AFP Asia Business

Global stocks were mixed Friday as markets awaited weekend US-China talks amid hopes for a deescalation in the trade war between the world’s two largest economies.”If ever there was a wait and see Friday, this is it,” said Art Hogan of B. Riley Wealth Management. “It’s all about our perceptions of how the trade war …

Stocks mixed as global markets eye US-China tariff talks Read More »

Israel would not be involved in food distribution under a US-led plan for the Gaza Strip but would provide “necessary military security”, Washington’s ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, said on Friday.Despite imposing a now two-month-long blockade of aid on Gaza, which it says is aimed at putting pressure on Palestinian militants Hamas, Israel has asserted there is no humanitarian crisis in the territory.  “The Israelis are going to be involved in providing necessary military security, because it is a war zone, but they will not be involved in the distribution of the food, or even in the bringing of the food into Gaza,” Huckabee told reporters in Jerusalem. The US-led initiative, which the State Department said on Thursday would be led by a new foundation to distribute aid, has been met with international criticism as it appears to sideline the United Nations and existing aid organisations, and would overhaul current humanitarian structures in Gaza.Senior Hamas official Basem Naim said the plan risks “militarising aid”.Huckabee called upon the United Nations, “every NGO” and “every government” to take part.”We invite people who have been concerned about it to join in this process,” he said, expressing hope that the plan could be put into action “very soon”.He offered no timetable for the aid operation or any further information about the non-governmental foundation that would be involved.Huckabee said there were “several partners who have already agreed to be a part of the effort”, without naming them.Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza on March 2 amid an impasse in talks with Hamas, and resumed its military offensive on March 18, ending a two-month truce in the war triggered by the Palestinian group’s unprecedented October 2023 attack.Huckabee said that under the US plan, Israeli forces would provide security “at a distance from the distribution point to protect them from the ongoing calculus of the war”, with “security… at the distribution points provided by contractors”.- ‘No food’ -In Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, crowds of Palestinians jostled for position, holding cooking pots, plastic bowls and serving dishes aloft in hopes of getting a hot meal at a distribution point before it closed over a lack of supplies.”When (our children) tell us they want to eat, what do we do? There’s no flour, there’s no bread, there’s no food, nothing,” Ilham Jargon, a resident, told AFP.”Sometimes, we stay here waiting but end up leaving without food or water,” she added. When steaming piles of rice were doled out, the crowds surged forward. A young girl, overwhelmed in the press of bodies, cried out and broke down in tears.”Today is the last day the charity can work, we are forced to close… so people have flocked here. Within days people will not have any food,” Hani Abu al-Qasim, in charge of food distribution, said. – ‘Humanitarian crisis’ -Israel accuses Hamas of diverting aid sent to Gaza. While Huckabee also blamed the Palestinian group, he said there was “obviously… a humanitarian crisis. That’s why we need a humanitarian aid programme going in”.Amnesty International voiced alarm over the aid plan, saying in a statement “a foundation contributing to Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territory would be in violation of international law.”The UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, which has been criticised by Israel and the United States, said it was “very difficult” to imagine any operation to deliver humanitarian aid in Gaza without its presence. “It is impossible to replace UNRWA in a place like Gaza. We are the largest humanitarian organisation,” the agency’s spokeswoman Juliette Touma told a press conference in Geneva, when asked about the proposal. Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023 resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official data.Of the 251 people abducted in Israel that day, 58 are still being held in Gaza, including 34 declared dead by the Israeli army. Hamas is also holding the body of an Israeli soldier killed during a previous war in Gaza, in 2014.The Israeli offensive launched in retaliation for the October 7 attack has killed at least 52,787 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to data from the Hamas-run health ministry, which is considered reliable by the UN.

