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Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Wednesday urged Hamas to free all hostages, saying keeping them provided Israel with “excuses” to attack Gaza, as rescuers recovered charred bodies from an Israeli strike.Israeli attacks killed at least 25 people across the besieged territory, while Germany, France and Britain urged Israel to end its aid blockade.Israel’s Gaza military campaign resumed on March 18, ending the ceasefire that had largely paused hostilities and saw the release of 33 hostages in exchange for around 1,800 Palestinian prisoners.Talks on a new ceasefire have so far failed been fruitless, and a Hamas delegation is in Cairo for renewed negotiations with Egyptian and Qatari mediators.”Hamas has given the criminal occupation excuses to commit its crimes in the Gaza Strip, the most prominent being the holding of hostages,” Abbas said in Ramallah, seat of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.”I’m the one paying the price, our people are paying the price, not Israel. My brother, just hand them over.””Every day there are deaths,” Abbas said.”You sons of dogs, hand over what you have and get us out of this” ordeal, he added, levelling a harsh Arabic epithet at Hamas.Senior Hamas official Bassem Naim called his remarks “insulting”.”Abbas repeatedly and suspiciously lays the blame for the crimes of the occupation and its ongoing aggression on our people,” he said.There have been deep political and ideological divisions between Abbas’s Fatah party and Hamas for nearly two decades.Abbas and the PA have often accused Hamas of undermining Palestinian unity, and Hamas has criticised the former for collaborating with Israel and cracking down on West Bank dissent.- ‘Charred bodies’ -Late Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu compared Hamas with “Nazis, like Hitler”.”They want to kill, to destroy all the Jews. They openly declare their intent to destroy the Jewish state, and that will not happen!” he said as Israel marked Holocaust Remembrance Day.Hamas’s armed wing the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades had earlier released footage it said was of an Israeli hostage alive in Gaza. He identified himself as 48-year-old Omri Miran.His family in a statement decried “a moral failure for the State of Israel… We will continue to fight until Omri returns to us.”Israel continued to pound Gaza, with rescuers reporting at least 25 people killed Wednesday, including 11 in a strike on a school-turned-shelter.”The school was housing displaced people. The bombing sparked a massive blaze, and several charred bodies have since been recovered,” civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said of the attack on Yaffa school in Gaza City’s Al-Tuffah neighbourhood.Israel’s military said it had “struck a gathering of terrorists operating within a Hamas and Islamic Jihad command and control centre” at the school.An AFP journalist reported seeing several bodies in white shrouds at Al-Shifa hospital’s morgue, where women wept over the body of a child.”We want nothing more than for the war to end, so we can live like people in the rest of the world,” said Khan Yunis resident Walid al-Najjar.- ‘No tools’ to retrieve bodies -Since the war began following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, tens of thousands of displaced Gazans have sought refuge in schools.Aid agencies estimate that the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.4 million residents have been displaced at least once.”We lack the necessary tools and equipment to carry out effective rescue operations or recover the bodies of martyrs,” Bassal said.On Tuesday, Israel’s military said it had targeted approximately 40 “engineering vehicles”, alleging they were used for “terror purposes”.Elsewhere in Gaza, further fatalities were reported Wednesday, including four in Israeli shelling of homes in eastern Gaza City, Bassal said.Since Israel’s campaign resumed, at least 1,928 people have been killed in Gaza, bringing the total death toll since the war erupted to at least 51,305, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.Hamas’s attack on Israel that ignited the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.Germany, France, and Britain on Wednesday called on Israel to stop blocking humanitarian aid into Gaza, warning of “an acute risk of starvation, epidemic disease and death”.”We urge Israel to immediately restart a rapid and unimpeded flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza in order to meet the needs of all civilians,” their foreign ministers said in a joint statement.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking Wednesday at an annual Holocaust commemoration, said Iran was an existential threat and warned that “the fate of all humanity” was at stake if it acquires nuclear arms.Netanyahu was speaking at the start of Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, which commemorates the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis during World War II, and is observed every year in April or May according to the Jewish calendar. The International Holocaust Remembrance Day is marked on January 27.”The regime in Iran is a threat to our destiny, to our very existence, and to the fate of all humanity,” Netanyahu said in a solemn address at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial centre in Jerusalem.”This is what will happen if it obtains nuclear weapons. If we lose this battle, the Western nations will be next,” Netanyahu said, using the memorial day to deliver a political message.”Israel will not lose, will not give in, and will not surrender,” he said.Netanyahu’s comments come as arch-foes the United States and Iran are engaged in indirect talks over the Iranian nuclear programme.Western powers and Israel, considered by experts