Mexican boxer Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. arrested by US immigration

Mexican boxer Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. has been arrested by US immigration officers and faces deportation from the United States, the Department of Homeland Security said Thursday.Chavez, a former world champion and the son of legendary Mexican fighter Julio Cesar Chavez, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in Los Angeles on Wednesday after authorities determined that he was in the country illegally, Homeland Security said in a statement.Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said the 39-year-old fighter has “an active arrest warrant in Mexico for his involvement in organized crime and trafficking firearms, ammunition and explosives.”The Mexican public prosecutor’s office said in a statement later Thursday that Mexico had issued an arrest warrant for Chavez in 2023 “for organized crime and arms trafficking.”US authorities informed Mexico that they have begun the procedure to send him home, it added.Homeland Security said Chavez is believed to have ties to the Sinaloa cartel, one of six Mexican drug trafficking groups designated as terrorist organizations by the United States.- ‘Outrageous’ -Chavez’s arrest comes days after his lopsided loss to YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul in a cruiserweight bout before a sell-out crowd at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California.Michael A. Goldstein, a lawyer for Chavez, told the Los Angeles Times that Chavez “was detained outside of his residence by 25 or more ICE and other law enforcement agents.””They blocked off his street and took him into custody, leaving his family without any knowledge of his whereabouts,” Goldstein said. “The current allegations are outrageous and appear to be designed as a headline to terrorize the community.”Homeland Security said Chavez had entered the United States legally in 2023 on a tourist visa that was valid until February 2024.In April last year, he applied for permanent residency based on his marriage to a US citizen “who is connected to the Sinaloa cartel through a prior relationship with the now-deceased son of the infamous cartel leader Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman.”Homeland Security said that in addition to the active warrant in Mexico, Chavez had criminal convictions in the United States, including on weapons charges in 2024 in Los Angeles.According to the statement, US Citizenship and Immigration Services told ICE that Chavez posed “an egregious public safety threat.”Donald Trump campaigned for president promising to expel millions of undocumented migrants from the United States, and he has taken a number of actions aimed at speeding up deportations and reducing border crossings.Authorities accused the administration of Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden of not making Chavez an “immigration enforcement priority.”Chavez was allowed to re-enter the United States on January 4, 2025 at the San Ysidro port of entry, Homeland Security said — while Biden was still in the White House.In a statement posted on the X account of Julio Cesar Chavez Sr., the Chavez family expressed support for Chavez Jr.”Our family is deeply dismayed by the situation,” the statement said.”In these difficult times, we reiterate our full and unconditional support for Julio.”We fully trust in his innocence and his humanity, as well as in the justice institutions in both Mexico and the United States, in which we place our hope that this situation will be clarified according to the law and truth.”- ‘Why so much violence?’ -Chavez Jr. won the WBC middleweight world title in 2011 and successfully defended it three times.He owns a record of 54-7 with one draw, but his career has also included multiple suspensions and fines for failed drug tests.Two weeks before his bout with Paul, Chavez held a public workout in California where he told the Los Angeles Times that one of his trainers had skipped the session because of fears raised by immigration arrests.”I don’t understand the situation — why so much violence?” he told the newspaper. “There are a lot of good people, and you’re giving the community an example of violence.”After everything that’s happened, I wouldn’t want to be deported,” he said.

