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US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Friday that Qatar will be allowed to build an air force facility at Mountain Home Air Base in Idaho that will house F-15 fighter jets and pilots.The announcement comes soon after President Donald Trump signed an executive order vowing to defend the Gulf Arab state against attacks, following Israeli air strikes targeting Hamas leaders in the Qatari capital Doha.”We’re signing a letter of acceptance to build a Qatari Emiri Air Force facility at the Mountain Home Air Base in Idaho,” Hegseth said at the Pentagon, with Qatari Defense Minister Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani at his side.”The location will host a contingent of Qatari F-15s and pilots to enhance our combined training” as well as “increase lethality, interoperability,” he said.”It’s just another example of our partnership. And I hope you know, your excellency, that you can count on us.”The Idaho base currently also hosts a fighter jet squadron from Singapore, according to its website.Hegseth also thanked Qatar for its “substantial role” as a mediator in the talks that led to a truce and hostage-prisoner swap deal between Israel and Hamas, and its assistance in securing the release of a US citizen from Afghanistan.The Qatari minister hailed the “strong, enduring partnership” and “deep defense relationship” shared by the two countries. The Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar is Washington’s largest military facility in the Middle East.Trump’s close relationship with the leaders of Qatar has raised eyebrows, especially over its gift to the US president of a Boeing 747 to be used as Air Force One.Though the Idaho facility for Qatar had apparently been in the works since the last administration of Democrat Joe Biden, the deal prompted some hand-wringing on social media, including from far-right activist Laura Loomer, usually a Trump ally.”Never thought I’d see Republicans give terror financing Muslims from Qatar a MILITARY BASE on US soil so they can murder Americans,” Loomer wrote on X.Hegseth, who never said it was a base, later wrote on the platform: “Qatar will not have their own base in the United States — nor anything like a base. We control the existing base, like we do with all partners.”

In the occupied West Bank’s Jordan Valley, Naef Jahaleen fears for the future as Israeli settlers come for the land home to one of the area’s last Bedouin herding communities.Life was good before in Ras Ein Al-Auja, the Bedouin herder says, but settlement outposts have grown one after the other over the past two years.Settlers’ trailers have gradually given way to houses with foundations, some built just 100 metres (109 yards) from Bedouin homes.In May, settlers diverted the village’s most precious resource — the spring after which it is named.But for the community of 130 families, the worst issue is the constant need to stand guard to avoid settlers cutting power and irrigation pipes, or bringing their own herds to graze near people’s houses.”The settlers provoke people at night, walking around the houses, disturbing the residents, making people anxious, scaring the children and the elderly,” 49-year-old Jahaleen said, adding that calling the Israeli police in the area rarely yielded results.”There’s no real protection,” he said.”A settler could come to your house — you call the police, and they don’t come. The army doesn’t come. No one helps,” Jahaleen told AFP after a meeting with other villagers trying to coordinate their response.- Land grabs -Most Palestinian Bedouins are herders, which leaves them particularly exposed to violence when Israeli settlers bring herds that compete for grazing land.It is a strategy that settlement watchdog organisations call “pastoral colonialism”.”They have started to bring in Jewish colonisers and give them some small herd or a few sheep or cows and take over a specific area. From there, this armed coloniser starts to herd,” Younes Ara, of the Palestinian Authority’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, told AFP.Settlements have expanded since Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967, with more than 500,000 settlers living in the Palestinian territory, excluding Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem. Some three million Palestinians live in the territory.Jahaleen said Israeli herding, combined with repeated harassment, aimed to make Palestinians leave an area.”You never know when or how they’ll harass you. The goal is to make you leave,” Jahaleen said as he stood guard near his home one night, occasionally flashing a powerful torch up a gully near where young settlers had been bringing supplies.That night, Jahaleen was joined on his watch by Doron Meinrath, a former army officer who sometimes leads volunteers for an Israeli organisation called Looking the Occupation in the Eye.Several foreign and Israeli activists help Jahaleen by standing watch, documenting settlers’ moves, calling the Israeli police or army, and trying to deter violence with their presence, taking turns for eight-hour shifts day and night.”Let’s go after them,” Meinrath said as he saw a car drive down a hill on an illegal road finished last winter that connects the nascent Israeli outpost to a formal settlement.All Israeli settlements in the West Bank are deemed illegal by the United Nations under international law.Once caught up with the young man’s Toyota — which was missing a headlight and had a cracked windscreen — Meinrath marked down the number plate and reported it to the police as a vehicle unsafe for the road.His aim was to get the vehicle impounded, in a bid to slow further land grabs.