Hamas says open to talks as Israel keeps up Gaza strikes

Hamas says open to talks as Israel keeps up Gaza strikes
An Israeli Apache flies over the Gaza border as seen from southern Israel, Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (AP)
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Updated 19 March 2025
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Hamas says open to talks as Israel keeps up Gaza strikes

Hamas says open to talks as Israel keeps up Gaza strikes
  • Hamas is open to talks on getting the ceasefire back on track but will not renegotiate the agreement that took effect on January 19
  • Negotiations have stalled over how to proceed with a ceasefire whose first phase expired in early March

GAZA CITY: Hamas said it remained open to negotiations while calling for pressure on Israel Wednesday to implement a Gaza truce after its deadliest bombing since the fragile ceasefire began in January.
Israel carried out fresh air strikes on Gaza on Wednesday, killing 13 people according to the territory’s civil defense agency, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday’s raids were “only the beginning.”
The United Nations and countries around the world condemned the high civilian death toll in the renewed strikes, which have killed more than 400 people, according to Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Hamas is open to talks on getting the ceasefire back on track but will not renegotiate the agreement that took effect on January 19, an official from the militant group said.
“Hamas has not closed the door on negotiations but we insist there is no need for new agreements,” Taher Al-Nunu told AFP.
“We have no conditions, but we demand that the occupation be compelled to immediately halt its aggression and war of extermination, and begin the second phase of negotiations.”
Negotiations have stalled over how to proceed with a ceasefire whose first phase expired in early March, with Israel and Hamas disagreeing on whether to move to a new phase intended to bring the war to an end.
Instead, Israel and the United States have sought to change the terms of the deal by extending stage one.
That would delay the start of phase two, which was meant to establish a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and was swiftly rejected by Hamas, which demanded full implementation of the original deal.
“There is no need for new agreements in light of the existing agreement signed by all parties,” Nunu said.

Israel and the United States have portrayed Hamas’s rejection of an extended stage one as a refusal to release more Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
Netanyahu’s office said he ordered the renewed strikes on Gaza after “Hamas’s repeated refusal to release our hostages.”
In a televised address late Tuesday, the premier said: “From now on, negotiations will take place only under fire... Military pressure is essential for the release of additional hostages.
“Hamas has already felt the strength of our arm in the past 24 hours. And I want to promise you — and them — this is only the beginning.”
The White House said Israel consulted US President Donald Trump’s administration before launching the strikes, while Israel said the return to fighting was “fully coordinated” with Washington.
The intense Israeli bombardment sent a stream of new casualties to the few hospitals still functioning in Gaza and triggered fears of a return to full-blown war after two months of relative calm.
The roads were once again filled with Palestinian civilians on the move as families responded to evacuation warnings from the Israeli army.
“Today I felt that Gaza is a real hell,” said Jihan Nahhal, a 43-year-old from Gaza City, adding some of her relatives were wounded or killed in the strikes.
“Suddenly there were huge explosions, as if it were the first day of the war.”
The Gaza health ministry said the bodies of 413 people had been received by hospitals, adding people were still under the rubble.
A spokeswoman for the UN children’s agency UNICEF said medical facilities that “have already been decimated” by the war were now “overwhelmed.”

Governments in the Middle East, Europe and beyond called for the renewed hostilities to end.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said Israel’s raids on Gaza “are shattering the tangible hopes of so many Israelis and Palestinians of an end to suffering on all sides.”
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said she told her Israeli counterpart Gideon Saar that the new strikes on Gaza were “unacceptable.”
Both Egypt and Qatar, which brokered the Gaza ceasefire alongside the United States, condemned Israel’s resort to military action.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said the strikes were part of “deliberate efforts to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable and force the Palestinians into displacement.”
Trump has floated a proposal to move Palestinians out of Gaza, an idea rejected by Palestinians and governments in the region and beyond, but embraced by some Israeli politicians.
Israel’s resumption of military operations in Gaza, after it already halted all humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza this month, drew an immediate political dividend for Netanyahu.
The far-right Otzma Yehudit party, which quit his ruling coalition in January in protest at the Gaza ceasefire, rejoined its ranks with its firebrand leader Itamar Ben Gvir again becoming national security minister.
The war began with Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in 1,218 deaths, mostly civilians, according to Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliation in Gaza has killed at least 48,577 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the territory’s health ministry.
Of the 251 hostages seized during the attack, 58 are still in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.


