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Gaza rescuers said at least 29 people were killed in Israeli strikes on Wednesday as negotiations took place in Qatar for the release of hostages still held in the war-battered territory.”At least 25 martyrs were killed and dozens wounded” in Jabalia, in northern Gaza, while another four people were killed in a strike on the southern city of Khan Yunis, civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.Mohammad Awad, an emergency doctor in north Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital, told AFP that shortages meant his department could not properly handle the flow of wounded from the Jabalia strike.”The hospital could not accommodate the wounded. There are not enough beds, no medicine, and no means for surgical or medical treatment, which leaves doctors unable to save many of the injured who are dying due to lack of care”, he said.Awad added that “the bodies of the martyrs are lying on the ground in the hospital corridors after the morgue reached full capacity. The situation is catastrophic in every sense of the word.”Israel imposed an aid blockade on the Gaza Strip on March 2 after talks to prolong a six-week ceasefire broke down.The resulting shortages of food and medicine have aggravated an already dire situation in the Palestinian territory, although Israel has dismissed UN warnings that a potential famine looms.Medical charity Medecins du Monde said Tuesday that acute malnutrition in Gaza has “reached levels comparable to those seen in countries facing prolonged humanitarian crises spanning several decades”.Israel resumed major operations across Gaza on March 18, and the government approved plans to expand the offensive earlier this month, with officials talking of retaining a long-term presence in the Palestinian territory.Israel says that its renewed bombardments are aimed at forcing Hamas to free hostages.- ‘Full force’ -Following a short pause in air strikes during the release of US-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander on Monday, Israel resumed pounding Gaza, killing 28 people in a strike near a hospital in Khan Yunis, according to civil defence agency figures.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that the military would enter Gaza “with full force” in the coming days, despite ongoing ceasefire efforts.Negotiations for the release of the remaining hostages have been ongoing, with the latest talks taking place in the Qatari capital of Doha.The negotiations come as US President Donald Trump tours Gulf countries including Qatar.Of the 251 hostages taken during Hamas’s October 2023 attack, 57 remain in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead. Hamas is also holding the body of an Israeli soldier killed during a previous war in Gaza, in 2014.The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 52,908 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to figures from the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry, which the United Nations considers reliable.

Colombia formally agreed on Wednesday to join China’s vast Belt and Road infrastructure initiative, as Beijing draws Latin America closer in a bid to counter the United States.Latin America has emerged as a key battleground in US President Donald Trump’s confrontations with China, and the region is coming under pressure from Washington to choose a …

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Donald Trump became the first US president in 25 years to meet a Syrian leader on Wednesday after he offered sanctions relief in hopes of offering a new path to the war-battered country.Trump, in Riyadh on the first state visit of his second term, met with Ahmed al-Sharaa, an erstwhile Islamist guerrilla turned interim president after the December of longtime strongman Bashar al-Assad.The two held brief talks ahead of a larger gathering of Gulf leaders in Saudi Arabia during Trump’s tour of the region, a White House official said. No US president has met a Syrian leader since Bill Clinton saw Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father, in Geneva in 2000 in a failed effort to persuade him to make peace with Israel.Trump announced on Tuesday that he was lifting “brutal and crippling” Assad-era sanctions on Syria in response to demands from Sharaa’s allies in Turkey and Saudi Arabia — in his latest step out of tune with US ally Israel.Trump said it was Syrians’ “time to shine” and that easing sinctions would “give them a chance at greatness”.Syrians celebrated the news, with dozens of men, women and children gathering in Damascus’s Umayyad Square.”My joy is great. This decision will definitely affect the entire country positively. Construction will return, the displaced will return, and prices will go down,” said Huda Qassar, a 33-year-old English-language teacher.The Syrian foreign ministry called Trump’s decision a “pivotal turning point” that would help bring stability.The United States imposed sweeping restrictions on financial transactions with Syria during the brutal civil war and made clear it would use sanctions to punish anyone involved in reconstruction so long as Assad remained in power without accountability for atrocities.Trump gave no indication that the United States would remove Syria from its blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism — a designation dating back to 1979 over support to Palestinian militants that severely impedes investment.- Opening way for investment -Other Western powers including the European Union have already moved to lift sanctions but the United States had earlier held firm on conditions.A senior envoy of the Joe Biden administration met Sharaa in Damascus in December and called for commitments, including on the protection of minorities.In recent weeks, Syria has seen a series of bloody attacks on minority groups, including Alawites — the sect of the largely secular Assad family — and the Druze.Israel has kept up a bombing campaign against Syria both before and after the fall of Assad, with Israel pessimistic about change under Sharaa and hoping to degrade the military capacity of its longtime adversary.Rabha Seif Allam of the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo said that the easing of US sanctions would allow Syria to reintegrate with the global economy, including by allowing bank transfers from investors and some of the millions of Syrians who fled during the civil war.”Lifting sanctions will give Syria a real opportunity to receive the funding needed to revive the economy, impose central state authority and launch reconstruction projects with clear Gulf support,” she said.- Qatar plane controversy -Trump will also attend a meeting of Gulf Arab states in Riyadh before flying on to Qatar.The Doha visit comes after controversy over Qatar’s offer to Trump of a $400 million luxury aircraft to serve as a new Air Force One and then go to his personal use.The move raises major constitutional and ethical questions — as well as security concerns about a foreign power donating the ultra-sensitive presidential jet.Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the Senate, on Tuesday vowed to hold up all Justice Department political appointees in protest over the move. Qatar has been a key intermediary with Hamas, helping Washington negotiate directly the release this week from Gaza of joint US-Israeli national Edan Alexander. Qatar, alongside Egypt and the United States, hammered out a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza that came into effect on January 19 — a day before Trump’s inauguration.Israel has ended the ceasefire and vowed a new offensive to finish Hamas. It has blocked all aid from entering Gaza for more than two months, prompting warnings of impending famine.

Inside one of South Korea’s oldest semiconductor research institutes, the cleanrooms and workshops are calm and immaculate, but outside the Seoul National University campus, a chip storm is brewing.Last month, Washington announced a national security probe into imports of semiconductor technology, which could put the industry in the crosshairs of President Donald Trump’s trade bazooka …

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