Israel hits Gaza with new airstrikes that kill at least 200 after truce talks stall

Israel hits Gaza with new airstrikes that kill at least 200 after truce talks stall
A mourner reacts next to the bodies of Palestinians, killed in an Israeli strike, according to medics, at Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on March 17, 2025. (REUTERS)
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Updated 18 March 2025

Israel hits Gaza with new airstrikes that kill at least 200 after truce talks stall

Israel hits Gaza with new airstrikes that kill at least 200 after truce talks stall
  • Netanyahu says he ordered strikes because of lack of progress in talks to extend ceasefire
  • Hamas accuses Netanyahu of upending ceasefire, exposing hostages to "an unknown fate”

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: Israel launched a wave of airstrikes across the Gaza Strip early Tuesday, saying it was striking dozens of Hamas targets in its heaviest assault in the territory since a ceasefire took effect in January. Palestinian officials reported at least 200 deaths.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he ordered the strikes because of a lack of progress in talks to extend the ceasefire. Officials said the operation was open-ended and was expected to expand. The White House said it had been consulted and voiced support for Israel’s actions.

“Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength,” Netanyahu’s office said.

The surprise attack shattered a period of relative calm during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and raised the prospect of a full return to fighting in a 17-month war that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and caused widespread destruction across Gaza. It also raised questions about the fate of the roughly two dozen Israeli hostages held by Hamas who are believed to still be alive.

Hamas accused Netanyahu of upending the ceasefire agreement and exposing the hostages “to an unknown fate.” In a statement, it called on mediators to hold Israel “fully responsible for violating and overturning the agreement.”

In the southern city of Khan Younis, Associated Press reporters saw explosions and plumes of smoke. Ambulances brought wounded people to Nasser Hospital, where patients lay on the floor, some screaming. A young boy sat with a bandage around his head as a health worker checked for more injuries, a young girl cried as her bloody arm was bandaged.

Many Palestinians said they had expected a return to war when talks over the second phase of the ceasefire did not begin as scheduled in early February. Israel instead embraced an alternative proposal and cut off all shipments of food, fuel and other aid to the territory’s 2 million Palestinians to try to pressure Hamas to accept it.

“Nobody wants to fight,” Palestinian resident Nidal Alzaanin said by phone from Gaza City. “Everyone is still suffering from the previous months,” he said.

US backs Israel and blames Hamas

The White House sought to blame Hamas for the renewed fighting. National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said the militant group “could have released hostages to extend the ceasefire but instead chose refusal and war.”

US envoy Steve Witkoff, who has been leading mediation efforts along with Egypt and Qatar, had earlier warned that Hamas must release living hostages immediately “or pay a severe price.”

An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the unfolding operation, said Israel was striking Hamas’ military, leaders and infrastructure and planned to expand the operation beyond air attacks. The official accused Hamas of attempting to rebuild and plan new attacks. Hamas militants and security forces quickly returned to the streets in recent weeks after the ceasefire went into effect.

Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, said the “gates of hell will open in Gaza” if the hostages aren’t released. “We will not stop fighting until all of our hostages are home and we have achieved all of the war goals,” he said.

Explosions could be heard throughout Gaza. Khalil Degran, a spokesman for the Health Ministry based at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza, said at least 200 people had been killed. The territory’s civil defense agency said its crews were having a difficult time carrying out rescue efforts because various areas were being targeted simultaneously.

Talks on a second phase of the ceasefire had stalled

The strikes came two months after a ceasefire was reached to pause the war. Over six weeks, Hamas released 25 Israeli hostages and the bodies of eight more in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in a first phase of the ceasefire.

But since that ceasefire ended two weeks ago, the sides have not been able to agree on a way forward with a second phase aimed at releasing the 59 remaining hostages, 35 of whom are believed to be dead, and ending the war altogether.

Hamas has demanded an end to the war and full withdrawal of Israeli troops in exchange for the release of the remaining hostages. Israel says it will not end the war until it destroys Hamas’ governing and military capabilities and frees all hostages.

Netanyahu has repeatedly threatened to resume the war.

“This comes after Hamas repeatedly refused to release our hostages and rejected all offers it received from the US presidential envoy, Steve Witkoff, and from the mediators,” Netanyahu’s office said early Tuesday.

Taher Nunu, a Hamas official, criticized the Israeli attacks. “The international community faces a moral test: either it allows the return of the crimes committed by the occupation army or it enforces a commitment to ending the aggression and war against innocent people in Gaza,” he said.

Gaza already in a humanitarian crisis

The war erupted when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages. Most have been released in ceasefires or other deals, with Israeli forces rescuing only eight and recovering dozens of bodies.

Israel responded with a military offensive that killed over 48,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, and displaced an estimated 90 percent of Gaza’s population. The territory’s Health Ministry doesn’t differentiate between civilians and militants, but says over half of the dead have been women and children.

The ceasefire had brought some relief to Gaza and allowed hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians to resume to what remained of their homes.

A renewed Israeli ground offensive could also be especially deadly now that so many Palestinian civilians have returned home. Before the ceasefire, civilians were largely concentrated in tent camps meant to provide relative safety from the fighting.

The return to fighting could also worsen deep internal fissures inside Israel over the fate of the remaining hostages. Many of the hostages released by Hamas returned emaciated and malnourished, putting heavy pressure on the government to extend the ceasefire.

The released hostages have repeatedly implored the government to press ahead with the ceasefire to return all remaining hostages, and tens of thousands of Israelis have taken part in mass demonstrations calling for a ceasefire and return of all hostages.


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

UN airdrops food aid in S.Sudan to people hit by conflict
Updated 57 min 30 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
  • Across South Sudan, 7.7 million people, or 57 percent of the population, face “crisis, emergency or catastrophic” levels of hunger

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.