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Tag: International agreements

  • UN takes no immediate action at emergency meeting on Guyana-Venezuela dispute over oil-rich region

    UN takes no immediate action at emergency meeting on Guyana-Venezuela dispute over oil-rich region

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    UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations Security Council took no immediate action at a closed emergency meeting late Friday requested by Guyana after Venezuela’s referendum claiming the vast oil- and mineral-rich Essequibo region that makes up a large part of its neighbor.

    But diplomats said the widespread view of the 15 council members was that the international law must be respected, including the U.N. Charter’s requirement that all member nations respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of every other nation — and for the parties to respect the International Court of Justice’s orders and its role as an arbiter.

    A possible press statement was circulated to council members and some said they needed to check with capitals, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the consultations were private.

    At the start of Friday’s meeting, the diplomats said, U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo briefed the council on the dispute.

    In a letter to the Security Council president requesting the emergency meeting, Guyana Foreign Minister Hugh Hilton Todd accused Venezuela of violating the U.N. Charter by attempting to take its territory.

    The letter recounted the arbitration between then-British Guiana and Venezuela in 1899 and the formal demarcation of their border in a 1905 agreement. For over 60 years, he said, Venezuela accepted the boundary, but in 1962 it challenged the 1899 arbitration that set the border.

    The diplomatic fight over the Essequibo region has flared since then, but it intensified in 2015 after ExxonMobil announced it had found vast amounts of oil off its coast.

    The dispute escalated as Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro held a referendum Sunday in which Venezuelans approved his claim of sovereignty over Essequibo. Venezuelan voters were asked whether they support establishing a state in the disputed territory, known as Essequibo, granting citizenship to current and future area residents and rejecting the jurisdiction of the United Nations’ top court in settling the disagreement between the South American countries. Maduro has since ordered Venezuela’s state-owned companies to immediately begin exploration in the disputed region.

    The 61,600-square-mile (159,500-square-kilometer) area accounts for two-thirds of Guyana. But Venezuela, which has the world’s largest proven oil reserves, has always considered Essequibo as its own because the region was within its boundaries during the Spanish colonial period.

    In an Associated Press interview Wednesday, Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali accused Venezuela of defying a Dec. 1 ruling by the International Court of Justice in the Netherlands.

    It ordered Venezuela not to take any action until the court rules on the countries’ competing claims, a process expected to take years.

    Venezuela’s government condemned Ali’s statement, accusing Guyana of acting irresponsibly and alleging it has given the U.S. military’s Southern Command a green light to enter Essequibo.

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  • The UN secretary-general invoked 'Article 99' to push for a Gaza cease-fire. What exactly is it?

    The UN secretary-general invoked 'Article 99' to push for a Gaza cease-fire. What exactly is it?

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    It’s called “Article 99.” And it hasn’t been used for decades. Until this week.

    With an intensifying Israeli offensive and escalating civilian casualties, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres invoked a rarely exercised power this week to warn the Security Council of an impending “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza. He urged members to demand an immediate humanitarian cease-fire.

    Guterres invoked Article 99 of the U.N. Charter — last used over half a century ago — which says the secretary-general may inform the council of matters he believes threaten international peace and security.

    Here, Edith M. Lederer, longtime chief U.N. correspondent for The Associated Press, breaks down what this could mean.

    It’s a provision of the United Nations Charter, the U.N. constitution. It states that the secretary-general — the U.N.’s top diplomat — may bring to the attention of the Security Council “any matter which, in his opinion, may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.”

    This gives an important additional power to the secretary-general, since the real power at the U.N. is held by its 193 member nations and especially the 15 countries that serve on the Security Council.

    Article 99 is extremely rarely used. The last time it was invoked was during fighting in 1971 that led to the creation of Bangladesh and its separation from Pakistan.

    Guterres invoked Article 99 because he sees the situation in Gaza at risk of a “complete collapse” of the territory’s humanitarian system and civil order. It was something he felt needed to be done.

    Arab and Islamic nations followed up on Guterres’s letter immediately.

    The United Arab Emirates, the Arab representative on the Security Council, circulated a short resolution to Security Council members late Wednesday calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. They plan to put that resolution to a vote at a Security Council meeting on Friday morning.

    The United States, which is Israel’s closest ally and has veto power on resolutions, has not supported a cease-fire. On Tuesday, U.S. Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood said that the role of the Security Council in the Israel-Gaza war is not to get in the way of important diplomacy that’s taking place. And he said the Security Council resolution at this time “would not be useful.”

    This could signal a likely veto, but the U.S. has not said either way.

    Because Guterres believes that the humanitarian system and the humanitarian operations in Gaza are collapsing.

    He also warns in his letter that in the current situation, “amid constant bombardment by the Israeli Defense Forces and without shelter or essentials to survive, I expect public order to completely break down soon due to the desperate conditions, rendering even limited humanitarian assistance impossible.”

    Guterres said the situation could get even worse, pointing to possible epidemics and the mass displacement of Palestinians into neighboring countries. He sees a looming disaster.

    Previous secretaries-general have brought threats that they saw to international peace and security to the Security Council without mentioning Article 99. This includes Congo in 1960, the U.S. hostage crisis in Iran that began in November 1979, the Iran-Iraq war in 1980 and more recently Myanmar in 2017.

    We don’t know why they didn’t invoke Article 99, and several of the previous secretaries-general are now dead. Guterres has been very outspoken on both the Hamas attacks on Israel and the very high death toll of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

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  • Armenia and Azerbaijan announce deal to exchange POWs and work toward peace treaty

    Armenia and Azerbaijan announce deal to exchange POWs and work toward peace treaty

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    YEREVAN, Armenia — Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed Thursday to exchange prisoners of war and work toward signing a peace treaty in what the European Union hailed as a major step toward peace in the long-troubled region.

    The two countries said in a joint statement they “share the view that there is a historical chance to achieve a long-awaited peace.” They said they intend “to normalize relations and to reach the peace treaty on the basis of respect for the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

    Azerbaijan waged a lightning military campaign in September in the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The offensive ended three decades of rule there by ethnic Armenians and resulted in the vast majority of the 120,000 residents fleeing the region, which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan.

    Until Thursday’s announcement, the two countries had bitterly argued on the outline of a peace process amid mutual distrust.

    As part of the deal, Armenia agreed to lift its objections to Azerbaijan hosting next year’s international conference on climate change.

    Countries had been unable to agree on an eastern European host for the 2024 climate talks, with Russia vetoeing EU countries and Azerbaijan and Armenia nixing each other. A decision on the meeting’s location and presidency is due within the next week.

    The joint statement said that “the Republic of Armenia supports the bid of the Republic of Azerbaijan to host the 29th Session of the Conference of Parties (COP29) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, by withdrawing its own candidacy.”

    European Council President Charles Michel praised the agreement as a major breakthrough, saying on X that he particularly welcomes the deal to release detainees and make an “unprecedented opening in political dialogue.”

    Michel called on Armenia and Azerbaijan to finalize a peace deal as soon as possible.

    Armenia and Azerbaijan said in their statement that talks between Azerbaijan’s presidential administration and the office of Armenia’s prime minister led to an agreement “on taking tangible steps towards building confidence between two countries.”

    Azerbaijan said it would release 32 captured Armenian military servicemen, while Armenia will release two Azerbaijani soldiers.

    The two countries said they will continue their discussions “regarding the implementation of more confidence building measures” and called on the international community for support “that will contribute to building mutual trust between two countries.”

    ___

    Associated Press writers Aida Sultanova in London and Seth Borenstein in Dubai contributed to this report.

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  • Australia pushes against China's Pacific influence through a security pact

    Australia pushes against China's Pacific influence through a security pact

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    CANBERRA, Australia — The Australian government signed a security pact with its nearest neighbor Papua New Guinea on Thursday that strengthens Australia’s place as the preferred security partner in a region where China’s influence is growing.

    Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his Papuan counterpart James Marape signed the agreement in Australia’s Parliament House six months later than initially planned.

    The June date was abandoned after a security deal struck between the United States and Marape’s government sparked protests in the South Pacific nation in May over concerns that it undermined Papua New Guinea’s sovereignty.

    Marape said the agreement with Australia respects both nations’ sovereignty and was initiated by his government.

