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Gaza’s civil defence agency said Wednesday that Israeli bombardment killed at least 26 people, 15 of them in a strike on a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza City.Israel has drawn international condemnation over its plans to expand its military offensive in the Palestinian territory, ravaged by 19 months of war. Israel’s far-right finance minister called Tuesday for Gaza to be “entirely destroyed”.”Our teams retrieved 15 martyrs and 10 injured individuals after Israeli occupation aircraft targeted the Al-Karama school, which shelters displaced persons… in the Tuffah neighbourhood, east of Gaza City,” spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.He had earlier reported a toll of 11 killed in strikes on the territory.One strike hit a family home in the southern city of Khan Yunis, where eight members of the Al-Qidra family were killed and 12 others wounded, Bassal said.The ages of the dead ranged from two to 54, he added.AFP footage from Khan Yunis showed wounded children crying on hospital beds while bodies covered in blankets arrived in ambulances at the city’s Nasser Hospital. “They were sleeping and the house collapsed on them,” said Abir Shehab, adding her brother had been killed.”We die of hunger, we die of war, we die of fear, we die of everything, and the whole world stands by and watches us die,” she said. An Israeli air strike on a home in the Jabalia refugee camp, in northern Gaza, killed three people and wounded eight, Bassal said. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strikes.Israel resumed its military offensive in Gaza on March 18 after a two-month truce in its war against Hamas, which was triggered by the Palestinian group’s October 2023 attack.The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Wednesday that at least 2,545 people have been killed since Israel resumed its campaign, bringing the war’s overall toll to 52,653.Hamas’s attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.Militants also abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still being held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.On Tuesday, Hamas said it was pointless to continue ceasefire talks with Israel, accusing it of waging a “hunger war” on Gaza.The United Nations has warned repeatedly of the potential for a humanitarian catastrophe, with famine again looming after more than two months of aid blockade by Israel.

The UN’s human rights chief told AFP Wednesday that Israel’s plan for an expanded offensive in the Gaza Strip represented “a very dangerous moment” for civilians there.”What we see is only more destruction, more hatred, more dehumanisation,” said Volker Turk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, during a visit to Copenhagen for a UN meeting.”It’s a very dangerous moment for civilians,” he added, criticising the Israeli plan for an expanded offensive in the Gaza Strip.On Monday, Israel announced an expanded military campaign, which an Israeli official said would entail the “conquest” of the Palestinian territory.On Tuesday, Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said this meant that the Gaza Strip would be “entirely destroyed”.Several countries and world leaders have already condemned the plan, and Turk said the parties needed to “come to a place of reason and peace, and not just of continuous fighting and war”.The war needed to end, he said, there needed to be a ceasefire, a political solution with all the hostages “released unconditionally and immediately”.The Palestinian Islamist organisation Hamas has said that ceasefire talks are pointless at this stage.The blockade imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip “needs to be lifted immediately”, said Turk.”Humanitarian assistance needs to come in. That’s an obligation, that’s an obligation under international law,” he added.Turk argued that the current situation worldwide underlined the need to reaffirm the principles of international cooperation. The UN Security Council “is not functioning well” to address “the big crisis of our time”, he added.”With what is happening at the moment, in this current geopolitical moment, it is all the more important to come back to the principles, the values, to the norms, to the institutions, because they have served humanity well for 80 years,” said Turk.”And if we lose them, we lose a lot of what has been actually possible by way of progress, human progress, development, and also when it comes to humanitarian action and human rights,” he added.He hoped “that the world comes together again, shows the political leadership… including the most powerful countries around the world, that they act in favour of peace and not in favour of war”.

