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Shuttered storefronts lined empty streets in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank on Monday during a general strike by Palestinians demanding an end to the Gaza war.”I walked through the city today and couldn’t find a single place that was open,” Fadi Saadi, a shopkeeper in Bethlehem, told AFP.Shops, schools and most public administrative offices were closed across the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.A coalition of Palestinian political movements — including rivals Fatah and Hamas — called the strike to protest what they described as “the genocide and the ongoing massacre of our people”.It called for the strike “in all the occupied Palestinian territories, in the refugee camps… and among those who support our cause”.Israel resumed air strikes on Gaza on March 18, ending nearly two months of ceasefire with Hamas. Dozens of Palestinians have been killed almost daily since Israel restarted its military offensive.Imad Salman, 68, who owns a souvenir shop in Jerusalem’s Old City, said the closure is for “our family in Gaza, our children in Gaza.” He told AFP: “In Jerusalem, in the West Bank, we can’t do something more than what we’re doing here now.” In Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, the usually bustling commercial Salaheddin Street was empty.”This strike is in solidarity with Gaza and what is happening there, and the war being waged against the Palestinian people, whether by (US President Donald) Trump, (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu, the Israeli government, or the American government,” said Ahmed, who did not want to his surname.”This war must stop, the killing and destruction must stop, and only peace should prevail — peace, and nothing but peace.”- ‘Stop the massacres’ -A rally was planned Monday in the centre of the West Bank city of Ramallah, where the Palestinian Authority has its headquarters.”This time, the strike is serious, and the population’s commitment is significant because Israeli aggression now affects all Palestinian households, whether in the West Bank or Gaza,” said Issam Baker, a community organiser in Ramallah.”We have seen total commitment in support of the strike today throughout the West Bank, which has not happened since October 7″ 2023, when the Gaza war started, said a security source from the Palestinian Authority which has partial administrative control in the territory.Since the start of the Gaza war, violence has soared in the West Bank.Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 918 Palestinians, including militants, in the territory since then, according to health ministry figures.Palestinian attacks and clashes during military raids have killed at least 33 Israelis, including soldiers, over the same period, according to official figures.Protests also erupted in the Lebanese capital Beirut on Monday in front of the Lebanese American University, with dozens of students gathering around a massive Palestinian flag.In Sidon in southern Lebanon, hundreds demonstrated, shouting “stop the massacres against the Palestinian people” and “stop the war of extermination in Gaza”.In the Tunisian capital as well, hundreds of students demonstrated in front of the French embassy to express solidarity with Palestinians, as French President Emmanuel Macron visited Cairo to discuss Gaza.bur-he-crb-acc/jsa/it

Hamas and rescuers said an Israeli strike on southern Gaza killed one journalist and wounded nine others on Monday, while the Israeli military reported it targeted a militant posing as a reporter.The journalist is one of at least 12 people killed in Israeli strikes across the Palestinian territory on Monday, according to Gaza’s civil defence agency, as the war entered its 19th month.An air strike hit a tent used by journalists in the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis, killing two people, said civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal. Nine journalists were wounded in the strike, Bassal added.The Hamas government media office said journalist Hilmi al-Faqaawi, who worked for a local news agency, was killed in the attack.The Ramallah-based Palestinian foreign ministry called Faqaawi’s killing “part of a growing series of crimes targeting journalists directly, in a systematic attempt to silence the Palestinian voice and erase the truth”.The Palestinian Journalists Protection Center (PJPC) also condemned the attack, saying “the deliberate targeting of journalists constitutes a war crime”.Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders said it “strongly condemns” the strike on the tent sheltering the journalists.”The endless massacre of journalism in Gaza must stop!” it said in a statement.The Israeli military meanwhile said its forces had “struck the Hamas terrorist Hassan Abdel Fattah Mohammed Aslih in the Khan Yunis area” overnight, without specifying whether he had been killed.The military claimed Aslih operated “under the guise of a journalist and owns a press company.”It said Aslih had “infiltrated Israeli territory and participated in the murderous massacre carried out by the Hamas terrorist organisation on October 7th”.”During the massacre, he documented and uploaded footage of looting, arson, and murder to social media.”The Hamas government media office and the PJPC named Aslih among the nine wounded in the Khan Yunis strike.- ‘Trapped beneath rubble’ -In central Gaza, Bassal said an Israeli air strike hit three houses in Deir el-Balah city and killed at least seven people.”Some people remain trapped beneath the rubble,” the spokesman said.Deir el-Balah was the target of an Israeli evacuation order late Sunday, warning residents of imminent attacks in response to a rocket salvo that the military said was fired from the area.Further north, Bassal said a strike hit “a group of civilians” in Gaza City’s Zeitun neighbourhood, killing three people.The civil defence spokesman said there was also ongoing artillery shelling across Gaza and home demolitions in Rafah, on the territory’s southern border with Egypt.Israel resumed intense strikes on Gaza on March 18, ending a two-month ceasefire with Hamas. Efforts to restore the truce have so far failed.According to the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, at least 1,391 Palestinians have been killed in the renewed Israeli operations, taking the overall death toll since the start of the war to 50,752.Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

