US President Donald Trump abruptly paused tariffs on most countries Wednesday after admitting they made the markets nervous, but doubled down on a brutal trade war with superpower rival China.Following days of market turmoil, Wall Street stocks saw historic surges in reaction to Trump’s announcement that he was halting a levy hike for almost all …
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The US Senate on Wednesday confirmed Mike Huckabee, an evangelical Christian who has said Israel enjoys a divine right to the West Bank, as ambassador to Israel.Huckabee will head to the US embassy in Jerusalem as Israel seizes large areas of Gaza, part of a renewed military campaign that has had President Donald Trump’s blessing.The Senate voted largely on party lines to confirm Trump’s nominee, with one Democrat, John Fetterman, supporting him. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar quickly spoke with Huckabee by telephone to congratulate him, calling him a “true friend of the Jewish state.”Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who is a West Bank settler, on X voiced hope for working with Huckabee on “advancing our shared values and common goals.”Trump told reporters after the vote that Huckabee is “going to be a great ambassador to Israel.””He’s going to bring home the bacon,” Trump said, using a popular idiom for achieving success, before clarifying that bacon, which is not kosher in Judaism, “isn’t too big” in Israel.Huckabee, a Baptist minister who served as governor of Arkansas and ran for president in 2008, has long been an outspoken supporter of Israel, backing calls to annex the West Bank before such talk became increasingly mainstream.On a 2017 visit to a settlement in the West Bank, which was seized by Israel in the 1967 war, Huckabee said there was “no such thing as an occupation.” He later said that Israel “has title deed to Judea and Samaria,” using a biblical term for the West Bank.Grilled about his remarks at his confirmation hearing by Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen, Huckabee denied that he was backing the expulsion of Palestinians.”I’ve never, never indicated that that was a part of that. I simply referenced the biblical mandate that goes all the way back to the time of Abraham, 3,500 years ago,” Huckabee said.Huckabee in his hearing repeatedly said that he would defer to Trump and not set policy based on his personal beliefs.Trump, before taking office, backed a ceasefire in the Gaza war, which started with the unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.But he also vowed full-fledged support to Israel including expediting arms shipments.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has expanded settlements in the West Bank, which are considered illegal under international law, but stopped short of a formal annexation backed by some of his far-right supporters.Huckabee has also been a television talk-show host and plays guitar in a classic-rock cover band.His daughter, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, served as Trump’s press secretary in his first term and now serves as governor of Arkansas.
Israel said Wednesday its troops were seizing “large areas” in Gaza and making the Palestinian territory “smaller and more isolated”, as an air strike on a residential block killed at least 23 people.Defence Minister Israel Katz’s comments come weeks into a renewed offensive by the military on the war-battered territory, which has displaced hundreds of thousands, while an aid blockade has revived the spectre of famine for its 2.4 million people.French President Emmanuel Macron meanwhile said that France plans to recognise a Palestinian state in the “coming months”, a move that risks antagonising Israel which insists such moves by foreign states are premature.Katz said that “large areas are being seized and added to Israel’s security zones, leaving Gaza smaller and more isolated”, during a visit to the newly announced Morag Corridor between the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Yunis.Katz emphasised that Israel would keep increasing pressure on Gaza “until the hostages are freed and Hamas is defeated”.Katz also said that Israel was encouraging plans for “voluntary emigration… in accordance with the vision of the US president, which we are working to implement”.US President Donald Trump had earlier this year proposed a plan to develop Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East” while displacing its population elsewhere.Gaza’s civil defence agency meanwhile said an Israeli air strike on a residential building in Gaza City killed at least 23 people, most of them children or women, while the military said it targeted a “senior Hamas” militant.The strike took place in the Shujaiya neighbourhood of Gaza City, the agency’s spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.”There are still people trapped under the rubble,” he said.- ‘Torn to pieces’ -Ayub Salim, a 26-year-old Shujaiya resident, told AFP that the area was hit with “multiple missiles” and was “overcrowded with tents, displaced people and homes”.”Dust and massive destruction filled the entire place, we couldn’t see anything, just the screams and panic of the people.”Salim said the dead were “torn to pieces”.A crew from the Gaza civil defence agency rushed to the scene, only to find several people trapped under the rubble, a rescuer said.”This house was home to many people who believed they were safe. It was blown up over their heads,” rescuer Ibrahim Abu al-Rish told AFP. “We pulled out the remains of women and children. There are still people buried under the rubble,” he said.First responders and neighbours worked to break through the concrete floor of an entire storey that collapsed in the strike and trapped residents, AFP footage showed.Taking turns swinging a sledgehammer through the thick, hard surface, they eventually broke a hole through which the bodies of children were extracted and taken away wrapped in dusty blankets.