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa was on Wednesday set to meet French leader Emmanuel Macron on his first visit to Europe since overthrowing longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad, despite alarm over deadly clashes that have shadowed the new authorities’ first months in power.The visit comes with Sharaa and his fellow top officials, who have roots in the Al-Qaeda jihadist network, under pressure from Europe to show they are serious about protecting human rights as Damascus seeks the full lifting of Assad-era sanctions.Sectarian clashes in March, in which more than 1,700 people were killed, mostly among Assad’s Alawite minority, sparked international condemnation and doubts over Syria’s new path.By welcoming Sharaa, Macron hopes to help the authorities on the way to “a free, stable, sovereign Syria that respects all components of Syrian society,” a French presidential official, asking not to be named, told AFP.The official said France was aware of “the past” of certain Syrian leaders and was demanding that there be “no complacency” with “terrorist movements” operating in Syria.”If we are inviting him (Sharaa) here, it is precisely to ask him to go further in the fight against impunity,” Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told broadcaster TF1.Sharaa headed the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) which spearheaded Assad’s downfall after 14 years of civil war. The group formerly had links to Al-Qaeda.- Travel ban -He is still subject to a UN travel ban and France most likely had to request an exemption from the United Nations, as was the case for his recent trips to Turkey and Saudi Arabia, according to a source familiar with the matter.EU spokesperson Anouar El Anouni said that exemptions can be granted in certain cases if UN officials determine “that the entry or transit is justified”.Macron is due to welcome Sharaa to the Elysee Palace at 1515 GMT followed by a joint news conference.France, a former colonial-era ruler of Syria, is eyeing an opportunity to increase its influence in the country after years of Russian presence, with French companies also seeking contracts.Last week, French logistics giant CMA CGM signed a 30-year contract to develop and operate the port of Latakia.Mehad, a French NGO which has operated in Syria since 2011, warned of a worsening humanitarian crisis in the country and called for “a strong response” from France.”Emmanuel Macron’s strong commitment must now be translated into action, not only by maintaining the budget allocated to humanitarian aid in Syria, but also by disbursing it quickly,” said Mehad director Mego Terzian.”Otherwise we are heading for a humanitarian and health disaster in the country.”- ‘Serious error’ – Syria’s new Islamist authorities have vowed inclusive rule in the multi-confessional, multi-ethnic country.But as well as the sectarian clashes in March, more recent clashes involving fighters from the Druze community and reports of abuses from NGOs have also raised doubts about the interim government’s ability to control extremists in its ranks.Adding to pressure on the new Syrian government, Israel has launched hundreds of strikes on the country since Assad’s overthrow, including one near the presidential palace in Damascus on Friday.The invitation for Sharaa has caused controversy in France, with far-right leader Marine Le Pen accusing Macron of hosting talks with “a jihadist” in a “provocative and irresponsible” meeting.On the traditional right, the head of the right-wing Republicans in parliament, Laurent Wauquiez, denounced the meeting as “a serious error.””We don’t welcome leaders who are former terrorists and members of organisations that want to attack France,” he said.But Xavier Bertrand, from the same party and head of the northern Hauts-de-France region, countered that “those who criticise Emmanuel Macron have understood nothing about the role of head of state.”Barrot, who met with the Syrian leader in Damascus in January, defended the talks and said that Paris was engaging in a “demanding” dialogue with Damascus.”If Syria were to collapse today, if it were to break up, this would roll out the red carpet for Daesh,” Barrot told TF1, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State jihadists.fec-fff-as-sjw/as/yad

