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A senior Hamas official urged supporters worldwide on Monday to take up weapons and fight plans to displace Gaza’s people, as Israel issued a sweeping evacuation order in the territory’s south, stepping up its renewed offensive.The idea of forcing Gazans to leave the devastated territory for neighbouring countries such as Egypt and Jordan was first floated by US President Donald Trump, and has since been seized on by right-wing Israeli politicians, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who vowed on Sunday to implement it.”In the face of this sinister plan — one that combines massacres with starvation — anyone who can bear arms, anywhere in the world, must take action,” Sami Abu Zuhri said in a statement Monday.”Do not withhold an explosive, a bullet, a knife, or a stone. Let everyone break their silence.”AFPTV images showed residents of southern Gaza leaving the area on Monday following the Israeli military’s evacuation order warning of renewed operations.Some rode in cars piled high with belongings, while others pushed heavy carts and others carried nothing at all.The order, posted to X by army spokesman Avichay Adraee, included a map showing a swath of southern Gaza in red, including the city of Rafah.It said the military was “returning to fight with great force to eliminate the capabilities of terrorist organisations in these areas”, urging residents to head to the Al Mawasi area, northwest of Rafah.”I am currently on foot, there is no transportation, and I do not have the fare for a car ride. As you can see, we have no luggage with us — we left all our belongings behind,” said Ali Mansour, a resident of the city. Fellow Rafah resident Najah Dhahir, fleeing with her nine-month-old baby, said “they told us we had two hours to evacuate” before the Israeli army arrived.The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said “people are treated like pinballs with constant military orders playing with their fate & lives”.”As if death, diseases, destruction and hunger were not enough for the Palestinians in Gaza,” Philippe Lazzarini wrote on X.- Trump plan -Hamas’s call to arms came a day after Netanyahu offered to let the group’s leaders leave Gaza while demanding it disarm.The group has previously expressed a willingness to relinquish administration of Gaza, but has warned its weapons are a “red line”.Netanyahu said Sunday that after the war, Israel would ensure overall security in Gaza and “enable the implementation of the Trump plan” — which had initially called for the mass displacement of all 2.4 million people living in the Palestinian territory — calling it a “voluntary migration plan”.UK-based Alan Mendoza, founder of the Henry Jackson Society think tank, said it appeared that Israeli authorities were taking Trump’s plan seriously.”This alarms Hamas because their very existence depends on controlling Gaza,” Mendoza told AFP.Hamas had also been “shocked” by last week’s protests in Gaza against the group.”It is a two-pronged pressure (that Hamas is facing), both externally and internally,” Mendoza said.”Internally, Hamas led their own people to disaster and so if they make (the external pressure) a national cause then they can get people to rally around the flag.”Days after taking office in January, Trump floated a proposal to move Gaza’s population out of the war-battered territory, suggesting that Egypt or Jordan could take them in.Both countries, along with other Arab allies, governments around the world and the Palestinians themselves, have flatly rejected the notion.Trump later appeared to backtrack on the proposal, saying he was “not forcing” his widely condemned plan.- ‘Forced displacement’ -Arab nations have since come up with an alternative plan for rebuilding the Gaza Strip without relocating its people, which would take place under the future administration of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority.Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said in February that a special agency would be established for the “voluntary departure” of Gazans.Israel resumed intense bombing of Gaza on March 18 and then launched a new ground offensive, ending a nearly two-month ceasefire in the war with Hamas after negotiations to extend it hit an impasse.Since the fighting restarted, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says that at least 1,001 people have been killed.Decrying attacks “against unarmed civilians” living in tents, Hamas in a statement Monday condemned a “policy of extermination and forced displacement”.The war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 50,357 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to the territory’s health ministry.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu picked former navy commander Eli Sharvit to head the country’s domestic security agency, his office said Monday, despite the supreme court freezing the incumbent’s dismissal.Sharvit is not expected to assume office until April 8, the date when the supreme court is scheduled to rule on the dismissal of the current Shin Bet chief, Ronen Bar.Netanyahu moved to sack Bar on March 21, citing an “ongoing lack of trust” in him.But after petitions filed by Israel’s opposition and a non-governmental organisation, the supreme court suspended the dismissal of Bar, whose relationship with the government became strained after he blamed the executive for the security fiasco of Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.Legal experts and Israeli opposition leaders warned that if the top court overturns Bar’s dismissal, the country could face a constitutional crisis.”After conducting in-depth interviews with seven worthy candidates, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to appoint former Israel navy commander, Vice-Admiral Eli Sharvit as the next director of the ISA (Shin Bet),” his office said in a statement.Netanyahu’s office said Sharvit had served in the military for 36 years, including five as navy commander.”In that position, he led the force building of the maritime defence of the territorial waters and conducted complex operations against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran,” the statement said.