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Gaza rescuers said at least 80 people were killed in Israeli bombardment across the Palestinian territory on Wednesday, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to US envoy Steve Witkoff about the release of hostages.Negotiations for the release of the captives held in Gaza have been ongoing, with the latest talks taking place in the Qatari capital Doha, where US President Donald Trump was visiting on Wednesday.Netanyahu’s office said the premier had discussed with Witkoff and his negotiating team “the issue of the hostages and the missing”.Witkoff later said Trump had “a really productive conversation” with the Qatari emir about a Gaza deal, adding that “we are moving along and we have a good plan together”.Fighting meanwhile raged in Gaza, where civil defence official Mohammed al-Mughayyir told AFP 80 people had been killed by Israeli bombardment since dawn, including 59 in the north.AFP footage from the aftermath of a strike in Jabalia, northern Gaza, showed mounds of rubble and twisted metal from collapsed buildings. Palestinians, including young children, picked through the debris in search of belongings.Footage of mourners in northern Gaza showed women in tears as they kneeled next to bodies wrapped in bloodstained white shrouds.”It’s a nine-month-old baby. What did he do?” one of them cried out.Hasan Moqbel, a Palestinian who lost relatives, told AFP: “Those who don’t die from air strikes die from hunger, and those who don’t die from hunger die from lack of medicine.”Israel’s military on Wednesday urged residents in part of a Gaza City neighbourhood to evacuate, warning that its forces would “attack the area with intense force”.- ‘Unjustifiable’ -From the occupied West Bank, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said Wednesday he favoured a “ceasefire at any price” in Gaza, accusing Netanyahu of wanting to continue the war “for his own reasons”.In a letter addressed to Netanyahu and sent to Trump and Witkoff, 67 former hostages held by Hamas in Gaza urged for a “negotiated deal” for the return of all the captives still held there.”The majority of Israeli society wants the hostages home — even at the cost of halting military operations,” the letter said.Mohammad Awad, an emergency doctor in northern Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital, told AFP that supply shortages meant his department could not properly handle the flow of wounded and that “the bodies of the martyrs are lying on the ground in the hospital corridors”.”There are not enough beds, no medicine, and no means for surgical or medical treatment, which leaves doctors unable to save many of the injured who are dying due to lack of care”, he said.Israel imposed an aid blockade on the Gaza Strip on March 2 after talks to prolong a January 19 ceasefire broke down.The resulting shortages of food and medicine have aggravated an already dire situation in the Palestinian territory, although Israel has dismissed UN warnings that a potential famine looms.Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Wednesday urged all sides to avert a famine in Gaza, while Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said the humanitarian situation in Gaza was “ever more dramatic and unjustifiable”.UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called for a ceasefire and “unimpeded humanitarian access” to the territory.A US-led initiative for aid distribution under Israeli military security drew international criticism as it appears to sideline the United Nations and existing aid organisations, and would overhaul current humanitarian structures in Gaza.- ‘Full force’ -Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said the plan would make “aid conditional on forced displacement”, adding that Israel was creating “conditions for the eradication of Palestinian lives in Gaza”.Israel resumed major operations across Gaza on March 18, with officials later talking of retaining a long-term presence in the Palestinian territory.Following a short pause in air strikes during the release of US-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander on Monday, Israel resumed its pounding of Gaza.Netanyahu said on Monday that the military would enter Gaza “with full force” in the coming days.He added that his government was working to find countries willing to take in Gaza’s population.The Israeli government approved plans to expand the offensive earlier this month, and spoke of the “conquest” of Gaza.Of the 251 hostages taken during Hamas’s October 2023 attack, 57 remain in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 52,928 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to figures from the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry, which the United Nations considers reliable.

