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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.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.

Israel was poised to again miss a deadline for withdrawing its troops from Lebanon after the military said Monday it would remain in five “strategic points” despite pushback from Beirut.Lebanon’s president had earlier voiced concern that Israel would miss the Tuesday deadline under a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, and urged countries to pressure Israel to honour the cut-off.”Based on the current situation, we will leave small amounts of troops deployed temporarily in five strategic points along the border in Lebanon,” military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani told journalists on Monday.He said the decision came “so we can continue to defend our residents and to make sure there’s no immediate threat”.Lebanese officials have demanded Israel’s full withdrawal by February 18, after Israeli forces missed an earlier January cut-off.”We are afraid that a complete withdrawal will not be achieved tomorrow,” President Joseph Aoun said earlier Monday in a statement.”The Lebanese response will be through a unified, comprehensive national position,” he added.The Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire has been in effect since November 27, after more than two months of all-out war during which Israel launched ground operations.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 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.- Lebanon army ‘ready’ -Aoun said “the army is ready to station in towns and villages that the Israelis will withdraw from” and to “protect the border”.Lebanon was working “diplomatically to achieve the full Israeli withdrawal”, he said, adding: “I will not accept a single Israeli remaining on Lebanese territory.”Israel has continued to carry out strikes on Lebanon, with the military saying Monday it killed a Hamas commander in the southern city of Sidon.Aoun had called on “countries that helped reach the agreement, particularly the United States and France… to pressure Israel to withdraw and implement” the deal.Paris and Washington helped mediate the ceasefire, and a committee involving the United States, France, Lebanon, Israel and UN peacekeepers is tasked with ensuring any violations are identified and dealt with.Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem on Sunday said it was the government’s responsibility to ensure the Israeli army fully withdraws by Tuesday’s deadline.During a joint address with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, top US diplomat Marco Rubio said that “in the case of Lebanon, our goals are aligned… A strong Lebanese state that can take on and disarm Hezbollah”.Netanyahu said that “Hezbollah must be disarmed. And Israel would prefer that the Lebanese army do that job, but no one should doubt that Israel will do what it has to do to enforce the understandings of the ceasefire and defend our security.”Aoun said Monday that “the important thing is to achieve the Israeli withdrawal, and Hezbollah’s weapons come as part of solutions the Lebanese agree on.”- Hezbollah left weakened -Iran-backed Hezbollah was left weakened by the war, which saw senior commanders and even its longtime chief Hassan Nasrallah killed in Israeli strikes.Nasrallah’s funeral is scheduled for February 23, and Iran said Monday it would participate in the ceremony “at a high level”.Israeli bombardment wreaked destruction on swathes of the country, particularly Hezbollah strongholds in the country’s south and east, and in Beirut’s southern suburbs.More than 100,000 people are internally displaced in Lebanon, according to the UN’s migration agency, and Lebanese authorities have said reconstruction could cost up to $11 billion.Ramzi Kaiss from Human Rights Watch said Monday that “Israel’s deliberate demolition of civilian homes and infrastructure” was making it “impossible for many residents to return”.The Israeli military said Monday it killed “the head of Hamas’s operations department in Lebanon” in an air strike, after Lebanon’s official National News Agency said a raid targeted a vehicle in the coastal city of Sidon.In a statement, the military said Mohammed Shahine “was eliminated after recently planning terror attacks, directed and funded by Iran, from Lebanese territory against the citizens of the state of Israel”.An AFP photographer saw soldiers and first responders inspecting the mangled, burned-out wreckage of the vehicle.Israel has repeatedly targeted Hamas officials in Lebanon since the Gaza war erupted in October 2023 and Hezbollah initiated cross-border hostilities with Israel over the conflict.