    He said the security agreements with Australia and the United States did not mean he was siding with those nations in their strategic competition against China.

    “Our major foreign policy as friends to all, enemies to none remains. And it’s never picking sides,” Marape told reporters.

    Albanese said both Australia and Papua New Guinea’s negotiators achieved what they wanted in the agreement.

    “This is a comprehensive and a historical agreement,” Albanese said. “It will make it easier for Australia to help PNG address its internal security needs and for Australia and Papua New Guinea to support each other’s security and the region stability.”

    Both governments have committed to release full details of the agreement but have yet to do so.

    The agreement is less significant than the treaty-level pact proposed early in the year, but the differences are not yet apparent.

    Papua New Guinea is a diverse, developing nation of mostly subsistence farmers with 800 languages in a strategically important part of the South Pacific.

    With 10 million people, it also the most populous South Pacific nation after Australia, which is home to 26 million.

    Papua New Guinea is a near-neighbor of the Solomon Islands where the government sent shock waves through the Pacific last year by striking a security pact with China. The pact raised fears of a Chinese naval base being established there.

    China later fell short in an ambitious attempt to get 10 Pacific island nations, including Papua New Guinea, to sign a sweeping deal covering everything from security to fisheries.

    Mihai Sora, an expert on Papua New Guinea at the Sydney-based international policy think tank Lowy Institute, said the pact cemented Australia’s position as a primary security partner in the region.

    “For Australia, it’s very much about bedding down the regional security order. Projecting to other Pacific countries that Australia is a trusted security partner,” Sora said.

    “The primary security dividend for Papua New Guinea will be addressing internal security concerns,” Sora added.

    Papua New Guinea struggles to contain escalating tribal violence and civil unrest in remote regions and has a long-term aim to increase its police numbers from 6,000 officers to 26,000.

    Australia has agreed to support Papua New Guinea’s internal security in areas of policing, courts and prisons.

    Australia will support the running of a new police training center in the capital Port Moresby that will be open to recruits from other Pacific nations.

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  • UN chief uses rare power to warn Security Council of impending 'humanitarian catastrophe' in Gaza

    UN chief uses rare power to warn Security Council of impending 'humanitarian catastrophe' in Gaza

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    UNITED NATIONS — U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres used a rarely exercised power to warn the Security Council on Wednesday of an impending “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza and urged its members to demand an immediate humanitarian cease-fire.

    His letter to the council’s 15 members said Gaza’s humanitarian system was at risk of collapse after two months of war that has created “appalling human suffering, physical destruction and collective trauma,” and he demanded civilians be spared greater harm.

    Guterres invoked Article 99 of the U.N. Charter, which says the secretary-general may inform the council of matters he believes threaten international peace and security. “The international community has a responsibility to use all its influence to prevent further escalation and end this crisis,” he said.

    U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said he expects the secretary-general to address the Security Council on Gaza this week and to press for a humanitarian cease-fire.

    A short draft resolution circulated to council members late Wednesday by the United Arab Emirates, the Arab representative on the council, would act on Guterres’ letter under Article 99. It demands “an immediate humanitarian cease-fire” and expresses “grave concern over the catastrophic situation in the Gaza Strip and the suffering of the Palestinian civilian population.”

    Earlier Wednesday, the 22-nation Arab Group at the U.N. strongly backed a cease-fire.

    Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. ambassador, said it is essential that the U.N.’s most powerful body demand a halt to the conflict.

    But the United States, Israel’s closest ally, has veto power in the Security Council and has not supported a cease-fire.

    On Tuesday, U.S. deputy ambassador Robert Wood told reporters that the role of the Security Council in the Israeli-Gaza war “is not to get in the way of this important diplomacy going on on the ground … because we have seen some results, although not as great results as we want to see.”

    A Security Council resolution at this time, he said, “would not be useful.”

    Mansour said a ministerial delegation from Arab nations and the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation will be in Washington on Thursday to meet U.S. officials and press for an immediate cease-fire.

    Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan said the secretary-general invoked Article 99 to pressure Israel, accusing the U.N. chief of “a new moral low” and “bias against Israel.”

    “The secretary-general’s call for a ceasefire is actually a call to keep Hamas’ reign of terror in Gaza,” Erdan said in a statement. “Instead of the secretary-general explicitly pointing to Hamas’ responsibility for the situation and calling on the terrorist leaders to turn themselves in and return the hostages, thus ending the war, the secretary-general chooses to continue playing into Hamas’ hands.”

    In his letter, Guterres denounced “the abhorrent acts of terror” and brutal killing of more than 1,200 people in Israel by Hamas militants on Oct. 7 and the abduction of some 250 people in the attack that started the war. He urged the immediate release of more than 130 still held captive.

    But Guterres noted the worsening state of Gaza under Israel’s ongoing military action, which it says is aimed at obliterating Hamas. More than 16,200 people have been killed, and some 80% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced into increasingly smaller areas.

    “Amid constant bombardment by the Israel Defense Forces, and without shelter or the essentials to survive, I expect public order to completely break down soon due to the desperate conditions, rendering even limited humanitarian assistance impossible,” Guterres warned.

    A total collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza, he said, would have “potentially irreversible implications for Palestinians as a whole and for peace and security in the region.”

    Dujarric, the U.N. spokesman, told reporters earlier that invoking Article 99 was “a very dramatic constitutional move by the secretary-general.” The only previous mention of Article 99 was in a December 1971 report by then Secretary-General U Thant to the council expressing his conviction that the situation in East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, and the Indian subcontinent threatened international peace and security, Dujarric said.

    “One doesn’t invoke this article lightly,” Dujarric said. “I think given the situation on the ground and the risk of complete collapse, not only of our humanitarian operations but of civil order, it’s something that he felt needed to be done now.”

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  • The UK plans to ignore part of its human rights law to revive a Rwanda asylum plan

    The UK plans to ignore part of its human rights law to revive a Rwanda asylum plan

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    LONDON — The U.K. government triggered criticism from opponents and division inside the governing Conservatives on Wednesday with a bill that will let it ignore a part of the country’s human rights law in order to send asylum-seekers on a one-way trip to Rwanda.

    The legislation is part of government plans to overcome a block by the U.K. Supreme Court on its Rwanda policy. The court ruled last month that the plan was illegal because Rwanda isn’t a safe country for refugees.

    Britain and Rwanda have since signed a treaty pledging to strengthen protection for migrants. The U.K. government says that will allow it to pass a law declaring Rwanda a safe destination.

    Home Secretary James Cleverly said the Safety of Rwanda Bill “will make absolutely clear in U.K. law that Rwanda is a safe country.” He urged lawmakers in Parliament to pass the legislation, even though it may violate international human rights rules.

    The government says the law will allow it to “disapply” sections of U.K. human rights law when it comes to Rwanda-related asylum claims.

    On the first page of the bill, Cleverly states that he can’t guarantee that it’s compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights — but that lawmakers should approve it anyway.

    The bill now faces a battle in Parliament. It doesn’t go far enough for some lawmakers on the governing Conservative Party’s authoritarian wing, who want the U.K. to go further and leave the European rights convention completely. That would put Britain among a very few European nonmembers including Belarus and Russia, which was expelled after Moscow launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

    Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick, who has advocated for tough measures, quit on Wednesday after the bill was published.

    The bill also will likely face resistance from centrist Conservative lawmakers who oppose Britain breaching its human rights obligations.

    And Rwandan Foreign Minister Vincent Biruta said that his country would scrap the deal unless Britain stuck to international law.

    “It has always been important to both Rwanda and the U.K. that our rule of law partnership meets the highest standards of international law, and it places obligations on both the U.K. and Rwanda to act lawfully,” he said in a statement.

    The troubled Rwanda plan is central to the U.K. government’s self-imposed goal of stopping unauthorized asylum-seekers arriving on small boats across the English Channel.

    Britain and Rwanda struck a deal in April 2022 for some migrants who cross the Channel to be sent to Rwanda, where their asylum claims would be processed and, if successful, they would stay. The U.K. government argues that the deportations will discourage others from making the risky sea crossing and break the business model of people-smuggling gangs.

    Critics say that it’s both unethical and unworkable to send migrants to a country 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles) away, with no chance of ever settling in the U.K.

