Israel's Netanyahu: "Whoever murders hostages doesn't want a deal."

Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's Netanyahu: "Whoever murders hostages doesn't want a deal."

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  • How defeat in Mali raises doubts about Russia's Wagner in Africa

    STORY: At the end of July, the bodies of dozens of mercenaries from Russia's Wagner group lay in the sand of Mali's desert.:: Near Tinzaouaten, MaliThey were killed in a battle with Tuareg rebels during a sandstorm near the town of Tinzaouaten on the Algerian border.It was a heavy defeat, which analysis has now revealed involved seasoned Russian war veterans.:: Near Aguelhok, Mali:: July 2024That shines a spotlight on the dangers for Russian mercenaries who may have thought that an Africa posting was an easy assignment.And it also casts doubt, analysts say, on Moscow's ability to do any better against separatists and powerful offshoots of Al Qaeda and Islamic State than the Western powers recently expelled by juntas in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.:: Bamako, Mali:: FileJedrzej Czerep, an analyst at the Polish Institute of International Affairs, described the defeat as the biggest Wagner has ever suffered in Africa."They were still under the impression that it was essentially an easy fight. They captured Kidal, the northern town in Mali, last year with no fight actually, so they underestimated the quality of the Tuareg fighters that they were facing.":: Near Tinzaouaten, MaliNow, through a combination of publicly available information, interviews with relatives and facial recognition software, Reuters has identified 23 fighters missing in action and two now held in Tuareg captivity.Among them are veterans who had toured in Ukraine, Libya and Syria.Several had survived the siege of Bakhmut in Ukraine, which Wagner's late founder Yevgeny Prigozhin called a "meat grinder." :: PMC Wagner via Telegram:: FileAfter Prigozhin died in August last year, Wagner employees were invited to join a new group.:: Bangui, Central African Republic:: FileIn the Africa Corps, under the defense ministry, recruits could, quote, "fight for justice and the interests of Russia."Wagner's enterprises on the continent have previously involved protecting coup leaders, fighting jihadists and gold mining.Ladd Serwat, an Africa specialist at the U.S.-based Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, said civilian fatalities since Wagner formally became Africa Corps have been "incredibly high.""Those have escalated in Mali beyond those that we saw under the leadership of Prigozhin's.":: Niamey, Niger:: FileACLED data shows violent events linked to Russian mercenaries rose 81% and reported civilian fatalities rose 65% over the past year, compared to the year before Prigozhin's death.Czerep says Africa Corps has also conducted a "massive" recruitment drive."And that created this feeling that this was the best opportunity that mercenaries have to be on the safe side, to earn some money, and also to experience this tropical adventure. It may be ironic, but it seems like it's a holiday type of experience.":: FileTuareg rebels, who are fighting for an independent homeland, say they killed 84 Russians and 47 members of Mali's armed forces in the Battle of Tinzaouaten.Grisly footage of dead fighters has since circulated online.Some relatives say the bodies of their husbands and sons have been abandoned in the desert.Lyubov Bazhenova said she was angry with Wagner for sharing no information about the fate of her son Vladimir Akimov, or the whereabouts of his body.Margarita Goncharova said her son, Vadim Evsiukov had served in Ukraine, but had struggled with survivor's guilt and secretly travelled to Africa in April to join his former commander.One of the most experienced men was Alexander Lazarev, who served in wars against Chechen separatists in the 1990s and 2000s according to his wife's posts in a Wagner channel on the social media app Telegram.:: Tabankort, Mali:: FileWagner has acknowledged heavy losses in the Mali ambush but gave no figure. The Malian army also did not give a death toll. The Russian Ministry of Defense, Foreign Ministry and Wagner, did not respond to requests for comment for this story.A spokesman for the Tuareg rebels said their aim is not to harm anyone and that they don't have a problem with Russia, but that it is Russia that has "invited itself into problems that don't concern it."

