Region

CAIRO — Talks aimed at brokering a truce between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip will resume in Cairo on Sunday, Egyptian outlet Al Qahera reported, days after prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave the green light for fresh negotiations.

"An Egyptian security source confirmed to Al Qahera News the resumption of negotiations on a truce between Israel and Hamas in the Egyptian capital Cairo tomorrow," an anchor for the channel, which is close to country's intelligence services, said in a broadcast on Saturday.

Egypt, Qatar and key Israeli ally the United States have mediated previous rounds of negotiations, but a workable agreement has remained elusive.

The mediators had hoped to secure a ceasefire before the start of Ramadan, but progress stalled and the Muslim holy month is more than half over.

On Friday, Netanyahu approved a new round of ceasefire negotiations to take place in Doha and Cairo.

His office said the Israeli premier had spoken to Mossad chief David Barnea about the talks, but did not elaborate on whether Barnea would be travelling to either city.

Reports of the new talks in Cairo came as protesters in Israel’s biggest city blocked a major road Saturday following demonstrations calling for the release of hostages held in Gaza and criticising the government’s handling of the war.

Militants seized about 250 hostages during the October 7 attacks on Israel that sparked the war. Of those, Israel believes 130 remain in Gaza, including 33 who are presumed dead.

A key element of the ceasefire negotiations has been an agreement on releasing the hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.

France’s top diplomat was also in Cairo on Saturday for meetings with his Egyptian and Jordanian counterparts, with all three calling for an “immediate and permanent ceasefire” in Gaza and the release of all the hostages.

French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne also said his government would put forward a draft resolution at the UN Security Council setting out a “political” settlement of the war that would include “all the criteria for a two-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

On Monday, the Security Council adopted a resolution demanding an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza, and a UN court ordered Israel on Thursday to “ensure urgent humanitarian assistance” reaches civilians there, though neither development appears to have changed the situation on the ground.

Hamas October 7 sudden resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign against Hamas in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 32,705 people, most of them women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

ISTANBUL — Turkey’s main opposition party on Sunday claimed victory in Istanbul and Ankara with its rising political star emerging from local elections as a serious challenger to veteran President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Partial results from across the nation of 85 million people showed major advances for the Republican People’s Party (CHP) at the expense of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) that has dominated politics for more than two decades.

Erdogan, 70, had launched an all-out personal campaign to win back Istanbul, the economic powerhouse where he was once mayor. But rampant inflation and economic crisis have hit confidence in the ruling party.

With 96 per cent of ballot boxes opened, Istanbul’s CHP mayor Ekrem Imamoglu said he had seen off the challenge of Erdogan’s candidate by more than one million votes. “We have won the election,” he declared.

Large crowds filled the square outside the Istanbul city headquarters waving Turkish flags and lighting torches to celebrate the result.

After casting his vote, Imamoglu emerged to applause and chants of “Everything will be fine”, the slogan he used when he first took the city hall from the AKP in 2019.

The 52-year-old is increasingly seen as the biggest rival to Erdogan’s AKP ahead of the next presidential election in 2028.

In Ankara, the CHP mayor Mansur Yavas claimed victory in front of large crowds of supporters, declaring “the elections are over, we will continue to serve Ankara”.

“Those who have been ignored have sent a clear message to those who rule this country,” he added.

Yavas led with 58.6 per cent of the vote to 33.5 per cent for his AKP opponent, with 46.4 per cent of ballot boxes opened.

The CHP was also ahead in Izmir, Turkey’s third city, and Antalya where party supporters flooded onto the streets. Even some AKP stronghold towns were at risk of being lost, results indicated.

“Voters have chosen to change the face of Turkey,” said CHP chairman Ozgur Ozel as the results emerged. “They want to open the door to a new political climate in our country.”

More than a mayor’s race 

Although Erdogan dominated the campaign his personal role did not help overcome the widespread concerns over the country’s economy.

“Everyone is worried about the day-to-day,” said 43-year-old Istanbul inhabitant Guler Kaya as she voted.

“The crisis is swallowing up the middle class, we have had to change all our habits,” she said. “If Erdogan wins, it will get even worse”.

Erdogan has been president since 2014 and won a new term in May last year. He had called Istanbul the national “treasure” when launching his campaign to retake the city.