Israel’s stated commitment to defending the Syrian Druze is, by the admission of some of its leaders, consistent with a long-term strategic goal — the weakening of Syria.Israel, which has occupied part of Syrian territory since 1967, claimed to be protecting the Druze minority to justify several strikes following recent, bloody inter-communal clashes in Syria.In the aftermath of one strike near the Presidential Palace in Damascus on May 3, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the bombardment should serve as a “clear message”.”We will not allow forces to be sent south of Damascus or any threat to the Druze community,” he said. In March, Israel had threatened to intervene if the new government that toppled longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad “touched the Druze”.However, according to Andreas Krieg, senior lecturer at King’s College London, Israel is not motivated by “altruistic concerns” and is “obviously now using (the minority group) as some sort of pretext to justify their military occupation of parts of Syria”.In a speech last month, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich hinted at the government’s intentions, saying the war in Gaza against Hamas would end when “Syria is dismantled”, among other goals.The country’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has confirmed that indirect talks with Israel have taken place “to contain the situation”. When questioned by AFP, Israeli diplomats declined to comment.-‘Druze autonomy’-Entangled in a war with Hamas that has spilled over Israel’s borders, Netanyahu has insisted the country is in a fight for its survival and that he is determined to “change the Middle East”.In 2015, while a member of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Saar, advocated the division of Syria into various ethno-religious entities, envisaging “Druze autonomy in southern Syria”.The plan was reminiscent of the division of Syria imposed between the two world wars by France, then the mandatory power. Paris ultimately had to abandon the scheme under pressure from Syrian nationalists, including among the Druze.Israel’s largest neighbour, Damascus fought in three Arab-Israeli wars — in 1948-1949, June 1967, and October 1973.The last war cemented Israel’s control over most of the Golan Heights, territory which it conquered from Syria in 1967 and annexed in 1981. Following Assad’s overthrow, Israel moved its forces into the UN-patrolled demilitarised zone on the Golan and carried out hundreds of strikes against military targets in Syria.It said its aim was to prevent the transfer of weapons to the new government in Damascus towards which it is openly hostile. The Druze, followers of a religion that split from Shiite Islam, are mainly found in Syria, Lebanon and Israel. In its official figures, Israel counts around 152,000 Druze, though that includes 24,000 who live in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, of whom fewer than five percent have Israeli citizenship.- Countering Turkey -According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), 126 people were killed during clashes with government security forces last week in predominantly Druze and Christian areas near Damascus and in the Druze stronghold of Suweida in the far south.After these clashes, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hajri, a Syrian Druze religious leader, called for the deployment of an international protection force and endorsed a community statement asserting that the Druze were “an inalienable part” of Syria.Within Israel, Druze took part in several demonstrations demanding that the government defend members of their religion in Syria.While most Druze in the Golan continue to identify as Syrian, the Israeli Druze population has been loyal to the State of Israel since its creation in 1948 and the group is over-represented in the army and police. “The State of Israel feels indebted to the Druze and their exceptional commitment to the Israeli army,” said Efraim Inbar, a researcher at the INSS. According to Inbar, defending the Druze is also part of the new post-Assad geopolitical landscape in which Israel “is trying to protect the Druze and Kurdish minorities from the Sunni majority and prevent Turkey from extending its influence to Syria”. In contrast to Israel, Ankara, grappling with its own Kurdish problem, supports the new authorities in Damascus and is keen to prevent the Kurds from consolidating their positions in northeastern Syria, along its border.

The United States and Iran will hold a new round of nuclear talks Sunday in Oman, officials said, just ahead of a visit to the region by President Donald Trump.Trump, who will visit three other Gulf Arab monarchies next week, has voiced hope for reaching a deal with Tehran to avert an Israeli military strike on Iran’s nuclear program that could ignite a wider war.Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that Oman, which has been mediating, had proposed Sunday as the date and both sides had accepted.”Negotiations are moving ahead and naturally, the more we advance, the more consultations we have, and the more time the delegations need to examine the issues,” he said in a video carried by Iranian media.”But what’s important is that we are moving forward so that we gradually get into the details,” Araghchi said.Steve Witkoff, Trump’s friend who has served as his globe-trotting negotiator, will take part in the talks, the fourth since Trump returned to the White House, according to a source familiar with arrangements.”As in the past, we expect both direct and indirect discussions,” the person said on condition of anonymity.Iranian and US representatives voiced optimism after the previous talks that took place in Oman and Rome, saying there was a friendly atmosphere despite the two countries’ four decades of enmity.But the two sides are not believed to have gone into technical detail, and basic questions remain.US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has insisted that Iran give up all uranium enrichment, even for civilian purposes. He has instead raised the possibility of Iran importing enriched uranium for any civilian energy.Witkoff initially voiced more flexibility before backtracking.- ‘Blow ’em up nicely’ -Trump himself has acknowledged tensions in his policy on Iran, saying at the start of his second term that hawkish advisors were pushing him to step up pressure reluctantly.In an interview Thursday, Trump said he wanted “total verification” that Iran’s contested nuclear work is shut down but through diplomacy.”I’d much rather make a deal” than see military action, Trump told the conservative radio Hugh Hewitt.”There are only two alternatives — blow ’em up nicely or blow ’em up viciously,” Trump said.Trump in his first term withdrew from a nuclear agreement with Tehran negotiated by former president Barack Obama that allowed Iran to enrich uranium at low levels that could be used only for civilian purposes.Many Iran watchers doubted that Iran would ever voluntarily dismantle its entire nuclear program and give up all enrichment.But Iran has found itself in a weaker place over the past year. Israel has decimated Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia backed by Iran that could launch a counter-attack in any war, and Iran’s main ally in the Arab world, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, was toppled in December.Israel also struck Iranian air defenses as the two countries came openly to blows in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas, which is also supported by Iran’s clerical state.The Trump administration has kept piling on sanctions despite the talks, angering Iran. On Thursday, the United States imposed sanctions on another refinery in China, the main market for Iranian oil.Since Trump’s withdrawal from the Obama-era deal, the United States has used its power to try to stop all other countries from buying Iranian oil.