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Palestinians began returning to the north of the war-battered Gaza Strip on Monday after Israel and Hamas said they had reached a deal for the release of another six hostages.The breakthrough preserves a fragile ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, which has devastated the Gaza Strip and displaced nearly all its residents, paving the way for more hostage-prisoner swaps under an agreement aimed at ending the more than 15-month conflict.Israel had been preventing vast crowds of Palestinians from returning to their homes in northern Gaza, accusing Hamas of violating the truce by failing to release civilian women hostages.Throngs of Palestinians began making their way north on Monday morning, an official at the Hamas-run Interior Ministry told AFP. “The passage of displaced Palestinians has begun”, the official said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said earlier that a deal had been reached for the release of three hostages on Thursday and another three on Saturday. Hamas confirmed the agreement in its own statement Monday. Palestinian leaders meanwhile slammed a plan floated by US President Donald Trump to “clean out” Gaza, vowing to resist any effort to forcibly displace residents of the war-battered territory.Trump said Gaza had become a “demolition site”, adding he had spoken to Jordan’s King Abdullah II about moving Palestinians out.”I’d like Egypt to take people. And I’d like Jordan to take people,” Trump told reporters.Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, who is based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, “expressed strong rejection and condemnation of any projects” aimed at displacing Palestinians from Gaza, his office said.Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, told AFP that Palestinians would “foil such projects”, as they have done to similar plans “for displacement and alternative homelands over the decades”.Islamic Jihad, which has fought alongside Hamas in Gaza, called Trump’s idea “deplorable”. For Palestinians, any attempt to move them from Gaza would evoke dark memories of what the Arab world calls the “Nakba”, or catastrophe — the mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel’s creation in 1948.”We say to Trump and the whole world: we will not leave Palestine or Gaza, no matter what happens,” said displaced Gaza resident Rashad al-Naji.- Jordan, Egypt reject displacement -Trump floated the idea to reporters Saturday aboard Air Force One: “You’re talking about probably a million and half people, and we just clean out that whole thing.”Moving Gaza’s roughly 2.4 million inhabitants could be done “temporarily or could be long term”, he said.Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich — who opposed the truce deal and has voiced support for re-establishing Israeli settlements in Gaza — called Trump’s suggestion of “a great idea”. The Arab League rejected the idea, warning against “attempts to uproot the Palestinian people from their land”.”The forced displacement and eviction of people from their land can only be called ethnic cleansing”, the league said in a statement.Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said “our rejection of the displacement of Palestinians is firm and will not change. Jordan is for Jordanians and Palestine is for Palestinians.”Egypt’s foreign ministry said it rejected any infringement of Palestinians’ “inalienable rights”.Israel had said it would prevent Palestinians’ passage until the release of Arbel Yehud, a civilian woman hostage. She is among those slated for return on Thursday, according to Netanyahu’s office.Hamas said that blocking returns to the north also amounted to a truce violation, adding it had provided “all the necessary guarantees” for Yehud’s release.Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee said Monday that residents would be allowed to return on foot starting at 07:00 am (0500 GMT) and by car at 9:00 am.- ‘Dire’ humanitarian situation -During the first phase of the Gaza truce, 33 hostages are supposed to be freed in staggered releases over six weeks in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.The most recent swap saw four Israeli women hostages, all soldiers, and 200 prisoners, nearly all Palestinian, released Saturday — the second such exchange during the fragile truce entering its second week.Dani Miran, whose hostage son Omri is not slated for release during the first phase, demonstrated outside Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem on Sunday.”We want the agreement to continue and for them to bring our children back as quickly as possible — and all at once,” he said.The truce has brought a surge of food, fuel, medicines and other aid into rubble-strewn Gaza, but the UN says “the humanitarian situation remains dire”.Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack that ignited the war, 87 remain in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 47,306 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.burs-tym/rsc

Higher US tariffs under President Donald Trump could accelerate a slump in the value of China’s currency, complicating recent efforts by Beijing to kickstart a rebound in its struggling economy, analysts warn.Just days after beginning his second term in the White House last week, Trump said he would impose a 10 percent levy on all …

Weak yuan, Trump tariff threats confound Beijing’s economic puzzle Read More »

Asian markets fluctuated Monday on fresh trade fears after Donald Trump’s decision to impose huge tariffs on Colombia, in retaliation for its refusal to accept deportation flights from the United States.Traders were also assessing the impact of a new, cheaper Chinese generative AI programme released last week that hit tech firms amid claims it can …