- ‘Playing with fire’ -Legal experts AFP spoke to said that Netanyahu had so far not violated any law in choosing Sharvit.”Things are proceeding in parallel as the supreme court allowed him to interview candidates for the post while legal proceedings are still on in the court,” an expert on the issue told AFP on condition of anonymity, for fear of appearing to criticise the government.”The question of how legal is the dismissal (of Bar) is still pending in the supreme court and it could still be cancelled by the court.”The expert said Netanyahu, by choosing the next Shin Bet chief, was “establishing facts on the ground”.”It might be an attempt to influence the court.”Opposition leader and former defence minister Benny Gantz praised Sharvit but cautioned that the country could be on the brink of a crisis by pitting the judiciary against the executive.”What is clear is that the prime minister decided this morning to continue his campaign against the judicial system and lead the state of Israel toward a dangerous constitutional crisis,” Gantz said in a statement.Gantz emphasised that “the appointment of the head of the Shin Bet must take place only after the supreme court’s ruling”.Israel’s main opposition leader, Yair Lapid, lashed out against the way the government picked Sharvit.”It’s about the hasty, fearful, and irresponsible process by which the selection for the next head of Shin Bet was conducted,” Lapid said on X.US Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican ally of President Donald Trump, also criticised the appointment as “beyond problematic”, citing unspecified past statements by Sharvit about Trump.- Protests, criticism -Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara had said immediately after the March 21 ruling that Netanyahu was “prohibited” from appointing a new Shin Bet chief.Baharav-Miara also said she suspected Netanyahu of having a conflict of interest.But he insisted it was up to his government to decide who heads the domestic security agency.Bar’s relationship with the Netanyahu government soured after he blamed the executive for Hamas’s October 2023 attack, and following a Shin Bet probe into alleged covert payments from Qatar to a Netanyahu aide.On Monday, Netanyahu testified in the investigation, locally dubbed “Qatargate”, denouncing it as a “political witch hunt” aimed at “preventing the dismissal” of Bar.He also condemned the arrests of his two aides, Yonatan Urich and Eli Feldstein, calling their detention an act of “hostage” taking.Baharav-Miara was also previously critical of the government’s plans to overhaul the judiciary, which she said threatened to make Israel a “democracy in name but not in spirit”.The proposed changes sparked months of mass protests across Israel, deeply dividing society, but the government suspended them following the start of the Gaza war sparked by Hamas’s attack.They have since been revived, however.Thousands of Israelis protested last week to condemn Bar’s dismissal, and to call for the return of the hostages being held in Gaza.They also protested against the Israeli parliament’s decision to pass a law expanding elected officials’ power to appoint judges pushed by Netanyahu’s government.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu testified Monday in a probe involving alleged payments from Qatar to some of his aides, an investigation he denounced as politically motivated. Israeli police arrested the prime minister’s two long-serving aides, Yonatan Urich and Eli Feldstein earlier on Monday, for their alleged involvement in the case local media have dubbed “Qatargate”.The arrests ratchet up political tensions in the country, where the government is trying to fire both the domestic security chief and attorney general, while expanding the power of politicians over the appointment of judges.The moves have reignited a protest movement in Israel, coinciding with the government’s resumption of fighting this month in the Gaza Strip.Feldstein had separately been arrested late last year and released into house arrest on accusations of leaking a classified document related to hostage negotiations in Gaza to shift critical media coverage of the Israeli leader.”As soon as I was asked to testify, I said that I was free and that I wanted to testify immediately,” Netanyahu said in a video statement.”I understood that it was a political investigation but I didn’t realise how political it was, and they are holding Yonatan Urich and Eli Feldstein hostage … There is no case, there is absolutely nothing, just a political witch hunt, nothing else.”Netanyahu is separately on trial over corruption allegations that he denies.- ‘A new low’ -Israeli media reported that a journalist from a prominent local publication had also been summoned for questioning in the case.Qatar, a gas-rich Gulf state, has no diplomatic ties with Israel and has long hosted leaders of Palestinian militant group Hamas, whose 2023 attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war.”The brutal arrest of Yonatan Urich marks a new low in the political witch hunt to topple a right-wing prime minister and to prevent the dismissal of the failed head of the Shin Bet,” said a statement released by Likud, Netanyahu’s political party.Two weeks ago, the Israeli government unanimously approved Netanyahu’s proposal to fire Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency. The Supreme Court froze Bar’s dismissal and is to hold a detailed hearing on the case on April 8.Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, who is facing a similar dismissal, said the top court’s initial ruling prevents the hiring of a new security chief, but Netanyahu did so anyway on Monday.In its statement on Monday, the Likud party linked the Qatargate investigations to efforts to prevent Bar and Baharav-Miara’s dismissals, saying “for weeks, the prosecution and the head of the Shin Bet have been conducting baseless investigations in the dark under a gag order, trying to prevent the dismissal of the head of the Shin Bet while using Urich and others as cannon fodder”. Earlier this month, the Shin Bet agency announced it had started investigating Netanyahu’s aides in relation to the case, barring the publication of any details. Bar has accused Netanyahu of having a “personal interest” in firing him to “prevent investigations into the events leading up to October 7 and other serious matters” being looked at by the Shin Bet.In a letter, Bar referred to the “complex, wide-ranging and highly sensitive investigation” involving people close to Netanyahu who allegedly received money from Qatar.On Monday night anti-government demonstrators again joined a protest outside parliament, mocking Netanyahu and calling for an end to the Gaza war and a deal to release hostages still held by militants there.

