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US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Monday, during talks with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, that any deal on the future of war-torn Gaza must boost regional security, the US State Department said.Rubio, who arrived from Israel accompanied by National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, met the de facto ruler ahead of talks expected on Tuesday with a Russian delegation in the Saudi capital.But the 500-day-old Israel-Hamas war dominated discussions, according to a State Department statement.Rubio and the crown prince “reaffirmed their commitment to implementing the ceasefire in Gaza and ensuring that Hamas releases all hostages, including American citizens”, the statement said.”The secretary underscored the importance of an arrangement for Gaza that contributes to regional security,” it added.The two “discussed ways to advance shared interests in Syria, Lebanon, and across the region, to include Red Sea security and freedom of navigation”, said the statement, which made no reference to President Donald Trump’s widely criticised plan for the United States to take over the Gaza Strip and move away the Palestinian population.A Saudi statement said only that Rubio and the crown prince “discussed regional and international developments” and “efforts to assure security and stability in the region”.Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations have strongly opposed the US plan for Gaza, and State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce made no mention of the proposal in the statement.Rubio also met Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan but neither commented to reporters afterwards.The State Department, however, said that in the talks with the crown prince, Rubio highlighted “the strength of the US-Saudi relationship” and “looked forward to increased economic and defence cooperation between the United States and Saudi Arabia”.Trump, in his first term as president, launched efforts to establish diplomatic ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel. The Gaza war has hardened Arab attitudes towards normalisation, however.In Jerusalem, the US secretary of state gave strong support to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his uncompromising military campaign in Gaza since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel.Witkoff played a key role in securing the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas which took effect on January 19 and led to an exchange of hostages held by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.The US administration has said that Rubio, Waltz and Witkoff on Tuesday would meet a Russian delegation including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Riyadh, ahead of a future meeting on Ukraine between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Saudi capital.

Israel expressed commitment on Monday to a US proposal to take over Gaza and displace its Palestinian residents, as Washington’s top diplomat held talks in Saudi Arabia where he was expected to push the plan opposed by Arab states.Arriving in the kingdom after talks in Israel, Secretary of State Marco Rubio — on his first visit to the Middle East — met de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the State Department said.A Saudi source earlier told AFP that Riyadh would host a regional summit later this week “to discuss Arab alternatives” to President Donald Trump’s widely criticised plan for Gaza.Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait will be represented at the Friday summit, the source said.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was “committed to US President Trump’s plan for the creation of a different Gaza”, also promising that after the war, “there will be neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority” ruling the territory.The United States, Israel’s top ally and weapons supplier, says it is open to alternative proposals from Arab governments, but Rubio has said for now, “the only plan is the Trump plan”.The proposal lacked detail but Trump said the Palestinians in Gaza — who number more than two million — would be resettled in other countries and the US would “take over” the territory.The United States has also been pushing for a historic deal in which Saudi Arabia would recognise Israel. In return, Riyadh demands the establishment of a Palestinian state — long opposed by Israeli leaders and potentially in contradiction to Trump’s Gaza plan.On Monday, Egypt hosted the latest meeting of the Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two-State Solution, which initially gathered in Saudi Arabia last year.Egypt’s foreign ministry stressed Cairo’s “full commitment to implementing the two-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and “the necessity of establishing an independent Palestinian state”.In Riyadh, Rubio was accompanied by National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.Witkoff had teamed up with an outgoing envoy from former president Joe Biden to push the ceasefire deal between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas which took effect on January 19 — a day before Trump assumed office.Trump’s Gaza proposal has strained that truce, the first phase of which would expire in early March.According to Israeli media, the security cabinet convened on Monday evening to discuss phase two of the fragile ceasefire. The second phase has yet to be negotiated.- Hoping truce holds -Netanyahu said he spoke with Rubio about “Trump’s bold vision for Gaza’s future” — which experts have warned would violate international law — and about ways to “ensure that vision becomes a reality”.On Monday evening, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said a special agency would be established for the “voluntary departure” of Gazans.A vocal opponent of stopping the war, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, said he “will demand a vote” by ministers on Trump’s plan and that Israel must “issue a clear ultimatum to Hamas -– immediately release all hostages, leave Gaza for other countries, and lay down your arms”.Since the truce took effect on January 19, a total of 19 Israeli hostages have been released in exchange for more than 1,100 Palestinian prisoners.Out of 251 people seized in Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the war, 70 remain in Gaza, including 35 the Israeli military says are dead.The families of the hostages still in Gaza on Monday marked 500 days of their captivity, holding pictures of their loved ones and banners reading “Home Now”.Dozens marched towards Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem before they met lawmakers in parliament.