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Hundreds of Israelis bid farewell to army officer Hadar Goldin, who was laid to rest Tuesday in the central town of Kfar Saba after Hamas returned his remains more than a decade after his death in Gaza.Crowds packed the military cemetery, with some climbing onto rooftops to glimpse the funeral, while others filled the streets and watched on a large outdoor screen.Blue-and-white Israeli flags fluttered in the wind, as mourners held the young lieutenant’s portrait alongside a homemade banner reading: “We will remember forever.”Israel received Goldin’s remains on Sunday as part of an ongoing Gaza ceasefire deal brokered by US President Donald Trump that has halted the latest war.His father, Simcha Goldin, hailed his son as a “Jewish warrior”, while urging tearful mourners to “behave righteously and do not hate one another. That is Hadar’s legacy.” “I ask you to act the same way, and to let there be a little more of Hadar in our daily lives,” he saidHadar Goldin, 23, was killed on August 1, 2014 during a previous Israeli offensive in Gaza known as “Operation Protective Edge”.He was leading a mission to destroy Hamas tunnels when he was killed in an ambush in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah and his body seized, just hours into a short-lived humanitarian truce, Israeli officials say.”Today, you have returned to the land for which you fought. But we will keep returning to every place where a promise remains unfulfilled,” Israeli army chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said in his eulogy at the funeral.”We will fight on until every one of our sons has come home.”On Tuesday, soldiers wearing the green uniforms and purple berets of Goldin’s Givati Brigade carried his flag-draped coffin into the cemetery.His return closes an agonising 11-year ordeal that haunted both his family and the nation.- Leave no one behind -“Today is a hard day, but I am happy because Hadar’s coming was a dream,” Israel Blumshtein, a 76-year-old resident of Kfar Saba, told AFP, adding that he had kept a picture of Goldin in his car for six years.He said it was important that his body be returned “because in our army… we do not leave anyone anywhere”.Goldin’s twin brother, Tzur Goldin, said Hamas’s hostage-taking sought “to weaken Israeli society, which is built on family”.”It aims to set one family’s interests against those of the whole, to force us to decide who matters more or less, to privilege one value over another, to destroy us from within,” he continued. “Our victory, for everyone, will be to ensure the founding principle of Israeli society — not abandoning one another, leaving no one behind — remains intact.”At the end of the funeral, the crowd joined in singing a mournful rendition of the “Hatikvah” (The Hope), Israel’s national anthem.Goldin’s family had held a symbolic funeral in 2014 after parts of his body were recovered from a tunnel soon after his death, but repeated attempts to retrieve the rest of his remains through previous prisoner exchanges failed.The head of Israel’s National Center of Forensic Medicine, Chen Kugel, told AFP that Goldin’s return gave “a sense of closure, for the family… but also for the entire country”.”Now he’s in Israel, in his home. Even if that home is a grave.”- ‘We will still fight’ -“It’s some kind of relief because he’s been there for more than 11 years,” said Aharon Gamzu, a 48-year-old software engineer who was draped in an Israeli flag at the funeral.”We all go to the army when we are 18 and we trust the army, the country, if something will happen to us they will do everything to bring us back,” he added.By his side, Einat Carmel Gamzu said it was important to attend “to give him a last honour, our honour for him and the family”.Since the truce in the latest Gaza war came into effect on October 10, Hamas has returned all 20 living hostages it held and the remains of 24 others, including Goldin.Four bodies of hostages seized during Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack — which sparked the retaliatory war in Gaza — are still in the Palestinian territory.”The story of Hadar is really moving and touching and exceptional, that’s why we now feel closure,” said Urit Uziel, a 67-year-old scientist and neighbour of the Goldin family.”But we will still fight for the return of everybody, all four of them, home.”

Thieves made off with several ancient gold ingots from Syria’s national museum in Damascus, a security source and another close to the institution’s management said Tuesday.The museum was spared during Syria’s destructive civil war that ran from 2011 to late last year, and houses priceless artefacts dating back to antiquity.The robbery took place overnight from Sunday to Monday, with the source close to the management telling AFP that “six items were stolen from the so-called classical wing” — one of the museum’s most important sections, home to artefacts from the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine eras.They described the items as gold ingots, without specifying their age or provenance.The security source separately confirmed the details.A manager at the museum declined to comment, saying only that the institution “is closed for security reasons and will reopen next week”.Syrian authorities have also not officially confirmed the burglary.Another security source said “several employees and guards at the museum were detained” after the theft, and were “subjected to interrogation before being released”.An official from the department overseeing Syria’s museums told AFP on condition of anonymity that security forces had forbidden employees from entering the exhibition halls since the incident.AFP journalists who visited the museum found it was closed — as it is every Tuesday — with no outward signs of anything amiss.The national museum had shut its doors due to fears of looting shortly before longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad was deposed last December by an Islamist coalition. It reopened in January.The institution’s collections include tens of thousands of items from Syria’s long history, ranging from prehistoric tools to Greco-Roman sculpture to pieces of Islamic art.During the civil war, many pieces stored elsewhere in the country were brought to the facility for safekeeping.The war saw archaeological sites bombed, museums looted and many artefacts stolen, generating millions of dollars for traffickers.