“This election will mark the beginning of a new era for our country,” Erdogan said after casting his vote in Istanbul on Sunday.

While opposition parties had been fractured ahead of the poll, analysts predicted a stormy political future for the AKP and its allies.

Berk Esen, an academic at Sabanci University, said that the CHP had pulled off “the biggest election defeat of Erdogan’s career”.

“Despite an uneven playing field, government candidates have lost even in conservative strongholds. This is the CHP’s best results since the 1977 elections,” Esen said on his social media account.

Unrest in southeast 

“Whoever wins Istanbul, wins Turkey,” Erman Bakirci, a pollster from Konda Research and Consultancy, recalled Erdogan once saying.

The election was held with the country reeling from an inflation rate of 67 per cent and having seen the lira currency slide from 19 to a dollar to 32 to a dollar in one year.

Armed clashes were reported in Turkey’s Kurdish-majority southeast, leaving one dead and 12 wounded, a local official told AFP.

The pro-Kurdish DEM Party said it had identified irregularities “in almost all the Kurdish provinces”, in particular through suspicious cases of proxy voting.

Observers from France were refused access to a polling station in the region, according to the lawyers’ association MLSA.

Some 61 million people were eligible to vote for mayors across Turkey’s 81 provinces, as well as provincial council members and other local officials.

BEIRUT — United Nations peacekeepers said three military observers and a translator were wounded on Saturday in a blast in southern Lebanon, where Israel and the Hizbollah movement trade frequent cross-border fire.

Peacekeepers from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) patrol the so-called Blue Line, the border demarcated by the UN in 2000 when Israeli troops pulled out of southern Lebanon.

The UN Truce Supervision Organisation (UNTSO) supports the peacekeeping mission.

Three UNTSO "military observers and one Lebanese language assistant on a foot patrol along the Blue Line were injured when an explosion occurred near their location", UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti said in a statement.

The wounded were "evacuated for medical treatment" and UNIFIL is "investigating the origin of the explosion", Tenenti added.

"Safety and security of UN personnel must be guaranteed," the statement said, urging, "all actors to cease the current heavy exchanges of fire before more people are unnecessarily hurt".

Israel and Lebanon's Iran-backed Hizbollah movement have exchanged near-daily fire since Palestinian militant group Hamas carried out an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, triggering war in Gaza.

Hizbollah, which has a powerful arsenal of rockets and missiles, says its attacks on Israel are in support of Hamas.

Norway's defence ministry said a Norwegian UN observer was "lightly injured" and had been admitted to hospital.

“The circumstances surrounding the attack are unclear,” defence ministry spokesperson Hanne Olafsen told Norwegian news agency NTB.

UNIFIL’s Tenenti told AFP that the other two observers were from Australia and Chile, adding that all four wounded were in “stable” condition.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said an “enemy [Israeli] drone” raided the Rmeish area of southern Lebanon where the UNTSO observers were wounded.

The Israeli army told AFP in a statement: “We did not strike in the area.”

Tenenti emphasised: “All actors have a responsibility under international humanitarian law to ensure protection to non-combatants, including peacekeepers, journalists, medical personnel and civilians.”

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned what he called a “dangerous incident”.

Lebanon’s foreign ministry said the attack was “in violation of international law”.

Cross-border fire since October has killed at least 347 people in Lebanon, mostly Hizbollah fighters, but also at least 68 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

The fighting has displaced tens of thousands of people in southern Lebanon and in northern Israel, where the military says 10 soldiers and eight civilians have been killed.

An uptick in deadly exchanges in recent days has fuelled concerns of an all-out conflict between Israel and Hizbollah, who last fought a war in 2006.

UNTSO was set up after the 1948 war that accompanied Israel’s creation to monitor armistice agreements reached with its Arab neighbours.

It also assists other UN peacekeeping operations in the region, including UNIFIL, which was established after Israel’s 1978 invasion of south Lebanon and expanded following the 2006 war.

THE HAGUE — The world's top court on Thursday ordered Israel to "ensure urgent humanitarian assistance" in Gaza without delay, saying "famine has set in".

The International Court of Justice's latest order comes as heavy street battles continued to rage in besieged Gaza — and a major medical charity said it "hasn't seen any change" since a United Nations Security Council resolution this week demanding an immediate ceasefire.

