Author: Disha Mishra
Palestinians burst into celebration across the Gaza Strip on Wednesday at news of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, with some shedding years of joy and others whistling, clapping and chanting “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest). “I am happy, yes, I am crying, but those are tears of joy,” said Ghada, a mother of five displaced from her home in Gaza City during the 15-month-old conflict. “We are being reborn, with every hour of delay Israel conducted a new massacre, I hope it is all getting over now,” she told Reuters via a chat app from a shelter in Deir…
Families of Israeli hostages held in Gaza gathered on Wednesday in the Tel Aviv square where they have held rallies for more than a year, as news trickled out of the agreement struck with Hamas to halt the fighting in Gaza and bring the hostages home. After more than 15 months in Hamas captivity, the first of an initial group of 33 hostages is expected to be returned to Israel on Sunday before negotiations on the release of the remaining 65 begin around two weeks later. The first group, made up of children, women, men over 50 as well as…
A long-sought Gaza ceasefire-for-hostages deal emerged at the end of an intense 96 hours of negotiations in Doha brokered by U.S., Egyptian and Qatari diplomats who persuaded Israel and Hamas finally to conclude the agreement. A senior Biden administration official credited the presence of President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, as being critical to reaching the agreement announced on Wednesday after 15 months of war that devastated the Palestinian enclave and spread conflict across the Middle East. Leading the U.S. side was President Joe Biden’s Middle East envoy, Brett McGurk, who had been in the region since…
Impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was arrested and questioned for hours by investigators on Wednesday in relation to a criminal insurrection probe, ending a weeks-long standoff with authorities. His arrest, the first ever for a sitting president in South Korea, is the latest head-spinning development in one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies, even though the country has a history of prosecuting and imprisoning former leaders. Since lawmakers voted to impeach and strip him of his duties after his short-lived Dec. 3 declaration of martial law, Yoon has been holed up at his hillside residence, guarded by a small…
The threat of powerful wind gusts, combined with bone-dry humidity, in Los Angeles on Wednesday could test firefighters who have been battling to keep monstrous fires in Los Angeles in check since last week. Some 6.5 million people in the Los Angeles area were under a critical fire threat as winds were forecast to be 20 to 40 miles (32-64 km) an hour with gusts up to 70 mph and humidity dropping into the single digits, the National Weather Service said. The death toll from the fires rose by one on Tuesday to 25, according to the Los Angeles medical…
Negotiators in Qatar appeared on Wednesday to be close to sealing a deal on a ceasefire in the war in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas after 15 months of death and destruction. An Israeli official said Hamas had agreed to a ceasefire and hostage return proposal shared by Qatari negotiators. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said shortly afterward that Hamas had not yet given a response. A Hamas official who declined to be named also said that the group had not yet given a written response to the proposal. Officials from mediators Qatar, Egypt…
The Palestinian Authority must be the sole governing power in Gaza after the war, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa said on Wednesday, as expectations grew that a deal to halt fighting and start returning Israeli hostages was near. Who will run Gaza after the war remains one of the great unanswered questions in the negotiations, which have focused on an immediate ceasefire and exchanging hostages still held in the enclave for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Speaking at a conference in Norway, Mustafa said pressure must continue to agree the ceasefire in Gaza and allow in more humanitarian aid for…
(Forelines) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office denied on Wednesday that Hamas had agreed to the Gaza ceasefire proposal from Qatari mediators, following an Israeli official stated the Palestinian militant group had given its approval. After the green light from Hamas, the deal would be officially announced on Thursday and would come into effect on Sunday with the release of the first of the hostages, according to Reuters cited Israeli media channels report. However the prime minister’s office stated that the Hamas had not returned its response to the deal. “Contrary to reports, the Hamas terror organisation has not…
Advisers to President-elect Donald Trump now concede that the Ukraine war will take months or even longer to resolve, a sharp reality check on his biggest foreign policy promise – to strike a peace deal on his first day in the White House. Two Trump associates, who have discussed the war in Ukraine with the president-elect, told Reuters they were looking at a timeline of months to resolve the conflict, describing the Day One promises as a combination of campaign bluster and a lack of appreciation of the intractability of the conflict and the time it takes to staff up…
The Senate intelligence committee holds a confirmation hearing on Wednesday for President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be CIA director, John Ratcliffe, a former Republican lawmaker who was accused of using intelligence for political ends as the nation’s top spy during the incoming U.S. leader’s first term. Ratcliffe is all but certain to win the Republican-run Senate’s approval to lead the premier U.S. intelligence agency as the United States grapples with China, Russia’s war in Ukraine and growing ties between the two nuclear powers, Iran and North Korea. But the hearing also will replay allegations that Ratcliffe allowed politics to interfere…