Iraqis began voting for a new parliament on Tuesday at a pivotal time for the country and the wider region, in an election that both Iran and the United States will be closely watching.Iraq, which has long been a fertile land for proxy wars, has only recently regained a sense of stability, as it tries to move past decades of war since the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.But even now, the country of 46 million people suffers from poor infrastructure, failing public services, mismanagement and endemic corruption.Many have lost hope that elections can bring meaningful change to their daily lives and see the vote as a sham that only benefits political elites and regional powers.No new names have recently emerged, with the same Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish politicians remaining at the forefront.Just minutes after the polls opened at 07:00 am (0400 GMT), several senior politicians voted at the luxurious Al-Rasheed hotel in the capital, Baghdad.But by midday, AFP correspondents reported a mostly low turnout in several main cities. In Baghdad, the streets, adorned with election posters, were largely deserted except for security forces, though polling stations in some neighbourhoods drew a fair number of voters.More than 21 million people are eligible to vote for the 329-seat parliament, but there are fears of a low turnout, which would reflect voters’ apathy and scepticism.But for Mohammed Mehdi, a public servant in his thirties, voting is a right and a means to achieve change.While he does not blame those who chose to boycott, he said after casting his vote in Baghdad that politicians have spent heavily to win votes, “proving my vote is valuable — so I will use it.”- Boycott -The ballot is marked by the absence of influential Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr who has urged his followers to boycott the vote, which might also contribute to low turnout. The mercurial Sadr accused those in power of being “corrupt” and unwilling to reform. A close associate quoted him as urging his followers to stay home and treat election day as a “family day”.In 2021, Sadr secured the largest bloc before withdrawing from parliament following a dispute with Shiite parties which culminated in deadly fighting in Baghdad.Over the years since US-led forces ousted Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, Iraq’s long-oppressed Shiite majority still dominates, with most parties retaining ties to neighbouring Iran.By convention in post-invasion Iraq, a Shiite Muslim holds the powerful post of prime minister and a Sunni that of parliament speaker, while the largely ceremonial presidency goes to a Kurd. Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, who hopes for a second term, is likely to score a significant win.Sudani rose to power in 2022 with the backing of the Coordination Framework, a ruling alliance of Shiite parties and factions all linked to Iran.But with a single party or list unlikely to achieve an outright majority, he must win the support of whichever coalition can secure enough allies to become the largest bloc.Although they run separately, Shiite parties within the Coordination Framework are expected to reunite after elections and pick the next premier.Sudani has touted his success in keeping Iraq relatively unscathed by the turmoil engulfing the Middle East.- Delicate balance -The next prime will have to maintain the delicate balance between Iraq’s allies, Iran and the US, even more so now that the Middle East is undergoing seismic changes, with new alliances forming and old powers weakening.Even as its influence wanes, Iran hopes to preserve its power in Iraq — the only close ally that stayed out of Israel’s crosshairs after the heavy losses its other allies have incurred in Lebanon, Yemen and Gaza since 2023.Tehran has meanwhile focused on other interests in Iraq — challenging the US with powerful Tehran-backed armed groups, and keeping the Iraqi market open to products from its crippled economy.Washington, which holds much sway in Iraq and has forces deployed there, conversely hopes to cripple Iran’s influence, and has been pressuring Baghdad to disarm the pro-Iran groups.On the ground however, Iraqis appeared torn between their hopes for change and disillusionment with the process.”We have unemployment and people are tired, we need progress,” said Ali Abed, 57, after casting his vote in the northern city of Mosul.Others meanwhile chose to boycott.”We have never seen anything good come from these politicians,” said Ali al-Ikabi, a 25-year-old tuk-tuk driver.Polling stations are expected to close at 6:00 pm (1500 GMT) on Tuesday, with preliminary results expected within 24 hours of closing.More than 7,740 candidates, nearly a third of them women and only 75 independents, are standing under an electoral law that many believe favours larger parties.Sunni parties are running separately, with the former speaker Mohammed al-Halbussi expected to do well.In the autonomous Kurdistan region, the rivalry between the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan remains fierce.