"Israel shall... take all necessary and effective measures to ensure, without delay... the unhindered provision... of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance" in Gaza, the ICJ said.

"Palestinians in Gaza are no longer facing only a risk of famine, but... famine is setting in," the Hague-based court said.

The war erupted after Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israel from Gaza on October 7. Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed at least 32,552 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

'Dying of starvation'

At the ICJ, South Africa has charged that Israel is perpetrating a genocide in Gaza, an accusation strongly denied by Israel.

Pretoria dragged Israel before the court, saying it was in breach of its obligations under the 1948 UN Genocide Convention, and urging the court to order a ceasefire.

In a ruling in mid-January that made headlines worldwide, the ICJ ordered Israel to do everything it could to prevent genocide during its Gaza offensive.

The court also ruled that Israel must allow aid into Gaza to ease the desperate humanitarian situation there.

South Africa followed up with a request for fresh measures a few weeks later, citing an announced incursion into the city of Rafah, but the court declined to impose additional measures.

Undeterred, Pretoria tried again — this time urging the court to impose emergency measures to “save the Palestinian people in Gaza already dying of starvation”.

Israel said in its defence that South Africa was “engaged in an abusive exploitation of the court’s procedures”.

But the ICJ’s judges said Thursday that the mid-January rulings “do not fully address the consequences arising from the changes in the situation... thus justifying the modification of these measures”.

Pretoria hailed the latest ICJ decision, calling it “significant”.

“The fact that Palestinian deaths are not solely caused by bombardment and ground attacks, but also by disease and starvation, indicates a need to protect the group’s right to exist,” it said in a statement.

‘Unhindered humanitarian aid’

Meanwhile, street battles raged Thursday near a hospital in Gaza, with the humanitarian crisis and surging death toll causing tensions between Israel and top ally the United States.

Tensions flared after Washington on Monday allowed the UN Security Council to pass its first-ever resolution calling for an “immediate ceasefire” and hostage release in Gaza by abstaining from the vote.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu charged that the step by the United States, which had vetoed previous similar demands, served to embolden Israel’s enemy Hamas.

The MSF medical charity said Thursday there was no change on the ground since the Security Council resolution.

What was needed was an immediate and lasting ceasefire, a halt to all attacks on medical installations and personnel, and “unhindered humanitarian aid in Gaza”, MSF’s international president Christos Christou told AFP.

While the war has turned much of the territory into a devastated wasteland of collapsed buildings and tank tracks, Israel has also imposed a siege on its 2.4 million people, eased only by occasional aid deliveries.

The UN has warned that famine “is ever closer to becoming a reality in northern Gaza” and said Gaza’s health system is collapsing “due to ongoing hostilities and access constraints”.

The ICJ was set up to rule on disputes between states and while its judgements are legally binding, it has little means to enforce them.

For example, the court has ordered Russia to halt its invasion of Ukraine, to no avail.

DUBAI — Saad Al Awlaki has taken the helm of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (aqap) after the death its former leader, looking to unite the extremist group and change course after a steep decline.

Based in war-torn Yemen’s south, the AQAP is considered by Washington as the Sunni Muslim Al Qaeda network’s most dangerous branch.

It has claimed numerous high-profile attacks in the United States and Europe, including the 2015 assault on Charlie Hebdo magazine in France’s capital that killed 12 people, but these have dropped in recent years.

The AQAP announced earlier this month that Awlaki had succeeded Khalid Batarfi, who died after a long illness, according to Yemeni sources close to the group. Like other sources AFP has spoken to, they requested anonymity to discuss the extremist group.

Assem Al Sabri, an expert on jihadist groups, said the decline in the AQAP’s actions was due to internal divisions, “a financial crisis” and fighting against rival Yemeni forces.

Awlaki, a Yemeni national wanted by the United States, could herald “a major renewal for the organisation”, Sabri said.

The new leader has good relations with powerful Yemeni tribes — particularly in his home governorate of Shabwa, an AQAP stronghold — that could revitalise the group, a tribal official told AFP.

Born in 2009 from the merger of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni and Saudi factions, the AQAP grew and developed in the chaos of Yemen’s war which since 2015 has pitted Iran-backed Houthi rebels against a Saudi-led coalition.