the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, have long accused Tehran of seeking nuclear weapons.Iran has always denied the charge, insisting its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes only.Netanyahu has repeatedly vowed that he would not allow Iran to have nuclear weapons. The New York Times reported last week that US President Donald Trump had dissuaded Israel from striking Iran’s nuclear sites in the short term.In his remarks at Yad Vashem, Netanyahu also compared Palestinian militant group Hamas, whose October 7, 2023 attack on Israel sparked the Gaza war, to the “Nazis, like Hitler”.”They want to kill, to destroy all the Jews,” he said.”They openly declare their intent to destroy the Jewish state, and that will not happen!”The Israeli military last month resumed its campaign against Hamas in Gaza Strip after a two-month ceasefire.Earlier on Wednesday, an Israeli government body supporting Holocaust survivors said 120,507 of them were living in Israel, down nearly 10 percent from last year’s figure.In April 2024, the number stood at 133,362 survivors of the Nazi persecution of Jews eight decades ago.As part of the remembrance day, Israel will observe on Thursday a two-minute silence as sirens wail across the country in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.

The Cannes film festival said Wednesday that the screening of a documentary about Gaza photojournalist Fatima Hassouna at the event next month would honour her work after the “horror” of her death in an Israeli air strike last week.”Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk” by Iranian director Sepideh Farsi is to be shown at ACID Cannes, at this year’s May 13-24 festival, which runs parallel to the main competition.The film features conversations between Farsi and Hassouna, 25, as she documents the impact of Israel’s devastating war on the Palestinian territory.Hassouna was killed along with 10 relatives in an air strike on her family home in northern Gaza last Wednesday, the day after the documentary was announced as part of the ACID Cannes selection. The Israeli military, which media freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has accused of carrying out a “massacre” of Palestinian journalists, claimed it had targeted a Hamas member.”The Cannes Film Festival wishes to express its horror and deep sorrow at this tragedy, which has moved and shocked the entire world,” the festival said in a statement on Hassouna sent to AFP.”While a film is little in the face of such a tragedy, its screening at the ACID section in Cannes on May 15 will be, in addition to the message of the film itself, a way of honouring the memory of the young woman, a victim like so many others of the war,” it added.Just before her death, Hassouna wrote on social media that “if I die, I want a loud death. I don’t want to be just breaking news, or a number in a group.” “She was such a light, so talented. When you see the film you’ll understand,” Farsi told Hollywood news website Deadline after her death. “I had talked to her a few hours before to tell her that the film was in Cannes and to invite her.”- Miracle -The ACID festival said Hassouna’s “life force seemed like a miracle”, in a statement released after her death.”This is no longer the same film that we are going to support and present in all theatres, starting with Cannes,” it added.RSF also denounced her death. “Her name joins those of nearly 200 journalists killed in 18 months. This carnage must stop,” it wrote on the Bluesky social media website. Also at Cannes, Palestinian twins Tarzan and Arab Nasser will showcase their latest film “Once Upon a Time In Gaza”, a tale of murder and friendship set in the war-torn territory, in the secondary “Un Certain Regard” section.An attack by Hamas militants on Israel on October 7, 2023 set off the war. The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.Israeli forces have since killed more than 51,000 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Jordan announced on Wednesday it was banning the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood, a transnational Islamist movement, accusing it of manufacturing and stockpiling weapons and planning to destabilise the kingdom.The move comes after authorities said they arrested 16 people, including members of the Brotherhood, over an alleged sabotage plot.”It has been decided to ban all activities of the so-called Muslim Brotherhood and to consider any activity (carried out by it) a violation of the provisions of the law,” Interior Minister Mazen al-Faraya told reporters.”It has also been decided to close any offices or headquarters used by the group, even if it is in partnership with any other parties,” he added.The Muslim Brotherhood has continued to operate in Jordan despite the country’s top court in 2020 ruling to dissolve it, with authorities turning a blind eye to its activities.The Brotherhood’s political wing, the Islamic Action Front, is Jordan’s main opposition party and the largest in parliament, having won 31 out of 138 seats in September elections.Faraya said Jordan would also be “confiscating the group’s assets in accordance with relevant judicial rulings, prohibit the promotion of the group’s ideas under penalty of legal accountability, and consider membership in it a prohibited act”.The capital Amman is home to several Muslim Brotherhood offices. The group often issues statements and organises rallies in solidarity with the Palestinians, especially since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.Faraya said any collaboration with the Muslim Brotherhood was banned, as was publishing any content produced by the movement “and all its fronts and arms”.It was not immediately clear whether the ban applied to the Islamic Action Front.In a parliamentary session earlier this week, some legislators called to outlaw the activities of the Brotherhood and suspend MPs from the Islamic Action Front.