Air France, Transavia halt Beirut flights until Tuesday

Air France, Transavia halt Beirut flights until Tuesday
Flights to Beirut by Air France and low-cost carrier Transavia France will remain suspended until at least Tuesday due to "security" concerns in the region, parent company Air France-KLM said. (Shutterstock/File)
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Updated 03 August 2024

Air France, Transavia halt Beirut flights until Tuesday

Air France, Transavia halt Beirut flights until Tuesday
  • “Any resumption of operation will be subject to a renewed evaluation on the ground,” a spokesman said Saturday
  • Flights to Tel Aviv will continue as normal

PARIS: Flights to Beirut by Air France and low-cost carrier Transavia France will remain suspended until at least Tuesday due to “security” concerns in the region, parent company Air France-KLM said.
The two French airlines first stopped servicing the route on Monday, a day after Israel vowed to retaliate following rocket fire from Lebanon that killed 12 people in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.
“Any resumption of operation will be subject to a renewed evaluation on the ground,” a spokesman said Saturday, adding that passengers with reservations could rebook at no extra cost.
Flights to Tel Aviv will continue as normal, he added.
The rocket attack on the Golan Heights sparked fears that fighting between Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel would escalate.
When those fears subsided somewhat the airlines announced on Tuesday that flights would resume on Wednesday.
But Israel then struck a Hezbollah stronghold in south Beirut on Tuesday evening, targeting a senior commander it blamed for the rocket strike on the Golan Heights.
This development sparked an extension of the flight suspension until Saturday, which has now been prolonged again.
Iran said earlier on Saturday it expects Hezbollah to hit deeper inside Israel and no longer be confined to military targets.
Hezbollah has been exchanging near-daily fire with Israeli forces.
German carrier Lufthansa has suspended flights until August 12.


UN airdrops food aid in S.Sudan to people hit by conflict

Updated 1 sec ago

UN airdrops food aid in S.Sudan to people hit by conflict

UN airdrops food aid in S.Sudan to people hit by conflict
NAIROBI: The World Food Programme said Monday it had airdropped food aid to help tens of thousands of people in remote parts of South Sudan where surging conflict has pushed some communities “to the brink of famine.”
The unstable east African nation has seen a drastic uptick in violence since simmering rivalry between President Salva Kiir and his vice president Riek Machar boiled over into open hostilities in March.
The tensions raised fears of a return to full-scale war in the impoverished country, the world’s youngest, where a civil war killed some 400,000 people in 2013-2018.
“These distributions mark WFP’s first access in over four months to deliver life-saving food and nutrition assistance to more than 40,000 people... in the most remote parts of Nasir and Ulang counties, areas only accessible by air,” the United Nations agency said in a statement.
More than one million people across Upper Nile state — which borders war-torn Sudan — face acute hunger, including over 32,000 people already experiencing “catastrophic” levels of hunger, the WFP warned, adding the figure had tripled since conflict flared, triggering mass displacement.
Fighting has blocked main river routes, which are the most cost-effective way to reach large swathes of Upper Nile and northern Jonglei state to deliver assistance, the UN agency added.
Across South Sudan, 7.7 million people, or 57 percent of the population, face “crisis, emergency or catastrophic” levels of hunger, it said.
A funding shortfall has forced the WFP to prioritize assistance with reduced rations for only the most vulnerable 2.5 million people.
The agency has appealed for $274 million to continue life-saving operations through December.

Gaza civil defense says 12 killed by Israeli forces

Gaza civil defense says 12 killed by Israeli forces
Updated 07 July 2025

Gaza civil defense says 12 killed by Israeli forces

Gaza civil defense says 12 killed by Israeli forces
  • The UN human rights office said last week that more than 500 people have been killed waiting to access food from GHF aid distribution points

GAZA CITY: Gaza’s civil defense agency said Israeli forces killed at least 12 people on Monday, including six in a clinic housing Palestinians displaced after 21 months of war.
Israel has recently expanded its military operations in the Gaza Strip, where the war has created dire humanitarian conditions for the Palestinian territory’s population of more than two million.
Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that six people were killed and 15 injured in an Israeli air strike that hit the Al-Rimal clinic, “which houses hundreds of displaced people, in the Al-Rimal neighborhood west of Gaza City.”
AFP footage showed Palestinians, including groups of young children, combing through the bombed-out interior of the clinic, where mattresses lay alongside wood, metal and concrete broken apart in the blast.
“We were surprised by missiles and explosions inside the building,” eyewitness Salman Qudum told AFP.
“We did not know where to go because of the dust and destruction.”
In the south of the territory, Bassal said two people were killed and 20 others injured by Israeli forces’ gunfire while waiting for aid near a distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
A US- and Israel-backed group, the GHF took the lead in food distribution in the territory in late May, but its operations have had a chaotic rollout with repeated reports of aid seekers killed near its facilities.


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 higher, at 751 killed.
In Khan Yunis in the south, Bassal reported two people killed in an air strike on a house and another killed by Israeli gunfire.
An air strike on a house in Gaza City killed one and injured several others, he added.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.
In a separate statement, it said it had struck “dozens of terrorists, weapons depots, observation posts, military buildings, and other terror infrastructures” over the past 24 hours.
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.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Out of 251 hostages seized during the attack, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed more than 57,418 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The United Nations considers its figures reliable.


32 go on trial over fatal hotel fire in Turkiye

32 go on trial over fatal hotel fire in Turkiye
Updated 07 July 2025

32 go on trial over fatal hotel fire in Turkiye

32 go on trial over fatal hotel fire in Turkiye
  • Entire families perished when the huge blaze swept through the Grand Kartal Hotel
  • Survivors and experts have said the hotel’s fire alarm system did not work

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 ‘satisfied’ with Lebanon reply to US roadmap to disarm Hezbollah

US special envoy ‘satisfied’ with Lebanon reply to US roadmap to disarm Hezbollah
Updated 07 July 2025

US special envoy ‘satisfied’ with Lebanon reply to US roadmap to disarm Hezbollah

US special envoy ‘satisfied’ with Lebanon reply to US roadmap to disarm Hezbollah
  • Aoun’s team gave Barrack a seven-page reply to his June 19 proposal

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.


Hamas, Israel resume talks as Netanyahu set to meet Trump

Hamas, Israel resume talks as Netanyahu set to meet Trump
Updated 07 July 2025

Hamas, Israel resume talks as Netanyahu set to meet Trump

Hamas, Israel resume talks as Netanyahu set to meet Trump
  • The latest round of negotiations on the war in Gaza began on Sunday in Doha
  • Hamas wants guarantees against a resumption of fighting during negotiations

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.