    No one has yet been sent to Rwanda under the plan, which has faced multiple legal challenges. The new law, if passed, would make it harder to challenge the deportation orders in the courts.

    The immigration spokeswoman of the opposition Labour Party, Yvette Cooper, said that Jenrick’s resignation showed “total chaos in the government and in the Conservative Party.”

    “This is the desperate dying days of a party ripping itself apart, clearly totally out of ideas, lost any sense of leadership or direction,” she said.

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  • Group of swing state Muslims vows to ditch Biden in 2024 over his war stance

    Group of swing state Muslims vows to ditch Biden in 2024 over his war stance

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    CHICAGO — Muslim community leaders from several swing states pledged to withdraw support for U.S. President Joe Biden on Saturday at a conference in suburban Detroit, citing his refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.

    Democrats in Michigan have warned the White House that Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war could cost him enough support within the Arab American community to sway the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.

    Leaders from Michigan, Minnesota, Arizona, Wisconsin, Florida, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania gathered behind a lectern that read “Abandon Biden, ceasefire now” in Dearborn, Michigan, the city with the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the United States.

    More than 13,300 Palestinians — roughly two-thirds of them women and minors, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza — have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war. Some 1,200 Israelis have been killed, mostly during Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel that triggered the war.

    Biden’s unwillingness to call for a ceasefire has damaged his relationship with the American Muslim community beyond repair, according to Minneapolis-based Jaylani Hussein, who helped organize the conference.

    “Families and children are being wiped out with our tax dollars,” Hussein said. “What we are witnessing today is the tragedy upon tragedy.”

    Hussein, who is Muslim, told The Associated Press: “The anger in our community is beyond belief. One of the things that made us even more angry is the fact that most of us actually voted for President Biden. I even had one incident where a religious leader asked me, ‘How do I get my 2020 ballot so I can destroy it?” he said.

    White House spokesperson Andrew Bates previously said the Biden administration has pushed for humanitarian pauses in the fighting to get humanitarian aid into Gaza, adding that “fighting against the poison of antisemitism and standing up for Israel’s sovereign right to defend itself have always been core values for President Biden.”

    Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania were critical components of the “blue wall” of states that Biden returned to the Democratic column, helping him win the White House in 2020. About 3.45 million Americans identify as Muslim, or 1.1% of the country’s population, and the demographic tends to lean Democratic, according to Pew Research Center.

    But leaders said Saturday that the community’s support for Biden has vanished as more Palestinian men, women and children are killed in Gaza.

    “We are not powerless as American Muslims. We are powerful. We don’t only have the money, but we have the actual votes. And we will use that vote to save this nation from itself,” Hussein said at the conference.

    The Muslim community leaders’ condemnation of Biden does not indicate support for former President Donald Trump, the clear front-runner in the Republican primary, Hussein clarified.

    “We don’t have two options. We have many options. And we’re going to exercise that,” he said.

    ___

    Savage is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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  • Live updates | More Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners are released under truce

    Live updates | More Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners are released under truce

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    Eight Israeli hostages were released from Hamas captivity Thursday in the Gaza Strip as part of a temporary cease-fire deal that has lasted seven days, the Israeli military said.

    Israel freed 30 Palestinian prisoners in the early hours of Friday under the truce deal, which has paused the deadliest fighting in decades between Israel and Palestinians.

    International pressure has mounted for the truce to be upheld as long as possible after weeks of Israeli bombardment and a ground campaign following Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel that triggered the war.

    Thousands of Palestinians in Gaza have been killed by Israel, and more than three-quarters of the population of 2.3 million have been uprooted, leading to a humanitarian crisis.

    Israel has vowed to resume the fighting — with the goal of dismantling Hamas — once the cease-fire ends.

    Currently:

    — Wartime Israel shows little tolerance for Palestinian dissent.

    — Blinken urges Israel to comply with international law and spare civilians.

    — A friendship forged over 7 weeks of captivity lives on as freed women are reunited.

    — Families reunite with 17 Thai hostages freed by Hamas.

    — Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.

    Here’s what’s happening in the war:

    Mia Schem was released Thursday from captivity in Gaza on Thursday. The 21-year-old French Israeli woman was shown with a badly bruised arm being bandaged up while being held hostage in a video released by Hamas after its deadly rampage in southern Israel on Oct. 7.

    Also freed were Bilal Alziadana, 18, and his sister, Aisha, 17. The two are members of Israel’s Bedouin Arab community and had accompanied their father on Oct. 7 to work on a dairy farm on a kibbutz, according to the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum, a grassroots group representing families of hostages. It said their father and an older brother remain in captivity.

    In what has become a daily ritual, Hamas also released a video showing the hostages being turned over to the Red Cross by militants. In one scene, masked gunmen escorted two hostages to waiting vehicles as crowds of onlookers shouted and whistled at them.

    A busload of 30 Palestinian prisoners released by Israel has been welcomed home in the West Bank.

    The bus arrived early Friday in the city of Ramallah, hours after Hamas militants released eight Israeli hostages after eight weeks of captivity in the Gaza Strip.

    Dozens of men, some holding green Hamas flags, greeted the prisoners. The men were hugged and the crowd chanted, “God is great.”

    The exchanges have been taking place nightly since Nov. 24 as part of a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas. The cease-fire is set to expire Friday, but international mediators are working to extend it by at least another day. Israel has vowed to resume its offensive against Hamas in Gaza once the truce ends.

    JERUSALEM — Hamas has freed six of Israeli hostages held in Gaza on Thursday evening, Israel’s military said, hours after releasing two Israeli women.

    The Red Cross in Gaza has taken all the freed hostages into Israel, where they were going to hospitals and would be reunited with their families, according to the Israeli military.

    At least 10 Israelis a day, along with other nationals, have been released during the truce, in return for Israel’s release of at least 30 Palestinian prisoners.

    Asked why Hamas was releasing fewer than the 10 hostages a day outlined in the cease-fire agreement, the Israeli military’s chief spokesperson noted that 12 Israeli citizens had been released the day before, implying that the overall total had met Israeli demands.

    “We insist on the maximum each day,” Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said.

    TEL AVIV, Israel — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken stepped up calls for Israel to comply with international law and spare civilians as it wages its war against Hamas in Gaza.

    Blinken, who met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top officials on his third visit to the region since the start of the war, said he hoped the cease-fire could be extended and more hostages could be released.

    Blinken also said that if Israel resumes the war and moves against southern Gaza to pursue Hamas, it must do so in “compliance with international humanitarian law” and must have “a clear plan in place” to protect civilians.

    He said Israeli leaders understood that ”the massive levels of civilian life and displacement scale we saw in the north not be repeated in the south.”

    WASHINGTON — The White House condemned Thursday’s deadly attack by two Palestinian gunmen on people waiting for buses along a main highway entering Jerusalem, saying the attack was “stark reminder” of the enemy Israel is facing.

    National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the attack, which Hamas claimed responsibility for, “technically” didn’t violate the terms of the ongoing truce between Israel and Hamas, which only covers Gaza.

    “I mean, if anybody’s guessing and wondering whether Hamas still has murderous intentions against the Israeli people, just look at what happened in Jerusalem today,” Kirby said.

    Kirby also expressed hope that the truce, which was extended for a seventh day on Thursday, will be extended again.

    “We’re working on it literally by the hour to see if we can get this seventh day turned into an eighth and ninth and 10th and beyond,” he said.

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  • Gunmen wound seven in rush hour attack near Jerusalem

    Gunmen wound seven in rush hour attack near Jerusalem

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    RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Israel and Hamas on Thursday agreed to extend their cease-fire by another day, just minutes before it was set to expire. The truce in Gaza appeared increasingly tenuous as the number of women and children held by the militants as bargaining chips dwindled after dozens were released.

    Word of the extension came just as the truce was to expire at 7 a.m. (0500 GMT) Thursday. The Qatari Foreign Ministry said the truce was being extended under the same terms as in the past, with Hamas releasing 10 Israeli hostages per day in exchange for Israel’s release of 30 Palestinian prisoners.

