AFP Asia Business

Artillery shelling and air strikes killed at least 56 people across greater Khartoum on Saturday, according to a medical source and Sudanese activists.Sudan’s regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been locked in a battle for power since April 2023 that has intensified this month with the army fighting to take back control of the capital.RSF shelling killed 54 and injured 158 people at a busy market in army-controlled Omdurman, part of greater Khartoum, on Saturday, overwhelming the city’s Al-Nao Hospital, according to a medical source and the health ministry.”The shells hit in the middle of the vegetable market, that’s why the victims and the wounded are so many,” one survivor told AFP.The RSF denied carrying out the attack.Across the Nile in Khartoum proper, two civilians were killed and dozens wounded in an air strike on an RSF-controlled area, said the local Emergency Response Room, one of hundreds of volunteer groups coordinating emergency care across Sudan.Although the RSF has used drones in attacks including on Saturday, the fighter jets of the regular armed forces maintain a monopoly on air strikes.Both the RSF and the army have been repeatedly accused of targeting civilians and indiscriminately shelling residential areas.- Metres away from hospital -In addition to killing tens of thousands of people, the war has uprooted more than 12 million and decimated Sudan’s fragile infrastructure, forcing most health facilities out of service.A volunteer at Al-Nao Hospital told AFP it faced dire shortages of “shrouds, blood donors and stretchers to transport the wounded”.The hospital is one of the last medical facilities operating in Omdurman and has been repeatedly attacked.According to the Sudanese doctors’ union, one shell fell “just metres away from Al-Nao hospital” on Saturday.The union said most of the victims were women and children, and called on nurses and doctors in the area to head to the hospital to relieve a “severe shortage of medical staff”.The fighting in the capital comes weeks after the army launched an offensive across central Sudan, reclaiming Al-Jazira state capital Wad Madani before setting its sights on Khartoum.The RSF has since remained in control of the road between Wad Madani and Khartoum, but on Saturday an army-allied militia claimed control of the towns of Tamboul, Rufaa, Al-Hasaheisa, and Al-Hilaliya, some 125 kilometres (77 miles) southeast of the capital.The group, the Sudan Shield Forces, is led by Abu Aqla Kaykal, who defected from the RSF last year and has been accused of atrocities against civilians both during his tenure with the RSF and now on the army’s side.Sudan remains effectively split, with the RSF in control of nearly all of the vast western region of Darfur and swathes of the south, and the army controlling the country’s east and north.After months of stalemate in greater Khartoum, the army has broken RSF sieges on several bases in the capital this month, including its headquarters, pushing the paramilitary increasingly into the city’s outskirts.Witnesses said Saturday’s bombardment of Omdurman came from the city’s western outskirts, where the RSF remains in control.A resident of a southern neighbourhood reported rocket and artillery fire on the city’s streets.- Counter-offensive -Saturday’s bombardment came a day after RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo vowed to retake the capital from the army.”We expelled them (from Khartoum) before, and we will expel them again,” he told troops in a rare video address.Greater Khartoum has been a key battleground in nearly 22 months of fighting between the army and the RSF, and has been reduced to a shell of its former self. An investigation by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine found that 26,000 people were killed in the capital alone between April 2023 and June 2024.Entire neighbourhoods have been taken over by fighters while at least 3.6 million civilians have fled, according to the United Nations.Those unable or unwilling to leave have reported frequent artillery fire on residential areas, and widespread hunger in besieged neighbourhoods blockaded by opposing forces.At least 106,000 people are estimated to be suffering from famine in Khartoum, according to the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, with a further 3.2 million experiencing crisis levels of hunger.Nationwide, famine has been declared in five areas — most of them in Darfur — and is expected to take hold of five more by May.Before leaving office, the administration of former US president Joe Biden sanctioned Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, accusing the army of attacking schools, markets and hospitals and using starvation as a weapon of war.That designation came a week after Washington sanctioned the RSF commander for his role in “gross violations of human rights” in Darfur, where the State Department said his forces had “committed genocide” against non-Arab minority groups.