Asian stocks mixed as tariff fears return, new AI programme emerges Read More »

US President Donald Trump’s proposal to uproot Gazans to Egypt and Jordan is a “hostile” move against the two US allies and aims to “liquidate the Palestinian cause”, Jordanian analysts told AFP.The US leader on Saturday floated an idea to “clean out” Gaza after more than 15 months of war between Israel and Hamas had reduced the Palestinian territory to a “demolition site”.”I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing at a different location where they can maybe live in peace for a change,” Trump added.He said the displacement of Gazans to neighbouring Egypt and Jordan could be done “temporarily or could be long term”.For Oraib Rantawi, director of the Al Quds Center for Political Studies in Amman, the idea is “a hostile position” by the new US administration towards Palestinians, Jordan and Egypt.Jordan already hosts 2.3 million Palestinian refugees and has repeatedly rejected any project aiming to make the kingdom an “alternative homeland”.”Our rejection of the displacement of Palestinians is firm and will not change. Jordan is for Jordanians and Palestine is for Palestinians,” Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said on Sunday.Rantawi said the idea was “a threat for the security and stability” of Israel’s two neighbours, seeing a “message of pressure” for Amman and a “poisoned gift” for Cairo.Such a plan would bring closer a wider displacement of Palestinians, particularly from the occupied West Bank, to Jordan and aim to “liquidate the Palestinian cause at the expense of Arab countries”, Rantawi told AFP.For Palestinians, any attempt to move them from Gaza would evoke dark memories of what the Arab world calls the “Nakba” or “catastrophe” — the mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel’s creation in 1948.Trump’s proposal comes after the United States issued a broad freeze on foreign aid except that destined for Egypt and Israel.- ‘Unrealistic’ -Jordanian writer and political analyst Adel Mahmoud called Trump’s idea “unrealistic” and a reflection of “the position of the Israeli far right” made under “a humanitarian pretext”.”Jordan and Egypt will not accept it,” he added.Egypt has previously warned against any “forced displacement” of Palestinians from Gaza into the Sinai desert, and on Sunday rejected any infringement of Palestinians’ “inalienable rights… whether temporarily or long-term”.”According to our experience of the 70 to 80 years of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, any temporary measure adopted by Israel ends up becoming permanent,” Rantawi said.Saleh al-Armouti, an MP with Jordan’s main opposition Islamic Action Front party, said Trump’s proposal was a “violation of Jordan’s sovereignty” and a “declaration of war”.King Abdullah II has set out red lines including no “judaisation of Jerusalem, no resettlement of Palestinians and no alternative homeland”, he said.

Wafa Mustafa had long dreamed of returning to Syria but the absence of her father tarnished her homecoming more than a decade after he disappeared in Bashar al-Assad’s jails.Her father Ali, an activist, is among the tens of thousands killed or missing in Syria’s notorious prison system, and whose relatives have flocked home in search of answers after Assad’s toppling last month by Islamist-led rebels.”From December 8 until today, I have not felt any joy,” said Mustafa, 35, who returned from Berlin.”I thought that once I got to Syria, everything would be better, but in reality everything here is so very painful,” she said. “I walk down the street and remember that I had passed by that same corner with my dad” years before.Since reaching Damascus she has scoured defunct security service branches, prisons, morgues and hospitals, hoping to glean any information about her long-lost father.”You can see the fatigue on people’s faces” everywhere, said Mustafa, who works as a communications manager for the Syria Campaign, a rights group.In 2021, she was invited to testify at the United Nations about the fate of Syria’s disappeared.The rebels who toppled Assad freed thousands of detainees nearly 14 years into a civil war that killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions.Mustafa returned to Branch 215, one of Syria’s most notorious prisons run by military intelligence, where she herself had been detained simply for participating in pro-democracy protests in 2011.She found documents there mentioning her father. “That’s already a start,” Mustafa said. Now, she “wants the truth” and plans to continue searching for answers in Syria.”I only dream of a grave, of having a place to go to in the morning to talk to my father,” she said. “Graves have become our biggest dream”.- A demand for justice -In Damascus, Mustafa took part in a protest demanding justice for the disappeared and answers about their fate.Youssef Sammawi, 29, was there too. He held up a picture of his cousin, whose arrest and beating in 2012 prompted Sammawi to flee for Germany.A few years later, he identified his cousin’s corpse among the 55,000 images by a former military photographer codenamed “Caesar”, who defected and made the images public.The photos taken between 2011 and 2013, authenticated by experts, show thousands of bodies tortured and starved to death in Syrian prisons.”The joy I felt gave way to pain when I returned home, without being able to see my cousin,” Sammawi said.He said his uncle had also been arrested and then executed after he went to see his son in the hospital.”When I returned, it was the first time I truly realised that they were no longer there,” he said with sadness in his voice.”My relatives had gotten used to their absence, but not me,” he added. “We demand that justice be served, to alleviate our suffering.”While Assad’s fall allowed many to end their exile and seek answers, others are hesitant.Fadwa Mahmoud, 70, told AFP she has had no news of her son and her husband, both opponents of the Assad government arrested upon arrival at Damascus airport in 2012.She fled to Germany a year later and co-founded the Families For Freedom human rights group.She said she has no plans to return to Syria just yet.”No one really knows what might happen, so I prefer to stay cautious,” she said.Mahmoud said she was disappointed that Syria’s new authorities, who pledged justice for victims of atrocities under Assad’s rule, “are not yet taking these cases seriously”.She said Syria’s new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa “has yet to do anything for missing Syrians”, yet “met Austin Tice’s mother two hours” after she arrived in the Syrian capital.Tice is an American journalist missing in Syria since 2012.Sharaa “did not respond” to requests from relatives of missing Syrians to meet him, Mahmoud said.”The revolution would not have succeeded without the sacrifices of our detainees,” she said.