Avec le vote de sa grande loi budgétaire, Trump remporte une victoire majeure

Donald Trump a remporté jeudi la première victoire législative majeure de son second mandat avec l’adoption au forceps par le Congrès d’un grand projet de loi budgétaire qui acte des baisses des impôts et des coupes dans la protection sociale des Américains.Le président républicain doit promulguer ce texte, qu’il a baptisé “grande et belle loi” et dont il a fait la clé de voûte de son programme économique, vendredi, jour de la Fête nationale américaine, comme il le souhaitait ardemment.Cette loi prévoit la prolongation de colossaux crédits d’impôt adoptés lors du premier mandat du milliardaire, l’élimination de l’imposition sur les pourboires, promesse phare de sa campagne, ainsi que des milliards de dollars supplémentaires pour la défense et la lutte contre l’immigration.Pour compenser en partie le creusement attendu du déficit, le texte prévoit notamment d’importantes coupes dans Medicaid, programme public d’assurance santé dont dépendent des millions d’Américains aux faibles revenus, une réduction drastique du principal programme d’aide alimentaire du pays de même que la suppression de nombreuses incitations fiscales en faveur des énergies renouvelables adoptées sous Joe Biden.Après le Sénat, qui l’avait approuvé mardi de justesse, la Chambre des représentants a adopté définitivement ce texte imposant (869 pages), lors d’un vote très serré jeudi, précédé de multiples pressions et tractations.Cette loi propulsera l’économie américaine telle une “fusée”, a estimé Donald Trump, qui se rend vendredi à un meeting dans l’Iowa (centre) pour lancer les célébrations du 250e anniversaire des Etats-Unis, en 2026.Selon Karoline Leavitt, porte-parole de la Maison Blanche,”ce texte rassemble toutes les politiques sur lesquelles le président a fait campagne et pour lesquelles les Américains ont voté”.La cérémonie de signature est prévue à la Maison Blanche vendredi à 16h00 (20H00 GMT).- Deux républicains contre -Pour dénoncer cette “monstruosité répugnante” qui “fera souffrir les Américains ordinaires”, le chef de file des élus démocrates Hakeem Jeffries a prononcé jeudi un discours de près de neuf heures -un record à la Chambre des représentants- afin de repousser au maximum le vote final.Une fois le scrutin remporté par 218 voix contre 214, des parlementaires ont scandé “USA, USA, USA!” dans l’hémicycle.Seulement deux élus de la majorité conservatrice ont finalement voté “contre”, résultat de la pression maximale exercée par les dirigeants du Parti républicain et par Donald Trump lui-même. Le parti présidentiel ne pouvait pas se permettre plus de trois défections dans son propre camp.Mercredi soir, le président avait élevé le ton et fait part sur son réseau Truth Social de son impatience: “Qu’est-ce que les républicains attendent?”.Le chef de l’Etat a parlé au téléphone à des élus récalcitrants de son camp jusqu’à tard dans la nuit pour les convaincre, selon le chef de la Chambre des représentants, le républicain Mike Johnson.- Dizaines d’amendement -L’explosion attendue du déficit public a rendu l’adoption de la loi difficile pour de nombreux républicains attachés au sérieux budgétaire.Le Bureau budgétaire du Congrès, chargé d’évaluer de manière non partisane l’impact des projets de loi sur les finances publiques, estime en effet que le texte augmenterait la dette de plus de 3.400 milliards de dollars d’ici 2034.”Je suis venu à Washington (en tant qu’élu, ndlr) pour aider à freiner notre dette nationale”, avait ainsi affirmé le républicain Keith Self en exprimant son opposition au texte avant de finalement rentrer dans le rang.Le projet de loi avait été adopté au Sénat de justesse, mardi, après 26 heures de votes sur des dizaines d’amendements. Les démocrates, minoritaires dans les deux chambres du Congrès, n’ont pu que retarder son adoption, à l’image du long discours de leur chef de file à la Chambre.”Dix-sept millions de personnes viennent de perdre leur assurance santé”, a dénoncé le gouverneur démocrate de Californie, Gavin Newsom, qui s’affirme comme une figure majeure de l’opposition à Donald Trump.L’ancien président démocrate Joe Biden a, lui, dénoncé une loi “irresponsable” et “cruelle” pour les Américains les moins fortunés.