Stepping off a bus with two dozen other released Palestinian prisoners on Saturday after 23 years imprisonment in Israel, Ata Abdelghani had more than his freedom to look forward to.The 55-year-old was also able to hug his twin sons, Zain and Zaid, for the first time.The encounter was made possible by his release in an ongoing hostage-prisoner exchange as part of a January ceasefire deal for the Gaza Strip agreed by Israel and Hamas.The twins, now 10 years old, were conceived while Abdelghani was incarcerated after his sperm was smuggled out of his prison.He had been serving a life sentence on a number of counts including murder and membership of an illegal organisation, according to a list released by the Israel ministry of justice.”These children are the ambassadors of freedom, the future generation,” Abdelghani said as he hugged the boys tightly.During Saturday’s fourth prisoner release since the January 19 Gaza ceasefire began, an eager crowd gathered to see 25 Palestinian prisoners released in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.Wearing grey prison tracksuits and with their heads shaved, the prisoners looked weary as they arrived, but many were hoisted onto people’s shoulders by the crowd and carried along in a heroes’ welcome.”It’s hard to describe in words,” Abdelghani said.”My thoughts are scattered. I need a great deal of composure to control myself, to steady my nerves, to absorb this overwhelming moment.”He added that the situation in prison had been “difficult, tragic”.A total of 183 prisoners, almost all Palestinians except for one Egyptian, were released on Saturday.- His boys became men -Seven serving life sentences and an Egyptian were deported to Egypt, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club. Of the remainder, 150 were sent to Gaza.The prisoners were released in exchange for three Israelis taken hostage during Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.Riad Marshoud, another freed prisoner, cried when he hugged his two sons, who were boys when he was jailed 22 years ago.After hugging them tightly, he sat on a chair while relatives made video calls to cousins and uncles who had not been able to come to see him released.One relative was in Jordan and another in the United Arab Emirates.All tried to catch a glimpse of the dazed and tired but elated Marshoud as he received congratulations.”The first moment when the bus doors opened and I stepped out was very difficult — it’s hard to describe it in mere words,” he told the crowd.The dense throng that had come to see Marshoud parted when his father arrived wearing a traditional keffiyeh around his head.The father greeted his son with tearful kisses. Marshoud had been jailed on charges of membership of an illegal organisation, shooting and conspiracy to commit murder, according to Israel’s justice ministry.Shortly after the families in Ramallah took their released relatives home, three busloads of prisoners arrived in the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis, an AFP journalist reported.The 150 prisoners were greeted as they got off the bus by chants from the crowd — “In blood and spirit, we shall redeem you, prisoner!”

Three buses carrying Palestinian prisoners released by Israel as part of the Gaza ceasefire deal arrived to a cheerful crowd in the territory’s southern city of Khan Yunis on Saturday.The prisoners, many wearing grey prison uniforms, were greeted by hundreds of Gazans who gathered around the buses as they approached the city’s European Hospital, an AFP journalist reported.Rabi al-Kharoubi, 40, who came to see their arrival said he felt “indescribable joy” at seeing them freed. “We are proud of them.””I saw the shock in their eyes as they looked at Rafah and Khan Younis, destroyed, with piles of rubble and streets completely ruined,” he added referring to the devastation in southern Gaza after 15 months of war between Hamas and Israel. The prisoners were to undergo medical checks at the hospital before heading to their homes.”In blood and spirit, we shall redeem you, prisoner!” chanted some in the crowd as the men left the buses one by one.Some prisoners stuck their heads out of the windows of the vehicles as they tried to spot relatives or talk to people they knew in the crowd.One teary-eyed prisoner kissed the palm of his hand before placing it on the bus window while someone on the other side matched the gesture.Off the bus at last, one emotional prisoner raised his arms to take hold of a small child handed to him through the crowd.According to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club in Ramallah, 150 of the 183 detainees released on Saturday as part of the truce between Israel and Hamas were to be transferred to Gaza.”This is a new day of victory for our people. Today, a new group of our heroes is being released, seeing freedom despite the occupation’s will,” a Hamas official who did not wish to be identified told AFP.”Among those who arrived in Khan Yunis were 111 detainees arrested by Israel after October 7, 2023, but they have no connection to the Al-Aqsa Flood,” he said, using Hamas’s name for its attack on Israel that day.The prisoners were released in exchange for three Israeli hostages freed earlier on Saturday by Hamas, including two who were handed over to the Red Cross in Khan Yunis.The buses brought the prisoners to the Palestinian territory through the Kerem Shalom crossing.str-az-skl-he-jd/csp/dcp

