Gaza ceasefire talks resume as Israeli assault kills hundreds in 72 hours

Update Gaza ceasefire talks resume as Israeli assault kills hundreds in 72 hours
This picture taken from a position in southern Israel on the border with the Gaza Strip shows Israeli tanks and bulldozers deployed as smoke billows over destroyed buildings in Gaza during Israeli bombardment on May 17, 2025. (AFP)
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Updated 17 May 2025
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Gaza ceasefire talks resume as Israeli assault kills hundreds in 72 hours

Gaza ceasefire talks resume as Israeli assault kills hundreds in 72 hours
  • “This round of negotiations began without any preconditions from either side,” said Al-Nunu
  • “Hamas will present its viewpoint on all issues, especially ending the war”

JERUSALEM/CAIRO: Israel and Hamas resumed ceasefire talks on Saturday in Qatar, both sides said, even as Israeli forces ramped up a bombing campaign that has killed hundreds of people over 72 hours, and mobilized for a massive new ground assault.

Palestinian health authorities said at least 146 people had been confirmed killed in the third day of Israel’s latest bombing campaign, one of the deadliest waves of strikes since a ceasefire collapsed in March. Many hundreds more were wounded in hospitals and countless others buried under rubble.

Israel says it is mobilizing to seize more ground in Gaza in a new campaign dubbed “Operation Gideon’s Chariots,” following a visit this week to the Middle East by US President Donald Trump. It has halted all supplies entering Gaza since the start of March, leading to rising international concern over the plight of the enclave’s 2.3 million residents.

Reuters journalists saw Israeli tanks assembled on the outskirts of the enclave. Inside Gaza, people fled from the bombardment of northern areas, pushing their belongings on carts.

“They are bombing houses, and the people are afraid. What should we do?” Imad Naseer, 50, fleeing his home in the face of the assault, told Reuters. “They treat us as if we are animals, not as humans.”

Taher Al-Nono, the media adviser for the Hamas leadership, told Reuters a new round of indirect talks with the Israeli delegation in Doha began on Saturday, discussing all issues “without pre-conditions.”

“The Hamas delegation outlined the position of the group and the necessity to end the war, swap prisoners, the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and allowing humanitarian aid and all the needs of the people of Gaza back into the strip,” he added.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz also said in a statement that negotiations on a deal to release Israeli hostages held by Hamas had resumed in Doha. He noted that the talks had started without Israel first agreeing to a ceasefire or to lift its blockade.

Israel’s military said it was conducting extensive strikes and mobilizing troops with the aim of achieving “operational control” in parts of Gaza.

Gaza health authorities said most of those killed on Saturday were in towns on the northern edge of the enclave, including Beit Lahiya and the Jabalia refugee camp, as well as in the southern city of Khan Younis. They said 459 people had been injured.

Israeli forces had told people to leave the northern areas on Friday.

“Northern Gaza is witnessing a systematic campaign of extermination,” Hamas said in a statement, calling on Arab leaders at a summit in Baghdad to help stop the aggression and ensure the delivery of aid.

FAMINE LOOMS

Talks since March have failed to restore a truce under which Hamas would release remaining hostages captured in the October, 2023 assault on Israel that precipitated the war. Hamas has long said it would not free them unless Israel ends its campaign; Israel says it will fight on until Hamas is dismantled.

At the Arab League summit, Egypt’s President Abdel-Fatah El-Sisi, whose country mediates Gaza peace talks alongside Qatar, said Israel’s actions aimed at “obliterating and annihilating” the Palestinians and “ending their existence in the Gaza Strip.”

United Nations experts say famine now looms in Gaza more than two months after Israel halted all deliveries of supplies. UN aid chief Tom Fletcher asked the Security Council this week if it would act to “prevent genocide.”

Israel says enough food reached Gaza during the six-week ceasefire at the start of the year to stave off hunger now, and blames Hamas for the suffering of civilians for operating among them and hijacking aid, which Hamas denies.

On Friday, Trump said “a lot of people are starving” in Gaza.

A US-backed foundation aims to start distributing aid to Gazans by the end of May using private US security and logistics firms. The UN has said it won’t work with them because they are not impartial.