- ‘Move towards recognition’ -When asked by AFP about the strike, the Israeli military said it “struck a senior Hamas terrorist who was responsible for planning and executing terrorist attacks” from the area. It did not give the target’s name.Hamas condemned the strike as one of the “most heinous acts of genocide.”Israel resumed intense strikes on the Gaza Strip on March 18, ending a two-month ceasefire with Hamas. Efforts to restore the truce have so far failed.The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said on Wednesday that at least 1,482 Palestinians have been killed in the renewed Israeli operations, taking the overall death toll since the start of the war to 50,846.Hamas’s October 2023 attack that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.The strike came as CIA chief John Ratcliffe visited Jerusalem on Wednesday, days before the US holds nuclear talks with Iran and amid continued attempts to revive a ceasefire in Gaza.Meanwhile, Macron said France could recognise a Palestinian state as early as June.”We must move towards recognition, and we will do so in the coming months,” Macron told France 5 television.”I believe that at some point it will be right and because I also want to participate in a collective dynamic, which must also allow all those who defend Palestine to recognise Israel in turn, which many of them do not do,” he added. Palestinian minister of state for foreign affairs Varsen Aghabekian Shahin told AFP that France’s recognition of Palestinian statehood “would be a step in the right direction in line with safeguarding the rights of the Palestinian people and the two state solution”.
Gaza medic Mundhir Abed feared for his life as Israeli forces opened fire on a convoy of rescuers near Rafah last month, killing 15 of his colleagues in a brazen assault.Abed, 45, was the only survivor of the attack on March 23, in which medics from the Palestine Red Crescent Society and Gaza’s civil defence agency were gunned down as they responded to urgent calls for help following an Israeli air strike. “I was terrified they would kill me,” Abed, a medic from the Palestine Red Crescent Society, told AFP. He had been in the first ambulance sent to the area after distress calls came in from residents. What followed, he said, was a sudden and violent ambush.Still visibly shaken, Abed recalled being with driver Mustafa al-Khawaja and paramedic Ezzedine Shaat — both now dead — as their ambulance, sirens blaring and lights flashing, drove toward the strike site.”As soon as we reached the area, sudden and heavy gunfire from Israeli soldiers directly hit the vehicle,” he said.”I dropped to the floor in the back of the vehicle to shield myself. Then I heard no more sounds from my colleagues — only the rattle of death.”Abed said he panicked as the gunfire continued and was unable to use his phone. Then, he said, he heard voices speaking Hebrew.”The vehicle door was opened, and there were armed Israeli special forces in full military gear. They pulled me out of the vehicle,” Abed said.- Stripped, beaten -“They forced me to the ground, face down, stripped me completely, interrogated me, and beat me with their weapons on my back, chest and feet.”He said he caught a glimpse of fellow paramedic Asaad al-Mansoura.”He was stripped of his clothes, kneeling, blindfolded,” Abed said. “After that I didn’t see him again and I don’t know his fate.”Mansoura remains missing.The incident has sparked international condemnation and renewed scrutiny over the risks facing aid workers in Gaza, where war has raged since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel triggered an Israeli military campaign.A military official told journalists that troops were firing at “terrorists”.Two hours after the initial attack, the Israeli military said its forces received a report about a convoy “moving in the dark in a suspicious way towards them” without headlights, prompting further fire from a distance.”They thought they had an encounter with terrorists,” the official said.But the Red Crescent released mobile phone footage recovered from one of the slain medics that appeared to contradict the army’s initial account. The video shows ambulances moving with headlights and emergency lights clearly switched on.Abed said that when a second team from Gaza’s civil defence arrived to assist after the initial strike, they too came under fire.After collecting his personal information, he said Israeli soldiers ordered him to assist them.- ‘Intent to kill’ -“One of them untied my hands, gave me a vest and a pair of pants, and ordered me to help them,” he recounted.He was taken to a group of displaced civilians nearby.”I saw Israeli tanks surrounding the area, and quadcopter drones flying overhead. The bombing was terrifying,” he said.Soldiers ordered him to calm the civilians and separate them — men on one side, women and children on the other.Muhammad al-Mughayyir, head of logistics at the Gaza civil defence agency, said his team had rushed to the scene after receiving a distress call from Red Crescent staff whose vehicle had been struck.Within 15 minutes, the civil defence agency lost contact with its own team.It wasn’t until March 27 that the first body, of Anwar al-Attar who led the civil defence unit, was found. Search crews recovered the remaining bodies three days later. Some had been handcuffed and buried in the sand, according to the Red Crescent.Red Crescent President Younis al-Khatib on Monday called for an international investigation, saying that the entire team “had been shot in the upper body with intent to kill”.Israel’s army chief, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, has ordered an internal inquiry, the military said.But whatever the outcome, Abed says he will never forget what he lived through.”It’s a day I’ll never forget because of the torment I witnessed and lived through,” he said.