Nations Security Council meeting.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Al Maliki told the meeting that the Palestinian people "are faced with an existential threat" amid the conflict.

"We are owed respect to our inherent dignity... Israel has no right to self-defence against a people that it occupies," he said.

The ongoing truce in the latest conflict between Israel and Hamas is scheduled to expire early Thursday after a six-day pause in the fighting, which was sparked by sudden Hamas attacks on October 7 that prompted a devastating Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

With 60 Israelis and180 Palestinian prisoners already released and more set to walk free on Wednesday under the agreement, conflict mediator Qatar said negotiators were working for a "sustainable" ceasefire.

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned that “[a resumption] in fighting would only most likely turn into a calamity that devours the whole region”.

48-hour truce extension 

 

After a 48-hour extension of an initial four-day truce, a new group of 12 hostages, 10 Israelis plus two Thais, was freed from Gaza on Tuesday, with 30 Palestinians released by Israel.

“I welcome the arrangement reached by Israel and Hamas, with the assistance of the governments of Qatar, Egypt and the United States,” Guterres said.

The truce has brought a temporary halt to the fighting that began last month following sudden attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7.  Israel’s subsequent air and ground campaign in Gaza has killed nearly 15,000 people, mostly civilians, according to health officials in Gaza, and reduced large parts of the north of the territory to rubble.

“Meanwhile, an estimated 45 per cent of all homes in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed,” Guterres said.

The truce in Gaza has not ended violence in the occupied West Bank, where an eight-year-old Palestinian boy and a teenager were killed by Israeli forces on Wednesday, the Palestinian health ministry said.

Since the October 7 sudden attacks, more than 230 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli soldiers or settlers, according to the ministry.

Hamas says willing to extend truce for more hostage releases

By - Nov 30,2023 - Last updated at Nov 30,2023

Children stand alongside fighters from the Al Qassam Brigades in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday, on the 6th day of a truce in battles between Israel and Hamas (AFP photo)

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories — Hamas is willing to extend a truce for four days and release more Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, a source close to the militant group said on Wednesday, as mediators sought a lasting halt to the conflict.

A current truce is scheduled to expire early Thursday after a six-day pause in a conflict sparked by sudden Hamas attacks that prompted a devastating Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.

With 60 Israelis and 180 Palestinian prisoners already released and more set to walk free on Wednesday under the agreement, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was scheduled to travel to Israel later Wednesday to push for an extension of the pause in fighting.

Hamas earlier "informed the mediators that it is willing to extend the truce for four days", a source close to the group told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Under that arrangement, "the movement would be able to release Israeli prisoners that it, other resistance movements and other parties hold during this period, according to the terms of the existing truce", the source added.

Speaking after a NATO meeting in Brussels, Blinken said he would be "focused on doing what we can to extend the pause so that we continue to get more hostages out and more humanitarian assistance in".

With tensions high despite the truce, the Palestinian health ministry in the occupied West Bank said an eight-year-old boy and a teenager were shot and killed by the Israeli forces on Wednesday in the territory.

The Israeli forces said it was "verifying" the information.

Violence has flared in the West Bank since the conflict erupted, with nearly 240 Palestinians killed there by Israeli forces or settlers, according to the ministry.

After a 48-hour extension of an initial four-day truce, a new group of 12 hostages, 10 Israelis plus two Thais, was freed from Gaza on Tuesday, with 30 Palestinians released by Israel.

An AFP journalist saw masked and armed fighters from Hamas and the Islamic Jihad hand over hostages to Red Cross officials in Rafah, near the border with Egypt.

The Israeli hostages freed were all women, including 17-year-old Mia Leimberg, who returned to Israel with her mother and aunt.

Hamas has released more than 20 other hostages outside the scope of the truce agreement, mostly Thais.

Thailand’s foreign ministry said 17 of the released Thai hostages would arrive back in the kingdom on Thursday. It said about 13 Thais remained among the hostages held in Gaza.

Among the Palestinian prisoners freed in Tuesday’s exchange was 14-year-old Ahmad Salaima who returned to his home in occupied East Jerusalem to cheers and hugs from relatives.

Israel’s government has received a list of the new hostages to be freed on Wednesday, Israeli media reported. There was no official confirmation.

Some of the hostages in Gaza are in the hands of another Palestinian fighter group, Islamic Jihad.

Its spokesman Musab Al Breim told AFP on Tuesday in the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis that “the war is now continuing in indirect negotiations with the Israeli occupier”.

He said his group and Hamas were “committed” to respecting the truce agreement “as long as the occupier does so, and we are ready to pursue a political route to make the occupier pay”.

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