Israel said Palestinians could begin returning to the north of the war-battered Gaza Strip on Monday after a deal was reached with Hamas for the release of another six hostages, according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.The breakthrough preserves a fragile ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, which has devastated the Gaza Strip and displaced nearly all its residents, paving the way for more hostage-prisoner swaps under a deal aimed at ending the more than 15-month conflict.Israel had been preventing vast crowds of Palestinians from using a coastal road to return to northern Gaza, accusing Hamas of violating the truce agreement by failing to release civilian women hostages.”Hamas has backtracked and will carry out an additional phase of releasing hostages this Thursday,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement, adding that three hostages would be released that day, with another three captives set for release on Saturday.Palestinian leaders meanwhile slammed a plan floated by US President Donald Trump to “clean out” Gaza, vowing to resist any effort to forcibly displace residents of the war-battered territory.Trump said Gaza had become a “demolition site”, adding he had spoken to Jordan’s King Abdullah II about moving Palestinians out.”I’d like Egypt to take people. And I’d like Jordan to take people,” Trump told reporters.Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, who is based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, “expressed strong rejection and condemnation of any projects” aimed at displacing Palestinians from Gaza, his office said.Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, told AFP that Palestinians would “foil such projects”, as they have done to similar plans “for displacement and alternative homelands over the decades”.Islamic Jihad, which has fought alongside Hamas in Gaza, called Trump’s idea “deplorable”. For Palestinians, any attempt to move them from Gaza would evoke dark memories of what the Arab world calls the “Nakba”, or catastrophe — the mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel’s creation in 1948.”We say to Trump and the whole world: we will not leave Palestine or Gaza, no matter what happens,” said displaced Gaza resident Rashad al-Naji.- Jordan, Egypt reject displacement -Trump floated the idea to reporters Saturday aboard Air Force One: “You’re talking about probably a million and half people, and we just clean out that whole thing.”Moving Gaza’s roughly 2.4 million inhabitants could be done “temporarily or could be long term”, he said.Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich — who opposed the truce deal and has voiced support for re-establishing Israeli settlements in Gaza — called Trump’s suggestion of “a great idea”. The Arab League rejected the idea, warning against “attempts to uproot the Palestinian people from their land”.”The forced displacement and eviction of people from their land can only be called ethnic cleansing”, the league said in a statement.Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said “our rejection of the displacement of Palestinians is firm and will not change. Jordan is for Jordanians and Palestine is for Palestinians.”Egypt’s foreign ministry said it rejected any infringement of Palestinians’ “inalienable rights”.In Gaza, cars and carts loaded with belongings jammed a road near the Netzarim Corridor that Israel has blocked, preventing the expected return of hundreds of thousands of people to northern Gaza.Israel had said it would prevent Palestinians’ passage until the release of Arbel Yehud, a civilian woman hostage. She is among those slated for return on Thursday, according to Netanyahu’s office.Hamas said that blocking returns to the north also amounted to a truce violation, adding it had provided “all the necessary guarantees” for Yehud’s release.Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee said Monday that residents would be allowed to return on foot starting at 07:00 am (0500 GMT) and by car at 9:00 am.- ‘Dire’ humanitarian situation -During the first phase of the Gaza truce, 33 hostages are supposed to be freed in staggered releases over six weeks in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.The most recent swap saw four Israeli women hostages, all soldiers, and 200 prisoners, nearly all Palestinian, released Saturday — the second such exchange during the fragile truce entering its second week.Dani Miran, whose hostage son Omri is not slated for release during the first phase, demonstrated outside Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem on Sunday.”We want the agreement to continue and for them to bring our children back as quickly as possible — and all at once,” he said.The truce has brought a surge of food, fuel, medicines and other aid into rubble-strewn Gaza, but the UN says “the humanitarian situation remains dire”.Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack that ignited the war, 87 remain in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 47,306 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.burs-tym/rsc