Netanyahu vows to bring all Gaza hostages home

Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to bring home all the hostages still held by militants in war-stricken Gaza, where the civil defence agency said 73 people were killed Thursday in his country’s ongoing offensive.Netanyahu has come under strong pressure to get the hostages back after US President Donald Trump said Israel had agreed to a 60-day ceasefire with Palestinian militant group Hamas that could lead to their release.”I feel a deep commitment, first and foremost, to ensure the return of all our abductees, all of them,” Netanyahu told inhabitants of the Nir Oz kibbutz, the community that saw the most hostages seized in the 2023 Hamas attacks that sparked the war.”We will bring them all back,” he added, in filmed comments released by his office.Netanyahu is due to meet Trump in Washington DC next week, with the US president expected to push for a ceasefire.   “I want the people of Gaza to be safe more importantly,” Trump told reporters Thursday when asked if he still wanted the US to take over the Palestinian territory, as he announced in February. “They’ve gone through hell.”Israel’s leaders have held firm to their aim of crushing Hamas, even as the group said Tuesday it was discussing new proposals for a ceasefire from mediators.- Israeli offensive expands -Israel has recently expanded its military operations in the Gaza Strip, where its war on Hamas militants has created dire humanitarian conditions and displaced nearly all of the territory’s population of more than two million.Many have sought shelter in school buildings, but these have repeatedly come under Israeli attacks that the military often says target Hamas militants hiding among civilians.Gaza civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said those killed Thursday included 15 in a strike on a school sheltering Palestinians displaced by the war.In an updated toll on Thursday evening, he told AFP that 73 people were killed across the territory by Israeli strikes, artillery or gunfire.They included 38 people he said were waiting for humanitarian aid at three separate locations in central and southern Gaza, and a child killed by a drone in Jabalia in the north.Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defence agency.- Israel says targeted ‘terrorist’ -Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said regarding the Gaza city school incident that it “struck a key Hamas terrorist who was operating in a Hamas command and control centre in Gaza City”.”Prior to the strike, numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance, and additional intelligence,” it added.Regarding numerous other strikes across the territory on Thursday, it said it could not comment in detail without precise coordinates and times.”In response to Hamas’ barbaric attacks, the IDF is operating to dismantle Hamas military capabilities,” it told AFP.It said it “follows international law and takes feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm”.Bassal said later in a message that the army was refusing to let the civil defence into three neighbourhoods of the city where he said people were trapped under rubble, some of them still alive.The Israeli military did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment on the claim.- Strike hits school: civil defence -At the Gaza City school compound hit on Thursday, AFP footage showed young children wandering through the charred, bombed out building, as piles of burnt debris smouldered.Groups of Palestinians picked through the rubble and damaged furniture that littered the floor.Umm Yassin Abu Awda, among mourners who gathered at the city’s Al-Shifa hospital after the strike, said: “This isn’t a life. We’ve suffered enough.””Either you (Israel) strike us with a nuclear bomb and end it all, or people’s conscience needs to finally wake up.”Bassal of the civil defence agency reported 25 people killed while seeking aid near the Netzarim area in central Gaza, six others at another location nearby and seven in Rafah, southern Gaza, with scores of people injured.They were the latest in a string of deadly incidents that have hit people trying to receive scarce supplies.The US- and Israeli-backed aid distribution group Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has distanced itself from reports of people being killed while seeking food from its sites.Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack that prompted the Israeli offensive resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 57,130 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The United Nations considers its figures reliable.

US Supreme Court approves deportation of migrants to South Sudan

The US Supreme Court on Thursday gave the green light for the Trump administration to deport a group of migrants stranded at an American military base in Djibouti to war-torn South Sudan.The decision by the  conservative-dominated top court comes 10 days after it cleared the way for the Trump administration to deport migrants to countries that are not their own.The eight migrants were being flown to South Sudan from the US in May but ended up in Djibouti when a district court imposed a stay on third-country deportations.The court said migrants were not being given a “meaningful opportunity” to contest removal.On June 23, the Supreme Court lifted the stay imposed by District Judge Brian Murphy, clearing the way for third-country deportations.But Murphy, an appointee of former president Joe Biden, said the case of the eight migrants who ended up in Djibouti was subject to a separate stay order he issued that had not been addressed by the Supreme Court.On Thursday, the Supreme Court said its June 23 decision applied to both of the judge’s orders.Liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the decision.”What the Government wants to do, concretely, is send the eight noncitizens it illegally removed from the United States from Djibouti to South Sudan, where they will be turned over to the local authorities without regard for the likelihood that they will face torture or death,” Sotomayor said.”Today’s order clarifies only one thing: Other litigants must follow the rules, but the administration has the Supreme Court on speed dial,” she said.The US authorities have said that the eight men — two from Myanmar, two from Cuba, and one each from Vietnam, Laos, Mexico and South Sudan — are convicted violent criminals.The Trump administration has defended third-country deportations as necessary since the home nations of some of those who are targeted for removal sometimes refuse to accept them.Donald Trump campaigned for president promising to expel millions of undocumented migrants from the United States, and he has taken a number of actions aimed at speeding up deportations since returning to the White House in January.