Hamas freed three Israeli hostages on Saturday in exchange for more than 180 Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli custody in the fourth such swap under a ceasefire deal aimed at ending the war in Gaza.Hostages Ofer Kalderon and Yarden Bibas were paraded on stage by Hamas fighters before being handed over to the Red Cross in the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis. American-Israeli Keith Siegel was freed in a similar ceremony at Gaza City’s port in the north.The Israeli military later confirmed that all three were back in Israel.Israeli campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum hailed their release as “a ray of light in the darkness”.”I hope that this is a sign of the rebirth of the people of Israel, not just of Ofer, not just of the hostages,” Kalderon’s uncle Shemi told AFP, overcome with emotion.Later in the day, a bus carrying released Palestinian prisoners was greeted by a cheering crowd in the West Bank city of Ramallah, while three others were met by hundreds of well-wishers in Khan Yunis.In Ramallah, the bus struggled to make its way through the crowds as it arrived from the Israeli-run Ofer Prison.Several of the freed inmates were hoisted onto the shoulders of well-wishers, including an elderly man who raised his crutches over his head in triumph.”I need a great deal of composure to control myself, to steady my nerves, to absorb this overwhelming moment,” said one released prisoner, Ata Abdelghani, as he prepared to meet his now 10-year-old twin sons for the first time.After holding the hostages for more than 15 months, militants in Gaza began releasing them on January 19 under the terms of the ceasefire deal with Israel.Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad have so far handed over 18 hostages to the International Committee of the Red Cross in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, many of them women and minors.A total of 183 prisoners were freed Saturday, all of them Palestinian except for one Egyptian.Hamas sources said a fifth hostage-prisoner exchange would take place next Saturday.- ‘Mixed emotions’ -During their October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which started the Gaza war, militants abducted Siegel from kibbutz Kfar Aza, and Bibas and Kalderon from kibbutz Nir Oz.Militants took a total of 251 people hostage that day. Of those, 76 remain in Gaza, including at least 34 the military says are dead.Those seized include Bibas’s wife Shiri and their two children, whom Hamas has declared dead, although Israeli officials have not confirmed that.Bibas’s sons — Kfir, the youngest hostage, whose second birthday was in January, and his older brother Ariel, whose fifth birthday was in August — have become symbols of the hostages’ ordeal.Footage released by the Israeli military showed Bibas being reunited with his sister and father, who held him in a lengthy embrace.In a statement issued via the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, the Bibas family said “a quarter of our heart has returned to us after 15 long months”.”But the home remains incomplete,” the family said, adding they would “continue with hope and the call for the return of Shiri, the children, and all the hostages”.Israel’s hostage coordinator, Gal Hirsch, said the government continued “to demand information” from the ceasefire’s brokers about the rest of the Bibas family.Hundreds had gathered in the Tel Aviv plaza dubbed “Hostage Square” to watch live television coverage of the latest releases.Sighs of relief ran through the crowd as the three were freed and handed over to the Red Cross, though the mood was mostly sombre.At Tel Aviv’s Sheba Hospital, Kalderon, a keen mountain biker, beamed and blew kisses as he was met by a contingent of cyclist friends and other supporters chanting his name.”It’s amazing, amazing. A year-and-a-half is culminating in this moment,” said Navit Hermesh. “We missed him so much, we worried about him so much, and we are so happy that he’s coming back.”Ahead of the releases in Khan Yunis and Gaza City, scores of masked Hamas fighters stood guard in an apparent effort to prevent large crowds forming.It was a sharp contrast to the chaotic scenes that accompanied Thursday’s handover, which prompted Israel to briefly delay its release of Palestinian prisoners in protest.- ‘Difficult’ situation -After Saturday’s hostage release, Gaza’s key Rafah border crossing with Egypt was reopened, with the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory saying 50 Palestinian patients in need of specialist treatment had passed through.Egyptian state-linked channel Al-Qahera News showed footage of the first evacuees, who included 30 children with cancer.Gaza hospitals direct Muhammad Zaqout said he hoped the numbers would increase.”We now have 6,000 cases ready to be transferred, and more than 12,000 cases that are in dire need of treatment,” he said.Rafah was a vital entry point for Gaza aid before the Israeli military seized the Palestinian side of the crossing in May.The ceasefire’s 42-day first phase hinges on the release of a total of 33 hostages in exchange for around 1,900 people, mostly Palestinians, held in Israeli jails.Negotiations for a second phase of the deal are set to start on Monday, according to a timeline provided by an Israeli official. The second phase is expected to cover the release of the remaining captives and to include discussions on a more permanent end to the war.The ceasefire deal was brokered by mediators Qatar, Egypt and the United States.US President Donald Trump, who has claimed credit for the deal, is expected to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Tuesday.