Palestinians on Wednesday commemorated their displacement during the creation of Israel, saying that history was being repeated today in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.Tens of thousands have been killed in Gaza and an aid blockade threatens famine, while Israeli leaders continue to express a desire to empty the territory of Palestinians as part of the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack.In the West Bank, too, occupied since 1967, Israeli forces have displaced tens of thousands from refugee camps as part of a major military operation.This year marks the 77th anniversary of the Nakba — “catastrophe” in Arabic — which refers to the flight and expulsion of an estimated 700,000 Palestinians during the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.In the West Bank city of Ramallah, Palestinian flags and black ones branded “return” flew at road intersections, while schoolchildren were bussed into the city centre to take part in the weeklong commemoration.At one event, young boys wearing Palestinian kuffiyeh scarves waved flags and carried a giant replica key, a symbol of the lost homes in what is now Israel that families hope to return to.No events were planned in Gaza, where more than 19 months of war and Israeli bombardment have left residents destitute.Moamen al-Sherbini, a resident of the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis, told AFP that he felt history was repeating itself.”Our lives here in Gaza have become one long Nakba -— losing loved ones, our homes destroyed, our livelihoods gone”.Nearly all of Gaza’s 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once during the war between Israel and Hamas.In early May, Israel’s security cabinet approved plans for an expanded military offensive in Gaza, aimed at the “conquest” of the territory while displacing its people en masse, drawing international condemnation.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his government is working to find third countries to take in Gaza’s population, months after US President Donald Trump suggested they be expelled and the territory redeveloped as a holiday destination.Speaking from Nuseirat in central Gaza, 36-year-old Malak Radwan said that “Nakba Day is no longer just a memory — it’s a daily reality we live in Gaza. My house was destroyed, now just a pile of stones, and we have no shelter.”- ‘New Nakba every day’ -“This is a miserable day in the lives of Palestinian refugees,” said 52-year-old Nael Nakhleh in Ramallah, whose family comes from the village of al-Majdal near Jaffa in what is now Israel.Palestinian refugees maintain their demand to return to the villages and cities they or their relatives left in 1948 that are now inside Israel.The “right of return” remains a core issue in the long-stalled negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.Nakhleh, who lives in the Jalazone refugee camp near Ramallah, made a point of joining the memorial activities in the city. “Despite the painful memories, we are still living through a new Nakba every day, through the Israeli attacks on Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank,” he said.Israel’s military launched a still ongoing large-scale operation in the West Bank in January that has displaced at least 38,000 people, according to the United Nations.The operation, which Israel says aims to eradicate Palestinian armed groups, has primarily targeted refugee camps in the northern West Bank and involved army evacuation orders and home demolitions.Wasel Abu Yusef, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s executive committee, told AFP that Palestinians “remain more committed than ever to their right of return.”

The United States and China slashed sweeping tariffs on each others’ goods for 90 days on Wednesday, marking a temporary de-escalation in a brutal trade war that roiled global markets and international supply chains.Washington and Beijing agreed to drastically lower sky-high tariffs in a deal that emerged from pivotal talks at the weekend in Geneva.US …

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US President Donald Trump voiced hope on Wednesday that diplomatic efforts would succeed on Iran’s nuclear programme, even as he vowed rigorous enforcement of sanctions.Trump, on his first visit to the Middle East since returning to the White House, said he spoke about Iran with the leader of Qatar, which maintains relations with both longtime adversaries.”It’s been really an interesting situation. I have a feeling it’s going to work out,” Trump said of Iran after talks with the emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.The Trump administration has held four rounds of talks with Tehran, as the president seeks to avert a threatened Israeli military strike on the Iranian nuclear programme.”I want to make a deal with Iran. I want to do something, if it’s possible,” Trump told a summit of Gulf Arab leaders in Riyadh earlier Wednesday.”But for that to happen, it must stop sponsoring terror, halt its bloody proxy wars, and permanently and verifiably cease its pursuit of nuclear weapons.”I’m strongly urging all nations to join us in fully and totally enforcing the sanctions” imposed on Iran by the United States, he said.The Trump administration in recent weeks has imposed sanctions on a series of entities and individuals linked to Iran’s oil industry and nuclear programme.- ‘Very deceptive view’ -In 2018, Trump walked out of a landmark agreement between major powers and Iran that gave it sanctions relief in return for UN-monitored restrictions on its nuclear activities.He slapped sweeping sanctions on Iran, including secondary measures against any country that buys Iranian oil.Trump said that such secondary sanctions “are in certain ways even more devastating” than direct sanctions on Iran.Trump in a speech Tuesday in Riyadh also said he favoured diplomacy but harshly criticised Iran’s clerical leaders, saying they were “focused on stealing their people’s wealth to fund terror and bloodshed abroad”.Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that he had listened to the remarks and “unfortunately a very deceptive view has been put forward”.Iranian officials and the Trump administration have both offered positive takes on the initial talks.But it is unclear whether they went in depth, including on the key issue of whether the US will insist on ending all Iranian uranium enrichment, including for civilian purposes.Asked by a reporter on Air Force One whether he was prepared to exert more pressure on Iran, Trump said: “Let’s see what happens over the next week.”Iran also said it would hold talks in Turkey on Friday with representatives of Britain, France and Germany.The three European powers were part of the 2015 agreement ripped up by Trump in his first term.”While we continue the dialogue with the United States, we are also ready to talk with the Europeans,” Araghchi said.burs-sct/ds/jsa

US President Donald Trump landed in Doha Wednesday after visiting Riyadh, where he urged Syria’s president to normalise with Israel after offering a major boost to the war-ravaged country by vowing to lift sanctions.Trump became the first US president in 25 years to meet a Syrian leader — Ahmed al-Sharaa, an erstwhile Islamist guerrilla and onetime jihadist who had been on a US wanted list and led the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in December.The interim Syrian president and Trump, wearing matching suits, shook hands as they met jointly in Riyadh with Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and, by video link, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — the key supporter of the new government in Damascus.While aboard Air Force One en route to Qatar, Trump poured praise on Sharaa, saying the meeting went “great” and describing the leader as a “young, attractive guy. Tough guy. Strong past. Very strong past. Fighter.”Turkey and Saudi Arabia had both advocated reconciliation with Syria, but the move is the latest to put Trump at odds with Israel, which has expressed deep scepticism of Sharaa and ramped up its military strikes against Syria to degrade its longtime adversary’s military capabilities.When asked if Sharaa said he’d join the Abraham Accords and normalise relations with Israel, Trump said: “I told him, I hope you’re going to join once you’re straightened out and he said yes. But they have a lot of work to do.”Trump also asked Sharaa to deport Palestinian militants and tell foreign fighters to leave the country, as well as to take control of camps for captured Islamic State group fighters, currently run by Kurdish forces opposed by Turkey, the White House said.- Biggest applause -Syria’s foreign ministry hailed the meeting as “historic”, but did not mention the Abraham Accords. State media also did not mention normalisation.The ministry said the leaders discussed “avenues for Syrian-American partnership in counterterrorism efforts” and the importance of lifting sanctions and supporting reconstruction.After the longer-than-expected half-hour meeting, Trump said the Assad-era sanctions had been “really crippling”.”It’s not going to be easy anyway, so it gives them a good, strong chance, and it was my honour to do so,” Trump said, addressing Gulf Arab leaders.The former reality television host, always attuned to crowd sizes, took note of the rapturous reception when he announced the decision at a Riyadh investment forum Tuesday.”That was the thing that got the biggest applause from the room. We had a very crowded room with thousands of people,” Trump said.After the announcement, Syrians celebrated in cities across the country overnight.”These sanctions were imposed on Assad, but… now that Syria has been liberated, there will be a positive impact on industry, it’ll boost the economy and encourage people to return,” said soap factory owner Zain al-Jabali, 54, in Aleppo.Washington imposed sweeping restrictions on financial transactions with Syria during the brutal civil war and made clear it would use sanctions to punish anyone involved in reconstruction so long as Assad remained in power without accountability for atrocities.Trump gave no indication that the United States would remove Syria from its blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism — a designation dating back to 1979 over support to Palestinian militants that severely impedes investment.- Qatar plane controversy -A senior envoy of the Joe Biden administration met Sharaa in Damascus in December and called for commitments, including on the protection of minorities.In recent weeks, Syria has seen a series of bloody attacks on minority groups, including Alawites — the sect of the largely secular Assad family — and the Druze.Rabha Seif Allam of the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo said easing US sanctions would help reintegrate Syria with the global economy by allowing bank transfers from investors and from millions of Syrians who fled during the civil war.”Lifting sanctions will give Syria a real opportunity to receive the funding needed to revive the economy, impose central state authority and launch reconstruction projects with clear Gulf support,” she said.Trump touched down at Hamad International Airport in Doha on Wednesday afternoon, where he was met by Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani.The president later boasted that Qatar Airways had placed a “record” order worth more than $200 billion in jet sales as he signed a raft of deals. “It’s over $200 billion but 160 in terms of the jets. That’s fantastic. So that’s a record,” Trump said, adding: “It’s the largest order of jets in the history of Boeing. That’s pretty good.”Qatar has stirred controversy by offering a $400 million luxury aircraft to serve as a new Air Force One and then go to Trump’s personal use.The move raises major constitutional and ethical questions — as well as security concerns about a foreign power donating the ultra-sensitive presidential jet.