World Bank’s IFC ramps up investment amid global uncertainty

While the world economy faces instability from US President Donald Trump’s threats of a global trade war, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) is dramatically ramping up its investment activities.The Washington-based IFC — the World Bank’s private sector arm — mobilizes private capital and provides financing to support businesses across emerging economies. Though not widely known outside development circles, the organization plays a crucial role in creating jobs and supporting growth in less developed regions.”The world economy has been going through a bit of a turbulent time, but what I must say is that even though there is turbulence… we are seeing a lot of interest in investing in emerging countries,” Makhtar Diop, the IFC’s managing director, told AFP.This optimism is backed by concrete numbers. In the fiscal year ending June 30, preliminary data shows that the IFC committed over $71 billion — nearly double its commitment from just three years ago and a significant jump from last year’s record of $56 billion.The investment spans the globe, with more than $20 billion flowing to Latin America, $17 billion to Asia, and $15.4 billion to Africa. The dramatic increase stems from a deliberate strategic shift. Diop, an economist and former Senegalese finance minister, explained that the IFC has focused on becoming “simpler, more agile, and delegating decision-making to our teams that are in the field.” This approach abandons the over-centralized structure that previously “was slowing down our ability to respond and seize new opportunities.”The timing is significant. As Western economies pull back from direct aid to developing countries — constrained by mounting debts, rising defense budgets, and increasingly inward-looking politics — the IFC has accelerated.”It’s totally understandable that they have fewer resources to make available in the form of grants to developing countries,” Diop acknowledges.However, he emphasized that World Bank funding for the world’s poorest countries remains fully replenished, calling it “the most efficient and best way to support countries.”The IFC’s expanding role within the World Bank Group is evident. Today, its funding nearly matches the support the bank provides directly to governments, making it an equal partner in development efforts.- Dubai to Africa -The organization is also attracting new types of investors. Many co-financing partners now come from regions that traditionally haven’t invested outside their home areas. The IFC’s largest renewable energy investment in Africa, for example, was completed with a Dubai-based company.These investors trust the IFC not only for its market knowledge but also for the risk-mitigation tools it offers, Diop said.In Africa particularly, the IFC pursues a strategy of identifying and supporting “national champions” — successful local companies that need help to become more competitive and globally integrated.A significant portion of the IFC’s mandate involves sustainability projects, an area where Diop decries debates with false choices between economic development and the environment, especially in electricity projects that form an important part of the agency’s portfolio.”It happens that today, you don’t have to make that trade-off because the sustainable solutions are often the cheaper ones, and that’s the beauty of what we are seeing,” he said. While fossil fuel generation remains part of the energy mix to ensure grid stability, the economics increasingly favor clean alternatives.Behind all these investments lies an urgent demographic reality: 1.2 billion young people will reach working age in developing countries over the next decade. For the World Bank, creating employment for this massive cohort is paramount.”The first question of any leader you meet from the developing world is how can you help to create jobs for young people?” Diop observed.Beyond infrastructure development that stimulates broader economic activity, Diop identifies tourism, pharmaceuticals, and agriculture as the most promising sectors for job creation. These industries can offer the scale and growth potential needed to absorb the coming wave of young workers entering the global economy.

Trump environmental agency suspends employees over letter of dissent

The US Environmental Protection Agency has suspended 139 employees after they signed a scathing open letter accusing Administrator Lee Zeldin of pushing policies hazardous to both people and the planet, a spokesperson said Thursday.The letter, published Monday on the website of activist group Standup for Science, described a climate of political interference and warned that the agency’s leadership was eroding public health protections and scientific integrity.”The Environmental Protection Agency has a zero-tolerance policy for career bureaucrats unlawfully undermining, sabotaging, and undercutting the administration’s agenda as voted for by the great people of this country last November,” the EPA said in an email to AFP. More than 200 individuals originally endorsed the statement, though the number placed on administrative leave was 139. The list of names, which initially appeared on the website, has since been removed, and the reason for the numeric discrepancy was not immediately clear.”The decisions of the current administration frequently contradict the peer-reviewed research and recommendations of Agency experts,” said the letter.”Make no mistake: your actions endanger public health and erode scientific progress — not only in America — but around the world.”The letter outlines five key concerns, including the deepening politicization of the EPA, the reversal of initiatives aimed at marginalized communities, and the “dismantling” of the agency’s Office of Research and Development.It further accuses EPA leadership of turning the agency’s communications apparatus into a vehicle “to promote misinformation and overtly partisan rhetoric.”Since taking office, Zeldin has led the charge in executing Donald Trump’s environmental agenda: gutting climate regulations, ramping up fossil fuel development, and slashing funding for clean energy — moves that have drawn fierce backlash from scientists and environmental advocates alike.