- Changing times -Even with the inexorable growth of settler outposts, Meinrath said he felt organisations such as his posed “a problem” for the settler movement.Although he had always been left-wing, Meinrath said his opinions fortified as he saw Israel change and the settlement movement become stronger politically.Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and other members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet openly call for the West Bank’s annexation, and more specifically that of the Jordan Valley.Abu Taleb, a 75-year-old herder from Ras Ein Al-Auja, said he saw the land he was born on change, too.Nestled between rocky hills to the west and the flat Jordan Valley that climbs up the Jordanian plateau to the east, his community used to be self-sufficient.But since settlers cut off access to the spring, he and his sons must pay to refill the water tank they need to quench their sheep’s thirst every three days.After another settlement outpost sprang up a stone’s throw from his home, Taleb must now also bring his sheep into their pen when settlers arrive with their own herd, for fear of violence.”My life as a child was good. But now, their lives are not good,” he said, pointing to three of his grandchildren milling around under the shade of a lonely acacia tree.”They grew up in a bad life. These kids are afraid of the settlers everywhere.”

US President Donald Trump has undeniably scored a diplomatic victory by helping to broker a truce for Gaza, but the path to the lasting peace he says he wants for the Middle East is littered with obstacles.And it remains to be seen whether the 79-year-old Trump — who is not exactly known for his attention to the fine print — will devote the same level of energy to the conflict over the long term, once his victory lap in the region is over next week.”Any agreement between Israelis and Palestinians, but especially one indirectly brokered between Israel and Hamas is an extraordinary achievement,” Aaron David Miller, who worked for multiple US administrations of both parties, told AFP.”Trump decided to do something that no American president… of either party has ever done, which is to pressure and squeeze an Israeli prime minister on an issue that that prime minister considered vital to his politics,” said Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.But Miller, who has participated in Middle East peace talks over the years, warned of the “universe of complexity and detail” that remains to be hashed out with respect to the implementation of phase two of the deal.The Israeli army said its troops had ceased fire at 0900 GMT Friday in the Gaza Strip, in anticipation of the release of all Israeli hostages, dead and alive, in the subsequent 72 hours, in compliance with the deal it reached with Palestinian armed group Hamas.Trump has said he expects to head to the Middle East on Sunday, with stops in Egypt, where the talks took place, and Israel. – Art of the deal? -Given that every US president over the past 20 years has been unsuccessful in resolving crises between Israel and the Palestinians, Trump’s accomplishment is already remarkable.But the Republican billionaire president has broader aspirations — to revive the Abraham Accords reached during his first White House term, under which the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco offered Israel diplomatic recognition.Trump has brought his son-in-law Jared Kushner, one of the architects of those accords, back into the administration to work with special envoy Steve Witkoff on the Gaza negotiations.Officials and foreign policy observers agree that Trump deftly used a mix of carrot and stick — publicly and privately, and especially with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — to get the deal done.He also leveraged his strong ties with Arab and Muslim leaders including Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan. For Miller, Trump clearly played a “decisive” role.But while the agreement’s first phase appears to be on track, much remains undefined, including how — and if — Hamas will agree to disarm after two years of devastating conflict in the Palestinian territory, following its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.”A ceasefire is not yet a lasting peace,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said Thursday, after meeting with European and Arab ministers on how to help the Palestinians in the post-conflict period.Steven Cook, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote: “Whether this leads to an end to the war remains an open question.”