Pictures of Ofer Kalderon, Keith Siegel and Yarden Bibas were everywhere on Saturday at “Hostages Square” in Tel Aviv as the three Israeli captives were released by Gaza militants.Sighs of relief ran through onlookers gathered to watch a live transmission of the three being handed over to the Red Cross in the Palestinian territory before being brought home to Israel.”It’s a good feeling, it makes us stronger,” Miki Pnini, a 67-year-old Israeli from the outlying suburb of Pardesiya west of Tel Aviv, told AFP.Pnini noted with satisfaction that “Ofer is on his legs, we can’t believe it after all he went through”.Kalderon is a dual French-Israeli national, and Paris’s ambassador to Israel, Frederic Journes, allowed himself a smile on Saturday as Kalderon was freed.For months, pictures of Kalderon and another Franco-Israeli hostage have been on display outside the French embassy.Hundreds of people came to the square on Saturday for the fourth handover of hostages since the ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip took effect on January 19.Some onlookers bore Israeli flags and others sported the yellow ribbons now associated with the hostages.- ‘Very emotional’ -Among them, Veronica Zaragovia, a 42-year-old resident of Tel Aviv, clutched her Israeli flag as she fought back tears.”I just, you know, holding the Israeli flag and seeing that is very emotional. I just feel like it’s all coming out,” she said, a yellow ribbon necklace around her neck.”We were just all braced for the worst, and that they’re all coming out alive and, let’s say, like, with their limbs and relatively healthy is incredible.”Many in the crowd were sombre, with some crying and others giving furtive smiles as they watched a drawn but confident 65-year-old US-Israel hostage Keith Siegel being handed over by his Hamas captors.The ceremonies staged by Hamas and fellow Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad for the hostage handovers have been widely criticised in Israel.Hamas has made them mount platforms draped with anti-Israel slogans and photos of slain militant leaders, instructing them to wave for the cameras and pose with gift bags from the Islamist movement.The mobile phone case of one woman near the television screens in the Tel Aviv square on Saturday made her feelings quite clear: “Keep calm and Fuck Hamas,” it read.”Seeing them alive is like the best feeling ever, but we are very worried,” said Eve Anne, a Tel Aviv resident who did not wish to disclose her surname.”We are kind of down and upset because of the deal that has been made, one of the worst deals that can be made,” she said, referring to the hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, including many serving life sentences, being freed in exchange for the Gaza hostages.- Bibas family -The level of excitement Saturday was not what it was for the first hostage releases last month.Early in the day, only around 30 people were in the square for the day’s first hostage handover — of Kalderon — which came at around 8:30 am local time.It was quickly followed by the release of Yarden Bibas, who turned 35 in captivity.He had been seized along with his wife Shiri and young sons Ariel and Kfir, the youngest hostage, who was just 18 months old when he was taken during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel.Many of those in Tel Aviv on Saturday carried pictures of Shiri Bibas and her boys, who by now are known to every Israeli.Two visibly emotional men and two women wore orange, the colour associated with the Bibas family.Yarden Bibas is now free, but his family’s fate is unknown. Hamas has said his wife and sons were killed in an Israeli air strike in November 2023, but Israel has not confirmed their deaths.One onlooker in the square wore the number “484”, referring to the number of days the hostages had spent in captivity.The voice of one Israeli journalist broke as she commentated on images of the hostages being reunited with their loved ones.Those assembled on the square were also overcome with emotion.

