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WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden vowed Monday to continue working to end the war in Gaza during his final months in office, after he bowed out of his reelection bid.
“I’ll be working very closely with the Israelis and with the Palestinians to try to work out how we can get the Gaza war to end, and Middle East peace, and get all those hostages home,” Biden said in a public call into his campaign headquarters, which has transitioned to supporting Vice President Kamala Harris.
ISTANBUL: Thirty-two people went on trial in Turkiye on Monday over a fire at a luxury ski resort hotel in January that killed 78 people, including 36 children, local media reported.
Entire families perished when the huge blaze swept through the Grand Kartal Hotel in the northern mountain resort of Kartalkaya in the early hours of January 21.
Questions have multiplied about fire safety measures at the hotel and victims’ families allege that negligence contributed to the high death toll.
More than 130 people were injured and the 12-story building was destroyed.
Thirteen of the defendants – including senior officials at the hotel, the fire department and the city council – face up to 1,998 years in prison each on 78 charges, including “manslaughter with possible intent” to kill.
Survivors and experts have said the hotel’s fire alarm system did not work.
According to the indictment, the suspects facing manslaughter charges include the hotel’s owner, managers and members of the board, the deputy mayor of town of Bolu and two fire department officials.
Before the hearing, victims’ families gathered outside Bolu high school, where the trial is taking place, carrying portraits of the deceased.
They read out a statement, alleging countless breaches of safety and attempts to conceal evidence.
“During the fire, the owners, managers and employees of the Grand Kartal Hotel failed to alert guests or activate the alarm system.
“They rushed to save their cars while our loved ones were suffocating in the smoke,” they alleged.
“An inspection report drawn up just one month before the fire clearly showed a lack of fire safety measures but the hotel owners ignored it on the grounds that the measures would be too costly,” they continued.
“We know that the authorities turned a blind eye to this negligence, that evidence was concealed and that the camera recordings were deleted.”
At the time of the fire, the tourism ministry and Bolu city council blamed each other for the disaster.
Due to the large number of defendants and plaintiffs – 210 civil parties, the Bolu High Criminal Court is sitting at the high school’s sports hall.
Ozgur Ozel, leader of the main opposition CHP, would attend the hearing, the social-democratic party said.
The trial is expected to last two weeks.
US special envoy Thomas Barrack said on Monday that he was “unbelievably satisfied” with the Lebanese government’s reply to an American proposal on how to disarm Hezbollah, which had signalled in recent days that it will not give up all its arms.
“What the government gave us was something spectacular in a very short period of time. I’m unbelievably satisfied with the response,” Barrack told reporters after meeting Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, without giving details of the response.
Aoun’s team gave Barrack a seven-page reply to his June 19 proposal.
DOHA: Hamas and Israel were resuming talks in Qatar on Monday, a Palestinian official said, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to Washington to meet President Donald Trump, who has pushed for a “deal this week” between the foes.
The latest round of negotiations on the war in Gaza began on Sunday in Doha, aiming to broker a ceasefire and reach an agreement on the release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
“Indirect negotiations are scheduled to take place before noon today in Doha between the Hamas and Israeli delegations to continue discussions” on the proposal, a Palestinian official familiar with the negotiations said.
Ahead of Netanyahu’s third visit since Trump’s return to office this year, the US president said there was a “good chance” of reaching an agreement.
“We’ve gotten a lot of the hostages out, but pertaining to the remaining hostages, quite a few of them will be coming out,” he told journalists.
Netanyahu, speaking before heading to Washington, said his meeting with Trump could “definitely help advance this” deal.
The US president is pushing for a truce in the Gaza Strip, plunged into a humanitarian crisis after nearly two years of war.
Netanyahu said he dispatched the team to Doha with “clear instructions” to reach an agreement “under the conditions that we have agreed to.”
He previously said Hamas’s response to a draft US-backed ceasefire proposal, conveyed through Qatari and Egyptian mediators, contained “unacceptable” demands.