- Huge challenges -Cook says the challenge now is to fully implement Trump’s 20-point plan, which calls for Hamas to surrender its weapons, the creation of an international stabilization force and new governing structures for Gaza that will not include the Palestinian militant group.Trump insisted Thursday that “there will be disarming” by Hamas and “pullbacks” by Israeli forces. Then on Friday, he added: “I think there is consensus on most of it, and some of the details, like anything else, will be worked out.”But his administration will need to work hard to finalize the deal, and ensure that Arab countries in the region are invested in helping rebuild a devastated Gaza.A team of 200 US military personnel will “oversee” the Gaza truce, senior US officials said Thursday. Miller said there are “operational” holes in the plan as it stands, including “no detailed planning for either how to decommission and/or demilitarize Gaza, even if you had Hamas’s assent, which you don’t.”The plan also calls for the creation of a so-called “Board of Peace,” a transitional body to be chaired by Trump himself — a proposal Hamas rejected on Thursday.”Despite coming to office eager to shed America’s Middle East commitments, Trump just took on a huge one: responsibility for a peace plan that will forever bear his name,” wrote Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Israel declared a ceasefire in Gaza and began to pull back its forces on Friday, as tens of thousands of exhausted Palestinians made their way back to their devastated homes.After two years of brutal war, the families of Israel’s remaining hostages in the territory were also hoping the truce — pushed by US President Donald Trump — would endure.Trump himself expressed confidence that the ceasefire would “hold”, telling reporters that Israel and Hamas were “all tired of the fighting”.The Israeli military said its troops had halted fire at noon (0900 GMT) “in preparation for the ceasefire agreement and the return of hostages”.Three hours later, the Pentagon confirmed Israel had completed the first phase of a pullback laid out in Trump’s peace plan. Israeli forces still hold around 53 percent of the Palestinian territory.The withdrawal set the clock running on a 72-hour deadline for Hamas to release the remaining hostages held in Gaza.Israel, meanwhile, published the list of the 250 Palestinian prisoners it plans to release — along with 1,700 Gazans detained since Hamas triggered the latest conflict with its attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.As the ceasefire began, long columns of Palestinians, exhausted by two years of intense bombardment and what the UN has warned were famine conditions, began a trek from the southern city of Khan Yunis towards their shattered homes further north.Rescue workers began retrieving dozens of bodies from vast stretches of debris after the ceasefire took effect.The EU mission at the Rafah border between Gaza and Egypt will be reopening a pedestrian crossing on October 14, Italy said.Under the ceasefire deal proposed by Trump, Hamas will hand over 47 remaining hostages — living and dead — from the 251 abducted during the October 7 attack two years ago. The remains of one more hostage, held in Gaza since 2014, are also expected to be returned.Leaders of Britain, France and Germany urged the UN Security Council to back the plan.Trump confirmed that he would meet “a lot of leaders” in Egypt on Monday to discuss the future of devastated Gaza, adding that he was confident the ceasefire would lead to wider peace in the Middle East.- ‘Wounds and sorrow’ -As thousands of Palestinians began their journeys home, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) said in a joint statement that they had achieved “a setback for (Israel’s) goals of displacement and uprooting”.”The negotiation process and the mechanism for implementing the agreement still require high national vigilance and close monitoring around the clock to ensure the success of this stage,” the groups said.”We will continue to work responsibly with the mediators to ensure that the occupation is bound to protect the rights of our people and end their suffering,” they added.Gaza’s civil defence agency confirmed that Israeli troops and armoured vehicles were pulling back from forward positions in both Gaza City and Khan Yunis.But Israel warned some areas were still off-limits and that Palestinians should steer clear of its forces while they were “adjusting operational positions in the Gaza Strip”.Gaza civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said that around 200,000 Palestinians had returned to the north since the ceasefire took effect. “We’re going back to our areas, full of wounds and sorrow, but we thank God for this situation,” 32-year-old Ameer Abu Iyadeh told AFP in Khan Yunis.”I just pray (my home) hasn’t been destroyed… We only hope the war will end for good, so we’ll never have to flee again,” said Mohammed Mortaja, 39, as he headed to his home in Gaza City.Before dawn on Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the government had approved a framework of the hostage-release deal.”Citizens of Israel, two years ago, the Simhat Torah holiday became a day of national mourning,” Netanyahu said, referring to a Jewish festival that begins at nightfall on Monday.”This Simhat Torah, with God’s help, will be a day of national joy, celebrating the return of all our brothers and sisters held hostage,” he said.The family of Alon Ohel, who is among the 20 living hostages due to be released, said they were “overwhelmed with emotion” and eagerly awaiting his return.”With tears of joy, we received the news that an agreement has been reached,” the family said.