But the AQAP is now just one of many armed groups in southern Yemen, including Daesh group jihadists and UAE-trained separatist militias who back the internationally recognised government against the Houthis.

Since the 2015 Charlie Hebdo attack — AQAP’s most notorious — and a 2019 mass shooting at a US naval base in Florida, internal crises have put a brake on its operations abroad, Sabri said.

In February 2020, the AQAP suffered a major blow when its powerful leader Qassim Al Rimi was killed in a US strike.

Rimi was replaced with Batarfi, who was in turn succeeded by Awlaki — wanted over calls “for attacks against the United States and its allies”, according to the US State Department.

Washington is offering a reward of up to $6 million for information leading to his identification or location.

As the new leader, Awlaki will work to close the group’s ranks, according to Sabri, who said the AQAP under his rule may even seek to relaunch attacks in Western countries.

Awlaki, a member of the AQAP’s advisory council, has broad support from its religious and military leaders who now look to him to mobilise fighters, Yemeni sources close to the group told AFP.

A tribal source said that Awlaki may use his ties with local leaders “to restore the organisation’s tribal base, especially in Shabwa”, once a launching pad for its operations, and to “rebuild its strongholds that were destroyed by government forces”.

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories — The southern Gaza Strip came under intense Israeli bombardment overnight, despite international pressure for an immediate ceasefire in the Palestinian territory where famine is looming.

Besieged Gaza is in desperate need of aid and the United States said it would continue airdrops, despite pleas from Hamas to stop the practice after the Islamist group said 18 people had died trying to reach food packages.

A fireball lit up the night sky in the southern city of Rafah, the last remaining urban centre in Gaza not to have been attacked by Israeli ground forces. About 1.5 million people are crammed in the area, many having fled south towards the border with Egypt.

The sound of explosions was also heard and smoke was seen rising in Gaza City in the north, where Israeli troops have been attacking the city's largest hospital for more than a week.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said early Wednesday that 66 people had been killed overnight, including three killed in Israeli air strikes in and around Rafah.

The fighting went on unabated two days after the UN Security Council passed its first resolution calling for an "immediate ceasefire" and urging the release of the roughly 130 hostages Israel says remain in Gaza, including 34 captives who are presumed dead.

Israeli forces have also surrounded two hospitals in Khan Yunis, where the health ministry said 12 people, including some children, were killed in an Israeli strike on a camp for the displaced.

The Palestinian Red Crescent has warned that thousands were trapped in the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis and "their lives are in danger".

Underscoring the desperation of civilians trapped by the fighting, Hamas has asked donor countries to stop their airdrops after 12 people drowned trying to recover parachuted food aid from the sea off Gaza’s Mediterranean coast.

Hamas and the Swiss-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor also said another six people were killed in stampedes trying to get aid.

“People are dying just to get a can of tuna,” Gaza resident Mohamad Al Sabaawi told AFP, holding a can in his hand after a scramble over an aid package.

Hamas has also demanded that Israel allow more aid trucks to enter the territory, which the United Nations has warned is on the brink of a “man-made famine” after nearly six months of fighting.

The war, triggered by Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel, has shattered Gaza’s infrastructure and aid agencies say all of its 2.4 million people are now in need of humanitarian help.

The UN children’s fund, UNICEF, said vastly more aid must be rushed into Gaza by road rather than by air or sea to avert an “imminent famine”.

UNICEF spokesman James Elder said the necessary help was “a matter of kilometres away” in aid-filled trucks waiting across Gaza’s southern border with Egypt.

The US National Security Council said in a statement it would continue trying to get aid in by road, but also said it would continue airdrops.

AFPTV footage showed crowds rushing towards aid packages on Tuesday being dropped by parachute from planes sent by Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Germany.

‘Political isolation’ 

Israel’s retaliatory campaign against Hamas has killed at least 32,414 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the health ministry.

Israeli troops have shown no sign of a let-up in the fight against Hamas, with the military saying its jets had struck more than 60 targets, including tunnels and buildings “in which armed terrorists were identified”.

The UN Security Council resolution passed on Monday demanded a ceasefire for the remaining two weeks of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan that should lead to a “lasting” truce.