  • Zelenskiy says Kyiv anticipated Russian counterattack in Kursk

    KYIV (Reuters) -President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday that Ukrainian forces had anticipated Moscow's counteroffensive in the Russian region of Kursk, his first comments on the pushback this week more than a month after Ukraine's cross-border incursion. Ukraine's troops captured an enclave of western Russian territory in a surprise raid that began in early August, a move aimed at wresting the battlefield initiative from Russia including by diverting Moscow's forces from the eastern front. Its forces made rapid initial gains before stalling, while the situation around the eastern Ukrainian town of Pokrovsk, which has been the focus of Russia's main offensive operations in recent weeks, remained perilous.

  • Israeli special forces 'raid missile site in Syria'

    US media say the operation included special forces who rappelled down from helicopters.

  • Hamas says ready to implement ceasefire without new conditions

    The Palestinian Hamas group said on Wednesday that its negotiators reiterated its readiness to implement an "immediate" ceasefire with Israel in Gaza based on a previous U.S. proposal without new conditions from any party. The Palestinian group said in a statement that their negotiation team, led by senior official Khalil al-Hayya, met mediators on Wednesday including Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and Egypt's intelligence chief Abbas Kamel in Doha to discuss the latest developments in Gaza. Lingering issue include control of the Philadelphi corridor, a narrow stretch of land on Gaza's border with Egypt, persisting.

  • Israel launches multiple airstrikes on southern Lebanon, killing Hezbollah special forces commander

    Israel has launched multiple strikes on southern Lebanon over the last day, including one which killed a senior Hezbollah commander.

  • World must pressure Hamas on Gaza deal, Netanyahu says after group's statement

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that more pressure should be put on Hamas to accept a new Gaza deal proposal, after the Palestinian militant group said it was only willing to implement a ceasefire free of new conditions. The chief U.S. negotiator, CIA head William Burns, said on Saturday that a more detailed ceasefire proposal would be made within several days. On Wednesday, Hamas' negotiation team met the Qatari and Egyptian mediators in Doha and reiterated their readiness to implement an "immediate" ceasefire with Israel in Gaza based on a previous U.S. proposal without new conditions from any party, the group said in a statement.

  • Spain to host meeting of European and Muslim countries on Palestinian statehood

    The foreign ministers of several Muslim and European countries will meet in Madrid on Friday to discuss how to implement a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Spanish and Norwegian governments said. Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares will host the meeting, which will be attended by his European counterparts, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, and members of the Arab-Islamic Contact Group for Gaza.

  • Israel-Hamas war latest: Israeli airstrikes on Palestinian territories kill dozens more

    Israeli airstrikes across Gaza killed dozens more Palestinians on Wednesday, according to local officials. They said strikes on a U.N. school being used as a shelter and two homes killed at least 34 people, including 19 women and children.

  • US shifts one of two aircraft carriers away from Middle East

    One of two U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups deployed to the Middle East in part to deter Iran from carrying out a threatened attack against Israel has departed the region, the Pentagon said on Thursday. The decision to end the dual-carrier presence came nearly three weeks after U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group to remain in the Middle East, even after the arrival of the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group to replace it.

  • Gunmen kill 3 border guards in an attack in restive southeastern Iran

    TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Gunmen killed three border guards and wounded one other person Thursday in restive southeastern Iran, state-run media reported.

  • Gaza carpenter crafts wooden sandals for daughters as war rages

    Twelve-year-old Heba Dawas lost her footwear in the chaos while fleeing Israel's military offensive in Gaza. So her carpenter father made wooden-soled sandals for her so she can tread more safely through the tonnes of rubble, hot sand and twisted metal of the besieged Palestinian enclave. "When we were displaced, we started running and the sandals broke," said Heba, who lives in a tent camp with her family in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.

  • Israel’s crackdown on West Bank insurgency is killing Palestinian youths

    More than 150 teens and children 17 or younger have been killed in the West Bank since Hamas’ brutal attack on communities in southern Israel set off the war last October. Most died in nearly daily raids by the Israeli army that Amnesty International says have used disproportionate and unlawful force.