- 500 days -“My eyes burn from the tears I have shed for the past 500 days,” said Einav Tzangauker, whose son Matan is among those held in Gaza.Five foreign hostages are among those still held captive. They include Nepali agriculture student Bipin Joshi, 24, who risked his life to save friends, including Himanchal Kattel, at the farm where they worked.”People should talk more about him,” Kattel said.In Gaza, over the 500 days since Hamas’s attack sparked the war, Mohammed Abu Mursa said he has known only “humiliation, suffering and bloodshed”.Abu Mursa and his family have been displaced more than a dozen times trying to survive.”I just hope the ceasefire holds and that the exchange of prisoners continues,” he said.The Gaza war has rippled across the Middle East, triggering violence in Yemen and Lebanon, where Iran backs militant groups.An Israeli strike Monday in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon killed a Hamas commander, Mohammed Shahine, whom the Israeli military accused of planning attacks.Hamas’s attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,211 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 48,271 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory that the United Nations considers reliable.burs/jsa/it/ysm

Top US and Russian diplomats will meet in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday for talks on resetting the countries’ fractured relations and making a tentative start on trying to end the Ukraine war.Both sides played down the chances that the first high-level meeting between the countries since Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022 would result in a breakthrough.Nevertheless, the very fact of the talks has triggered concern in Kyiv and Europe — left reeling by Washington’s dramatic diplomatic moves towards the Kremlin.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday accused Washington of wanting “to please” Russian President Valdimir Putin by “now saying things that are very favourable” to him.He previously revealed that Kyiv had not been invited to the discussions in Riyadh.Meanwhile, European leaders were gathering in Paris for emergency talks on how to respond to the radical pivot by the new US administration.Preparations for a possible summit between presidents Donald Trump and Putin are also set to be on the agenda.Trump is pushing for a swift resolution to the three-year conflict in Ukraine, while Moscow sees his outreach as a chance to gain concessions on some of its long-standing gripes about Washington’s military presence in Europe.Zelensky said Kyiv “did not know anything about” the talks in Riyadh, according to Ukrainian news agencies, and that it “cannot recognise any things or any agreements about us without us”.Moscow said ahead of the meeting that Putin and Trump wanted to move on from “abnormal relations” and that it saw no place for Europeans to be at any negotiating table.Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and senior Putin aide Yuri Ushakov, who arrived in Riyadh late on Monday according to images shown by the Rossiya 24 news channel, will meet with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff.- Possible Trump-Putin summit -Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the talks would be “primarily devoted to restoring the whole complex of Russian-American relations”, alongside discussions on “possible negotiations on a Ukrainian resolution, and organising a meeting between the two presidents”.Moscow, which for years has sought to roll back NATO’s presence in Europe, has made clear it wants to hold bilateral talks with the United States on a plethora of broad security issues, not just a possible Ukraine ceasefire.Before invading in February 2022, Putin was demanding the military alliance pull its troops, equipment and bases out of several eastern members that were under Moscow’s sphere of influence during the Cold War.The prospects of any talks leading to an agreement to halt the Ukraine fighting are unclear.Both Moscow and Washington have cast the meeting as the beginning of a potentially lengthy process.”I don’t think that people should view this as something that is about details or moving forward in some kind of a negotiation,” US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said.Russia’s Ushakov told state media that the talks would discuss “how to start negotiations on Ukraine.””The tasks are more or less clear to us,” he added.Both Kyiv and Moscow have ruled out territorial concessions and Putin last year demanded Ukraine withdraw its troops from even more territory.Zelensky will travel to Turkey on Tuesday to discuss the conflict with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and then Saudi Arabia a day later.He does not plan to hold talks with either the US or Russian delegations, his spokesman said on Monday.Zelensky said last week he was prepared to meet Putin, but only after Kyiv and its allies had a common position on ending the war.- Europe is ‘weak’ -As European leaders gathered in Paris for an emergency security summit, Russia’s Lavrov on Monday said he saw no point in them taking part in any Ukraine talks.”I don’t know what they would do at the negotiating table… if they are going to sit at the negotiating table with the aim of continuing war, then why invite them there?,” he told a press conference in Moscow.  Germany on Monday said “direct contact between the Americans and the Russians is not a bad thing if it is about finding a way to a durable and lasting peace.”Moscow heads into the Saudi talks boosted by recent gains on the battlefield.Its better resourced troops are pushing Ukraine back across the 1,000-kilometre (620-mile) front line.Kyiv also faces the prospect of losing vital US military aid, long criticised by Trump, and being forced to rely on European backing.On Monday, Zelensky said that Europe’s military capabilities were “weak”.Russia’s army on Monday said its forces had captured a small settlement in northeastern Ukraine and also retaken control of a village in its western Kursk region, where Ukraine launched a shock counter-offensive last August. burs-jc/cad/yad/bc/giv