After the decision by the Kurdish militant group PKK to disband, Turkey was eyeing Wednesday a raft of legal and technical measures to ensure its full implementation and finally end a four-decade insurgency.Monday’s announcement sought to draw a line under a bloody chapter that began in 1984 when the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) took up arms, triggering a conflict that cost more than 40,000 lives.”What matters most is the implementation,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday, pledging to “meticulously monitor whether the promises are kept”. The pro-Kurdish DEM party, a key player that facilitated contact between jailed PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan and the political establishment, urged Ankara on Tuesday to take “confidence-building steps” such as freeing political prisoners. So far, Turkish officials have said little but the government is working on a proposal that could ease prison sentences in general. The text, which should be submitted to parliament by June at the latest, provides for the conditional release of all those in pre-trial detention for offences committed before July 31, 2023.  There are also plans to release to house arrest those who are sick, or women with children, if they are serving sentences of less than five years. The moves could affect more than 60,000 people, Turkish media reports say. – No general amnesty -But the authorities are reportedly being careful not to frame it as an “amnesty”. “Sick prisoners should not die in prison… These measures should not be interpreted as a general amnesty, which is not on the agenda,” Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said.But DEM co-chair Tulay Hatimogullari said a move to free prisoners was essential.”There are nearly 10,000 political prisoners in this country… If a peace process is ever to get under way, they must be released as soon as possible,” she said Monday. For DEM, that must include prisoners like Selahattin Demirtas, the charismatic former leader of a former pro-Kurdish party who has been jailed since 2016.”With the complete elimination of terror and violence, the door to a new era will open,” Erdogan said Monday.Some prisoners, such as Demirtas or the philanthropist Osman Kavala, who is serving life on charges of “trying to overthrow the government”, could in theory be quickly freed if Turkey heeded rulings by the European Court of Human Rights, which has repeatedly demanded their release. – Proof of disarming -But before that, Ankara is awaiting concrete proof that the PKK has actually laid down its weapons, Abdulkadir Selvi, a columnist close to the government, wrote in the Hurriyet newspaper. “The democratic changes will start after the head of the MIT (intelligence services) has submitted his report to President Erdogan,” he wrote. According to Turkish media reports, the MIT will supervise the weapons handover at locations in Turkey, Syria and Iraq. It will register the weapons handed in and the identity of the fighters in coordination with the Syrian and Iraqi authorities. “Our intelligence service will follow the process meticulously to ensure the promises are kept,” Erdogan said Wednesday. Most of the PKK’s fighters have spent the past decade in the mountains of northern Iraq. Those who have committed no crime in Turkey will be allowed to return without fear of prosecution. But the PKK’s leaders will be forced into exile in third-party states such as Norway or South Africa, media reports suggest. – Deposed mayors -Duran Kalkan, a member of the PKK’s executive committee, said Tuesday that renouncing armed struggle “can only be implemented under (Ocalan’s) leadership” and when he is guaranteed “free living and working conditions”. Experts say prison conditions for Ocalan, 76, will be “eased” but he is unlikely to leave the Imrali prison island where he has been held since 1999, largely because his life would be threatened.  “Naming trustees (to replace deposed mayors) will become an exceptional measure… after the terrorist organisation is dissolved,” Erdogan said, suggesting that Kurdish mayors removed from office over alleged ties to the PKK would be reinstated. In total, 16 opposition mayors from the DEM and the main opposition CHP have been removed since local elections in March 2024. 