  • As war rages in Gaza, Israel’s crackdown on West Bank insurgency is killing Palestinian youths

    JENIN, West Bank (AP) — In the web of battered, sun-baked streets winding up the hillside, bloodshed is as unrelenting as the heat. So it is not hard to see why, when raid sirens and gunfire erupted yet again on a morning in late May, 15-year-old Mahmoud Hamadneh turned his bike down an alley that held out the promise of refuge.

  • Hundreds gather on a Seattle beach to remember an American activist killed by the Israeli military

    SEATTLE (AP) — For her 26th birthday in July, human rights activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi gathered friends for a bonfire at one of her favorite places, a sandy beach in Seattle where green-and-white ferries cruise across the dark, flat water and osprey fish overhead.

  • Israeli strikes kill at least six in West Bank

    STORY: Israeli forces conducted fresh raids in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday (September 11), and Palestinian emergency services said an airstrike in the city of Tubas killed five people. The Israeli military confirmed the strike, which it said hit an armed militant group, but gave no details.Israeli solders were seen patrolling the streets of Tubas. Entrances and exits from the city were sealed off.Cellphone video showed military trucks and bulldozers rolling in. The security forces have been conducting a series of operations in the northern West Bank for the past two weeks, with extended raids in Tubas, Jenin and Tulkarm. All three cities have a heavy presence of armed factions including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah.In a separate incident in the city of Tulkarm, the Israeli military said troops backed by police and intelligence services killed an armed militant.Residents reported being forced from their homes. This resident of Tulkarm told Reuters that Israeli soldiers had destroyed his house with explosives and leveled the remains with a bulldozer.Violence has surged in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza.More than 680 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7.In the same period, Israel's domestic security agency says about 40 Israeli troops and civilians have been killed in attacks by Palestinians or in clashes with fighters.On Wednesday, a Palestinian allegedly crashed this fuel truck into a bus stop near a Jewish settlement, critically wounding one Israeli. The Israeli army said the suspect driving the vehicle was shot and killed by security forces at the scene.

  • Opinion - A cease-fire and hostage deal in Gaza will require a change of framework

    The negotiated deal’s framework allows Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who does not want the war to end, to sabotage it every step of the way.

  • Israel-Hamas war latest: Oct. 7 mastermind thanks Hezbollah leader for his help attacking Israel

    Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar thanked Lebanon’s Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah for his support in the ongoing war with Israel in a letter released Friday by Hezbollah’s media office.

  • Israel's 5th strike on same Gaza school 'totally unacceptable,' UN says

    The Al-Jaouni School in Nuseirat in central Gaza was hit by Israeli forces for the fifth time in 11 months on Wednesday night, prompting furious complaints by United Nations leaders. At least 17 people -- including six employees with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, known as UNRWA -- were killed in the latest strike, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Civil Defense and UNRWA. Al-Jaouni School -- like many others in the devastated territory -- doubles as a shelter for displaced Palestinians, and according to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres was housing around 12,000 people when it was bombed.

  • Hamas says it is ready to implement Gaza ceasefire deal without ‘new conditions’

    After meetings with Qatari and Egyptian mediators in Doha on Wednesday, Palestinian militant group Hamas reiterated its "readiness" to adopt US President Joe Biden's long-gestating Gaza ceasefire deal, originally proposed in May, as pressure grows on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to bring home hostages. A Hamas delegation met Qatari and Egyptian mediators in Doha on Wednesday to discuss a truce in Gaza and a potential hostage and prisoner exchange, the militant group said in a statem

  • Biden condemns ‘totally unacceptable’ death of American activist killed by IDF in the West Bank

    President Joe Biden on Wednesday condemned the death of American activist Aysenur Eygi, who was killed at a protest last week in the occupied West Bank by Israeli soldiers.