The leaders of France, Egypt and Jordan on Monday said the Palestinian Authority must head post-war governance in the Gaza Strip.The question of who will rule the Palestinian territory has been one of the main sticking points in efforts to prolong a ceasefire in Gaza that collapsed last month.On a visit to Cairo where he met his counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as well as Jordan’s King Abdullah II, French President Emmanuel Macron said Palestinian militant group Hamas should have no role in governing the Gaza Strip once its war with Israel is over.”Governance, law and order, and security in Gaza, as well as in all Palestinian territories, must be the sole responsibility of a strengthened Palestinian Authority,” the three heads of state said in a joint statement.Macron said he was strongly opposed to any displacement of Palestinians, throwing his weight behind a Gaza reconstruction plan endorsed by the Arab League to counter a US proposal to send the war-ravaged territory’s inhabitants elsewhere.Speaking alongside Sisi in the Egyptian capital, Macron hailed his government’s “crucial work on this plan, which offers a realistic path to the reconstruction of Gaza and should also pave the way for new Palestinian governance” in the territory.The Palestinian Authority is dominated by Hamas’s rival party Fatah and based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank where it has partial administrative control.”Hamas must have no role in this governance (of Gaza), and must no longer constitute a threat to Israel,” Macron said.Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas and strongly rejected any future role for the Islamist group in the Gaza Strip after its unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack triggered the war, now in its 19th month.Hamas has ruled Gaza since 2007.Though the group signalled it would be willing to leave administrative and civil matters to a group of Palestinian technocrats, it has not committed to giving up its arms.- Call to Trump -After a two-month truce, Israel resumed intense bombardment across the Gaza Strip and restarted ground operations, killing at least 1,391 Palestinians since March 18, according to the territory’s health ministry.At their Cairo meeting, the three leaders called for an “immediate return” to the ceasefire.Egypt along with Qatar and the United States brokered the January truce. The deal collapsed when Israel sought to extend its first phase but Hamas insisted on talks for a second phase, as originally outlined by then-US president Joe Biden.King Abdullah joined Macron and Sisi for a summit on the war and humanitarian efforts to alleviate the suffering of Gaza’s 2.4 million people.Israel cut off aid to Gaza more than a month ago during the truce impasse.Macron’s visit is a show of support for Egypt and Jordan, the proposed destinations in US President Donald Trump’s widely criticised idea to move Gazans out of the territory.Macron, Sisi and King Abdullah presented a united front against “displacement of the population” from Gaza.The French presidency said that, from Cairo, Macron set up a call between the three leaders and Trump. The trio underlined to the US president the need to immediately re-establish “full access” for aid delivery, the liberation of hostages still held by militants, and the necessity of creating “favourable conditions for a real political horizon”.Sisi said in Cairo that without a “just solution” for Palestinians there will not be “lasting peace and permanent stability in the Middle East”.King Abdullah stressed, during the meeting with his two counterparts, the need for “a just and comprehensive peace based on the two-state solution”, a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Donald Trump at the White House on Monday, becoming the first foreign leader to personally plead for a reprieve from stinging US tariffs that have shaken the world.Netanyahu and Trump are also set to discuss Gaza, where a short-lived US-brokered truce between Israel and Hamas has collapsed, and growing tensions with Iran.Trump greeted Netanyahu outside the West Wing and pumped his fist, before the two leaders — both wearing dark suits, red ties and white shirts — went inside for a meeting in the Oval Office.A planned press conference between the two leaders was canceled at short notice without explanation in an unusual move. During his last visit, Netanyahu and Trump both spoke to reporters in the Oval and then held a press conference.The Israeli premier’s visit is his second to Trump since the US president returned to power and comes at short notice — just days after Trump slapped a 17 percent tariff on Israel in his “Liberation Day” announcement last week. Trump refused to exempt the top beneficiary of US military aid from his global tariff salvo as he said Washington had a significant trade deficit with Israel.Netanyahu said on his way to Washington on Sunday that they would discuss “the hostages, achieving victory in Gaza, and of course the tariff regime that has also been imposed on Israel.””I’m the first international leader, the first foreign leader who will meet with President Trump on a matter so crucial to Israel’s economy,” he said in a video statement.”There is a long line of leaders who want to do this. I believe this reflects the special personal relationship and the unique bond between the United States and Israel, which is so vital at this time.”Netanyahu met with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on Sunday night soon after his arrival, according to his office.The Israeli premier also met Trump’s special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff on Monday.Trump told reporters on Sunday that “We’re going to talk about trade, and we’re going to talk about the obvious subject.””There’s a lot of things going on with the Middle East right now that have to be silenced,” he added.