Gaza’s health system is barely operational with hospitals hit repeatedly by the Israeli military during the 19-month war and medical supplies drying up. The head of the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza, Marwan Al-Sultan, said huge numbers of wounded victims of the latest bombing were in critical condition.

“Since midnight, we have received 58 martyrs, while a large number of victims remain under the rubble. The situation inside the hospital is catastrophic,” he said on X.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on May 5 that Israel was planning an expanded offensive against Hamas. His security cabinet approved plans that could involve seizing the entire strip and controlling aid.

Israel’s declared goal in Gaza is the elimination of the military and governmental capabilities of Hamas, which attacked Israeli communities on October 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and seizing about 250 hostages.

Its military campaign has devastated the enclave, pushing nearly all residents from their homes and killing more than 53,000 people according to Gaza health authorities.

NBC News reported on Friday, citing five sources, that the Trump administration was working on a plan to permanently relocate as many as one million Palestinians from Gaza to Libya. All major Palestinian political groups reject any such displacement. 


WFP says ‘handful of bakeries’ making bread again in Gaza

WFP says ‘handful of bakeries’ making bread again in Gaza
Updated 13 sec ago
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WFP says ‘handful of bakeries’ making bread again in Gaza

WFP says ‘handful of bakeries’ making bread again in Gaza
“A handful of bakeries in south and central Gaza have resumed bread production,” WFP said

ROME: The UN’s World Food Programme said Thursday a “handful of bakeries” in Gaza had begun making and distributing bread again after Israel allowed aid trucks into the Strip.

“A handful of bakeries in south and central Gaza... have resumed bread production after dozens of trucks were finally able to collect cargo from the Kerem Shalom border crossing and deliver it overnight,” the WFP said in a statement.

“These bakeries are now operational distributing bread via hot meal kitchens,” it said.

Morocco to spend $670m to replenish livestock up to 2026

Morocco to spend $670m to replenish livestock up to 2026
Updated 12 min 54 sec ago
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Morocco to spend $670m to replenish livestock up to 2026

Morocco to spend $670m to replenish livestock up to 2026
  • Six years of drought reduced the cattle and sheep herds by 38 percent this year
  • The government also includes aid to farmers

RABAT: Morocco plans to spend 6.2 billion dirhams ($670 mln) on a 2025-2026 program to replenish its livestock herd, which has been reduced following years of prolonged drought, agriculture minister Ahmed El Bouari said on Thursday.

Six years of drought caused mass job losses in the farming sector and reduced the cattle and sheep herds by 38 percent this year, compared to the last census nine years ago.

Under the recovery program, 3 billion dirhams will be allocated in 2025 and 3.2 billion next year to measures including debt relief and restructuring for livestock farmers, as well as feed subsidies, Bouari told reporters.

The government also includes aid to farmers who retain breeding female livestock, along with veterinary campaigns, genetic improvement and artificial insemination, he said.

In February, authorities asked citizens to forgo the ritual of slaughtering sheep on the Eid Adha this year, to help restore the sheep herd.


In north Lebanon, Syrian Alawites shelter among graves

In north Lebanon, Syrian Alawites shelter among graves
Updated 57 min 5 sec ago
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In north Lebanon, Syrian Alawites shelter among graves

In north Lebanon, Syrian Alawites shelter among graves
  • “We each have our own horror story that drove us to this place,” said a man with sunken eyes
  • Around 600 people have sought shelter at the Hissa mosque

HISSA, Lebanon: Behind a ramshackle mosque in Hissa, north Lebanon, the living are making a home for themselves among the dead.

Beside mounds of garbage in the shade of towering trees, men, women and children from Syria’s minority Alawite community seek shelter among the graves surrounding the half-built mosque — grateful to have escaped the sectarian violence at home but fearing for their future.

“We each have our own horror story that drove us to this place,” said a man with sunken eyes.

One such story was of a mother who had been killed in front of her children by unknown militants as they crossed the border, said others staying at the mosque.

All of the refugees that spoke to Reuters requested anonymity for fear of retribution.

Around 600 people have sought shelter at the Hissa mosque. Hundreds sleep in the main hall, including a day-old baby.