    International pressure has mounted for the cease-fire to continue as long as possible after nearly eight weeks of Israeli bombardment and a ground campaign in Gaza that have killed thousands of Palestinians, uprooted three quarters of the population of 2.3 million and led to a humanitarian crisis.

    The war has stoked tensions across the region. On Thursday morning, two gunmen opened fire on people waiting for buses and rides where a main highway from Tel Aviv enters Jerusalem. Israel’s Maged David Adom emergency service said one person was killed and six people were wounded, one of them critically. Police said the two attackers were killed.

    U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Israel late Wednesday on his third trip to the region since the start of the war, and is expected to press for further extensions of the truce and the release of more hostages.

    The announcement followed a last-minute standoff, with Hamas saying Israel had rejected a proposed list that included seven living captives and the remains of three who the group said were killed in Israeli airstrikes. Israel later said Hamas submitted an improved list, paving the way for the extension.

    The talks appear to be growing tougher with most of the women and children taken hostage by Hamas during the deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel that triggered the war already freed. The militants are expected to make greater demands in return for freeing men and soldiers.

    Israel says it will maintain the truce until Hamas stops releasing captives, at which point it will resume its offensive aimed at eliminating the group.

    Hamas is deeply rooted in Palestinian society and has ruled Gaza since 2007. So far, the Israeli onslaught in Gaza seems to have had little effect on the group’s rule, evidenced by its ability to conduct complex negotiations, enforce the truce among other armed groups, and orchestrate the release of hostages.

    Hamas leaders, including Yehya Sinwar, have likely relocated to southern Gaza.

    With Israeli troops holding much of northern Gaza, a ground invasion south — where most of Gaza’s population is now concentrated — will likely bring an escalating cost in Palestinian lives and destruction.

    The Biden administration has told Israel that if it launches an offensive in the south, it must operate with far greater precision.

    The plight of the captives and shock from Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel have galvanized Israeli support for the war. But Netanyahu is under pressure to bring the hostages home and could find it difficult to resume the offensive if there’s a prospect of more releases.

    Since the initial truce began on Friday, both sides have been releasing only women and children. Israeli officials say Gaza militants still hold around 20 women, who would all be released in a few days if the swaps continue at the current rate.

    After that, keeping the truce going depends on tougher negotiations over the release of around 126 men Israel says are held captive, including several dozen soldiers.

    For men — and especially soldiers — Hamas is expected to push for comparable releases of Palestinian men or prominent detainees, a deal Israel may resist.

    So far, most Palestinians released have been teenagers accused of throwing stones and firebombs during confrontations with Israeli forces. Several were women convicted by Israeli military courts of attempting to attack soldiers. Palestinians have celebrated the release of people they see as having resisted Israel’s decades-long military occupation of lands they want for a future state.

    An Israeli official involved in hostage negotiations said talks on a further extension for release of civilian males and soldiers were still preliminary, and that a deal would not be considered until all the women and children are out. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because negotiations were ongoing.

    With Wednesday’s releases, a total of 73 Israelis, including dual nationals, have been freed during the six-day truce, most of whom appear physically well but shaken. Another 24 hostages — 23 Thais and one Filipino — have also been released. Before the cease-fire, Hamas released four hostages, and the Israeli army rescued one. Two others were found dead in Gaza.

    Hamas kidnapped some 240 people during the attack on southern Israel that began the war, including babies, children, women, soldiers, older adults and Thai farm laborers. It killed over 1,200 people in the Oct. 7 attack, mostly civilians.

    Israel’s bombardment and ground invasion in Gaza have killed more than 13,300 Palestinians, roughly two-thirds of them women and minors, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.

    The toll is likely much higher, as officials have only sporadically updated the count since Nov. 11 due to the breakdown of services in the north. The ministry says thousands more people are missing and feared dead under the rubble.

    Israel says 77 of its soldiers have been killed in the ground offensive. It claims to have killed thousands of militants, without providing evidence.

    For Palestinians in Gaza, the truce’s calm has been overwhelmed by the search for aid and by horror at the extent of destruction.

    In the north, residents described entire residential blocks as leveled in Gaza City and surrounding areas. The smell of decomposing bodies trapped under collapsed buildings fills the air, said Mohmmed Mattar, a 29-year-old resident of Gaza City who along with other volunteers searches for the dead under rubble or left in the streets.

    In the south, the truce has allowed more aid to be delivered from Egypt, up to 200 trucks a day. But aid officials say it is not enough, given that most now depend on outside aid. Overwhelmed U.N.-run shelters house over 1 million displaced people, with many sleeping outside in cold, rainy weather.

    At a distribution center in Rafah, large crowds line up daily for bags of flour but supplies run out quickly.

    “Every day, we come here … we spend money on transportation to get here, just to go home with nothing,” said one woman in line, Nawal Abu Namous.

    ___

    Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Melanie Lidman in Jerusalem and Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates contributed.

    ___

    Full AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.

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  • Mali’s governmnet to probe ethnic rebel leaders, suggesting collapse of crucial 2015 peace deal

    Mali’s governmnet to probe ethnic rebel leaders, suggesting collapse of crucial 2015 peace deal

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    BAMAKO, Mali — Mali’s military government announced an investigation into ethnic rebel leaders who signed a peace agreement in 2015 to halt their quest for an independent state, a development experts said shows the crucial deal has collapsed.

    The public prosecutor at the Bamako Court of Appeal ordered Tuesday night the probe into the Tuareg rebellion leaders who have accused the government of not complying with the agreement and attacked security forces in recent months, driving them out of northern Mali in an attempt to create the state of Azawad— which they call home.

    The government in turn has referred to the rebels as a “terrorist group.”

    In a televised written statement, the public prosecutor stated a division “specialized in fighting terrorism and transnational organized crime was to start an investigation against terrorist leaders” who signed the agreement eight years ago.

    Key leaders of the Tuareg rebellion were named in the statement; Alghabass Ag Intalla and Bilal Ag Acherif, as well as leaders of the al-Qaeda-linked JNIM group, Iyad Ag Ghaly and Amadou Koufa.

    For the last couple of months, some of the rebels have been abandoning the agreement, signaling a rise in tension between them and Mali’s junta.

    Analysts have in the past warned that the fragile peace agreement — that had slowed violence over the years in the troubled region — may crumble.

    “We can effectively say that the 2015 peace agreement has collapsed,” said Shaantanu Shankar, Country Analyst for Africa at the Economist Intelligence Unit

    “The Malian junta is facing serious problems with Jihadi terrorism on one front and at the same time trying to fight an armed political movement and the rebels in the north, so the junta is overstretched,” he said.

    Mali’s military recently seized control of the northern town of Kidal, dominated by the rebels for nearly a decade.

    The military will focus on sustaining stability in the town as well as central and southern Mali which play a crucial role in the nation’s economy, said Shankar.

    In 2015, the Tuareg rebel groups signed a peace deal with the government after other armed groups did, putting a halt to the fighting. The deal, at the time, was wleocmed by the United Nations.

    The Tuareg rebellion in Mali’s far north has been a source of conflict for decades.

    —

    Associated Press writer Chinedu Asadu in Abuja, Nigeria contributed to this report.

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  • Calls for cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war roil city councils from California to Michigan

    Calls for cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war roil city councils from California to Michigan

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    OAKLAND, Calif. — Oakland considered a resolution to call for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war on Monday, potentially joining nearly a dozen other U.S. cities from Michigan to Georgia that have supported the same.

    The resolution before the Oakland City Council also calls for the unrestricted entry of humanitarian assistance into Gaza and a restoration of basic services, as well as “respect for international law” and the release of all hostages.

    “Too many innocent lives have been lost,” said councilmember Carroll Fife, who brought the resolution. “And I didn’t have words prepared because my heart is too broken to even express what I’m truly feeling in this moment.”

    She said the issue is “deeply, deeply concerning” to Oakland residents and called for a moment of silence for the lives lost on both sides of the conflict.

    Several hundred people signed up to speak at the council meeting, with many wearing black-and-white Palestinian scarves. Their words were met with cheers and applause.

    Similar resolutions have passed in three cities in Michigan, where a large percentage of Arab Americans live, as well as in Atlanta; Akron, Ohio; Wilmington, Delaware; and Providence, Rhode Island.

    A temporary cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, which Qatar helped broker, is currently in place.