Freed Palestinian inmates were greeted by a cheering crowd in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah Saturday, after Hamas released three Israeli hostages from the Gaza Strip in the fourth exchange under the group’s ceasefire deal with Israel.Three other buses carrying freed Palestinians also arrived in the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis, with the inmates in grey prison uniforms met by hundreds of well-wishers.In Ramallah, the bus carrying the inmates struggled to make its way through the jubilant throng of supporters as it arrived from the Israeli-run Ofer Prison.Several of the freed inmates were hoisted onto the crowd’s shoulders, including an elderly man who raised his crutches over his head in a triumphant pose.Earlier in Gaza, hostages Ofer Kalderon and Yarden Bibas were paraded on stage by Hamas fighters before being handed over to the Red Cross in the southern city of Khan Yunis. American-Israeli Keith Siegel was freed shortly thereafter in a similar ceremony at Gaza City’s port in the north.Israel’s military later confirmed that all three were back in Israel.Israeli campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum hailed the release as “a ray of light in the darkness”.French-Israeli hostage Kalderon’s uncle Shemi told AFP: “We have waited for this moment for a very long time.””I hope that this is a sign of the rebirth of the people of Israel, not just of Ofer, not just of the hostages,” he said, overcome with emotion.After holding the hostages for more than 15 months, militants in Gaza began releasing them on January 19 under the terms of the ceasefire deal with Israel.Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants have so far handed over 18 hostages to the International Committee of the Red Cross in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, many of them women and minors.The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group had said Israel would free 183 prisoners Saturday.Hamas sources said a fifth hostage-prisoner exchange would take place next Saturday.- ‘Mixed emotions’ -During their October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which started the Gaza war, militants abducted Siegel from the Kfar Aza kibbutz community, and Bibas and Kalderon from kibbutz Nir Oz.Militants took a total of 251 people hostage that day. Of those, 76 remain in Gaza, including at least 34 the military says are dead.Those seized include Bibas’s wife Shiri and their two children, whom Hamas has declared dead, although Israeli officials have not confirmed that.Bibas’s sons — Kfir, the youngest hostage, whose second birthday was earlier this month, and his older brother Ariel, whose fifth birthday was in August — have become symbols of the hostages’ ordeal.”Our Yarden is supposed to return tomorrow and we are so excited but Shiri and the children still haven’t returned,” the Bibas family said on Instagram Friday, adding it had “such mixed emotions”.Footage released by the Israeli military showed Bibas being reunited with his sister and father, who held him in a lengthy embrace.Hundreds had gathered in Tel Aviv’s “Hostage Square” to watch the live broadcast of the latest hostage releases.Sighs of relief ran through the crowd as the three were freed and handed over to the Red Cross, though the mood was mostly sombre.At Tel Aviv’s Sheba Hospital, Kalderon, a keen mountain biker, was met by a contingent of cyclist friends and other supporters, beaming and blowing kisses as they chanted his name.”It’s amazing, amazing! A year-and-a-half is culminating in this moment,” said Navit Hermesh. “We missed him so much, we worried about him so much, and we are so happy that he’s coming back.”Ahead of both exchanges in Khan Yunis and Gaza City, scores of masked Hamas fighters stood sentry, apparently to control onlookers, and large crowds were mostly absent.It was a sharp contrast to Thursday’s frenzied exchange, which drew Israeli condemnation and led it to briefly delay the release of Palestinian prisoners.- ‘Difficult’ situation -After Saturday’s hostage release, Gaza’s key Rafah border crossing was reopened, with the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory saying 50 Palestinian patients had gone through the crossing to Egypt.Egyptian state-linked channel Al-Qahera News showed footage of the first evacuees, including a child with an autoimmune disease, crossing into Egypt to receive treatment.Muhammad Zaqout, director for Gaza hospitals, said he hoped the number would increase.”We now have 6,000 cases ready to be transferred, and more than 12,000 cases that are in dire need of treatment,” he said.Rafah was a vital Gaza aid entry point before the Israeli military seized the Palestinian side of the crossing in May.The fragile ceasefire’s 42-day first phase hinges on the release of a total of 33 hostages in exchange for around 1,900 people, mostly Palestinians, held in Israeli jails.Negotiations for a second phase of the deal are set to start on Monday, according to a timeline provided by an Israeli official. The second phase is expected to cover the release of the remaining captives and to include discussions on a more permanent end to the war.The ceasefire deal was negotiated by mediators Qatar, Egypt and the United States.US President Donald Trump, who has claimed credit for the deal, is expected to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Tuesday.