Over 20 foreign nationals who themselves endured years of captivity in Iran on Wednesday urged Sweden to step up efforts to free a Swedish-Iranian citizen sentenced to death in the country, after he had a heart attack last week.Ahmadreza Djalali, an academic who was sentenced to death in 2017 on espionage charges he denies, suffered a heart attack in Tehran’s Evin prison, his wife said Friday.Djalali, 53, is among a number of Europeans held by Iran in what some countries including France call a deliberate hostage-taking strategy to extract concessions from the West at a time of tension over Tehran’s nuclear programme.Djalali’s condition, “worsened by years of medical neglect and psychological torment, is now dire,” said the 21 former detainees including British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, Australian Kylie Moore-Gilbert and US-Iranian Siamak Namazi, who were freed only after years-long ordeals in prison.”While the Islamic Republic and its heinous practice of hostage diplomacy is the clear culprit here, we are deeply troubled by your government’s failure to use the means at its disposal to rescue Dr Djalali,” they said in the letter addressed to Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson via Stockholm’s embassy in Washington.”No more empty statements. Sweden must act with the same urgency and resolve it has shown in securing the freedom of other citizens,” they added in the letter seen by AFP.Djalali was granted Swedish nationality while in jail.- ‘A path home’ -The letter said Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had offered a possible way forward in a recent social media post that it said “implicitly linked” the case to Iran’s inability to access treatment for epidermolysis bullosa (EB), a disease that affects hundreds of Iranian children and can be fatal without proper care.”The specialised wound dressings required to treat EB, produced by a Swedish company, have long been blocked due to over-compliance with sanctions,” the letter said.In a post on X last week that lamented a “regrettable shift” in bilateral relations, Araghchi said “Sweden ceased non-sanctionable exports of medicines, including specialised and unique gear for children afflicted with EB”.In June 2024, Tehran freed two Swedes held in Iran in exchange for Hamid Noury, a former Iranian prisons official serving a life sentence in Sweden. To the disappointment of his family, Djalali was not included in the swap.In the letter, the ex-detainees told Kristersson: “A path to bring Dr Djalali home — alive, not in a coffin — appears within reach. “If Sweden fails to pursue it seriously and this Swedish citizen dies in captivity, history will record that your government had more than one chance to save him — but chose not to. That responsibility will rest squarely with you.”

Gaza rescuers said at least 29 people were killed in Israeli strikes on Wednesday, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held talks with US envoy Steve Witkoff over the release of hostages.Negotiations for the release of the remaining hostages have been ongoing, with the latest talks taking place in the Qatari capital Doha, where US President Donald Trump landed on Wednesday.Netanyahu’s office said the premier had discussed with Witkoff and his negotiating team “the issue of the hostages and the missing”.Hamas had on Tuesday said it called on Trump’s administration, which recently began direct talks with the group, “to continue efforts to bring the war to an end”.Fighting meanwhile raged on in Gaza, where the civil defence agency reported that “at least 25 people were killed and dozens wounded” in Jabalia, in northern Gaza.Another four people were killed in a strike on the southern city of Khan Yunis, agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.AFP footage from north Gaza showed women in tears as they kneeled next to bodies wrapped in white shrouds stained by blood.”It’s a nine-month-old baby. What did he do?” one of them cried out.- Shortages -Mohammad Awad, an emergency doctor in northern Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital, told AFP that supply shortages meant his department could not properly handle the flow of wounded from the Jabalia strike.”The hospital could not accommodate the wounded. There are not enough beds, no medicine, and no means for surgical or medical treatment, which leaves doctors unable to save many of the injured who are dying due to lack of care”, he said.Awad added that “the bodies of the martyrs are lying on the ground in the hospital corridors after the morgue reached full capacity. The situation is catastrophic in every sense of the word.”Israel imposed an aid blockade on the Gaza Strip on March 2 after talks to prolong a January 19 ceasefire broke down.The resulting shortages of food and medicine have aggravated an already dire situation in the Palestinian territory, although Israel has dismissed UN warnings that a potential famine looms.Medical charity Medecins du Monde said Tuesday that acute malnutrition in Gaza has “reached levels comparable to those seen in countries facing prolonged humanitarian crises spanning several decades”.Israel resumed major operations across Gaza on March 18, with officials later talking of retaining a long-term presence in the Palestinian territory.- ‘Full force’ -Following a short pause in air strikes during the release of US-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander on Monday, Israel resumed pounding Gaza.Netanyahu said on Monday that the military would enter Gaza “with full force” in the coming days, despite ongoing ceasefire efforts.He added that his government was working to find countries willing to take in Gaza’s population.The Israeli government approved plans to expand the offensive earlier this month, and spoke of the “conquest” of Gaza.Of the 251 hostages taken during Hamas’s October 2023 attack, 57 remain in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead. Hamas is also holding the body of an Israeli soldier killed during a previous war in Gaza, in 2014.The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 52,908 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to figures from the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry, which the United Nations considers reliable.