    U.S. cities have been adopting resolutions regarding the conflict even though they have no legal role or formal say in the process, said David Glazier, who teaches constitutional law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

    “It raises an interesting question on where they are getting this mandate to speak for the people in their city when nobody elected a city council person because of their stance on Middle East peace,” he said.

    In the nearby city of Richmond, an approved resolution calling for a cease-fire and accusing Israel of ethnic cleansing prompted more than five hours of heated debate in October. The city of Ypsilanti, near Detroit, approved a peace resolution but rescinded it amid backlash.

    Oakland’s resolution demands “an immediate ceasefire; release of all hostages, the unrestricted entry of humanitarian assistance into Gaza; the restoration of food, water, electricity, and medical supplies to Gaza; and the respect for international law; and calls for a resolution that protects the security of all innocent civilians.”

    The resolution does not mention Hamas or the group’s attack that sparked the war, an omission that’s prompted criticism from local groups, including the Jewish Community Relations Council in San Francisco that noted how it “fails to mention the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7.”

    Some speakers at the Oakland meeting called on the council to amend the resolution to condemn Hamas while many more, including Jewish anti-Zionist activists, urged approval of the measure without amendment. They accused Israel of apartheid and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

    “We’ve seen the targeting and massacring of civilians, of health care facilities, of hospitals and ambulances,” said one speaker, who identified herself as a recent medical school graduate. “Silence in the face of oppression and genocide, I don’t think, is an acceptable response.”

    Cities across the United States have increasingly been speaking up on matters that have long been relegated to diplomatic spheres, even working with local elected leaders abroad on what has been coined city-to-city diplomacy to tackle everything from housing refugees and asylum seekers to dealing with climate change.

    Now, city councils are just the latest arena where intense debates over the war and the United States’ support for Israel are playing out. Protesters calling for a cease-fire recently shut down traffic on a major bridge into San Francisco during an international economic summit, and the California Democratic Party recently cancelled some events at its fall convention due to demonstrations.

    In some cases, the tension has turned violent. A pro-Palestinian protester was charged with involuntary manslaughter this month after a Jewish man died from head injuries following dueling protests in Southern California. He pleaded not guilty. In Vermont, a man has pleaded not guilty to three counts of attempted murder in the non-fatal shooting of three Palestinian men studying in the United States.

    Oakland’s action comes as Hamas has released some hostages captured in the Oct. 7 attack, while Israel has released some imprisoned Palestinians. Israel has said it would extend the cease-fire by one day for every 10 additional hostages released, but that it remains committed to crushing Hamas’ military capabilities and ending the group’s 16-year rule over Gaza, which would likely mean expanding the Israeli military’s ground offensive.

    The war started after Hamas broke through Israel’s high-tech “Iron Wall” on Oct. 7 and launched an attack that left more than 1,200 Israelis dead. Hamas also took nearly 240 Israelis hostage.

    More than 13,300 Palestinians have been killed since the war began, roughly two-thirds of them women and minors, according to the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry in Gaza.

    ___

    Jablon reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press journalist Julie Watson in San Diego contributed.

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  • Wilders ally overseeing first stage of Dutch coalition-building quits over fraud allegation

    Wilders ally overseeing first stage of Dutch coalition-building quits over fraud allegation

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    THE HAGUE, Netherlands — A party ally of far-right Dutch election winner Geert Wilders on Monday quit his role in the building of a new governing coalition over fraud allegations, throwing the process of creating a new government into turmoil before it had begun.

    Gom van Strien, a senator for Wilders’ Party for Freedom, was appointed last week as a “scout” to discuss possible coalitions. He was set to meet Wilders and other party leaders on Monday, but those meetings were canceled.

    “It is annoying to start the exploration phase like this,” Vera Bergkamp, president of the lower house of the Dutch parliament, said in a statement. She added that “it is now important that a new scout is quickly appointed who can start work immediately.”

    Van Strien has denied wrongdoing after Dutch media reported that he was embroiled in a fraud case. But on Monday morning, he issued a statement saying that “both the unrest that has arisen about this and the preparation of a response to it” hampered his work seeking a coalition.

    Van Strien is an experienced but largely unknown senator for Wilders’ party, known by its Dutch acronym PVV.

    He had been tasked with making an inventory of possible coalitions and reporting back to the lower house of the Dutch parliament by early December so that lawmakers could debate the issue on Dec. 6 before appointing another official to begin more concrete talks on forming a coalition.

    Wilders’ PVV was the shock winner of last week’s Dutch election in a stunning shift to the far right in Dutch politics that sent shockwaves through Europe. Long an outsider largely shunned by mainstream parties, Wilders is now front and center of moves to form a new ruling coalition.

    However, his hopes of quickly forming a right-of-center coalition were dealt a blow last week when Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius, the new leader of the mainstream center-right VVD party of outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte, said her party would not join a coalition led by the PVV.

    Despite her rejection, Wilders has urged Yeşilgöz-Zegerius to join him in coalition talks with the leader of two new parties that made big gains in the election, the centrist New Social Contract and the Farmer Citizen Movement.

    Van Strien’s resignation highlights one of the key issues Wilders is likely to face over the next weeks as its raft of new lawmakers take their seats in parliament — a lack of political experience in his party. The PVV has always been tightly centered around the figure of Wilders, who sets policy and is one of only a few publicly recognizable faces of the party.

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  • Christopher Luxon sworn in as New Zealand prime minister, says priority is to improve economy

    Christopher Luxon sworn in as New Zealand prime minister, says priority is to improve economy

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    WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Christopher Luxon was sworn in as New Zealand’s prime minister on Monday and said his top priority was to improve the economy.

    The 53-year-old former businessman leads a conservative coalition after his National Party struck a deal Friday with two smaller parties following a general election last month.

    After the swearing-in ceremony, which was presided over by Governor-General Cindy Kiro, Luxon told reporters the job was an “awesome responsibility.”

    He said he would hold his first Cabinet meeting Tuesday and look to quickly finalize a 100-day plan. He said he also planned a visit to Australia before Christmas Day.

    Luxon said he needed to get a Treasury briefing on the state of the government’s finances.

    “We are concerned and worried that it’s been a deteriorating picture for a number of months now,” Luxon said.

    Under the coalition agreement, Luxon has promised to deliver tax cuts and train 500 more police officers within two years.

    He has also promised less government bureaucracy, including a 6.5% cut to the public service.

    Luxon said it would be up to ministry chief executives to figure out how to make the cuts, whether by stopping programs, not filling vacancies or laying off some workers.

    The new government also plans to repeal tobacco restrictions approved last year by the previous government, including requirements for low nicotine levels in cigarettes, fewer retailers and a lifetime ban for youth.

    Luxon said his government disagreed with parts of the policy, including concentrating distribution. He said smoking rates had been coming down for 30 years.

    “We will continue to make sure we have good education programs and encourage people to take up vapes as a cessation tool,” Luxon said.

    But critics said the plan was a setback for public health and a win for the tobacco industry.

    Chris Hipkins, who officially resigned as the nation’s 41st prime minister early Monday, said he wished Luxon and his coalition partners well. He said the country had been through tough times but the economy was turning a corner.

    Hipkins, who held the top job for 10 months after Jacinda Ardern unexpectedly resigned in January, plans to remain in Parliament as opposition leader.

    ___

    Follow AP’s Asia-Pacific coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/asia-pacific

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  • Attackers take, let go of Israel-linked tanker off Yemen in third such assault in Israel-Hamas war

    Attackers take, let go of Israel-linked tanker off Yemen in third such assault in Israel-Hamas war

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    DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Attackers seized and later let go a tanker linked to Israel off the coast of Yemen on Sunday, authorities said. Yemen’s internationally recognized government blamed the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels for the attack, which followed at least two other recent maritime attacks linked to the Israel-Hamas war.

    The attackers seized the Liberian-flagged Central Park, managed by Zodiac Maritime, in the Gulf of Aden, the company and private intelligence firm Ambrey said. An American defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, also confirmed to The Associated Press that the attack took place.

    Early Monday morning, Zodiac said the vessel carrying phosphoric acid and its crew of 22 sailors from Bulgaria, Georgia, India, the Philippines, Russia, Turkey and Vietnam were “unharmed.”

