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Thousands of delegates from across China gather in Beijing from Tuesday as the country kicks off its annual legislative sessions, one of the most important political events of the year.The meetings, known as the “Two Sessions”, are concurrent gatherings of China’s rubber-stamp parliament and a separate political advisory body.Voting is tightly controlled and legislation is …

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China’s largest political event of the year begins in Beijing on Tuesday, as US tariffs cast a cloud over closed-door meetings involving thousands of delegates from across the country.The meetings, known as the “Two Sessions”, are concurrent gatherings of China’s rubber-stamp parliament and a separate political advisory body. While voting is tightly controlled and legislation is …

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Taiwanese chip-making giant TSMC will invest at least $100 billion in the United States to build “cutting edge” manufacturing facilities, President Donald Trump said Monday, announcing the latest blockbuster financial pledge by a private company since his return to office.Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s new investment will come on top of their existing commitments, and will …

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Palestinians living in war-ravaged Gaza say they fear food shortages and price hikes after Israel halted the entry of aid into the territory to pressure Hamas to agree to its terms for a ceasefire extension.The effect of the Israeli announcement on Sunday was immediate, and sent ripples through markets across the Gaza Strip.Prices for basic goods soared despite attempts by the authorities to keep them stable, shoppers and aid workers told AFP.”There is a lot of fear, today there are a lot of people buying food supplies and prices have risen a lot,” Belal al-Helou told AFP at a crowded street market in Gaza City.As long as Gaza’s crossings are closed, “the prices will rise and increase even more”, Helou told AFP on Sunday.”Today a kilo of sugar costs 10 shekels or 12 shekels,” he said — roughly $3, and more than twice the price before the war.”Prices are rising and people are panicking about food supplies.”Another shopper, Adly al-Ghandour, said prices had risen “80 percent so far, and if the crossing remains closed, prices will rise 200 percent”.Around them, stalls were still well-stocked from the first phase of the ceasefire, which began on January 19 and enabled the entry of vital food, shelter and medical assistance after more than 15 months of war triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.Shopkeepers also sold decorations such as small lanterns and signs reading “happy Ramadan”, while bakers made hundreds of pancakes to be used in qatayef, a pastry filled with cream and nuts typically eaten during the Muslim holy month that started on Saturday in Gaza.- ‘No panacea’ -Caroline Seguin, emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders in Gaza, said trucks that were supposed to arrive on Sunday were turned back full.”We were able to get a few trucks in during the six weeks of ceasefire, but it’s no panacea” for the humanitarian situation, Seguin told AFP Monday.Although the organisation’s stocks of medical equipment were somewhat replenished during the first phase, other items such as generators and supplies for water desalination were blocked because Israel labels them “dual use” items that could be used by militants to make weapons.Seguin added that humanitarian aid “shouldn’t be a part of ceasefire negotiations while Gaza’s population needs assistance”.In the northern city of Jabalia, displaced Palestinians who returned after the start of the ceasefire live in tents erected by charity organisations on a patch of cleared land, surrounded by bombed-out buildings, AFP journalists saw.Senior Hamas official Osama Hamadan said on Monday that only 15 of the 65,000 mobile homes that were due to enter Gaza during the ceasefire had actually made it in.Israel’s agency in charge of regulating the aid flow in Gaza did not respond to AFP when asked about the figure.- ‘Completely demoralised’ -Seguin said she had noted an instant price increase in Gaza markets, including for eggs, whose price went up 150 percent.But above all, Seguin said the aid suspension was a hard blow to Gazans’ morale.”They’re completely demoralised,” she said of her Gazan colleagues who had held on through 15 months of fighting.”They’re afraid of a return to the November-December situation… when you couldn’t find bread and there wasn’t any meat in town.”Meanwhile, Israeli government spokesman, David Mencer, accused Hamas of hoarding supplies and claimed the Palestinian Islamist movement had “enough food to fuel an obesity epidemic”.”The supplies are there but Hamas don’t share,” Mencer told journalists.Negotiations between Israel and Hamas for the continuation of the truce have hit an impasse in recent days. Israel is pressing to extend the ceasefire’s first phase, while Hamas favours moving on to phase two of the deal, which envisions an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a more permanent end to the war.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened Hamas on Monday with unimaginable consequences if it did not return hostages held in Gaza, while the Palestinian group accused his government of sabotaging the fragile truce there.The first phase of the ceasefire ended over the weekend, but talks on its future have hit an impasse after six weeks of relative calm in the Gaza Strip that included exchanges of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners and an influx of badly needed aid.The dispute came as Arab leaders prepared for a summit in Cairo on Tuesday to hash out a plan for Gaza’s reconstruction to counter a widely condemned proposal from US President Donald Trump that would involve the displacement of its Palestinian population.While Israel announced early on Sunday it backed an extension of the first phase of the truce until mid-April, Hamas has insisted on a transition to the second phase, which should lead to a permanent end to the war.Netanyahu, speaking Monday in the Israeli parliament, warned Hamas “there will be consequences that you cannot imagine” if the dozens of hostages still held by militants were not released.Defence Minister Israel Katz later struck a similar tone, saying if the group did not free the hostages, “the gates of Gaza will be locked, and the gates of hell will open”.As the truce’s first phase came to a close, Netanyahu’s office had announced Israel was halting “all entry of goods and supplies into the Gaza Strip” and that Hamas would face “other consequences” if it did not accept the truce extension.Israeli public broadcaster Kan reported that the government was considering a scheme that included measures such as displacing Gazans from the territory’s north and halting the electricity supply.A senior Hamas official, Osama Hamdan, accused Israel of actively sabotaging the ceasefire, calling its push for an extension “a blatant attempt to… avoid entering into negotiations for the second phase”.Israel “was interested in the collapse of the agreement and worked hard to achieve that”, Hamdan said in a video statement.Both Israel and Hamas have accused each other of violating the terms of the truce, which has largely held since it began on January 19.The move to block aid drew criticism from key truce mediators Egypt and Qatar, with both calling it a violation of the ceasefire deal.Other governments in the region as well as the United Nations and some of Israel’s Western allies have spoken against the Israeli decision.Germany’s foreign ministry said that denying humanitarian access “is not a legitimate means of pressure in negotiations”, while Britain said aid “must not be blocked”.- Stabbing -The war has destroyed or damaged most buildings in Gaza, displaced almost the entire population and triggered widespread hunger, according to the UN.The fighting was triggered by Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.That attack resulted in the deaths of more than 1,200 people, most of them civilians, while Israel’s military retaliation in Gaza has killed nearly 48,400 people, also mostly civilians, data from both sides show.Of the 251 hostages taken during the attack, 58 remain in Gaza including 34 the Israeli military has confirmed are dead.In the first fatal attack in Israel since the truce began in January, authorities said a stabbing spree Monday in the northern city of Haifa killed one person, wounded four others and ended with the assailant — a member of Israel’s Arabic-speaking Druze community — dead.The stabbings took place at a bus and train station in the port city, home to a mixed Jewish and Arab population.Police identified the assailant as a member of the Druze minority, generally considered supportive of the Israeli state, and did not specify a motive.In Gaza, the Israeli military said it had struck a “suspicious motorised vessel” off the coast of Khan Yunis in the south, and in a separate incident, opened fire on two suspects who had approached troops.- Reconstruction plan -In Cairo, Arab foreign ministers gathered ahead of a leaders’ summit that is expected to discuss an alternative Gaza reconstruction plan to the one floated by Trump.The Arab ministers held a “preparatory and consultative” session centred on a plan to rebuild the territory without displacing Palestinians, a source at the Arab League told AFP on condition of anonymity.In his remarks on Monday, Netanyahu hailed Trump’s “visionary and innovative” plan to forcibly remove Gazans, saying it was “time to give them the freedom to leave”.The Gaza Strip has been under a crippling Israeli-led blockade since Hamas took power there in 2007.Netanyahu has faced pressure from critics in Israel who have regularly blamed him for delays throughout the months of truce negotiations.Dani Elgarat, speaking Monday at the funeral of his brother Itzik whose remains were returned from Gaza, said the Israeli government had “abandoned” him.The state “did not fulfil its duty… while your life was in danger”, said Elgarat.”The enemy who caused your death was unfortunately not the one who kidnapped you, but the one who abandoned you.”