Euro-2025: face au Portugal, l’Espagne pied au plancher

Même en ménageant Aitana Bonmati après sa méningite, l’Espagne a étrillé le Portugal (5-0) jeudi à Berne pour son entrée en lice dans l’Euro féminin de football, lançant idéalement sa quête d’un premier titre continental.Avec deux premiers buts inscrits au bout de sept minutes, les championnes du monde en titre prennent la tête du groupe B, à la même hauteur que l’Italie, qui a battu un peu plus tôt la Belgique (1-0).Dans un Wankdorf bouillant, devant près de 30.000 spectateurs, la pelouse synthétique n’a nullement perturbé les favorites du tournoi, supérieures techniquement, agressives au pressing et très organisées.Il faudra une autre adversité que les Navigatrices, déjà nettement dominées par leurs rivales ibériques en avril en Ligue des Nations (7-1, 4-2), pour tester la solidité de la défense espagnole, peu bousculée jeudi.Dès leur premier mouvement collectif, les joueuses de Montsé Tomé ont marqué grâce à une longue ouverture d’Olga Carmona vers Esther Gonzalez, qui concluait du bout du pied (1-0, 2e). Cinq minutes après l’expérimentée buteuse de Gotham (Etats-Unis), 32 ans, c’est la prodige de 18 ans Vicky Lopez, incarnation très attendue de la future Roja, qui alourdissait la marque en coupant un ballon de Caldentey (2-0, 7e).Guère inhibée par sa titularisation à la place de la double Ballon d’or Aitana Bonmati, qui récupère d’une méningite virale contractée la semaine dernière et est entrée à la 81e minute, Lopez a illuminé l’entrejeu espagnol par ses dribbles et la justesse de ses remises.”Nous devons être patients avec elle”, a tempéré après la rencontre Montse Tomé, jugeant néanmoins le moment venu pour que la jeune milieu “ait des minutes de jeu”. Quant à Aitana Bonmati, “elle voulait jouer plus longtemps, elle me l’a dit à la fin du match”, a poursuivi la sélectionneuse.- Banderole contre le sexisme -Si Ines Pereira a sauvé ses cages face à Vicky Lopez (24e) puis Claudia Pina (35e), Alexia Putellas a ensuite aggravé la marque après un numéro dans la surface: contrôle de la poitrine, feinte du droit, frappe du gauche (3-0, 41e).La milieu barcelonaise, double Ballon d’or en 2021 et 2022 mais privée du dernier Euro par une grave blessure au genou gauche, arborait le brassard de capitaine en remplacement d’Irene Paredes, suspendue.Juste avant la pause, Esther Gonzalez s’offrait un doublé plein de réussite en reprenant du gauche un ballon de Claudia Pina qui avait d’abord touché le poteau (4-0, 43e).Et après une seconde mi-temps moins animée, Cristina Martin-Prieto inscrivait un ultime but en reprenant de la tête un centre de Salma Paralluelo, à quelques secondes du terme (5-0, 90e+3).Déployée avant même l’échauffement des joueuses, une banderole “Combattre le sexisme”, flanquée du mot d’ordre #seacabo (“ça suffit”) a cependant rappelé la tourmente extrasportive subie depuis deux ans par les Espagnoles, ombre qu’elles s’efforcent toujours de dissiper.Leur triomphe au Mondial-2023 avait été terni par le baiser imposé par l’ex-président de la Fédération Luis Rubiales à l’attaquante Jenni Hermoso, meilleure buteuse de l’histoire de la sélection, non retenue pour cet Euro.Les deux rencontres de l’Euro jouées jeudi ont par ailleurs débuté par un moment de silence en hommage à l’international portugais de Liverpool Diogo Jota et à son frère André, lui aussi footballeur, morts dans la nuit dans un accident de la route en Espagne. Face à la presse, les deux sélectionneurs ont également commencé par une pensée pour les deux hommes.