    “We would like to thank the coalition forces who responded quickly, protecting assets in the area and upholding international maritime law,” the company said. It offered no details on how the attackers left the vessel, nor identified them.

    Zodiac described the vessel as being owned by Clumvez Shipping Inc., though other records directly linked Zodiac as the owner. London-based Zodiac Maritime is part of Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer’s Zodiac Group. British corporate records listed two men with the last name Ofer as a current and former director of Clumvez Shipping, including Daniel Guy Ofer, who is also a director at Zodiac Maritime.

    Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who have controlled the capital, Sanaa, since 2014, offered no comment on the seizure. However, Yemen’s internationally recognized government, which is based out of nearby Aden, blamed the rebels for the attack in a statement carried by their state-run news agency.

    “The Yemeni government has renewed its denunciation of the acts of maritime piracy carried out by the terrorist Houthi militias with the support of the Iranian regime, the most recent of which was the hijacking of the Central Park,” the statement read.

    The U.S. military’s Central Command did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The attack happened in a part of the Gulf of Aden that is in theory is under the control of that government’s forces and is fairly distant from Houthi-controlled territory in the country. Somali pirates are not known to operate in that area.

    Zodiac Maritime has been targeted previously amid a wider yearslong shadow war between Iran and Israel. In 2021, a drone attack assessed by the U.S. and other Western nations to have been carried out by Iran killed two crew members aboard Zodiac’s oil tanker Mercer Street off the coast of Oman.

    The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, which provides warnings to sailors in the Middle East, had earlier issued a warning to sailors that “two black-and-white craft carrying eight persons in military-style clothing” had been seen in the area.

    The UKMTO put the Central Park’s location over 60 kilometers (35 miles) south of Yemen’s coast, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) east of Djibouti and around 110 kilometers (70 miles) northeast of Somalia in the Gulf of Aden, a key shipping route.

    The Central Park seizure comes after a container ship, CMA CGM Symi, owned by another Israeli billionaire came under attack Friday by a suspected Iranian drone in the Indian Ocean. Iran has not acknowledged carrying out the attack, nor did it respond to questions from the AP about that assault.

    Both the Symi and the Central Park had been behaving as if they faced a threat in recent days.

    The ships had switched off their Automatic Identification System trackers, according to data from MarineTraffic.com analyzed by the AP. Ships are supposed to keep their AIS active for safety reasons, but crews will turn them off if it appears they might be targeted. In the Central Park’s case, the vessel had last transmitted four days ago after it left the Suez Canal heading south into the Red Sea.

    Global shipping had increasingly been targeted as the Israel-Hamas war threatens to become a wider regional conflict — even as a truce has halted fighting and Hamas exchanges hostages for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

    Earlier this month, the Houthis seized a vehicle transport ship in the Red Sea off Yemen.

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  • Hamas is set to release more hostages for Israel-held Palestinians on the second day of a truce

    Hamas is set to release more hostages for Israel-held Palestinians on the second day of a truce

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    KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip — Hamas was preparing to release more than a dozen hostages Saturday for several dozen Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, part of an exchange on the second day of a cease-fire that has allowed critical humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip and given civilians their first respite after seven weeks of war.

    While uncertainty remained around the details of the exchange, there was optimism, too, amid the scenes of joyous families reuniting on both sides. On the first day of the four-day cease-fire, Hamas released 24 of the about 240 hostages taken during its Oct. 7 attack on Israel that triggered the war, and Israel freed 39 Palestinians from prison. Those freed in Gaza were 13 Israelis, 10 Thais and a Filipino.

    On Saturday, Hamas provided mediators Egypt and Qatar with a list of 14 hostages to be released, and the list has been passed along to Israel, according to a Egyptian official speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not permitted to talk about details of the ongoing negotiations. A second Egyptian official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the details.

    Under the truce agreement, Hamas will release one Israeli hostage for every three prisoners freed. Israel’s Prison Service said earlier Saturday it was preparing 42 prisoners for release. It was not immediately clear how many non-Israeli captives may also be released.

    Overall, Hamas is to release at least 50 Israeli hostages, and Israel 150 Palestinian prisoners, during the four-day truce, all woman and minors.

    Israel has said the truce can be extended an extra day for every additional 10 hostages freed — something U.S. President Joe Biden said he hoped would occur.

    Separately, a Qatari delegation arrived in Israel on Saturday to coordinate with parties on the ground and “ensure the deal continues to move smoothly,” according to a diplomat briefed on the visit. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss details with the media.

    The start of the truce Friday morning brought the first quiet for 2.3 million Palestinians reeling from relentless Israeli bombardment that has killed thousands, driven three-quarters of the population from their homes and leveled residential areas. Rocket fire from Gaza militants into Israel went silent as well.

    For Emad Abu Hajer, a resident of the Jabaliya refugee camp in the Gaza City area, the pause meant he could again search through the rubble of his home, which was flattened in an Israeli attack last week.

    He found the bodies of a cousin and nephew, bring the death toll in the attack to 19. With his sister and two other relatives still missing, he resumed his digging Saturday.

    “We want to find them and bury them in dignity,” he said.

    The United Nations said the pause enabled it to scale up the delivery of food, water, and medicine to the largest volume since the resumption of aid convoys on Oct. 21. It was also able to deliver 129,000 liters (34,078 gallons) of fuel — just over 10% of the daily pre-war volume — as well as cooking gas, a first since the war began.

    In the southern city of Khan Younis on Saturday, a long line of people with containers waited outside a filling station. Hossam Fayad lamented that the pause in fighting was only for four days.

    “I wish it could be extended until people’s conditions improved,” he said.

    For the first time in over a month, aid reached northern Gaza, the focus of Israel’s ground offensive. The Palestinian Red Crescent said 61 trucks carrying food, water and medical supplies headed there on Saturday, the largest aid convoy to reach the area since the start of the war.

    The U.N. said it and the Palestinian Red Crescent were also able to evacuate 40 patients and family members from a hospital in Gaza City, where much of the fighting has taken place, to a hospital in Khan Younis.

    The relief brought by the cease-fire has been tempered, however, for both sides. For Israelis, by the fact that not all hostages will be freed. For Palestinians, by the brevity of the pause.

    The freed Israelis included nine women and four children 9 and under. They were taken to Israeli hospitals for observation and were declared to be in good condition.

    At a plaza dubbed “Hostages Square” in Tel Aviv, a crowd of Israelis celebrated the good news but pressed for more. “Don’t forget the others because it’s getting harder, harder and harder. It’s heartbreaking,” said Neri Gershon, a Tel Aviv resident.

    The hostages included multiple generations. Nine-year-old Ohad Munder-Zichri was freed along with his mother, Keren Munder, and grandmother, Ruti Munder, during the child’s visit to his grandparents at the kibbutz where about 80 people — nearly a quarter of community residents — are believed to have been taken.

    The hostages’ plight has raised anger among some families that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government was not doing enough to bring them home.

    Hours later, 24 Palestinian women and 15 teenage boys held in Israeli prisons in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem were freed. In the West Bank town of Beitunia, hundreds of Palestinians poured out of their homes to celebrate, honking horns and setting off fireworks.

    The teenagers had been jailed for minor offenses like throwing stones. The women included several convicted of trying to stab Israeli soldiers.

    “It’s a happiness tainted with sorrow because our release from prison came at the cost of the lives of martyrs and the innocence of children,” said one released Palestinian prisoner, Aseel Munir al-Titi.

    According to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, an advocacy group, Israel is holding 7,200 Palestinians, including about 2,000 arrested since the start of the war.

    The war erupted when several thousand Hamas militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking scores of hostages, including babies, women and older adults, as well as soldiers.

    Majed al-Ansari, a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry of Qatar, said the hope is that momentum from the deal will lead to an end to the violence,

    Israeli leaders have said they would resume fighting eventually and not stop until Hamas, which has controlled Gaza for the past 16 years, is crushed. Israeli officials have argued that only military pressure can bring the hostages home. But the government is under pressure from hostages’ families to make the release of the remaining captives the top priority.

    The Israeli offensive has killed more than 13,300 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza government. Women and minors have consistently made up around two-thirds of the dead, though the latest number was not broken down. The figure does not include updated numbers from hospitals in the north, where communications have broken down.