Standing in the rubble of what used to be his home, Palestinian farmer Haitham Dababseh cleared stones to make space for a tent after Israeli army bulldozers destroyed his village in the occupied West Bank.Residents of Khallet al-Dabaa and other hamlets in the West Bank’s Masafer Yatta region have for years contended with violence from Israeli settlers and repeated demolitions.But the bulldozers that descended on Khallet al-Dabaa on Monday carried out “the biggest demolition we’ve ever had”, said Dababseh, razing to the ground the hamlet that is home to about 100 Palestinians.Israeli forces “came here in the past, they demolished three times, four times”, the 34-year-old farmer told AFP, but never entirely destroyed a hamlet this size in Masafer Yatta.”I just have my clothes. Everything I have is under the rubble.”Behind him, his 86-year-old father struggled to move the house’s former door out of the way so that they can set up their shelter.Khallet al-Dabaa is one of several villages featured at length in the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land”, recounting the struggles of the Palestinian residents of the area in the West Bank’s south, a frequent target of settler violence and army activities.Several of the communities shown in the documentary have experienced settler attacks or army demolitions since it won an Academy Award in March.- No protection -Several years after occupying the West Bank in 1967, the Israeli army had declared Masafer Yatta a restricted firing zone.Israeli forces regularly demolish structures that the military authorities say were built illegally in the area, where about 1,100 Palestinians live across several hamlets.”Enforcement authorities of the Civil Administration dismantled a number of illegal structures that were built in a closed military zone in the South Hebron Hills,” the Israeli military told AFP in a statement on the Khallet al-Dabaa demolition.”The enforcement actions were carried out after the completion of all required administrative procedures and in accordance with the enforcement priority framework previously presented to the Supreme Court,” it added.Some residents, and many of their ancestors, once lived in caves in the rocky terrain to escape the area’s stifling summer heat, and built houses with stone and other materials after the Israeli firing zone designation in the 1970s.Dababseh said he was the first member of his family to be born in a hospital and not a cave.He lamented that the army had blocked the entry to the cave near the family home where his father and grandfather were born.In the middle of Khallet al-Dabaa, what served as a health and community centre is now a pile of broken concrete with no walls.A torn logbook that an aid organisation used to record residents’ medical check-ups lay under dust.On the outside wall of the only structure left standing, a painted mural read “Let me live”.Mohammed Rabaa, head of the nearby Tuwani village council which has jurisdiction over Khallet al-Dabaa, told AFP that the foreign aid his community received was useless if the world “can’t protect it”.- ‘I’m not leaving’ -According to Rabaa, “nine settler outposts were established in the Masafer Yatta area” since October 2023, when war began in the separate Palestinian territory of the Gaza Strip.The West Bank is home to about three million Palestinians, but also some 500,000 Israelis living in settlements that are illegal under international law. Settlement outposts, built without the authorities’ prior approval, are considered illegal under Israeli law too although enforcement is relatively rare.The settlers who live in the nearby outposts “attack homes, burn property, destroy and vandalise” with full impunity and often under army protection, said Rabaa.To him, they aim to force Palestinians to leave and “do not want any Palestinian presence”.The day after Khallet al-Dabaa was razed, Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right politician who lives in a settlement, expressed his hope that the government would formally annex the territory soon.Umm Ibrahim Dababseh, a 76-year-old woman who has lived in Khallet al-Dabaa for six decades, said she would not leave under any circumstances.”I told them, ‘make my grave right here’,” she said of the Israeli soldiers, adding that they had to drag her out of her now ruined house.”I didn’t even get to wear my clothes properly,” she said, sitting with her granddaughters on a rock under the shade of an olive tree.Haitham Dababseh, a distant relative of Umm Ibrahim, said that hardships would not make him leave either.”Last night, I slept there,” he said, pointing to a bed exposed to the elements on the hilltop.”I have a bed, okay, I will cover myself with the sky, but I’m not leaving.”

China vowed Wednesday to defend “justice” in upcoming trade talks with the United States — their first since Donald Trump unveiled sweeping tariffs that shook global markets.Since the US president returned to the White House in January, his administration has imposed tariffs totalling 145 percent on goods from China, with some sector-specific measures stacked on …

China vows to defend ‘justice’ in looming trade talks with US Read More »

Hamas said one of its commanders was killed in an Israeli strike on the south Lebanon city of Sidon on Wednesday, the latest attack despite a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said the dawn strike killed one person.Hamas named him as Khaled Ahmed al-Ahmed and said he was on his way to pray.”As we mourn our heroic martyr, we pledge to God Almighty, and then to our people and our nation, to continue on the path of resistance,” the Palestinian militant group said in a statement.The Israeli military confirmed that it killed Ahmed, adding that he was “the head of operations in Hamas’s Western Brigade in Lebanon”.It alleged he had been engaged in weapons smuggling and advancing “numerous” attacks against Israel.Israel has continued to launch regular strikes in Lebanon despite the November 27 truce which sought to halt more than a year of hostilities with Hezbollah including two months of full-blown war.Under the deal, Hezbollah was to pull back its fighters north of Lebanon’s Litani River, some 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the Israeli border, and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure to its south.Israel was to withdraw all its forces from Lebanon, but it has kept troops in five positions that it deems “strategic”.A Lebanese security source told AFP that Hezbollah had withdrawn fighters from south of the Litani and dismantled most of its military infrastructure in the area.Lebanon says it has respected its commitments and has called on the international community to pressure Israel to end its attacks and withdraw from the five border positions.Last week, Lebanon’s top security body the Higher Defence Council warned Hamas against using the country for attacks on Israel.The group has since handed over several Palestinians accused of firing rockets from Lebanon into Israel in March.