President Donald Trump again downplayed risks that TikTok is in danger of being banned in the United States, saying he remains confident of finding a buyer for the app’s US business by a Friday deadline.The hugely popular video-sharing app, which has over 170 million American users, is under threat from a law that passed overwhelmingly …

Trump confident in finding TikTok buyer before deadline Read More »

The Israeli military on Monday ordered residents in and around the southern Gaza city of Rafah to evacuate their homes, suggesting it could return to ground fighting in the area.In a post on X, the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee addressed residents in areas covering all of Rafah and parts of nearby Khan Yunis.”The IDF (military) is returning to fight with great force to eliminate the capabilities of terrorist organisations in these areas. For your safety, you must move immediately to the shelters in Al Mawasi,” northwest of Rafah, he said.AFPTV footage from the city showed long lines of people fleeing their homes on Monday. Some travelled by foot or by bike, while others pushed makeshift carts loaded with belongings. Donkey-pulled carts rolled down streets next to trucks piled high with blankets, mattresses and other household items. “A map was published today, entirely in red, indicating that all of Rafah must evacuate,” Rafah resident Ali Mansour told AFP. “I am currently on foot, there is no transportation, and I do not have the fare for a car ride. As you can see, we have no luggage with us — we left all our belongings behind.”Najah Dhahir, also from Rafah, was fleeing on foot with her nine-month-old baby.”We took our children and only what was necessary, leaving behind all our belongings — our mattresses, our food and our money. We left everything behind,” she said.Israel’s military on March 23 said it had encircled the Tal al-Sultan area in Rafah after warning civilians to leave.It said at the time that its objective was to “dismantle terrorist infrastructure and eliminate” militants there.Rafah, which sits along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, had already been the target of a major Israeli offensive about a year ago.Israel resumed intense bombing of Gaza on March 18 and then launched a new ground offensive, ending a nearly two-month ceasefire in the war with Hamas.Since the fighting restarted, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says that at least 1,001 people have been killed.The war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 50,357 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to the territory’s health ministry.

Israeli police announced on Monday the arrest of two individuals, one of whom was confirmed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party as a senior aide to the long-serving leader.Israeli media identified the two men as Yonatan Urich and Eli Feldstein, both reportedly aides to the prime minister and allegedly linked to what has been dubbed locally as the “Qatargate Affair.”The arrests ratchet up political tensions in the country, where the government is trying to fire both the domestic security chief and attorney general, while expanding the power of politicians over the appointment of judges.The moves have reignited a protest movement in Israel, coinciding with the government’s resumption of fighting this month in the Gaza Strip.Feldstein had separately been arrested late last year and released to house arrest on accusations of leaking a classified document related to hostage negotiations in Gaza, to shift critical media coverage of the Israeli leader.Media reports on Monday further indicated that Netanyahu himself is expected to be questioned by police in connection with the Qatargate case.Netanyahu is separately on trial over corruption allegations that he denies.”Following an investigation being conducted by the National Unit for International Investigations (YAHBAL)… two suspects were arrested today for questioning,” the police said in a statement, noting that the case remains under a court-imposed gag order.- ‘A new low’ -Israeli media also reported that a journalist from a prominent Israeli publication had been summoned for questioning.AFP was unable to independently verify the identities of those arrested.Requests for confirmation from Netanyahu’s office were not immediately answered. Qatar, a gas-rich Gulf state, has no diplomatic ties with Israel and has long hosted leaders of Palestinian militant group Hamas, whose 2023 attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war.”The brutal arrest of Yonatan Urich marks a new low in the political witch hunt to topple a right-wing prime minister and to prevent the dismissal of the failed head of the Shin Bet,” said a statement released by Likud.Two weeks ago, the Israeli government unanimously approved Netanyahu’s proposal to fire the head of the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, Ronen Bar. The Supreme Court froze Bar’s dismissal and is to hold a detailed hearing on the case April 8.Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, who faces a similar dismissal, said the top court’s initial ruling prevents the hiring of a new security chief, but Netanyahu did so anyway on Monday.In its statement on Monday, the Likud party linked the Qatargate investigations to efforts to prevent Bar and Baharav-Miara’s dismissals, saying “for weeks, the prosecution and the head of the Shin Bet have been conducting baseless investigations in the dark under a gag order, trying to prevent the dismissal of the head of the Shin Bet while using Urich and others as cannon fodder”. Earlier this month, the Shin Bet agency announced it had started investigating Netanyahu’s aides in relation to the case, barring the publication of any details. Bar has accused Netanyahu of “personal interest” in firing him to “prevent investigations into the events leading up to October 7 and other serious matters” being looked at by the Shin Bet.In a letter, Bar referred to the “complex, wide-ranging and highly sensitive investigation” involving people close to Netanyahu who allegedly received money from Qatar.