    ___

    Rising reported from Bangkok, Magdy from Cairo. Associated Press writer Julia Frankel in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

    ___

    Full AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.

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  • At least 9 people killed in Syrian government shelling of a rebel-held village, the opposition says

    At least 9 people killed in Syrian government shelling of a rebel-held village, the opposition says

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    Syrian opposition activists say government forces’ shelling of a northwestern village has killed at least nine people, including six children

    ByThe Associated Press

    November 25, 2023, 6:40 AM

    BEIRUT — Syrian government forces’ shelling of a northwestern village Saturday killed at least nine people, including six children, as they picked olives, opposition activists said.

    The shelling of the village of Qawqafeen, in Idlib province, is the latest violation of a truce reached in March 2020 between Russia and Turkey, who back rival sides in Syria’s 12-year conflict that has killed half a million people.

    Hundreds of people have been killed or wounded over the past years in violations of the truce that ended a monthslong Russian-backed government offensive on the northwestern Idlib province, the last major rebel stronghold in Syria.

    The shelling of the farm was reported by the Britain-based opposition war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the opposition’s Syrian Civil Defense, also known as White Helmets.

    The White Helmets said it treated one woman who was wounded and handed over the bodies of the dead to their families.

    Idlib is home to more than 4 million people, many of them internally displaced by Syria’s conflict that broke out in March 2011. The war displaced half the country’s prewar population of 23 million and left large parts of Syria destroyed.

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  • Israel-Hamas truce deal for hostage release hits last-minute snag, now expected to start Friday

    Israel-Hamas truce deal for hostage release hits last-minute snag, now expected to start Friday

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    DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — An agreement for a four-day cease-fire in Gaza and the release of dozens of Hamas-held hostages and Palestinians imprisoned by Israel appeared to have hit a last-minute snag when a senior Israeli official said it would not take effect until Friday, a day later than originally announced.

    The diplomatic breakthrough promised some relief for the over 1.7 million Palestinians who have fled their homes under weeks of Israeli bombardment, as well as families in Israel fearful for the fate of their loved ones captured during Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war.

    Israel’s national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, announced the delay late Wednesday, without providing a reason. Israeli media reported that some final details were still being worked out.

    The Persian Gulf nation of Qatar, which played a key role in mediating with Hamas, said early Thursday that a new time for the agreement to go into force would be announced “in the coming hours.” It was originally set to begin at 10 a.m. (0800 GMT) Thursday. The U.S. and Egypt also helped negotiate the deal.

    The agreement had raised hopes of eventually winding down the war, now in its seventh week, which has has leveled vast swaths of Gaza, fueled a surge of violence in the occupied West Bank, and stirred fears of a wider conflagration across the Middle East.

    But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a nationally televised news conference that the war would resume after the truce expires, with the goal of destroying Hamas’ military capabilities, ending its 16-year rule in Gaza and returning all of the estimated 240 captives held in Gaza by Hamas and other groups.

    “The war is continuing. We will continue it until we achieve all our goals,” Netanyahu said, adding that he had delivered the same message in a phone call to U.S. President Joe Biden. Washington has provided extensive military and diplomatic support to Israel since the start of the war.

    Israeli troops hold much of northern Gaza and say they have dismantled tunnels and much of Hamas’ infrastructure there. Israeli forces on Wednesday revealed what they said was a major Hamas hideout in a tunnel beneath Shifa Hospital. The territory’s largest medical center has been at the heart of a fierce battle of narratives over both sides’ allegedly reckless endangerment of civilians.

    Shifa’s director, Mohammed Abu Selmia, was detained by Israeli soldiers, according to Israeli army radio and Al-Jazeera television. There was no immediate comment from the military or Gaza health officials.

    Israel meanwhile ordered the full evacuation of the Indonesian Hospital in the north, Dr. Munir al-Boursh, a Health Ministry official inside the facility, told Al-Jazeera. He said hospital officials were trying to organize buses to evacuate some 200 patients, including children with burn injuries. Fighting has raged outside the hospital for days, and hundreds of people have already been evacuated to the south.

    Despite the advances in the north, Israeli officials acknowledge that much of Hamas’ infrastructure remains intact. Israel has threatened to launch wider operations in southern Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of people who fled the north have crammed into overflowing U.N.-run shelters with dwindling food, water and basic supplies.

    For Hamas, the cease-fire would provide an opportunity to regroup after weeks of apparently heavy losses. Hamas leader Yehya Sinwar, who is believed to be alive and in hiding in Gaza, is likely to claim the release of Palestinian prisoners as a major achievement and declare victory if the war ends.

    Under the truce deal, 50 hostages will be freed in stages, in exchange for the release of what Hamas said would be 150 Palestinian prisoners. Both sides will release women and children first, and Israel said the truce would be extended an extra day for every additional 10 hostages freed by Hamas.

    The return of hostages could lift spirits in Israel, where their plight has gripped the country. Families of the hostages have staged mass demonstrations to pressure the government to bring them home.

    Qatar said the cease-fire would allow a “larger number of humanitarian convoys and relief aid” to enter Gaza, including fuel, but it gave no details on actual quantities. Israel cut off all fuel imports at the start of the war, causing a territory-wide blackout and leaving homes and hospitals reliant on generators, which have also steadily been forced to shut down.

    Netanyahu said the deal includes a provision for the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit the hostages in captivity.

    Israel’s Justice Ministry published a list of 300 prisoners eligible to be released, mainly teenagers detained over the past year for rock-throwing and other minor offenses.

    The war erupted when several thousand Hamas militants stormed into southern Israel, killing at least 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking scores of hostages, including babies, women and older adults, as well as Israeli soldiers.

    Israel has a long history of agreeing to lopsided prisoner swaps with militant groups, and Hamas is expected to demand a large number of high-profile Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the soldiers.

    Weeks of Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, followed by a ground invasion, have killed more than 11,000 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory. It does not differentiate between civilians and militants, though some two-thirds of the dead have been identified as women and minors.

    The ministry said that as of Nov. 11 it had lost the ability to count the dead because of the collapse of large parts of the health system, but that the number has risen sharply since then. Some 2,700 people are missing and believed buried under rubble.

    Israel says it has killed thousands of Hamas fighters, though it has presented no evidence for its count.

    Three-fourths of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million have been displaced in the war. Many, if not most, will be unable to return home because of the vast damage and the presence of Israeli troops in the north.

    The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, said that more than 1 million Palestinians were seeking shelter in 156 of its facilities in Gaza, where many have been forced by overcrowding to sleep on the streets outside as a cold, rainy winter sets in.

    Israel has barred imports to Gaza since the start of the war, except for a trickle of aid entering through Egypt’s Rafah crossing. Humanitarian aid groups operating in Gaza said the truce was too short and the Rafah crossing’s capacity was insufficient to meet urgent needs.

    ___

    Chehayeb reported from Beirut. Associated Press reporter Najib Jobain in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip contributed.

    ___

    Full AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.

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  • French performers lead a silent Paris march for peace between Israelis and Palestinians

    French performers lead a silent Paris march for peace between Israelis and Palestinians

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    PARIS — Holding olive branches and white banners, French performers from different religious and ethnic backgrounds led thousands of people on a silent march through central Paris on Sunday to call for peace between Israelis and Palestinians and unity in France.

    The crowd, which included actors Isabelle Adjani and Emmanuelle Beart as well as singers and other cultural figures, marched from the Arab World Institute toward the Museum of Art and History of Judaism, located across the Seine River.

    “We have a blue sky on top of our head today and in Israel, in Palestine, they’re having bombs, they’re having war. We’re not helping the situation by choosing sides or throwing hate on one side or another,’’ Nadia Fares said.

    The silence at Sunday’s march ‘’will balance, hopefully, the cacophony we have all over the world,” she said.

    France, home to significant Jewish and Muslim populations, has seen weeks of protests and tensions over the Israel-Hamas war.

    The French government is pushing for a truce to get humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza and also trying to negotiate the release of eight French hostages held by Hamas. Another 40 French citizens were killed in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack in southern Israel.

    French President Emmanuel Macron spoke Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and with the leaders of Qatar and Egypt on Saturday, as part of his diplomatic efforts.