- Attack on paramedics -Israel’s war in Gaza, sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 attack, and the fate of the Israeli and US hostages still held in Gaza will be a major subject of discussion.Israel resumed intense strikes on Gaza on March 18, and the weeks-long ceasefire with Hamas that the United States, Egypt and Qatar had brokered collapsed.Trump has so far backed Israel to the hilt, accusing Hamas of failing to release the hostages.The United States has also brushed off an incident in which 15 medics and rescuers were killed by Israeli forces last month in Gaza, sparking international condemnation.Israel’s army chief on Monday ordered a “deeper” investigation into the attack.France’s President Emmanuel Macron said Monday he had organized a call to Trump with the leaders of Egypt and Jordan during a visit to Cairo, with the leaders also calling for an immediate return to the truce.The leaders also insisted that the Palestinian Authority alone must be in charge of the post-war governance of the Gaza Strip — rejecting Trump’s plan for the US to “own” the enclave after the war.On Iran, Trump has been pressing for “direct talks” with Tehran on a new deal to curb the Islamic republic’s nuclear program.But Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghai said Tehran’s proposal for indirect negotiations was “generous, responsible and wise.”There has been widespread speculation that Israel, possibly with US help, might attack Iranian facilities if no agreement is reached.Netanyahu arrived direct from a visit to Hungary where Prime Minister Viktor Orban pulled his country out of the International Criminal Court (ICC) because the court issued an arrest warrant for the Israeli leader over the Gaza war.Both leaders also spoke by phone with Trump on Thursday.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said on Monday that 15 medics and rescuers killed by Israeli forces last month in Gaza were shot in the upper body with “intent to kill”.Israeli army chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir meanwhile ordered a more in-depth investigation into the attack after an initial probe was completed by the military.The killings occurred in the southern Gaza Strip on March 23, days into a renewed Israeli offensive in the Hamas-ruled territory. They have since sparked international condemnation, with Israel insisting there were militants in the ambulances.The PRCS announcement came as Hamas and rescuers said an Israeli strike on southern Gaza killed one journalist and wounded nine others, while the Israeli military reported it targeted a militant posing as a reporter.The journalist is one of at least 12 people killed in Israeli strikes across the Palestinian territory on Monday, according to Gaza’s civil defence agency, as the war entered its 19th month.Younis Al-Khatib, president of the Red Crescent in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, told journalists in Ramallah that an autopsy of the humanitarian personnel slain in March revealed that “all the martyrs were shot in the upper part of their bodies, with the intent to kill”.He called for an international probe into the killings.”We call on the world to form an independent and impartial international commission of inquiry into the circumstances of the deliberate killing of the ambulance crews in the Gaza Strip,” Khatib said.Army chief Zamir ordered a more in-depth investigation in the attack.”The Chief of Staff has instructed a deeper investigation to be conducted and completed in the coming days,” the military said in a statement.”The preliminary inquiry indicated that the troops opened fire due to a perceived threat following a previous encounter in the area.”The Israeli military has previously said its soldiers fired on “terrorists” approaching them in “suspicious vehicles”, with a spokesman later adding that the vehicles had their lights off.But a video recovered from the cellphone of one of the slain aid workers, released by the Red Crescent, appears to contradict the Israeli military’s account.The footage shows ambulances travelling with their headlights on and emergency lights flashing.- Journalist killed -Eight staff members from the Red Crescent, six from the Gaza civil defence agency and one employee of the UN agency for Palestinian refugee were killed in the incident, according to the UN humanitarian office OCHA and Palestinian rescuers.Their bodies were found buried near the site of the shooting in the Tal al-Sultan area of Rafah city, in what OCHA described as a mass grave.”Why did you hide the bodies?” Khatib said of the Israeli forces involved in the attack.An Israeli air strike on Monday hit a tent used by journalists in the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis, killing two people and wounding nine journalists, Gaza’s civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said.The Hamas government media office said journalist Hilmi al-Faqaawi, who worked for a local news agency, was killed in the attack.The Israeli military meanwhile said it had “struck the Hamas terrorist Hassan Abdel Fattah Mohammed Aslih in the Khan Yunis area” overnight, without specifying whether he had been killed.The military claimed Aslih operated “under the guise of a journalist” and had taken part in Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. The Hamas government media office and the Palestinian Journalists Protection Center named Aslih among the nine wounded in the Khan Yunis strike.