Trump wins major victory as Congress passes flagship bill

US President Donald Trump on Thursday secured a major political victory when Congress narrowly passed his signature tax and spending bill, cementing his radical second-term agenda and boosting funds for his anti-immigration drive.A jubilant Trump said the bill’s passage would supercharge the US economy “into a rocket ship” — glossing over deep concerns within his own Republican Party that it will balloon the national debt and gut health and welfare support.Speaking to reporters as he headed for a rally in Iowa to kick off America’s 250th birthday celebrations, the president called the spending package “the biggest bill of its kind ever signed.”A small group of Republican opponents finally fell into line after Speaker Mike Johnson worked through the night to corral dissenters in the House of Representatives behind the “One Big Beautiful Bill.”The bill squeezed past a final vote, 218-214. The White House declared “VICTORY” on social media and said Trump would sign the bill into law on Friday, the July 4th Independence Day holiday.The timing of the vote had slipped back to Thursday as Democratic House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries spoke against the bill for nearly nine hours to delay proceedings.- Mass deportations, tax breaks -The legislation is the latest in a series of big wins for Trump, including a Supreme Court ruling last week that curbed lone federal judges from blocking his policies, and US air strikes that led to a ceasefire between Israel and Iran.His sprawling mega-bill narrowly passed the Senate on Tuesday and had to return to the lower chamber for a rubber stamp of the senators’ revisions.The package honors many of Trump’s campaign promises: boosting military spending, funding a mass migrant deportation drive and committing $4.5 trillion to extend his first-term tax relief.”Everything was an absolute disaster under the Biden-Harris radical regime, and we took the best effort that we could, in one big, beautiful bill, to fix as much of it as we could,” Johnson said.”And I am so grateful that we got that done.”But it is expected to pile an extra $3.4 trillion over a decade onto the country’s fast-growing deficits, while shrinking the federal food assistance program and forcing through the largest cuts to the Medicaid health insurance scheme for low-income Americans since its 1960s launch.Some estimates put the total number of recipients set to lose their insurance coverage under the bill at 17 million. Scores of rural hospitals are expected to close.While Republican moderates in the House fear the cuts will damage their prospects of reelection next year, fiscal hawks chafed over savings that they say fall far short of what was promised.Johnson had to negotiate tight margins, and could only lose a handful of lawmakers in the final vote, among more than two dozen who had earlier declared themselves open to rejecting Trump’s 869-page text.Trump spent weeks hitting the phones and hosting White House meetings to cajole lawmakers torn between angering welfare recipients at home and incurring the president’s wrath.Democrats hope public opposition to the bill will help them flip the House in the 2026 midterm election, pointing to data showing that it represents a huge redistribution of wealth from the poorest Americans to the richest.Jeffries held the floor for his Democrats ahead of the final vote, as he told stories of everyday Americans who he argued would be harmed by Trump’s legislation. “This bill, this one big, ugly bill — this reckless Republican budget, this disgusting abomination — is not about improving the quality of life of the American people,” he said.  After the bill was passed, Trump predecessor’s Joe Biden said it was “not only reckless — it’s cruel.”Extra spending on the military and border security will be paid in part through ending clean energy and electric vehicle subsidies — a factor triggering a bitter public feud between Trump and former key advisor Elon Musk.