Two Palestinian sources close to the discussions had earlier said the proposal included a 60-day truce, during which Hamas would release 10 living hostages and several bodies in exchange for Palestinians detained by Israel.
However, they said, the group was also demanding certain conditions for Israel’s withdrawal, guarantees against a resumption of fighting during negotiations, and the return of the UN-led aid distribution system.
Netanyahu has an “important mission” in Washington, “advancing a deal to bring all our hostages home,” said Israeli President Isaac Herzog.
Trump is not scheduled to meet the Israeli premier until 6:30 p.m. (2230 GMT) Monday, the White House said, without the usual presence of journalists.
Of the 251 hostages taken by Palestinian militants during the 2023 attack, 49 are still being held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
Since Hamas’s October 2023 attack sparked the massive Israeli offensive in Gaza, mediators have brokered two temporary halts in the fighting. They have seen hostages freed in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody.
Recent efforts to broker a new truce have repeatedly failed, with the primary point of contention being Israel’s rejection of Hamas’s demand for a lasting ceasefire.
In Gaza, the territory’s civil defense agency reported 12 people killed in gunfire or strikes on Monday. AFP has contacted the Israeli military for comment.
“We are losing young people, families and children every day, and this must stop now,” Gaza resident Osama Al-Hanawi said.
“Enough blood has been shed.”
Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defense agency.
The war has created dire humanitarian conditions for the more than two million people in the Gaza Strip.
A US- and Israel-backed group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), took the lead in food distribution in the territory in late May, when Israel partially lifted a more than two-month blockade on aid deliveries.
But its operations have had a chaotic rollout, with repeated reports of aid seekers killed near its facilities while awaiting rations.
UN agencies and major aid groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF over concerns it was designed to cater to Israeli military objectives.
The UN human rights office said last week that more than 500 people have been killed waiting to access food from GHF distribution points.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza on Sunday placed that toll even higher, at 751 killed.
Hamas’s October 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 57,418 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The United Nations considers the figures reliable.
ANKARA: Seven more Turkish soldiers have died from methane gas poisoning following a cave search operation in northern Iraq, Turkiye’s Defense Ministry said Monday, bringing the death toll to 12.
The soldiers had been searching for the remains of a fellow soldier previously killed by Kurdish militants.
The troops were searching a mountain cave when 19 of them were exposed to the gas, according to the ministry. Five of the soldiers died Sunday from the colorless, odorless, flammable gas that can cause asphyxiation in sufficient concentration, and seven more succumbed on Monday.
“We pray for God’s mercy upon our heroic martyrs who lost their lives in this tragic event,” the ministry said Monday, also expressing hope for a rapid recovery for other troops that were affected.
It said Defense Minister Yasar Guler and armed forces’ commanders were traveling to the region to carry out “inspections and evaluations” and attend funeral ceremonies.
The ministry said the incident took place in the “Claw-Lock Operation region” — a reference to an operation launched against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, in northern Iraq in April 2022.
There was no immediate information on the condition of the seven other soldiers who were affected by the gas.
Turkiye and the PKK have waged a 40-year conflict that has often spilled over into Iraq and Syria. Turkiye has set up a series of bases in northern Iraq, where the PKK has been established for decades.
The PKK, which is considered a terrorist organization by Turkiye and most of the West, announced in May that it would disband and renounce armed conflict as part of a new peace initiative with Turkiye.
Its fighters are expected to begin handing over their weapons over the next few days in the first concrete move toward disarmament.
According to the ministry, the Turkish unit overcome by methane gas had been searching for the remains of an infantry officer killed by “terrorist gunfire” during a search-and-clear mission in May 2022. Recovery teams have been scouring the area for the past three years.
The cave where the incident occurred sits at an altitude of 852 meters (2,795 feet) and had previously been used by the PKK as a field hospital.