- ‘War crimes’ -Addressing the killing of the rescuers in March, an Israeli military official, briefing journalists over the weekend on condition of anonymity, said troops first fired at a vehicle carrying members of Hamas internal security forces, killing two and detaining another.Two hours later, at 6:00 am on March 23, the soldiers “received a report from the aerial coverage that there is a convoy moving in the dark in a suspicious way towards them” and “opened fire from far”, said the official.”They thought they had an encounter with terrorists.”According to OCHA the first team, which it said comprised rescuers and not Hamas militants, was hit by Israeli forces at dawn.In the hours that followed, additional rescue and aid teams searching for their colleagues were also struck, OCHA said.On Monday, Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said that among the 15 killed were six Hamas militants.”What were Hamas terrorists doing in ambulances?” he said.Khatib dismissed the accusation, saying Israel has failed “to prove even once in 50 years that the Red Crescent or its crews carry or use weapons”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets Donald Trump at the White House on Monday, becoming the first foreign leader to personally plead for a reprieve from stinging US tariffs that have shaken the world.Netanyahu, holding talks with Trump for the second time since the US president returned to power in January, will also seek further backing on Iran and Gaza where a short-lived US-brokered truce has collapsed.”We’re going to talk about trade, and we’re going to talk about the obvious subject,” Trump told reporters on board Air Force One on Sunday as he returned from a golfing weekend in Florida.”There’s a lot of things going on with the Middle East right now that have to be silenced.”Netanyahu met with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on Sunday night soon after his arrival, according to his office.The Israeli premier also met Trump’s special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff on Monday.Arriving in Washington direct from a visit to Hungary, Netanyahu’s chief objective was to try to persuade Trump to reverse the decision, or at the very least to reduce the 17 percent levy set to be imposed on Israeli imports before it takes effect.Before leaving Budapest, Netanyahu had said his discussions would cover a range of issues, including “the tariff regime that has also been imposed on Israel.””I’m the first international leader, the first foreign leader who will meet with President Trump on a matter so crucial to Israel’s economy,” he said in a statement.”I believe this reflects the special personal relationship and the unique bond between the United States and Israel, which is so vital at this time.”In Budapest, Netanyahu met Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who pulled his country out of the International Criminal Court (ICC) because it has issued an arrest warrant for the Israeli leader.Both leaders also spoke by phone with Trump on Thursday.- ‘Urgency’ -Analysts said Netanyahu would seek to secure an exemption from the tariffs for Israel.”The urgency (of the visit) makes sense in terms of stopping it before it gets institutionalized,” said Jonathan Rynhold, head of political studies at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv.Such an exemption would not only benefit Trump’s closest Middle East ally but also “please Republicans in Congress, whose voters care about Israel, but are unwilling to confront Trump on this at this point,” he said.Israel had attempted to dodge the new tariffs by moving preemptively a day before Trump’s announcement and lifting all remaining Israeli duties on the one percent of US goods still affected by them.But Trump did not exempt Israel from his global salvo, saying the United States had a significant trade deficit with the country, the top beneficiary of US military aid.Netanyahu will also discuss the war sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 attack, the Israeli hostages still held in Gaza, and the “growing threat from Iran,” his office said.Israel resumed intense strikes on Gaza on March 18, and the weeks-long ceasefire with Hamas that the United States, Egypt and Qatar had brokered collapsed.Efforts to restore the truce have failed, with nearly 1,400 people killed in renewed Israeli air and ground operations, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-controlled territory.Palestinian militants in Gaza are still holding 58 hostages, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.On Iran, Trump has been pressing for “direct talks” with Tehran on a new deal to curb the Islamic republic’s nuclear programme.But Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghai said Tehran’s proposal for indirect negotiations was “generous, responsible and wise.”There has been widespread speculation that Israel, possibly with US help, might attack Iranian facilities if no agreement is reached.

US President Donald Trump cautioned against “stupid” panic on Monday as a global stock market rout deepened after Beijing retaliated against his tariffs offensive.Shares in New York joined the slump, with all three major US indices falling more than three percent in early trading.European equities were deep in the red but Asia fared worse, with …

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