For 500 days since an unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel triggered the Gaza Strip’s deadliest war, Mohammed Abu Mursa has grappled with “humiliation, suffering and bloodshed” in his fight for survival.Abu Mursa and his family have been displaced more than a dozen times since the war began, moving from place to place across the Palestinian territory in a desperate attempt to stay safe, he said.”It’s been 500 days of humiliation, suffering and bloodshed,” said the resident of northern Gaza, finally able to return home after a fragile ceasefire took hold on January 19.”I just hope the ceasefire holds,” he added.”There is only destruction around us.”Like the Abu Mursa family, nearly all of Gaza’s 2.4 million residents have been displaced at least once during the war.Within hours of the Hamas attack, which resulted in the deaths of 1,211 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures, Israel launched a blistering offensive on Gaza.More than 16 months later, vast swathes of the territory are in ruins.The Israeli military campaign by land, air and sea has killed at least 48,284 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, whose figures the UN considers reliable.Khadija Hammou, 56, said that the 500 days since the war began have felt like “500 years”.”There is no tent to shelter us, no water to drink or bathe in, no means of survival in Gaza,” she told AFP.”Everywhere we go… there is only suffering.”To Hammou, the war has “revealed to the world that Israel is committing massacres and that our people are the occupied and the oppressed”.- ‘Tired’ -Despite the ceasefire and the diplomatic efforts to extend it, Gazans are concerned that the violence could reignite.”Our fear is that the war will resume” and the world will fail to stop Israel’s actions, said Ayman al-Jamali, 39, a resident of the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood in Gaza City.”The world watches the massacres unfold without doing anything,” he said.Jamali accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of “seeking any opportunity to destroy Gaza”, which for years has been under a crippling Israeli-led blockade and, during the current war, a siege.Earlier on Monday, Netanyahu said he was “committed” to a plan proposed by US President Donald Trump for his government to take control of Gaza and expel its inhabitants to neighbouring Egypt or Jordan.The proposal, which experts say would violate international law, has triggered widespread outrage.Later on Monday, Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said in a video statement that according to a plan currently in preparation “Gaza’s residents will be allowed to leave, but only in one direction -— with no possibility of return”.”I’ve never travelled in my life, and I don’t intend to leave the country unless they kill us,” said Jamali, who now lives in a tent he set up amid the rubble of his former home.”My tent is a witness to Israel’s genocide.”Exhausted by the war, Mohammed Skik, 47, fears his family may have to live in a tent for years to come.”Enough with this destruction and humiliation… We are tired. I just hope our children can live like children in the rest of the world,” he said.The United Nations has said more than $53 billion will be required to rebuild Gaza and end the “humanitarian catastrophe” that has gripped the territory.

Near a south Lebanon border town, residents waited Monday to go home after months of displacement, on the eve of an extended deadline for Israel to withdraw troops under a fragile truce.”It’s our right to return to our town, to our homes, to retrieve the bodies of our martyrs, and return in full freedom,” said Hula resident Amin Koteish, a farmer, surrounded by his neighbours.But their return is not yet guaranteed.Israel’s army announced Monday it would stay “temporarily in five strategic points along the border” beyond the Tuesday deadline, including one overlooking Hula.On Sunday, a teenager was killed when, according to official Lebanese media, Israeli troops opened fire towards Hula “after residents entered” the town, passing a Lebanese army checkpoint and “dirt barriers set up by the Israeli army”.On Monday, Lebanese soldiers stood guard along one of the roads leading to the town, near military vehicles and ambulances, as people waited for Israeli troops to withdraw and so that they could retrieve the body of Khadija Atwi, the teen killed by Israeli fire.”We will sleep here and stay near the (Lebanese) army” until the Israelis withdraw, said Koteish.The pullout deadline is set to expire on Tuesday morning.”It is our legitimate and legal right to return to our homes” after more than a year of displacement, he said, expressing anger at the delay after Israel missed a January deadline.- ‘Let me go in’ -The ceasefire came into effect on November 27 after more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, including two months of all-out war.Under the deal, Lebanon’s military was to deploy in the south alongside United Nations peacekeepers as the Israeli army withdrew over a 60-day period that was later extended to February 18.Hezbollah was also to pull back north of the Litani River — about 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the border — and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south.After Atwi was killed on Sunday, the Lebanese army urged people against going to southern areas where its forces had not finished deploying, “in order to preserve their safety and avoid the death of innocent people”.A number of people were trapped inside Hula overnight, until their exit could be safely coordinated on Monday, among them Fadi Koteish, 58.”We entered (Hula) on Sunday, and suddenly the shooting started,” he told AFP.”Women, children and young men started running in every direction — some went into the valleys, others hid in houses.”He said he and his family couldn’t move “because of the intensity of the fire”.”We slept the night there, hoping that UNIFIL or the Red Cross would come and get us out,” he said, referring to peacekeepers from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon.Atwi’s family meanwhile had faced an excruciating wait before they were able to retrieve her body on Monday afternoon.”I’ll carry her out on my own back — just let me go in,” her mother Haifa Hussein had said in tears before the family was able to enter the town.”I don’t know anything about my daughter… can anyone accept her lying there on the ground?”

