US envoy Steve Witkoff met anguished relatives of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza on Saturday, as fears for the captives’ survival mounted almost 22 months into the war sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 attack.Witkoff was greeted with some applause and pleas for assistance from hundreds of protesters gathered in Tel Aviv, before going into a closed meeting with the families.Videos shared online showed him arriving to meet the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, as families chanted “Bring them home!” and “We need your help.”The meeting came one day after Witkoff visited a US-backed aid station in Gaza to inspect efforts to get food into the devastated Palestinian territory.”The war needs to end,” Yotam Cohen, brother of 21-year-old hostage Nimrod Cohen, told AFP.”The Israeli government will not end it willingly. It has refused to do so,” he added.”The Israeli government must be stopped. For our sakes, for our soldiers’ sakes, for our hostages’ sakes, for our sons and for the future generations of everybody in the Middle East.”Of the 251 hostages taken during the Hamas attack, 49 are still being held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.After the meeting, the Forum released a statement saying Witkoff had given them a personal commitment that he and US President Donald Trump would work to return the remaining hostages.- ‘Horrifying acts’ -Hamas attempted to maintain pressure on the families, on Friday releasing a video of one of the hostages — 24-year-old Evyatar David — for the second time in two days, showing him looking emaciated in a tunnel.The video called for a ceasefire and warned that time was running out for the hostages. David’s family said their son was the victim of a “vile” propaganda campaign and accused Hamas of deliberately starving their son.”The deliberate starvation of our son as part of a propaganda campaign is one of the most horrifying acts the world has seen. He is being starved purely to serve Hamas’s propaganda,” the family said. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot on Saturday also denounced the video, and one released a day earlier by another Palestinian Islamist group, as “despicable”.”They must be freed, without conditions,” he posted on X. “Hamas must be disarmed and excluded from ruling Gaza.”The United States, along with Egypt and Qatar, had been mediating ceasefire talks between Hamas and Israel that would allow the hostages to be released and humanitarian aid to flow more freely.But talks broke down last month and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is under domestic pressure to come up with another way to secure the missing hostages, alive and dead.He is also facing international calls to open Gaza’s borders to more food aid, after UN and humanitarian agencies warned that more than two million Palestinian civilians are facing starvation.- ‘Without rest’ –        Israel’s top general warned that there would be no respite in fighting if the hostages were not released.”I estimate that in the coming days we will know whether we can reach an agreement for the release of our hostages,” armed forces chief of staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said in a statement.”If not, the combat will continue without rest.”Zamir denied that there was widespread starvation in Gaza. “The current campaign of false accusations of intentional starvation is a deliberate, timed, and deceitful attempt to accuse the IDF (Israeli military), a moral army, of war crimes,” he said.Alongside reports from UN-mandated experts warning a “famine is unfolding” in Gaza, more and more evidence is emerging of serious malnutrition and deaths among the most vulnerable Palestinian civilians.Modallala Dawwas, 33, living in a displacement camp in Gaza City told AFP her daughter Mariam had no known illnesses before the war but had now dropped from 25 kilograms (four stone) to 10 (around one and half stone) and was seriously malnourished. Hamas’s 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to a tally based on official figures.Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed at least 60,332 people, mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, deemed reliable by the UN.The Palestine Red Crescent Society said in a post on X early Sunday that one of its staff members was killed and three others wounded in an Israeli attack on its Khan Yunis headquarters in Gaza.Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli fire killed 34 people in the territory on Saturday.Five people were killed in an Israeli strike on an area of central Gaza where Palestinians were awaiting food distribution by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said.The GHF has largely sidelined the longstanding UN-led aid distribution system in Gaza, just as Israel in late May began easing a more than two-month aid blockade that exacerbated existing shortages.The UN human rights office in the Palestinian territories said at least 1,373 Palestinians seeking aid in Gaza were killed since May 27, adding that most of them were killed near GHF sites, and by the Israeli military.burs-gv/jj/tc/sco