Hundreds gathered Monday in southern Israel for the funeral of Danish-Israeli hostage Itzik Elgarat, whose family levelled sharp criticism at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing him of abandoning their loved one in Gaza.Elgarat, then 68 years old, was abducted from his kibbutz of Nir Oz near the Gaza border during Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 which sparked more than 15 months of war.He was captured alive and, according to Netanyahu’s office, “murdered while held hostage in Gaza”. His body was one of eight returned by Palestinian militants last month under a ceasefire deal.Hundreds of mourners came to pay their respects as Elgarat’s black coffin topped with an Israeli flag was brought to Nir Oz on Monday, AFP journalists said.His brother said that while it was Palestinian militant group Hamas that captured him, Netanyahu’s government had failed to save him.”We fought with all our might (but) we failed,” Daniel Elgarat said in his eulogy, recalling the struggle of the hostages’ families to pressure the Israeli government to secure their release.”Netanyahu defeated us and you did not return from captivity,” he said.”The enemy who caused your death was unfortunately not the one who kidnapped you, but the one who abandoned you.”Elgarat’s sister, Rachel Dancyg, herself a survivor of the 2023 attack on Nir Oz, said she “truly believed you would return alive”.In captivity, “they tortured you, they starved you, and you died in unimaginable agony,” she said.”We failed to save you and our friends, we failed to fight against an opaque, smug and evil government.”Netanyahu, speaking in parliament on Monday, was booed by relatives of hostages who accuse him of sacrificing the captives for his political ambitions.To Daniel Elgarat, his brother’s death meant the end of “the value of mutual responsibility and the value of life in Israeli society — values that distinguished us from our enemies”.It was the end of the “state that did not fullfil its duty, that stood by while your life was in danger,” he said.”It abandoned you to die in the hands of Hamas.”Itzik Elgarat had spent 12 years in Denmark, where his two children live.He was among 251 captives taken during the Hamas attack, 58 of whom remain in Gaza including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.The prime minister said in his speech before parliament that Hamas would face consequences it “cannot imagine” if it does not release the remaining captives, as efforts to extend the truce appeared at an impasse.In addition to the remains of Elgarat and seven other dead hostages, 25 living Israeli captive were released during the first phase of the Gaza truce in exchange for about 1,800 Palestinians in Israeli custody.as-dms-bfi-acc/ami