European markets rose on Monday as defence stocks surged ahead of a meeting between European leaders to address Washington’s sudden policy shift on the war in Ukraine.US President Donald Trump sidelined Kyiv and its European backers last week by calling his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to discuss beginning negotiations to end the conflict.With fears that …

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For 500 days since an unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel triggered the Gaza Strip’s deadliest war, Mohammed Abu Mursa has grappled with “humiliation, suffering and bloodshed” in his fight for survival.Abu Mursa and his family have been displaced more than a dozen times since the war began, moving from place to place across the Palestinian territory in a desperate attempt to stay safe, he said.”It’s been 500 days of humiliation, suffering and bloodshed,” said the resident of northern Gaza, finally able to return home after a fragile ceasefire took hold on January 19.”I just hope the ceasefire holds,” he added.”There is only destruction around us.”Like the Abu Mursa family, nearly all of Gaza’s 2.4 million residents have been displaced at least once during the war.Within hours of the Hamas attack, which resulted in the deaths of 1,211 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures, Israel launched a blistering offensive on Gaza.More than 16 months later, vast swathes of the territory are in ruins.The Israeli military campaign by land, air and sea has killed at least 48,284 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, whose figures the UN considers reliable.Khadija Hammou, 56, said that the 500 days since the war began have felt like “500 years”.”There is no tent to shelter us, no water to drink or bathe in, no means of survival in Gaza,” she told AFP.”Everywhere we go… there is only suffering.”To Hammou, the war has “revealed to the world that Israel is committing massacres and that our people are the occupied and the oppressed”.- ‘Tired’ -Despite the ceasefire and the diplomatic efforts to extend it, Gazans are concerned that the violence could reignite.”Our fear is that the war will resume” and the world will fail to stop Israel’s actions, said Ayman al-Jamali, 39, a resident of the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood in Gaza City.”The world watches the massacres unfold without doing anything,” he said.Jamali accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of “seeking any opportunity to destroy Gaza”, which for years has been under a crippling Israeli-led blockade and, during the current war, a siege.Earlier on Monday, Netanyahu said he was “committed” to a plan proposed by US President Donald Trump for his government to take control of Gaza and expel its inhabitants to neighbouring Egypt or Jordan.The proposal, which experts say would violate international law, has triggered widespread outrage.”I’ve never travelled in my life, and I don’t intend to leave the country unless they kill us,” said Jamali, who now lives in a tent he set up amid the rubble of his former home.”My tent is a witness to Israel’s genocide.”Exhausted by the war, Mohammed Skik, 47, fears his family may have to live in a tent for years to come.”Enough with this destruction and humiliation… We are tired. I just hope our children can live like children in the rest of the world,” he said.The United Nations has said more than $53 billion will be required to rebuild Gaza and end the “humanitarian catastrophe” that has gripped the territory.