The United States, Israel’s top ally, which had blocked previous resolutions, abstained from the vote, prompting Israel to cancel a planned US visit by senior officials.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said Israel was experiencing “unprecedented political isolation” and losing US “protection” at the Security Council.

Washington has baulked at Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s determination to launch a ground assault on Rafah, and the United States has also expressed increasing concern over the humanitarian toll.

US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said before meeting his Israeli counterpart that “the number of civilian casualties is far too high, and the amount of humanitarian aid is far too low” in Gaza.

Talks ‘ongoing’ 

Officials from the two warring sides are in indirect mediated talks in Qatar aimed at agreeing on a ceasefire and the release of hostages.

However, both Hamas and Netanyahu said the talks were failing and blamed each other.

Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed Al Ansari said this week the talks were “ongoing”.

In Khan Yunis, dozens of Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles surrounded the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis.

The health ministry said shots were fired around the sprawling complex but no raid had yet taken place.

Israeli troops have also been engaged in heavy fighting at Gaza City’s Al Shifa Hospital, the territory’s largest, for nine days.

Israel said it has killed 170 Palestinian militants and arrested hundreds there.

Israel has labelled its actions “precise operational activities” and said it has taken care to avoid harm to civilians, but aid agencies have voiced concern for non-combatants caught up in the fighting.

Palestinians living near Al Shifa have reported corpses in the streets, constant bombardment and the rounding up of men who are stripped to their underwear and questioned.

Jamaa Islamiya, a Lebanese group with close links to Hamas, said early on Wednesday seven people were killed in an overnight strike in south Lebanon.

Hizbollah and other Hamas allies have exchanged almost daily fire with Israeli troops since the Gaza war began.

BEIRUT — Fresh Israeli strikes on eastern Lebanon on Tuesday killed two people, Lebanese official media said, after the deepest raid since cross-border hostilities erupted between Israel and Hizbollah last October.

The Israeli forces said it had struck Hizbollah targets "deep inside Lebanese territory" near Zboud, some 130 kilometres from the Israeli frontier.

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency (NNA) said "an Israeli strike targeted the Wadi Faara region" near the north-eastern city of Hermel, a similar location to the one reported by Israel.

Israeli forces have exchanged near-daily fire with Shiite Muslim movement Hizbollah following the outbreak of conflict between Israel and Hamas after the Gaza-based fighters' October 7 sudden attack on Israel.

Hizbollah says it is acting in support of its ally Hamas, while Israel has also targeted Hizbollah and Hamas officials in Lebanon, including with strikes deep into the country.

An AFP correspondent said that, after the raid around Wadi Faara, the army and Hizbollah had blocked access to the area.

A Lebanese security source, requesting anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the media, said the strikes targeted an uninhabited area where Hizbollah has positions.

The NNA later reported that a separate "Israeli strike" near Iaat, close to the eastern city of Baalbek, killed two people and wounded another.

In recent days, Israeli strikes have targeted the Bekaa Valley, a Hizbollah bastion deep inside Lebanese territory, where Baalbek and Iaat are located.

An AFP correspondent saw a building belonging to Hizbollah in flames and two people being taken away on stretchers, with a number of ambulances rushing to the scene.

The Israeli military said its "fighter jets struck a landing area and several military structures inside a military compound used by Hizbollah's aerial unit" at two separate sites "deep inside Lebanese territory".

One of the raids came in response to an attack on the army’s “aerial control unit” in northern Israel earlier on Tuesday, the military said.

It also said that it struck Hizbollah targets in south Lebanon near the border.

Hizbollah later said three of its fighters were “martyred on the road to Jerusalem”, the phrase it uses to refer to members killed by Israeli fire, without specifying where or when they died.

The group in separate statements claimed a string of attacks on Israeli targets on Tuesday, including one with guided missiles it said targeted the Meron air control base in northern Israel.

It also said it fired “more than 50 Katyusha rockets” towards a barracks in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Since the cross-border hostilities began, at least 331 people have been killed in Lebanon, most of them Hizbollah fighters but including at least 57 civilians, according to an AFP count.

At least 10 soldiers and seven civilians have been killed in northern Israel, according to the military.

The hostilities have raised fears of all-out conflict between Israel and Hizbollah, which last went to war in 2006.