The United States and Yemen’s Huthis have agreed a ceasefire, mediators announced, saying the deal would ensure “freedom of navigation” in the Red Sea where the Iran-backed rebels have attacked shipping for months.The agreement comes after President Donald Trump announced that the United States would end attacks against the Huthis after the rebels agreed to stop harassing ships, though he made no direct mention of recent attacks on ally Israel.Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi on Tuesday said that “following recent discussions and contacts… with the aim of de-escalation, efforts have resulted in a ceasefire agreement between the two sides”.”Neither side will target the other… ensuring freedom of navigation and the smooth flow of international commercial shipping” in the Red Sea, he added in a statement.At the White House, Trump said the rebels had “capitulated” after a seven-week US bombing campaign that left 300 dead, according to an AFP tally of Huthi figures.The rebels’ political leader Mahdi al-Mashat did not comment on the accord but promised a “painful” response to deadly Israeli strikes in retaliation for missile fire at Israel’s main airport.Huthi spokesman Mohammed Abdelsalam told the rebels’ Al-Masirah television channel that any US action would garner a response. “If the American enemy resumes its attacks, we will resume our strikes,” he said. “The real guarantee for the accord is the dark experience that the United States has had in Yemen,” he added.Mashat said attacks on Israel, the United States’ main ally in the region, “will continue” and go “beyond what the Israeli enemy can withstand”.Huthi rebels have been attacking Israel and merchant shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden since late 2023, saying they are acting in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza.The Yemeni rebels had paused their attacks during a recent two-month ceasefire in the Gaza war.But in March, they threatened to resume attacks on shipping over Israel’s aid blockade on the Gaza Strip, triggering a response from the US military, which began hammering the rebels with near-daily air strikes.”The Huthis have announced… that they don’t want to fight anymore. They just don’t want to fight,” Trump said.”And we will honour that, and we will stop the bombings, and they have capitulated,” he added.”They say they will not be blowing up ships anymore, and that’s… the purpose of what we were doing.”The Pentagon said last week that US strikes had hit more than 1,000 targets in Yemen since mid-March.- ‘Completely destroyed’ -Trump’s comments came hours after Israeli warplanes knocked the airport in Yemen’s rebel-held capital Sanaa out of action in raids that killed three people, according to the Huthis.The Sanaa airport suspended all flights until further notice, its director said on Wednesday, after it sustained “severe damage” in the Israeli strikes.”Around $500 million in losses were caused by the Israeli aggression on Sanaa airport,” its general director Khaled al-Shaief told Al-Masirah television.Israel’s military said “fighter jets struck and dismantled Huthi terrorist infrastructure at the main airport in Sanaa, fully disabling the airport”.The strikes came after a Huthi missile gouged a crater near Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport on Sunday. – ‘Fear and terror’ -Residents reported power cuts after the Israelis also struck three electricity stations in and around the capital.”Our children are terrified,” said Umm Abdallah, a 35-year-old Sanaa resident. “They are afraid to go to the bathroom or eat because of the strikes.”Just before Tuesday’s attacks, Israel’s military called on Yemeni civilians to “immediately” evacuate the airport and its surroundings.Tensions have soared this week over Israel’s plan to expand military operations in Gaza and displace much of the besieged territory’s population.The UN special envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, called the attacks in Yemen and Israel “a grave escalation”.Israel says it has targeted Yemen five times since July 2024. Huthi authorities have reported a total of 29 people killed. Israel’s army regularly intercepts missiles launched from Yemen.Sanaa airport reopened to international flights in 2022 after a six-year blockade by a Saudi-led coalition fighting the Huthis. It offers a regular service to Jordan on the national airline Yemenia.