    Macron confirmed his support for Israel’s right to defend itself but denounced ‘’too numerous civilian losses” in Gaza. according to a French presidential statement. He urged an immediate humanitarian truce leading to a cease-fire.

    Macron also expressed concern about violence against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank and called for resumed diplomatic efforts toward a two-state solution.

    On Saturday, thousands of pro-Palestinian and left-wing activists rallied in Paris and around Britain on to call for a cease-fire, the latest of several such protests in major cities around the world since the Israel-Hamas war started.

    Survivors of Nazi atrocities during World War II also joined young Jewish activists outside the Paris Holocaust memorial to sound the alarm about resurgent antisemitic hate speech, graffiti and abuse linked to the war in the Mideast.

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  • After court defeat, the UK says its Rwanda migrant plan can still work. Legal experts are skeptical

    After court defeat, the UK says its Rwanda migrant plan can still work. Legal experts are skeptical

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    LONDON — Britain’s interior minister said Thursday that the U.K. government can revive its blocked plan to send asylum-seekers to Rwanda without breaching international law, with the first flights taking off next year.

    Home Secretary James Cleverly said the government is “absolutely determined” to begin Rwanda deportation flights before a national election that must be called by the end of 2024.

    Many legal experts said that’s wishful thinking, and critics urged the government to ditch a plan they say is costing millions and harming Britain’s international reputation.

    On Wednesday, the U.K. Supreme Court quashed the government’s plan, saying Rwanda is not a safe country where migrants can be sent. Britain’s top court said asylum-seekers faced “a real risk of ill-treatment” and could be returned by Rwanda to the home countries they had fled.

    Despite the justices’ unanimous verdict, the British government doubled down on the policy, which it says will deter people from around the world making life-threatening journeys across the English Channel in small boats.

    Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he would sign a treaty with the Rwandan government to close loopholes in the plan, including a block on Rwanda sending migrants home. The government says once that risk has been removed, it will pass a law through Parliament declaring that Rwanda is a safe country.

    Sunak also said he was prepared to “revisit” international relationships to remove “obstacles” if the deportation policy continues to be blocked. Some members of the governing Conservative Party want the prime minister to take the country out of the European Convention on Human Rights if the Rwanda plan is stymied.

    Cleverly said he believed the plan could take effect without Britain leaving the European convention. The only countries ever to quit the rights accord are Russia – which was expelled after invading Ukraine – and Belarus.

    “I don’t believe that will be necessary,” Cleverly told the BBC. “We are taking action to address the specific deficiencies in the judgment … to make sure we are in conformity with international law.”

    He said the government was confident that “the legally binding treaty, which is binding on both countries, will be robust, will address the issues raised by the Supreme Court.”

    Legal experts were skeptical. Jonathan Sumption, a former U.K. Supreme Court justice who is known as a conservative, said the government’s strategy “won’t work” because the government was asking Parliament “to change the facts.”

    “The courts have perused hundreds of pages of documents to arrive at this conclusion. For Parliament simply to say ‘the facts are different’ would be constitutionally really extraordinary,” Sumption told the BBC.

    Refugee law expert David Cantor said if the government failed to heed the Supreme Court, it would set “a very dangerous precedent.”

    “In theory the government can legislate to say that black is white or the moon is made of cheese or whatever. That doesn’t make it true,” said Cantor, who heads the Refugee Law Initiative at the University of London’s School of Advanced Study.

    “Simply bringing a treaty into play doesn’t change the assessment of the facts that the Supreme Court carried out … which was very, very clear that there are systemic deficiencies within the Rwandan system for determining refugee status and protecting refugees.”

    It has been more than a year and a half since the U.K. struck a deal with Rwanda to send migrants who arrive in the U.K. as stowaways or in boats to the East African country, where their asylum claims would be processed and, if successful, they would stay.

    Britain says that will deter people from making the journey and break the business model of people-smuggling gangs. Critics say it is both unethical and unworkable to send migrants to a country 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometers) away, with no chance of ever settling in the U.K.

    For years, human rights groups have accused Rwanda’s government of cracking down on perceived dissent and keeping tight control on many aspects of life, from jailing critics to keeping homeless people off the streets of Kigali. The government denies it.

    No one has been sent to Rwanda as the plan was challenged in the U.K. courts, and the policy is controversial even among Conservatives. Cleverly, a former foreign secretary who was appointed interior minister on Monday in a government shakeup, did not deny that he once described the Rwanda plan – using a vulgar term – as crazy.

    Much of Europe and the U.S. are struggling with how best to cope with migrants seeking refuge from war, violence, oppression and a warming planet that has brought devastating drought and floods.

    Though Britain receives fewer asylum applications than countries such as Italy, France or Germany, thousands of migrants from around the world travel to northern France each year in hopes of crossing the English Channel. More than 27,300 have done that so far this year.

    Sunak has made “stop the boats” one of his key pledges ahead of a national election that is due next year. He hopes showing progress can help the party close a big polling gap with the Labour opposition.

    Cleverly said the government was confident Rwanda deportation flights would stary before the election — but, he acknowledged, “the timescales that we are looking at can vary depending on circumstances.”

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  • UNESCO is criticized after Cambodia evicts thousands around World Heritage site Angkor Wat

    UNESCO is criticized after Cambodia evicts thousands around World Heritage site Angkor Wat

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    BANGKOK — The human rights group Amnesty International has strongly criticized UNESCO and its World Heritage program for failing to challenge the Cambodian government’s ongoing mass evictions at the famous centuries-old Angkor Wat temple complex.

    The London-based organization in a report released Tuesday charged that the evictions of an estimated 10,000 families by Cambodian authorities violated international and national law.

    It said the evicted people have received little or no compensation and the government’s two main resettlement sites have inadequate facilities in terms of roads, water and electricity supplies and sanitation.

    The report accused UNESCO of disregarding U.N. guidelines in failing in its obligation to intervene and promote the human right to housing. UNESCO should take a stand especially because its designation of Angkor Wat as a World Heritage site needing protection from damage was reportedly used by Cambodia’s government as an excuse for moving people away from it, said Amnesty.

    In response to the findings, the report said that UNESCO World Heritage Center wrote that it “does not have the ability to enforce implementation of rights-based standards and policy recommendations as our role is rather focused on policy advice, capacity building and advocacy.”

    There are more than 1,200 World Heritage sites worldwide. Angkor Wat was granted that status in 1992, in part because of fears that the growth of human settlements on the site posed a possible threat to its preservation.

    However, the designation was not clear regarding existing settlements, which until last year were left basically undisturbed, said the report. Cambodia is now keen to develop the area for tourism, which lapsed during the coronavirus pandemic.

    “Cambodian authorities cruelly uprooted families who have lived in Angkor for several generations, forcing them to live hand to mouth at ill-prepared relocation sites. They must immediately cease forcibly evicting people and violating international human rights law,” said Montse Ferrer, interim deputy regional director for research at Amnesty.

    The report says Cambodian authorities claim that the villagers are moving out of the site voluntarily, but that Amnesty’s research earlier this year, including interviews with more than 100 people, established that “almost all … described being evicted or pressured to leave Angkor following intimidation, harassment, threats and acts of violence from Cambodian authorities.”

    “Nobody wants to leave their home,” it quoted one woman who had lived at Angkor for more than 70 years as saying.

    In addition to inadequate facilities provided at the resettlement camps, their locations — almost an hour by motorbike from Angkor — also make it hard to make a living. Many had earned an income by supplying goods and services for the busy tourist trade at Angkor Wat. Those who engaged in farming says their new location has not been prepared for the activity.

    “Cambodia is obligated under seven major human rights treaties to respect, protect and fulfill the right to adequate housing,” the report said.

    It said Cambodian officials have dismissed Amnesty’s research and inaccurately accused it of reaching conclusions “thousands of kilometers away from the real situation.” Amnesty said at least 15 of the families it interviewed said the government told them they had to move in order to preserve Angkor’s World Heritage status.

    It quoted a speech that then-Prime Minister Hun Sen gave last year saying the site risked losing the designation unless they moved away, and those who did not do so voluntarily would get no compensation. Under his authoritarian rule, such remarks were tantamount to official policy.

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