- ‘Operating in the shadows’ -Jordan’s intelligence service on April 15 announced the arrests of 16 people on “terrorism” charges, accusing them, among other things, of manufacturing and possessing weapons such as rockets.The Muslim Brotherhood has denied being aware of any plot, dismissing it as the acts of individuals in support of the Palestinian “resistance”.The group said it has always supported “Jordan’s security and stability”.Faraya charged that the group’s members “are operating in the shadows and engage in activities that could undermine stability and security”.He added that authorities had found “explosives and weapons transported between Jordanian cities and stored in residential areas”, as well as covert missile manufacturing facilities and “training and recruitment operations” linked to the group.”No country can accept” such activities, the minister said.Amman had tolerated the group for decades, but since 2014 authorities have considered it illegal, arguing its licence was not renewed under a 2014 law.The Brotherhood argues that it had already obtained licences under previous laws in the 1940s and 1950s.It continued to operate, but its relations with the state deteriorated after the government in 2015 authorised a splinter group, the Muslim Brotherhood Association.The Brotherhood, banned in several other Arab countries, has had grassroots support in Jordan for decades.Ahmad Safadi, speaker of the Jordanian parliament’s lower house, said in response to Faraya’s announcement that Jordan respected the rule of law, and “no entity is outside the authority and power of the state”.He said the legislature would support “all steps announced by the interior minister to safeguard the kingdom’s security and stability in the face of suspicious attempts directed from abroad”.

The world’s largest auto expo opened its doors Wednesday in Shanghai, showcasing the new electric world order even as mounting trade barriers risk dampening China’s global ambitions.With nearly 1,000 exhibitors present, foreign carmakers are raring to show they can keep pace with the ultra-competitive Chinese firms that dominate the sector’s electric frontier.Beijing’s historic backing of …

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Dozens of cutting-edge Chinese carmakers displayed their prowess at the world’s largest auto show in Shanghai on Wednesday — but not all will survive the country’s brutal domestic market, executives said.Beijing’s historic backing of EV and hybrid development has seen over a hundred Chinese brands emerge in a relatively short space of time, all jostling …

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Tears mixed with smiles as a dense crowd flocked to the requiem mass for the pope at Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Wednesday. “He gave us hope, and we will keep that hope with us forever even in this situation in Palestine”, said Na’ma Tarsha, a retiree from the Mount of Olives in east Jerusalem, a part of the city occupied and annexed by Israel in 1967. Dressed entirely in black, the 75-year-old woman said she was determined to take part in the mass for Pope Francis, who died on Monday aged 88.”I came to attend this mass because wherever he would go, I would follow him”, she said “it’s important to have this mass for him in a church with an empty tomb… because it calls for rising (resurrection), it is a great symbol”.The basilica in Jerusalem’s ancient Old City is the centre point of Christianity, built on the site where believers hold that Christ was crucified, entombed and resurrected. “I was sad, but I feel peace inside because I know that he will rise again like Jesus,” said Tarsha.Earlier that morning, a processions of clergy in cassocks ranging from brown to beige, depending on their religious order, passed through the wide doors of the building and into clouds of incense.Alongside them mingled nuns, scouts, local worshippers and a few foreign pilgrims, hoping to secure one of the few seats available.- ‘Really special moment’ -Preceded by two “kawas” — guards in traditional livery from the Ottoman era, bearing sabres and ceremonial staffs — the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, entered the church followed by Christian religious leaders and diplomats. As the organ began to play, the patriarch kissed the Stone of Anointing, where Jesus’s body is said to have been prepared for burial, before putting his biretta hat back on.As a cardinal, Pizzaballa will be among the elite electorate that will soon gather in Rome to appoint a successor to Pope Francis and has himself been tipped for the role. “He could be the next (pope), but we need him so much here,” said a Palestinian Christian who did not wish to give his name, but said he appreciated Pizzaballa’s calls for peace.”We are so shaken, so sad. Even though we knew the pope was very sick, our feelings are all mixed, we feel so many feelings at the same time.”Pope Francis repeatedly denounced the war in Gaza and regularly phoned a small Christian congregation in the besieged territory.As the mass began, other believers recalled the late pope’s visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories in 2014 when he visited the church.The liturgy was led by the patriarch, as well as a Ukrainian cardinal. The presence of clergymen from countries at war stood as a nod to Pope Francis’s message of peace.In a hidden corner of the church, a group of young people stood on tiptoe to watch proceedings, all volunteers from various religious institutions in the Holy Land.Among them was Arthur Trusch, who said he couldn’t miss the event, even though he was a Protestant evangelical. “It’s a really special moment”, said the 20-year-old German who was volunteering at a Jerusalem monastery.”To see all these people, here for the pope and for the patriarch, is very moving”.