Gaza: Netanyahu promet de ramener “tous” les otages

Le Premier ministre israélien, Benjamin Netanyahu, a promis jeudi de ramener “tous” les otages, “sans exception”, encore retenus dans le territoire palestinien dévasté, où la Défense civile de Gaza a rapporté la mort de 73 personnes dans des opérations militaires israéliennes. Le dirigeant israélien s’exprimait depuis le kibboutz de Nir Oz, qui a payé un lourd tribut à l’attaque du mouvement islamiste palestinien Hamas en Israël le 7 octobre 2023, à l’origine de la guerre.Sa visite, la première sur place, intervient avant sa rencontre prévue la semaine prochaine à Washington avec le président américain, Donald Trump, qui presse pour un arrêt des hostilités à Gaza et s’est prévalu d’un accord israélien pour finaliser les termes d’une trêve de 60 jours. “Je suis profondément engagé avant tout à garantir le retour de tous nos otages, tous, sans exception”, a déclaré M. Netanyahu.- “Ils ont vécu l’enfer” -“Je veux surtout que les habitants de Gaza soient en sécurité. Ils ont vécu l’enfer”, a affirmé Donald Trump à des journalistes jeudi.Il répondait à des journalistes qui lui demandaient s’il voulait toujours que les Etats-Unis prennent le contrôle du territoire palestinien, comme il l’avait annoncé en février. Le Hamas a de son côté affirmé étudier des “propositions” pour une trêve. Selon une source palestinienne, celle-ci serait assortie de la libération de la moitié des otages encore vivants, en échange de prisonniers palestiniens. Sur les 251 personnes enlevées le 7-Octobre sur le sol israélien, 49 sont toujours retenues à Gaza, dont 27 déclarées mortes par l’armée israélienne.  La Défense civile de Gaza a pour sa part indiqué à l’AFP qu’une frappe aérienne nocturne sur l’école Moustafa Hafez de Gaza-ville (nord), qui abritait des déplacés, avait fait 15 morts, dont “une majorité d’enfants et de femmes”.Contactée par l’AFP, l’armée israélienne a affirmé avoir visé un combattant du Hamas “de premier plan” et avoir pris “de nombreuses mesures pour réduire le risque de toucher des civils”.- “Système militarisé” d’aide – Selon Mahmoud Bassal, porte-parole de la Défense civile, une organisation de premiers secours, 38 personnes ont également été tuées par des tirs israéliens alors qu’elles attendaient pour recevoir de l’aide humanitaire sur divers sites.Le mécanisme de distribution de l’aide est dénoncé par la communauté humanitaire internationale depuis sa prise en main, fin mai, par la Fondation humanitaire de Gaza (GHF), une organisation soutenue par les Etats-Unis et Israël avec laquelle l’ONU refuse de collaborer.Amnesty International a fustigé un “système militarisé” à travers lequel “Israël continue d’utiliser la famine des civils comme arme de guerre contre les Palestiniens”.La Défense civile, par la voix de Mahmoud Bassal, a par ailleurs accusé l’armée de l’empêcher d’accéder à plusieurs quartiers de la ville de Gaza, où des dizaines de personnes seraient piégées sous les décombres.”Nous détruisons systématiquement et en profondeur les infrastructures terroristes, tout en maintenant une emprise stable sur le terrain”, a déclaré le porte-parole de l’armée israélienne, Effie Defrin, évoquant des opérations de “haute intensité” dans des quartiers de l’est de Gaza-ville.Compte tenu des restrictions imposées aux médias par Israël, qui assiège la bande de Gaza, et des difficultés d’accès sur le terrain, l’AFP n’est pas en mesure de vérifier de manière indépendante les affirmations des organisations opérant sur le territoire palestinien. – “Nos enfants en souffriront” -En Israël, la classe politique continue de se diviser entre les partisans d’une trêve permettant la libération d’otages et ceux d’une poursuite des combats tant que le Hamas n’est pas anéanti.”Si nous ne parvenons pas à faire disparaître le Hamas, nos enfants en souffriront!”, a estimé dans un entretien à la chaîne 14 le ministre d’extrême droite de la Sécurité nationale, Itamar Ben Gvir.Des proches d’otages encore retenus à Gaza ont envoyé une lettre à Benjamin Netanyahu l’exhortant à “signer un accord garantissant le retour de tous les otages” et à mettre un terme à la guerre.Les négociations indirectes pour une trêve et la libération des otages retenus à Gaza ont jusqu’à achoppé principalement sur l’exigence posée par le Hamas d’un cessez-le-feu permanent.    M. Netanyahu a juré mercredi d’éliminer “jusqu’à la racine” le Hamas, réaffirmant le but affiché par Israël d’éradiquer le mouvement palestinien. L’attaque du 7-Octobre a entraîné du côté israélien la mort de 1.219 personnes, en majorité des civils, selon un décompte de l’AFP réalisé à partir de données officielles.Plus de 57.130 Palestiniens, majoritairement des civils, ont été tués dans la campagne de représailles militaires israéliennes, selon des données du ministère de la Santé du gouvernement du Hamas pour Gaza, jugées fiables par l’ONU.