On the building’s unfinished second story, plastic sheets stretched over wooden beams divide traumatized families.

Others sleep on the roof. One family has set up camp under the stairwell, another by the tomb of a local saint. Some sleep on the graves in the surrounding cemetery, others under trees with only thin blankets for warmth.

They are among the tens of thousands refugees who have fled Syria since March, when the country suffered its worst bloodshed since Bashar Assad was toppled from power by Islamist-led rebels in December.

Almost 40,000 people have fled Syria into north Lebanon since then, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said in a statement.

The outflow comes at a time when humanitarian funding is being squeezed after US President Donald Trump’s decision to freeze foreign aid and dismantle the US Agency for International Development (USAID) earlier this year.

NEEDS BUT NO RESOURCES

The recent violence in Syria, which has pitted the Islamist-led government’s security forces against fighters from the Alawite minority, the sect to which Assad’s family belongs, has killed more than 1,000 people since March.

For more than 50 years, Assad and his father before him crushed any opposition from Syria’s Sunni Muslims, who make up more than 70 percent of the population. Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, took many of the top positions in government and the military and ran big businesses.

Alawites now accuse the new government of President Ahmed Al-Sharaa of exacting revenge, but Sharaa says he will pursue inclusive policies to unite the country shattered by civil war and attract foreign investment.

Trump said last week he would lift sanctions on Syria, triggering hopes of economic renewal. But this has provided little comfort to the refugees in northern Lebanon, who are struggling to meet their basic needs.

“UNHCR, but also other agencies, are not now in a position to say you can count on us,” said Ivo Freijsen, UNHCR representative in Lebanon, in an interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation in April.

“So, in response to new arrivals, yes, we will try, but it will be less (than before).”

More refugees come from Syria every day. Almost 50 people arrived over two days last week, said one camp representative, who asked not to be named for security reasons.

UNHCR is equipping new arrivals with essential items like mattresses, blankets and clothes, as well as providing medical help and mental health support, said a spokesperson.

“UNHCR is also conducting rehabilitation works in shelters to make sure families are protected,” the spokesperson added.

’FORGOTTEN’ REFUGEES

At the mosque, food is scarce and the portable toilets provided by an aid group have flooded. Garbage is piling up and is attracting vermin. Snakes have been killed in the camp, and one refugee spoke of the “biggest centipedes we have ever seen.”

The camp’s children have nowhere to go.

It can be difficult for refugee children to access Lebanon’s school system, Human Rights Watch has said, while the refugees at the mosque say private schools are too expensive and may not accept children enrolling mid-year.

“We are becoming a refugee camp without realizing it,” said another man, also speaking on condition of anonymity.

“We need schools, we need toilets, we need clinics.”

He said he fled his home in Damascus after being warned by his neighbor that militants were asking about him. He never expects to go back and is hoping to move abroad.

But in the meantime, he said he needs to create a life for his children.

“What’s his fault?” he asked, beckoning to his nine-year-old son. “He was a computer whiz and now he is not even going to school.”

The refugees sheltering in the mosque are among the millions of people affected by Trump’s decision to freeze US funding to humanitarian programs in February.

The UNHCR has been forced to reduce all aspects of its operations in Lebanon, Freijsen said, including support to Syrian refugees.

The UNHCR had enough money to cover only 14 percent of its planned operations in Lebanon and 17 percent of its global operations by the end of March, the UN agency said in a report.

“Our assistance is not what it is supposed to be,” Freijsen said. “In the past, we always had the resources, or we could easily mobilize the resources. These days are over, and that’s painful.”

The people in the mosque fear that they have been forgotten.

“Human rights are a lie,” a third man said, his eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep. “It is just something (that the powerful) instrumentalize when they want.”


More than 70 UN member states demand protection of civilians amid mounting fears over Gaza

More than 70 UN member states demand protection of civilians amid mounting fears over Gaza
Updated 22 May 2025
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More than 70 UN member states demand protection of civilians amid mounting fears over Gaza

More than 70 UN member states demand protection of civilians amid mounting fears over Gaza
  • Joint statement ahead of UN debate on the issue highlights plight of Palestinians as Israel launches major offensive
  • ‘Today, we come with one clear message: The protection of civilians is not optional,’ the states say

NEW YORK CITY: More than 70 UN member states signed a joint statement calling for the urgent protection of civilians in armed conflicts, amid fears that thousands of Palestinians in Gaza could face starvation.