The head of the World Health Organization insisted on Monday it was “now or never” to strike a landmark global accord on tackling future pandemics, after the United States withdrew from negotiations.WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said no country could protect itself from the next pandemic on its own — three days after US President Donald Trump’s administration told the UN health agency it was leaving the pandemic agreement talks.”We are at a crucial point as you move to finalise the pandemic agreement in time for the World Health Assembly” in May, Tedros told WHO members at the opening of the week-long 13th round of negotiations in Geneva.”It really is a case of now or never. But I am confident that you will choose ‘now’ because you know what is at stake.”You remember the hard-won lessons of Covid-19, which left an estimated 20 million of our brothers and sisters dead, and which continues to kill.”A further one-week session is planned before the WHO’s annual assembly.The process began in December 2021, when, fearing a repeat of Covid-19 — which killed millions of people, crippled health systems and crashed economies — countries decided to draft an accord on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.- Next pandemic ‘when, not if’ -After returning to office on January 20, Trump signed an executive order to start the one-year process of withdrawing from the WHO, an organisation he has repeatedly criticised over its handling of Covid-19.The order added that Washington would “cease negotiations” on the pandemic agreement.Tedros said Washington had formally notified the WHO on Friday of its withdrawal from the talks.”The next pandemic is a matter of when, not if. There are reminders all around us — Ebola, Marburg, measles, mpox, influenza and the threat of the next disease X,” he said.”No country can protect itself by itself. Bilateral agreements will only get you so far,” Tedros added.”Like the decision to withdraw from WHO, we regret this decision and we hope the US will reconsider,” he said.- System ‘under siege’ -Non-governmental organisations following the pandemic agreement process urged remaining member states to get the accord finished.Pandemic Action Network said: “Despite geopolitical and policy challenges, do not walk away from this vital mission.”Spark Street Advisors, a health sector consultancy, said the world had changed since the last negotiations in December, with the global multilateral system “under siege”.”This is why member states cannot afford to fail this week. In this new reality meant to reverse decades of progress, the pandemic agreement is a concrete action against this great dismantling,” it said.While much of the draft text has been agreed, disputes remain over sharing access to pathogens with pandemic potential and the sharing of benefits derived from them — vaccines, tests and treatments.Talks co-chair Precious Matsoso expressed hoped that proposed new wording would ensure a breakthrough. “Let’s make sure that the three years that we’ve spent does not end up being regretted — that we wasted three years of our time,” she said.

Holding pictures of their loved ones, families of Israeli hostages held in Gaza marked 500 days of captivity on Monday, urging authorities to secure their release.Dozens of demonstrators were seen marching to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem, chanting slogans and carrying banners that read “Home Now”, before meeting lawmakers in parliament.”My eyes burn from the tears I have shed for the past 500 days,” said Einav Tzangauker, whose son Matan is among those still held captive since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the Gaza war.Addressing lawmakers, she pleaded with them to “do everything possible to bring my son Matan and the other hostages home alive”.In December, Hamas released a video of her son, who was abducted along with his partner from their home in Nir Oz kibbutz during the deadly Hamas attack.Shimon Or, whose nephew Avinatan was seized from the Nova music festival that day, told lawmakers he believed Hamas “will never release all the hostages”.”I am angry because this ceasefire agreement, which only allows for the partial release of hostages, puts the lives of those still in Gaza at risk,” Or said.- ‘Unimaginable suffering’ -Israel and Hamas are implementing the first stage of a ceasefire agreement brokered after months of mediation by Qatar, Egypt and the United States.The ceasefire, which took effect on January 19, has largely halted fighting in Gaza and led to the release of 19 Israeli hostages in exchange for more than 1,100 Palestinians in Israeli custody.In total, 33 Israeli hostages, including eight who are dead, are set for release during the ongoing first phase of the deal in exchange for 1,900 Palestinian prisoners.Lawmaker Yossi Taieb, during a separate parliamentary session on Monday, said: “The State of Israel must get them out of this hell. It is our moral duty.””Our brothers and sisters have been in captivity, in hell, for 500 days. We think of them every moment,” Taieb said.Later on Monday, rallies marking the 500th day of the hostages’ captivity are scheduled to take place in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.Relatives of some hostages gathered in parliament, holding up pictures of those still held in Gaza — 70 out of 251 people abducted during the 2023 attack.As each name was read out, the group chanted “now”, before singing the national anthem.Israeli campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum encouraged people to observe a 500-minute fast on Monday in solidarity with the hostages.Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who on Monday met with recently released captive Ohad Ben Ami, said he wanted all hostages to return home “as soon as possible”.”On this 500th day, we must remember and remind the world… of the unimaginable suffering of our brothers and sisters in Gaza,” Herzog said in a statement.The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which has facilitated the hostage-prisoner exchanges, on Monday called for all to be released in a post on X.”The ICRC remains committed to supporting the ceasefire agreement to bring more hostages back to their loved ones,” it said.