- Joy and grief -Despite celebrations in Israel and Gaza and a flood of congratulatory messages from world leaders, many issues remain unresolved, including Hamas’s disarmament and a proposed transitional authority for Gaza led by Trump.Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan told Qatar-based broadcaster Al Araby the Palestinian Islamist movement rejects the transitional authority.Residents of several areas of the Gaza Strip told AFP the Israeli military appeared to have withdrawn from positions it held on Thursday.Areej Abu Saadaeh, 53, who was displaced early in the conflict, was heading home between smashed piles of rubble and twisted steel, under clouds of cement dust.”I’m happy about the truce and peace, even though I’m a mother of a son and a daughter who were killed and I grieve for them deeply. Yet, the truce also brings joy: returning to our homes,” she said.str-dc-jd-acc/phz/mjw/tym

US President Donald Trump announced an additional 100 percent tariff on China Friday and threatened to cancel a summit with Xi Jinping, reigniting his trade war with Beijing in a row over export curbs on rare earth minerals.Trump said the extra levies, plus US export controls on “any and all critical software,” would come into …

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Morocco’s King Mohammed VI on Friday said improving public education and healthcare was a priority, but made no reference to the youth movement that has been staging nationwide protests for sweeping social reforms.”We have set as priorities… the creation of jobs for young people, and the concrete improvement of the education and health sectors,” the monarch said in his annual address to the opening session of parliament.The royal speech had been much anticipated by the protesters, who have taken to the streets almost every night since September 27.The unrest that has rocked the usually stable north African country has been fuelled by recent reports of the deaths of eight pregnant women at a public hospital in the city of Agadir, which critics condemn as a symptom of a failing system.Demonstrators have been calling for a change in government and for Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch to resign.Many Moroccans have also expressed frustration at public spending as Morocco pushes ahead with major infrastructure projects in preparation for the 2030 World Cup, which it will co-host with Portugal and Spain.The king pleaded that “there should be no contradiction or competition between major national projects and social programmes”.- ‘Disappointed’ -GenZ 212, the online-based collective calling the protests — whose founders remain unknown — made no immediate reaction to the speech.Raghd, a 23-year-old sound engineer who had joined several demonstrations in Rabat, said she was “disappointed” that there was no explicit reference to the protests in the royal speech.”I thought he would say something stronger,” she told AFP without giving her last name.The collective had urged its followers to refrain from protesting on Friday night “out of respect” for the king.Yet Driss El Yazami, the former head of the National Human Rights Council, said the king’s speech might actually amount to “a national mobilisation”.He said the monarch “heard the call of the youth”.In his speech, the king said Morocco was “charting a steady path toward greater social and territorial justice”.He added that efforts must also ensure “that the fruits of growth benefit everyone”.In July, he had declared that “there is no place, today or tomorrow, for a Morocco moving at two speeds”.On Thursday, GenZ 212 demanded a “crackdown on corruption” and a “radical modernisation of school textbooks”.They also called for a national plan to renovate hospitals, recruit more doctors and healthcare workers, particularly in remote areas, and raise public health insurance reimbursement rates from 50 percent to 75 percent.Official figures show a lack of education in Morocco is a key driver of the country’s poverty, which has, nevertheless, fallen from nearly 12 percent of the population in 2014 to 6.8 percent in 2024.- ‘Shortfalls’ -GenZ 212 has insisted it had no political affiliation and no formal leadership.Members on the online messaging platform Discord where it was founded discuss issues openly and put every major decision up to a vote.Sociologist Mehdi Alioua said it comes as “part of a long history of youth-led social mobilisation in Morocco”.The north African country had seen mass protests in February 2011 and in 2016 with the Hirak uprising in the Rif region.Yet GenZ 212 has brought together “young, connected urbanites, from the middle or upper classes,” as well as “young rural and small-town workers, often exploited agricultural low-wage labourers with few rights”.The government made a fresh call on Thursday for dialogue with the protesters, saying their “message has been received” and vowing to “work quickly to mobilise resources and address shortfalls”.Rallies have been largely peaceful, though some nights have seen spates of violence and acts of vandalism.Three people were killed in clashes with security forces last week, while police have made dozens of arrests.