Ranks of Hamas fighters formed up on Gaza’s beachfront on Saturday for the handover of an Israeli-American hostage in a show of force against the dramatic backdrop of breaking waves.In Gaza City a stage had been erected at a harbour for the handover of Keith Siegel.Green Hamas and Palestinian flags flapped in a strong sea breeze near a fisherman’s wharf.Earlier, Israeli Yarden Bibas and Franco-Israeli Ofer Kalderon were handed over in a swift and organised ceremony in the war-battered city of Khan Yunis to the south.Siegel, 65, wore a black tracksuit and dark-grey hat as he was escorted quickly to the stage by fighters.He waved to onlookers and cameras, as hostages being freed have been told to do by their captors, before being handed over to the Red Cross.The occupational therapist seized from his home, along with his wife Aviva who was released during a truce in November 2023, appeared to have some difficulty moving as he mounted the stage.Before Siegel’s release, ordered lines of scores of heavily armed militants, only their eyes visible through masks, flanked the platform.On a row of pickups, some fighters carried RPGs (rocket-propelled-grenades) and other weapons.- Slain commanders -On the platform itself, militants held up portraits of the group’s slain leaders including Mohammed Deif, its military chief accused by Israel of being one of the masterminds behind the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel and whose death was confirmed by Hamas on Thursday.”We are the men of Mohammed Deif,” the Hamas fighters chanted as they brandished their weapons.Ahead of the two exchanges in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza and Gaza City to the north, scores of Hamas fighters, most wearing military fatigues, stood guard, apparently to control onlookers.The arrangements for Saturday’s hostage release appeared in stark contrast with scenes during Thursday’s exchange in Khan Yunis, which was condemned by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Only after Siegel had left the handover site in a Red Cross vehicle were crowds permitted to move towards the stage.Onlookers, many of them children, paused to take selfies with Hamas fighters and mingled in the port, waving Palestinian flags.Bibas and Kalderon were handed over quickly in devastated Khan Yunis, where many buildings have been destroyed in 15 months of war between Israel and Palestinian militants.- Handover formalities  -Bibas, the father of the two youngest hostages — Kfir, whose second birthday fell in January, and his older brother Ariel, who turned five in August — was urged to wave to a Hamas cameraman as he held a certificate confirming his release. The 35-year-old, whose wife and two children Hamas has declared dead, although Israel has not confirmed their deaths, frowned as he took to the stage and looked straight ahead during the now familiar handover formalities endured by other hostages being released.Kalderon, 54, seized along with his son Erez, 12, and daughter Sahar, 16, from Nir Oz kibbutz and who were released in a first truce last year, wore a military-green tracksuit as he took to the stage.He too was instructed to wave before he joined the Red Cross officials. An assault rifle, apparently captured from Israeli forces during the fighting in Gaza, had been placed on the table where Red Cross officials exchanged paperwork with a Hamas official to verify that the two men had changed hands.