WFP says has depleted all its food stocks in Gaza

WFP says has depleted all its food stocks in Gaza
Updated 25 April 2025
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WFP says has depleted all its food stocks in Gaza

WFP says has depleted all its food stocks in Gaza
  • Entry of all humanitarian aid has been blocked by Israel since March 2

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: The UN’s World Food Programme on Friday warned it has depleted all its food stocks in war-ravaged Gaza, where the entry of all humanitarian aid has been blocked by Israel since March 2.
“Today, WFP delivered its last remaining food stocks to hot meals kitchens in the Gaza Strip. These kitchens are expected to fully run out of food in the coming days,” WFP said in a statement.


Sudan violence ‘may amount to crimes against humanity’: UK

Sudan violence ‘may amount to crimes against humanity’: UK
Updated 25 April 2025
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Sudan violence ‘may amount to crimes against humanity’: UK

Sudan violence ‘may amount to crimes against humanity’: UK
  • Lammy called on the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to “de-escalate urgently“
  • “Last week, the UK gathered the international community in London to call for an end to the suffering of the Sudanese people”

LONDON: Violence in Sudan’s Darfur region shows “the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing and may amount to crimes against humanity,” UK foreign minister David Lammy said.
Lammy called on the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to “de-escalate urgently” and said in a statement issued late Thursday that Britain would continue to “use all tools available to us to hold those responsible for atrocities to account.”
Paramilitary shelling of the besieged city of El-Fasher, the state capital of North Darfur, has killed more than 30 civilians and wounded dozens more, activists said on Monday.
El-Fasher is the last major city in the vast Darfur region that still remains in army control.
Lammy said that reports of the violence in and around El-Fasher were “appalling.”
“Last week, the UK gathered the international community in London to call for an end to the suffering of the Sudanese people.
“Yet some of the violence in Darfur has shown the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing and may amount to crimes against humanity,” he said.
He called on the RSF to “halt its siege of El-Fasher,” adding that “the warring parties have a responsibility to end this suffering.”
Lammy also urged the Sudanese Armed Forces to allow safe passage for civilians to reach safety.
International aid agencies have long warned that a full-scale RSF assault on El-Fasher could lead to devastating urban warfare and a new wave of mass displacement.
UNICEF has described the situation as “hell on earth” for at least 825,000 children trapped in and around El-Fasher.


Hundreds of Syrian Druze clerics head to Israel on pilgrimage

Hundreds of Syrian Druze clerics head to Israel on pilgrimage
Updated 8 min 13 sec ago
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Hundreds of Syrian Druze clerics head to Israel on pilgrimage

Hundreds of Syrian Druze clerics head to Israel on pilgrimage
  • Hundreds of clerics from Syria’s Druze minority on Friday are heading to Israel where they will conduct a pilgrimage to a sacred shrine, the second such visit since longtime ruler Bashar Assad’s

DAMASCUS: Hundreds of clerics from Syria’s Druze minority on Friday are heading to Israel where they will conduct a pilgrimage to a sacred shrine, the second such visit since longtime ruler Bashar Assad’s ouster.
The clerics from the esoteric, monotheistic faith, are to cross the border on foot, according to a Syrian official and a local news organization, despite Israel and Syria being technically at war.
The delegation will visit the Nabi Shuaib shrine in north Israel’s Galilee region, where an annual pilgrimage is held from April 25-28 each year.
Abu Yazan, the official from Hader on the Syrian Golan Heights, said that 400 clerics from his town and from the Damascus suburb of Jaramana will head to Israel after the Israeli authorities gave their approval.
Asking not to be identified by his full name, he said the trip was “purely religious” in nature.
Suwayda24, a news organization from nearby Sweida province, said some 150 Druze clerics from that area would also participate.
The group notified the Syrian government of its plan to go to Israel, though it received no response, the website added.
Unlike during a smaller visit to the shrine last month, the clerics will spend the night in Israel this time.
Abu Yazan, who is one of the participants, said that “we requested to stay for a week to visit the shrine” and other members of the religious community “but the Israeli side only authorized one night.”
The Druze are mainly divided between Syria, Israel and Lebanon.
They account for about three percent of Syria’s population and are heavily concentrated in the south.
Israel seized much of the strategic Golan Heights from Syria in a war in 1967, later annexing the area in 1981 in a move largely unrecognized by the international community.
After Islamist-led forces ousted Assad in December, Israel carried out hundreds of air strikes on Syria and sent troops into the demilitarised buffer zone of the Golan.
Israeli authorities have also voiced support for Syria’s Druze and mistrust of the country’s new leaders.
In March, following a deadly clash between government-linked forces and Druze fighters in Jaramana, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said his country would not allow Syria’s new rulers “to harm the Druze.”
Druze leaders rejected the warning and declared their loyalty to a united Syria.