When her husband was arrested in an immigration raid near Los Angeles last month, Martha was abruptly separated from the father of her two daughters. But she also lost the salary that allowed her to keep a roof over their heads.”He’s the pillar of the family… he was the only one working,” said the undocumented woman, using a pseudonym for fear of reprisals.”He’s no longer here to help us, to support me and my daughters.”Los Angeles, where one-third of residents are immigrants — and several hundred thousand people are undocumented — has been destabilized by intensifying Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids under the Trump administration.Since returning to power, US President Donald Trump has delivered on promises to launch a wide-ranging deportation drive, targeting undocumented migrants but also ensnaring many others in its net. After her husband’s arrest, 39-year-old Martha has joined the ranks of people barely managing to avoid ending up on the streets of Los Angeles County — a region with prohibitively high housing prices, and the largest number of homeless people in the United States outside New York. Her 700-square-foot apartment in Buena Park, a suburb of the California metropolis, costs $2,050 per month. After her husband’s arrest, she urgently found a minimum-wage night job in a factory to cover their most pressing needs.It pays just enough to keep them afloat, but has left Martha unable to cover a range of obligations.”I have to pay car insurance, phone, rent, and their expenses,” she said, pointing to her six- and seven-year-old daughters, who need school supplies for the new academic year.”That’s a lot of expenses.”- ‘Bigger storm brewing’ -How long can she keep up this punishing schedule, which allows her barely three hours of sleep on returning from the factory before having to wake and look after her daughters?”I couldn’t tell you,” she said, staring blankly into space.Los Angeles has seen some of the worst of the ICE raids. Squads of masked agents have targeted hardware stores, car washes and bus stops, arresting more than 2,200 people in June. About 60 percent of these had no prior criminal records, according to internal ICE documents analyzed by AFP.Trump’s anti-immigration offensive is taking an added toll on Latino workers, who were already among the worst-affected victims of the region’s housing crisis, said Andrea Gonzalez, deputy director of the CLEAN Carwash Workers Center, a labor rights non-profit.”A bigger storm is brewing. It’s not just about the people that got picked up, it’s about the people that are left behind as well,” she said.”There is a concern that people are going to end up on the streets.”Her organization is helping more than 300 struggling households whose incomes have plummeted, either because a family member has been arrested or because they are too afraid to return to work.It has distributed more than $30,000 to help around 20 families who are unable to afford their rent, but covering everyone’s needs is simply “not sustainable,” said Gonzalez.- ‘An emergency’ -Local Democratic Party leaders are trying to establish financial aid for affected families.Los Angeles County is planning a dedicated fund to tackle the problem, and city officials will also launch a fund using philanthropic donations rather than taxpayer money.Some families should receive “a couple hundred” dollars, Mayor Karen Bass said last month.But for Gonzalez, these initiatives do not “even scratch the surface” of what is needed, representing less than 10 percent of most affected families’ rent requirements.She called for a “moratorium on evictions” similar to one introduced during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic.Otherwise, Los Angeles’ homeless population — currently numbered at 72,000, which is down slightly in the past two years — risks rising again, she warned.”What we’re living through right now is an emergency,” said Gonzalez.Maria Martinez’s undocumented immigrant husband was arrested in June at a carwash in Pomona, a suburb east of Los Angeles.Since then, the 59-year-old has had to rely on help from her children to pay her $1,800 monthly rent. Her $1,000 disability allowance falls far short.”It is stressful,” she said. “We’re just getting by.”