Five men went on trial in France on Monday charged with holding four French journalists hostage for the Islamic State jihadist group in war-torn Syria more than a decade ago.IS emerged in 2013 in the chaos that followed the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, slowly gaining ground before declaring a caliphate in large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq.The jihadists abducted a number of foreign journalists and aid workers before US-backed forces eventually defeated the group in 2019.Reporters Didier Francois and Edouard Elias, and then Nicolas Henin and Pierre Torres, were abducted 10 days apart while reporting from northern Syria in June 2013. The journalists were held by the IS group for 10 months until their release in April 2014. They were found blindfolded with their hands bound in the no-man’s land straddling the border between Syria and Turkey.More than a decade later, jailed jihadist Mehdi Nemmouche, 39, is among five men accused of their abduction at a trial to last until March 21.Nemmouche is already in prison after a Belgian court jailed him for life in 2019 for killing four people at a Jewish museum in May 2014, after returning from Syria.”I was never the jailer of the Western hostages or any other hostage, and I never met these people in Syria,” Nemmouche told the Paris court, breaking his silence after not speaking throughout the Brussels trial or during the investigation.All four journalists told investigators they were sure Nemmouche, then called Abu Omar, was their jailer.- ‘Self-centred fantasist’ -Henin, in a magazine article in September 2014, recounted Nemmouche punching him in the face and terrorising Syrian detainees.He described him as “a self-centred fantasist for whom jihad was finally an excuse to satisfy his morbid thirst for notoriety. A young man lost and perverse”.The journalists told investigators Nemmouche was an avid follower of news and a French crime show called “Bring in the accused”, who would quiz the detainees on their general knowledge or imitate famous French comedians.He would also threaten to slit their throats, and once left a dead body outside their door to scare them.Nemmouche, whose father is unknown, was brought up in the French foster system and became radicalised in prison before going to Syria, according to investigators.Also in the dock are Frenchman Abdelmalek Tanem, 35, who has already been sentenced in France for heading to fight in Syria in 2012, and a 41-year-old Syrian called Kais Al Abdallah, accused of facilitating Henin’s abduction.Both have denied the charges.- Two defendants believed dead -Belgian jihadist Oussama Atar, a senior IS commander, is being tried in absentia because he is presumed to have died in Syria in 2017. He has already been sentenced to life over attacks in Paris in 2015 claimed by IS that killed 130 people, and Brussels bombings by the group that took the lives of 32 others in 2016.French IS member Salim Benghalem, who was allegedly in charge of the hostages, is also on trial though believed to be dead.Governments have said hundreds of Westerners joined extremist groups in Syria.Two US journalists, James Foley and Stephen Sotloff — with whom all four French journalists said they were kept for a period — were videotaped being beheaded by a militant who spoke on camera with a British accent.El Shafee Elsheikh, a jihadist from London, was found guilty in 2022 of hostage-taking and conspiracy to murder US citizens — Foley and Sotloff, as well as aid workers Peter Kassig and Kayla Mueller — and supporting a “terrorist” organisation.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer will meet US President Donald Trump in Washington next week to discuss a “wide range of issues”, a British government spokesperson confirmed on Monday.Starmer is seeking to foster ties with Trump in a delicate balancing act of maintaining good relations with both the new US administration and the European Union, which Britain left five years ago.He is also hoping the UK can act as a bridge between Europe and the United States over the war in Ukraine, stressing that Britain could have “a unique role” in helping to secure any ceasefire in Ukraine.”The prime minister will travel to Washington DC next week,” the spokesperson said.The encounter will be the first face-to-face talks between the two leaders since Trump started his second term in the White House in January.”The prime minister looks forward to meeting President Trump shortly to discuss how we can deepen the special relationship across trade, investment and security,” the Downing Street spokesperson said.Trump has said he will impose tariffs on steel and aluminium imports from March and has made sudden policy shifts on the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.The confirmation of the US visit comes as Starmer headed to Paris for a hastily convened meeting of European leaders on Monday on Washington’s policy shift on the war in Ukraine.- No criticism -Trump sidelined Kyiv and its European backers last week when he called his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to discuss ending the conflict — leaving them fearful they will be excluded from any peace negotiations.Starmer has said he is willing to put British troops on the ground in Ukraine as part of potential peacekeeping efforts, and on Monday called for any peace deal to be “lasting, just and enduring”.He also encouraged Europe to “take on a greater role in NATO”, saying at the weekend that the UK would “work to ensure we keep the US and Europe together”.Starmer met Mark Burnett, Trump’s special envoy to the UK, in London last week “during which he took a call from President Trump and discussed his forthcoming visit to the US”, Downing Street said.It was at least the third time Starmer and Trump have spoken on the phone since the latter’s election win in November.Speaking to reporters on Friday, Trump said: “We’re going to have a friendly meeting. We have a lot of good things going on.”Trump has already welcomed a few world leaders to the White House, including Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.The UK government has been at pains not to criticise Trump’s early moves, including over the war in Ukraine and Gaza, even when they seem to diverge from UK policy.Starmer has come under personal attack from tech billionaire and top Trump ally Elon Musk.