Israel said Palestinians could begin returning to the north of the war-battered Gaza Strip on Monday after a deal was reached with Hamas for the release of another six hostages, according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.The breakthrough preserves a fragile ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, which has devastated the Gaza Strip and displaced nearly all its residents, paving the way for more hostage-prisoner swaps under a deal aimed at ending the more than 15-month conflict.Israel had been preventing vast crowds of Palestinians from using a coastal road to return to northern Gaza, accusing Hamas of violating the truce agreement by failing to release civilian women hostages.”Hamas has backtracked and will carry out an additional phase of releasing hostages this Thursday,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement, adding that three hostages would be released that day, with another three captives set for release on Saturday.Palestinian leaders meanwhile slammed a plan floated by US President Donald Trump to “clean out” Gaza, vowing to resist any effort to forcibly displace residents of the war-battered territory.Trump said Gaza had become a “demolition site”, adding he had spoken to Jordan’s King Abdullah II about moving Palestinians out.”I’d like Egypt to take people. And I’d like Jordan to take people,” Trump told reporters.Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, who is based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, “expressed strong rejection and condemnation of any projects” aimed at displacing Palestinians from Gaza, his office said.Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, told AFP that Palestinians would “foil such projects”, as they have done to similar plans “for displacement and alternative homelands over the decades”.Islamic Jihad, which has fought alongside Hamas in Gaza, called Trump’s idea “deplorable”. For Palestinians, any attempt to move them from Gaza would evoke dark memories of what the Arab world calls the “Nakba”, or catastrophe — the mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel’s creation in 1948.”We say to Trump and the whole world: we will not leave Palestine or Gaza, no matter what happens,” said displaced Gaza resident Rashad al-Naji.- Jordan, Egypt reject displacement -Trump floated the idea to reporters Saturday aboard Air Force One: “You’re talking about probably a million and half people, and we just clean out that whole thing.”Moving Gaza’s roughly 2.4 million inhabitants could be done “temporarily or could be long term”, he said.Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich — who opposed the truce deal and has voiced support for re-establishing Israeli settlements in Gaza — called Trump’s suggestion of “a great idea”. The Arab League rejected the idea, warning against “attempts to uproot the Palestinian people from their land”.”The forced displacement and eviction of people from their land can only be called ethnic cleansing”, the league said in a statement.Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said “our rejection of the displacement of Palestinians is firm and will not change. Jordan is for Jordanians and Palestine is for Palestinians.”Egypt’s foreign ministry said it rejected any infringement of Palestinians’ “inalienable rights”.In Gaza, cars and carts loaded with belongings jammed a road near the Netzarim Corridor that Israel has blocked, preventing the expected return of hundreds of thousands of people to northern Gaza.Israel had said it would prevent Palestinians’ passage until the release of Arbel Yehud, a civilian woman hostage. She is among those slated for return on Thursday, according to Netanyahu’s office.Hamas said that blocking returns to the north also amounted to a truce violation, adding it had provided “all the necessary guarantees” for Yehud’s release.- ‘Dire’ humanitarian situation -During the first phase of the Gaza truce, 33 hostages are supposed to be freed in staggered releases over six weeks in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.The most recent swap saw four Israeli women hostages, all soldiers, and 200 prisoners, nearly all Palestinian, released Saturday — the second such exchange during the fragile truce entering its second week.Dani Miran, whose hostage son Omri is not slated for release during the first phase, demonstrated outside Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem on Sunday.”We want the agreement to continue and for them to bring our children back as quickly as possible — and all at once,” he said.The truce has brought a surge of food, fuel, medicines and other aid into rubble-strewn Gaza, but the UN says “the humanitarian situation remains dire”.Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack that ignited the war, 87 remain in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 47,306 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.burs-tym/rsc