Stock markets fell Friday after US President Donald Trump threatened China with “massive” new tariffs, while oil prices retreated as Middle East tensions eased following the Gaza ceasefire.Trump, in an angry and lengthy social media post, slammed China for “very hostile” trade practices, including imposing new export controls on rare earths.In addition to “a massive increase of …

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Morocco’s King Mohammed VI on Friday said improving public education and healthcare was a priority, but made no reference to the youth movement that has been staging nationwide protests for sweeping social reforms.”We have set as priorities… the creation of jobs for young people, and the concrete improvement of the education and health sectors,” the monarch said in his annual address to the opening session of parliament.The royal speech had been much anticipated by the protesters, who have taken to the streets almost every night since September 27.The unrest that has rocked the usually stable north African country has been fuelled by recent reports of the deaths of eight pregnant women at a public hospital in the city of Agadir, which critics condemn as a symptom of a failing system.Demonstrators have been calling for a change in government and for Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch to resign.Many Moroccans have also expressed frustration at public spending as Morocco pushes ahead with major infrastructure projects in preparation for the 2030 World Cup, which it will co-host with Portugal and Spain.The king pleaded that “there should be no contradiction or competition between major national projects and social programmes”.On Thursday, the online-based collective calling the protests, GenZ 212 — whose founders remain unknown — demanded a “crackdown on corruption” and a “radical modernisation of school textbooks”.They also called for a national plan to renovate hospitals, recruit more doctors and healthcare workers, particularly in remote areas, and raise public health insurance reimbursement rates from 50 percent to 75 percent.Official figures show a lack of education in Morocco is a key driver of the country’s poverty, which has, nevertheless, fallen from nearly 12 percent of the population in 2014 to 6.8 percent in 2024.The government made a fresh call on Thursday for dialogue with the protesters, saying their “message has been received” and vowing to “work quickly to mobilise resources and address shortfalls”.Rallies have been largely peaceful, though some nights have seen spates of violence and acts of vandalism.Three people were killed in clashes with security forces last week, while police have made dozens of arrests.

An AFP photographer was injured in an attack by Israeli settlers on Friday while covering the olive harvest in a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank.”In my 30-year career, this is the first time I have faced violence of this kind,” said Jaafar Ashtiyeh, a Palestinian photographer based in the city of Nablus.”If I hadn’t managed to escape, they would have killed me,” he added.Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, and Israeli settlements there are expanding, and violence soaring.Ashtiyeh said he had been covering the olive harvest in the village of Beita, particularly looking at the work of Israeli and foreign peace activists who had come to support residents in the face of repeated settler attacks during the harvest season.Shortly after midday (0900 GMT), two groups of Israeli settlers armed with sticks and stones — numbering around 70 people in total — attacked the olive pickers and journalists at the scene.Hit by several stones in the back, arm and hand, Ashtiyeh was discharged from hospital in the afternoon and is suffering from bruising.His car, along with a handful of others parked at a safe distance from the field, was stoned and then set on fire by the assailants.Ashtiyeh said Israeli soldiers who were present before the attack did nothing to stop the attackers from advancing, but instead fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the olive pickers and activists to disperse them.”We strongly condemn this outrageous attack which is another illustration of the increasingly dangerous working environment for our journalists in the West Bank,” said Mehdi Lebouachera, AFP’s Global Editor-In-Chief.”We urge the Israeli military to not only ensure the protection of journalists going about their work but also to ensure that the perpetrators are brought to justice,” he added.Contacted by AFP about the incident, the Israeli military did not immediately respond.The Palestinian health ministry said settler attacks injured 36 people on Friday in Beita and other nearby villages, with most of them suffering minor or moderate injuries, with the exception of two who were wounded by gunfire.