A craving for international prestige, a decade-long Obama rivalry and perhaps a dash of provocation: a mercurial melange of factors is at play in Donald Trump’s obsession with the Nobel Peace Prize.”It’s well past time that President Trump was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on July 31, prompting reactions of disbelief and sarcasm from the Republican leader’s opponents.Since his January 20 return to power, the US president “has brokered, on average, one peace deal or ceasefire per month,” Leavitt said, citing as examples his mediations between India and Pakistan; Cambodia and Thailand; Egypt and Ethiopia; Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC); Serbia and Kosovo; and others.His leading spokeswoman also mentioned Iran, where Trump ordered US strikes against the Islamic republic’s nuclear facilities, as evidence of decisions Leavitt claims have contributed to world peace.She made no mention of the conflict in Ukraine, which Trump pledged multiple times to end on “day one” of his term, or the war in Gaza, which rumbles on and for which the US supplies Israel with weapons.- Pakistan, Israel -For some foreign leaders, mentioning the prestigious award has become a sign of diplomatic goodwill toward an American president who envisions himself as a peacemaker.Pakistan nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, as did Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.During an early July meeting at the White House, a journalist asked the presidents of Liberia, Senegal, Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau, and Gabon whether Trump deserved the award.Basking in the flattering responses from the African leaders, a smiling Trump said: “We could do this all day long.”Tens of thousands of people can offer a nomination to the Nobel committee, including lawmakers, ministers, certain university professors, former laureates and members of the committee themselves.Nominations are due by January 31, with the announcement coming in October — this year on the 10th of the month.Law professor Anat Alon-Beck, who is an Israeli-American, submitted Trump’s name to the committee’s five members, who were appointed by the Norwegian Parliament. The assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law told AFP she did so because of the “extraordinary leadership” and “strategic brilliance” he has shown, in her opinion, in advancing peace and securing the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip. – ‘Never’ getting the Nobel -For some, the prospect of handing the prize to someone who has upended the international order is untenable.”Nominating Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize is like entering a hyena in a dog show,” US history and politics researcher Emma Shortis wrote on news site The Conversation.”Of course Trump does not deserve it.”The American president disagrees.”I deserve it, but they will never give it to me,” Trump told reporters in February as he hosted Netanyahu at the White House, lamenting not ticking the Nobel box in his life.”No, I won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize no matter what I do, including Russia/Ukraine, and Israel/Iran, whatever those outcomes may be,” Trump griped on his Truth Social platform in June.”But the people know, and that’s all that matters to me!”Trump is well-known as someone who is particularly fond of accolades and prizes, Garret Martin, a professor of international relations at American University, told AFP, “so he would welcome this major international recognition.”And since the beginning of his presidential ambitions 10 years ago, “he has put himself in opposition to Barack Obama, who famously won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009,” Martin added.The prize awarded to the Democratic former president, barely nine months after he took office, sparked heated debate — and continues to do so.”If I were named Obama I would have had the Nobel Prize given to me in 10 seconds,” Trump bellyached in October 2024, during the final stretch of the presidential campaign.- 338 candidates -Three other US presidents have also been so honored: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Jimmy Carter. The prize was also awarded to Henry Kissinger in 1973 for his efforts to help end the war in Vietnam. The choice of the one-time US secretary of state was heavily criticized.The full list of Nobel Peace Prize nominees is confidential — except for individual announcements by sponsors — but their number is made public. In 2025, there are 338 nominees.Some betting sites have Trump in second place to win, behind Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

US officials have opened an investigation into Jack Smith, the former special counsel who led two federal criminal cases against President Donald Trump, US media reported Saturday.The Office of Special Counsel told The New York Times it was investigating Smith for potentially violating the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal workers from engaging in political activity while on the job. Republican Senator Tom Cotton had reportedly asked the agency to investigate whether Smith’s actions had been designed to influence the 2024 election.The agency, which monitors the conduct of federal employees, did not immediately respond to request for comment by AFP.Smith was appointed special counsel in 2022, and charged Trump with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election and mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House.Trump denied both charges and sought to frame them as politically motivated, accusing the Justice Department of being weaponized against him.Neither case ever came to trial, and the special counsel — in line with a Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting president — dropped them both after Trump won the November 2024 presidential election.Smith then resigned before Trump could fulfil his campaign pledge to fire him. The Office of Special Counsel operates separately from special counsel offices at the Department of Justice, such as the one headed by Smith.The prosecutorial decisions made by Smith do not typically fall under its remit, according to the Times. It cannot lay criminal charges against Smith but could refer its findings to the Department of Justice, which does have that power. The most severe penalty under the Hatch Act is termination of employment, which would not apply to Smith as he has already resigned. Since taking office in January, Trump has taken a number of punitive measures against his perceived enemies.He has stripped former officials of their security clearances and protective details, targeted law firms involved in past cases against him and pulled federal funding from universities.Last month the FBI opened criminal investigations into its former director James Comey and ex-CIA chief John Brennan, two prominent Trump critics. Days later Comey’s daughter Maurene — a federal prosecutor who handled the case of notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who has been repeatedly linked to Trump — was abruptly fired.