WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. CIA Director Bill Burns is expected to travel to Cairo this weekend to meet with his Egyptian and Israeli counterparts and the Qatari prime minister to try to reach a breakthrough in talks on releasing hostages held in Gaza by Hamas, Axios reporter Barak Ravid posted on social media site X on Thursday, citing two sources.
(Reporting by Jasper Ward)
Ukrainian authorities called Moscow's strike on the architectural landmark in Odesa a "war crime".
Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Hamas on Monday to swiftly accept Israel's latest and "extraordinarily generous" proposal for a Gaza truce.
Israel is determined to launch a ground offensive against Hamas in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost town, a plan that has raised global alarm because of the potential for harm to more than a million Palestinian civilians sheltering there. Israel has approved military plans for its offensive and has moved troops and tanks to southern Israel in apparent preparation — though it's still unknown when or if it will happen.
HAIFA, Israel (Reuters) -Eli Harel was an Israeli soldier in his early thirties when he was sent into Lebanon in 2006 to battle fighters from the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah in a bloody, largely inconclusive month-long war. Now 50, Harel is ready to rejoin the army to fight the same group if shelling along Israel's northern border turns into a full-blown war with Iran's most powerful regional proxy. This time Israeli forces would face some of the most challenging fighting conditions imaginable, he said.
VANCOUVER — The Gaza protest encampment movement that has roiled academic campuses in the United States and Canada arrived in British Columbia on Monday, with demonstrators setting up unauthorized fencing and tents at the University of B.C. Protesters had set up about 20 tents on MacInnes Field by noon, erecting temporary fencing around the site and requiring people to wear masks to enter. Premier David Eby called on the school and student leaders to balance free speech with people's personal sa
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Tuesday to go ahead with a long-promised assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, whatever the response by Hamas to the latest proposals for a halt to the fighting and a return of Israeli hostages. Expectations that a ceasefire agreement could be in sight have grown in recent days following a renewed push led by Egypt to revive stalled negotiations between Israel and Hamas, Gaza's ruling Palestinian Islamist group.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The top U.N. court rejected on Tuesday a request by Nicaragua to order Germany to halt military and other aid to Israel and renew funding to the U.N. aid agency in Gaza. The International Court of Justice said that legal conditions for making such an order weren't met and ruled against the request in a 15-1 vote, effectively siding with Germany, which told judges that it's barely exporting any arms to Israel. However, the 16-judge panel declined to throw out the cas
JERUSALEM (AP) — A Portuguese-flagged container ship came under attack by a drone in the far reaches of the Arabian Sea, corresponding with a claim by Yemen's Houthi rebels that they assaulted the ship there, authorities said Tuesday. The attack on the MSC Orion, occurring some 600 kilometers (375 miles) off the coast of Yemen, appeared to be the first confirmed deep-sea assault claimed by the Houthis since they began targeting ships in November. It suggests the Houthis — or potentially their ma
The Biden administration is setting its face against any possible prosecution of members of Israel’s government, amid speculation that the International Criminal Court (ICC) could soon issue arrest warrants over the conduct of the war in Gaza. “We do not support it,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters at Monday’s media briefing, referring…
Hamas is considering a new framework proposed by Egypt that calls for the group to release as many as 33 hostages kidnapped from Israel in exchange for a pause in hostilities in Gaza, an Israeli source familiar with the negotiations and a foreign diplomatic source told CNN.
The tiny Persian Gulf nation initially had success persuading Hamas to give up hostages. Critics claim its influence and commitment have diminished.
VANCOUVER — Pro-Palestinian protesters camped out at the University of British Columbia's Vancouver campus are bringing in water, food and other supplies in preparation to stay as long as it takes the school to accept their demands. The encampment that went up Monday has since grown to about 30 tents, with some filled with large quantities of bottled water, food and bedding, while two portable toilets have also been brought in. A protest spokesman, who would only identify himself as Kevin, said
NEW YORK (AP) — Dozens of protesters took over a building at Columbia University on Tuesday, barricading entrances and unfurling a Palestinian flag from a window in an escalation of demonstrations against the Israel-Hamas war on college campuses nationwide. The school promised they would face expulsion. The occupation at the campus in New York — where protesters had shrugged off an earlier ultimatum to abandon a tent encampment Monday or be suspended — unfolded as other universities stepped up e
Iraq has repatriated hundreds more of its citizens linked to the Islamic State group from a sprawling camp in northeastern Syria, Iraqi and Syrian officials said Monday. Ali Jahangir, a spokesman for Iraq’s Ministry of Migration and Displaced, said the nearly 700 Iraqis, mostly women and children, arrived late Sunday at a camp near Iraq’s northern city of Mosul, where they will undergo a rehabilitation program with the help of international agencies in an effort to distance them from extremist ideology. “These are Iraqi citizens that we have to rehabilitate,” Jahangir said.
A U.S. Navy ship and several Army vessels involved in an American-led effort to bring more aid into the besieged Gaza Strip are offshore of the enclave and building out a floating platform for the operation that the Pentagon has said will cost at least $320 million. Sabrina Singh, Pentagon spokeswoman, told reporters the cost is a rough estimate for the project and includes the transportation of the equipment and pier sections from the United States to the coast of Gaza, as well as the construction and aid delivery operations. Satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press on Tuesday show the USNS Roy P. Benavidez about 11 kilometers (6.8 miles) from the port on shore, where the base of operations for the project is being built by the Israeli military.
US colleges have been using law enforcement – along with academic suspensions and, for at least one school, expulsion – to try to bring to heel student demonstrations.
José Andrés, celebrity chef and founder of nonprofit World Central Kitchen (WCK), called on Israel to “step up” in a new op-ed, where he said his organization will resume aid trips in Gaza after seven workers were killed. In the piece, Andrés said returning to Gaza is both the hardest and easiest decision to make,…
CAIRO (Reuters) -Israeli airstrikes killed dozens of Palestinians on Monday as Hamas leaders visited Cairo for a new round of truce talks, with more than half the dead in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, which foreign leaders have urged Israel not to invade. Hours after the strikes on Rafah, where almost half of Gaza's 2.3 million population have sought refuge from months of Israeli bombardment, Egypt's state-affiliated television said the Hamas delegation left Cairo for Doha and would return at an unspecified later date with a written response to the ceasefire proposal.
The IDF has made use of sniper-gun mounted drones in the Israel-Hamas war.
BEIJING/CAIRO (Reuters) -Rival Palestinian groups Hamas and Fatah have expressed the will to seek reconciliation through dialogue at unity talks in Beijing, China's foreign ministry said on Tuesday. The two factions have not managed to heal political disputes since Hamas fighters expelled Fatah from the Gaza Strip in a short war in 2007, and their talks took place against the backdrop of Israel's war on Hamas in Gaza.