The statement preceded an annual open debate at the UN on the issue of protecting civilians, which included a briefing from the UN’s humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, who this week warned that 14,000 babies in Gaza were at risk of dying from hunger. Israel launched its latest major military offensive in the territory this week.

“Civilians in armed conflicts continue to live under unthinkable conditions of constant danger, insecurity and suffering,” the joint statement said.

At least 36,000 civilian deaths were recorded in 14 armed conflicts last year, and tens of thousands of people were injured as a result of explosive devices, it added.

It cited reports from the UN’s humanitarian agency, OCHA, that warned Gaza is facing the “worst humanitarian crisis” since the war between Israel and Hamas began in October 2023.

“This cannot continue,” the statement continued. “Today, we come with one clear message: The protection of civilians is not optional. It is a legal obligation under international humanitarian law, and a moral imperative we cannot afford to neglect.

“Civilian women and men, children, older persons, and persons with disabilities, all suffer. Health workers, farmers, teachers are killed, injured and forced to flee. Civilians are too often targeted or simply abandoned in the calculus of war.

“Their protection must not be a secondary consideration — it must be central to all military planning and political decisions.”

The UN debate on Thursday also included a briefing by Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross. The organization has repeatedly warned of imminent famine in Gaza, following Israel’s implementation in March of a blockade on humanitarian goods entering the territory.

Although the blockade was lifted this week, the UN has still struggled to transport desperately needed aid into the enclave. UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Wednesday that the Israeli military has provided aid trucks with access to Gaza only via an unsafe road. Discussions between the international organization and Israel are ongoing, he added.

The joint statement said: “We commend the vital role of humanitarian actors, and we condemn all acts of violence and threats against them. Last year was the deadliest year on record for humanitarian personnel, when more than 360 humanitarians were killed in 20 countries.

“This has to stop. We reaffirm our determination to take concrete measures and use diplomatic means to ensure the safety and security of humanitarian personnel, and to enable them to carry out their activities and mandate in accordance with humanitarian principles.”

Several major countries were absent from the list of signatories, but those who did sign included the EU, China and France, as well as Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Arab world.

“Let us reiterate our collective responsibility to protect the most vulnerable, to uphold international law, to prioritize the safety, dignity and rights of civilians, and to ensure that their faces and voices — so often invisible and silenced behind statistics — remain central to our actions,” the statement added.

“Let us recommit not only to words, but to concrete steps — toward protection, toward accountability, and ultimately, toward peace.”


UAE calls for investigation after Israeli forces fire near visiting diplomats

UAE calls for investigation after Israeli forces fire near visiting diplomats
Updated 22 May 2025
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UAE calls for investigation after Israeli forces fire near visiting diplomats

UAE calls for investigation after Israeli forces fire near visiting diplomats
  • ‘Warning shots’ reported as envoys toured Jenin in West Bank
  • Action ‘clear violation of international laws,’ foreign ministry says

LONDON: The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs has called for an investigation into Israeli forces opening fire during a visit by foreign diplomats to the occupied West Bank on Wednesday.

The ministry on Thursday condemned the incident near the Jenin camp entrance which drew condemnation from more than 20 countries, including Saudi Arabia, the UK, Italy, China, Egypt, France, Jordan, Turkiye and Russia.

It said the Israeli action was a clear violation of international laws and norms that ensure the protection of diplomats and their missions and obstructed international efforts to achieve peace and stability, the Emirates News Agency reported.

It called for the violations to be investigated and the perpetrators punished.

On Wednesday, Israeli forces reported firing “warning shots” during a visit by foreign diplomats to Jenin. It said it “regrets the inconvenience caused” by the shooting, which resulted in no injuries.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas urged Israel to hold to account those responsible for the shootings.

The incident came as international pressure intensified over the war in Gaza, where Palestinians remain desperate for supplies despite the easing of a two-month aid blockade.