Hamas on Saturday released three Israeli hostages in the fourth exchange of the ceasefire deal, ahead of the expected release of 183 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.Ofer Kalderon and Yarden Bibas were paraded on stage before being released to the Red Cross in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, while US-Israeli Keith Siegel was freed in a similar ceremony at Gaza City’s port in the north.Israel’s military later confirmed that all three were back in Israel.Israeli campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum hailed the release as “a ray of light in the darkness”.Franco-Israeli hostage Ofer Kalderon’s uncle Shemi told AFP: “We have waited for this moment for a very long time.””I hope that this is a sign of the rebirth of the people of Israel, not just of Ofer, not just of the hostages but of the people of Israel,” he said, overcome with emotion.French President Emmanuel Macron said on X he shared the “relief and joy” of Kalderon’s family and friends “after 483 days of unimaginable hell”.After keeping them hostage for more than 15 months, militants in Gaza began releasing captives on January 19, under the first phase of a ceasefire with Israel.In Khan Yunis on Saturday, Bibas, 35, the father of the two youngest hostages, looked straight ahead before waving, apparently after instructions from a Hamas fighter.Kalderon, 54 — seized along with his son Erez, 12, and daughter Sahar, 16, who were released in a first truce in November 2023 — wore a military-green tracksuit and also waved before joining the Red Cross officials. An assault rifle, apparently captured from Israeli forces during the fighting in Gaza, had been placed on the table where Red Cross workers exchanged paperwork with a Hamas official.Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants have so far handed over 18 hostages to the International Committee of the Red Cross in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, many of them women and minors.Later Saturday, Israel will free 183 prisoners, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group said.- ‘Mixed emotions’ -During their October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which started the Gaza war, militants abducted Siegel from the Kfar Aza kibbutz community, and Bibas and Kalderon from kibbutz Nir Oz.Militants took a total of 251 people hostage that day. Of those, 76 remain in Gaza, including at least 34 the military says are dead.Those seized include Bibas’s wife Shiri and two children, whom Hamas has declared dead, although Israeli officials have not confirmed that.Bibas’s sons — Kfir, the youngest hostage whose second birthday was earlier this month, and his older brother Ariel whose fifth birthday was in August — have become symbols of the hostages’ ordeal.”Our Yarden is supposed to return tomorrow and we are so excited but Shiri and the children still haven’t returned,” the Bibas family said on Instagram Friday. “We have such mixed emotions and we are facing extremely complex days.”Hundreds, including France’s ambassador to Israel, had gathered in Tel Aviv’s “Hostage Square”, in anticipation of the live broadcast of the latest hostage releases.Ahead of both exchanges in Khan Yunis Gaza and Gaza City, scores of masked Hamas fighters stood sentry, apparently to control onlookers.In contrast to Thursday’s frenzied exchange which drew Israeli condemnation, large crowds were mostly absent.Ranks of heavily armed Hamas fighters held portraits of the group’s slain leaders, including military chief Mohammed Deif, accused by Israel of being a mastermind of the October 7 attack and whose death Hamas confirmed on Thursday.The arrangements for hostage handovers in Gaza have sometimes been chaotic, particularly Thursday’s release in Khan Yunis.Israel briefly delayed Thursday’s prisoner release in protest, and the ICRC urged all parties to improve security.- ‘Difficult’ situation -After Saturday’s hostage release, Gaza’s key Rafah border crossing with Egypt is expected to reopen, a Hamas official and a source with knowledge of discussions told AFP.”The mediators informed Hamas of Israel’s approval to open Rafah crossing tomorrow, Saturday, after the completion of the fourth batch of prisoner exchange,” the Hamas official said.Rafah was a vital Gaza aid entry point before the Israeli military seized the Palestinian side of the crossing in May.The EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas said Friday the bloc has deployed a monitoring mission at the crossing “to support Palestinian border personnel and allow the transfer of individuals out of Gaza, including those who need medical care”.On Thursday, Israel released 110 inmates from Ofer prison, including high-profile former militant commander Zakaria Zubeidi, 49, who received a hero’s welcome in the West Bank city of Ramallah.On Friday, he called for “all our Palestinian people” to be freed from Israeli jails.The fragile ceasefire’s 42-day first phase hinges on the release of a total of 33 hostages in exchange for around 1,900 people, mostly Palestinians, in Israeli jails.Negotiations for a second phase of the deal are set to start on Monday, according to a timeline provided by an Israeli official. This phase is expected to cover the release of the remaining captives and to include discussions on a more permanent end to the war.

A humanoid robot gyrates to pulsing music at a shopping mall in Beijing, part of an exhibition harnessing artificial intelligence to enhance the flavour of China’s biggest annual festival.The country is celebrating the eight-day Lunar New Year holiday that typically sees people return home to eat, drink and make merry with family and friends.From dragon …

Tradition and technology sync at China ‘AI temple fair’ Read More »