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned countries Wednesday against closer alignment with China on trade, as he defended President Donald Trump’s move to remake the world’s biggest economy through market-shaking tariffs.Bessent told a summit of bankers in Washington that economies potentially eyeing closer ties with Beijing over the US shift may want to think twice, …
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Gaza’s civil defence agency said an Israeli strike on a residential building in Gaza City killed at least 23 people Wednesday, most of them children or women, as the military said it targeted a “senior Hamas” militant.The latest strike comes weeks into a renewed offensive by Israel’s military on the war-battered territory, which has displaced hundreds of thousands, while an aid blockade has revived the spectre of famine for its 2.4 million people.The strike took place in the Shujaiya neighbourhood of Gaza City, the agency’s spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.”The death toll from the Shujaiya massacre has risen to 23 martyrs, including eight children and eight women,” he said, adding that more than 60 people were wounded.”There are still people trapped under the rubble.”Ayub Salim, a 26-year-old Shujaiya resident, told AFP he witnessed the strike on the four-storey block.He said the area was hit with “multiple missiles” and was “overcrowded with tents, displaced people and homes”.”Shrapnel flew in all directions,” he said, speaking of “a terrifying and indescribable scene”.”Dust and massive destruction filled the entire place, we couldn’t see anything, just the screams and panic of the people”.Salim said the dead were “torn to pieces”.”Even now, emergency crews are still transporting the dead and the injured. It is truly a horrific massacre,” he said.A crew from the Gaza civil defence agency rushed to the scene, only to find several people trapped under the rubble, a rescuer said.”This house was home to many people who believed they were safe. It was blown up over their heads,” Ibrahim Abu al-Rish told AFP while men worked hard to clear out rubble behind him. He added that the strike hit while many children were playing inside.”The house was directly bombed, and the entire residential area was destroyed,” he said.”We pulled out the remains of women and children. There are still people buried under the rubble.”First responders and neighbours worked to break through the concrete floor of an entire storey that collapsed in the strike and trapped residents.Taking turns swinging a sledgehammer through the thick, hard surface, they eventually broke a hole through which the bodies of children were extracted and taken away wrapped in dusty blankets.- ‘Bloody massacre’ -When asked by AFP about the strike, the Israeli military said it “struck a senior Hamas terrorist who was responsible for planning and executing terrorist attacks” from the area. It did not give the target’s name and renewed its claim that the militant group uses “human shields”, which Hamas denies.Hamas condemned the strike as one of the “most heinous acts of genocide.””The terrorist Zionist occupation army has committed a bloody massacre by bombing a densely populated residential area filled with civilians and displaced people,” the group said in a statement.”These ongoing massacres against our defenceless people — with full support from the American administration, which is complicit in the aggression — represent a stain on the conscience of the international community.”The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority’s foreign ministry condemned the strike as a “heinous massacre”.”The ministry considers it an official Israeli attempt to systematically kill our people en masse and destroy the very foundations of their existence in the Gaza Strip, thus forcing them to emigrate,” it said in a statement.Israel resumed intense strikes on the Gaza Strip on March 18, ending a two-month ceasefire with Hamas. Efforts to restore the truce have so far failed.The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said on Wednesday that at least 1,482 Palestinians have been killed in the renewed Israeli operations, taking the overall death toll since the start of the war to 50,846.Hamas’s October 2023 attack that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.Hossam Badran, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, told AFP on Tuesday that it was “necessary to reach a ceasefire” in Gaza.He added that “communication with the mediators is still ongoing” but that “so far, there are no new proposals”.US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that new negotiations were in the works aimed at getting more hostages released from captivity in Gaza.Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s attack on Israel, 58 are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.str-lma-acc-jd-lba/jsa