Donald Trump’s tariff plans have increased the risks to public finances, the International Monetary Fund said Wednesday, warning countries to get their spending plans under control and prepare for “sharper” trade-offs.The US president’s on-again, off-again introduction of levies against top trading partners has sent market volatility soaring and unnerved investors, who are attempting to chart …

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A 6.2-magnitude earthquake hit the Sea of Marmara near Istanbul on Wednesday, with the impact felt across Turkey’s largest city where people rushed onto the streets. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage, officials said, but the quake was followed by at least eight others, Turkey’s AFAD disaster management agency said. “An earthquake of 6.2 magnitude occurred in Silivri, Sea of Marmara, Istanbul,” Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on X, adding that it was felt in the surrounding provinces.The initial quake struck at 12:49 pm (0949 GMT) at a depth of 6.92 kilometres under the sea, which lies to the south of the city, AFAD said. It was followed by eight others with magnitudes of 3.5 to 5.9. As buildings shook, people rushed onto the streets where crowds of worried-looking people stared at their mobile phones for information or made calls, an AFP correspondent said. “I just felt earthquake, I’ve got to get out,” a shaken-looking decorator said while rushing out of a fourth-storey apartment where he was working near the city’s Galata Tower, who did not want to give his name. Footage posted by the state news agency Anadolu showed the minaret of a mosque in the Beylikduzu district just west of the historic peninsula swaying during the inial quake.But there were no reports of any buildings collapsing in the sprawling city of 16 million people, Yerlikaya told TRT public television. “Until now, nobody’s called the emergency line to report their house collapsing,” he said, though the Istanbul governor’s office warned people to avoid any structures that looked like they might have been damaged.Footage on Turkey’s NTV television showed one three-storey building collapsed in the Fatih district, also near the historic peninsula, with the broadcaster saying the building was empty and had been abandoned decade ago. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he was “following the developments closely”.- ‘Nothing we can do’ -“We all panicked and just ran. There’s absolutely nothing else we can do,” said Yusuf, a street seller. The tremors could be felt as far away as Bulgaria, according to AFP journalists in the capital Sofia.Silivri, on the megacity’s western outskirts, has made headlines in the past month as it is where Istanbul’s mayor Ekrem Imamoglu was jailed after his arrest in a graft probe that his critics say is politically motivated. Also at the Silivri jail are a number of students detained for joining the mass protests that erupted nationwide over the move against Imamoglu, Erdogan’s biggest political rival. Although they felt the quake, none were hurt, the Parents Solidarity Network said on X.”The earthquake in Istanbul was most strongly felt in Silivri but our children are fine. There is no problem at the prison, no parent should worry,” the group wrote.The last tremor to be felt in Istanbul was in mid-November, when a quake caused brief panic but no damage or injuries.Turkish and foreign seismologists agree that Istanbul is likely to be struck by major earthquakes in the coming decades given its location of less than 20 kilometres from the North Anatolia fault line.Around 20,000 people were killed in two massive quakes that devastated Turkey’s densely populated northwest — including parts of Istanbul — three months apart in 1999 as the eastern strand of the fault line ruptured.