Rescuers say death toll from Israeli strike on north Gaza home rises to 23

Rescuers say death toll from Israeli strike on north Gaza home rises to 23
Updated 25 April 2025
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Rescuers say death toll from Israeli strike on north Gaza home rises to 23

Rescuers say death toll from Israeli strike on north Gaza home rises to 23
  • Gaza’s civil defense agency reported on Friday that the death toll from an Israeli air strike the day before on a house in the north of the Palestinian territory had risen to 23
  • Gaza’s northern area of Jabalia has repeatedly been a focus Israel’s military offensive

GAZA CITY: Gaza’s civil defense agency reported on Friday that the death toll from an Israeli air strike the day before on a house in the north of the Palestinian territory had risen to 23.
“Civil defense teams recovered 11 bodies last night and this morning following the Israeli bombing that targeted a residential house ... in Jabalia,” Mohammed Al-Mughayyir, an official with the agency, told AFP.
“This is in addition to the 12 victims recovered at the time of the attack yesterday,” he added.
Gaza’s northern area of Jabalia has repeatedly been a focus Israel’s military offensive since the start of the war on October 7, 2023 following Hamas’s attack on Israel.
The military has returned to the district several times after announcing it had been cleared of militants, saying Hamas fighters had regrouped there.
In another strike in the area on Thursday, Israel hit what was previously a police station, rescuers said.
The toll from that attack has risen to 11, Mughayyir said, after initially announcing that nine people had been killed.
The military said on Thursday that it had struck a Hamas “command and control center” in the area of Jabalia, without specifying the target.
Israeli strikes continued on Friday, with the civil defense agency reporting that at least five people — a couple and their three children — had been killed when their tent was struck in the Al-Mawasi area of the southern city of Khan Yunis.
Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said that the deceased woman had been pregnant.
Since Israel resumed its offensive on March 18 after the collapse of a two-month ceasefire with Hamas, at least 1,978 people have been killed in Gaza, bringing the overall death toll of the war to 51,355, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.


UN voices concern over latest South Sudan clashes as civilians flee

UN voices concern over latest South Sudan clashes as civilians flee
Updated 25 April 2025
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UN voices concern over latest South Sudan clashes as civilians flee

UN voices concern over latest South Sudan clashes as civilians flee
  • The United Nations agency warns that it may have to reduce the number of people it can help across the country, from May, if more funding does not come through from donors

GENEVA: The United Nations said Friday it was "deeply concerned" by clashes between South Sudan's military and opposition forces in a southern state, where displaced civilians told AFP they had been left without food.
The world's youngest nation, which is deeply impoverished, has long been troubled by insecurity and instability.
But recent fighting between factions allied to President Salva Kiir and his long-time rival Vice-President Riek Machar have sparked worries of renewed war.
International observers fear a return to the five-year civil war that cost some 400,000 lives and was ended by a 2018 peace deal which brought the two together in a unity government, but which appears to be unravelling.
Clashes between the South Sudan People's Defence Forces (SSPDF) and the Sudan People's Liberation Army-in Opposition (SPLA-IO) in neighbouring Morobo and Yei counties in Central Equatoria State "have led to civilian displacement and casualties", the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) said.
The state includes the capital, Juba, and under the 2018 agreement was split into areas controlled by government and opposition forces.
Pro-Machar forces denounced government attacks on a military cantonment in the area earlier this week, urging civilians to leave. The army did not comment.
The UN did not give further details of the clashes, but urged an "immediate cessation of hostilities", especially given the "already fragile political and security conditions".
Morobo County Commissioner Charles Data Bullen said the situation in the area "remains volatile".
Margret Ileli, 28, said she heard gunshots nearby on Tuesday afternoon "and we started running leaving everything behind".
She was now sheltering in Morobo town but told AFP: "I am confused and I don't know what to do next."
Charles Likambo, 30, was also displaced with his family of five, telling AFP he was forced to abandon his crops and goats.
"Me and my family have not received any food assistance, and my children keep on crying because they are hungry," he said, urging humanitarian organisations to help.