Hamas, Israel resume talks as Netanyahu set to meet Trump

Hamas, Israel resume talks as Netanyahu set to meet Trump
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. (AFP)
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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.


Al-Sharaa heads to UAE on official visit - Syrian News Agency

Al-Sharaa heads to UAE on official visit - Syrian News Agency
Updated 58 min 59 sec ago

Al-Sharaa heads to UAE on official visit - Syrian News Agency

Al-Sharaa heads to UAE on official visit - Syrian News Agency

DUBAI: President of the Arab Syrian Republic Ahmad al-Sharaa is heading to the UAE for an official visit, the Syrian News Agency reported Monday. 

 


Eight Turkish soldiers killed by gas exposure during cave search in northern Iraq

Eight Turkish soldiers killed by gas exposure during cave search in northern Iraq
Updated 07 July 2025

Eight Turkish soldiers killed by gas exposure during cave search in northern Iraq

Eight Turkish soldiers killed by gas exposure during cave search in northern Iraq

ISTANBUL: Eight Turkish soldiers died after being exposed to methane gas during a search operation in a cave in northern Iraq, the defence ministry said on Monday.
In a statement, the ministry said the incident took place on Sunday during a mission to locate the remains of a Turkish soldier killed during a military operation against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Eleven other soldiers who are also exposed to the gas in the cave have been taken to the hospital for treatment, the ministry said.


With sanctions lifted, Syria looks to solar power as more than a patchwork fix to its energy crisis

With sanctions lifted, Syria looks to solar power as more than a patchwork fix to its energy crisis
Updated 07 July 2025

With sanctions lifted, Syria looks to solar power as more than a patchwork fix to its energy crisis

With sanctions lifted, Syria looks to solar power as more than a patchwork fix to its energy crisis

DAMASCUS: Abdulrazak Al-Jenan swept the dust off his solar panel on his apartment roof overlooking Damascus. Syria’s largest city was mostly pitch-black, the few speckles of light coming from the other households able to afford solar panels, batteries, or private generators.
Al-Jenan went thousands of dollars in debt to buy his solar panel in 2019. It was an expensive coping mechanism at the time, but without it, he couldn’t charge his phone and run the refrigerator.
Syria has not had more than four hours of state electricity per day for years, as a result of the nearly 14-year civil war that ended with the ouster of former President Bashar Assad in December.
Syria’s new leaders are hoping renewable energy will now become more than a patchwork solution. Investment is beginning to return to the country with the lifting of US sanctions, and major energy projects are planned, including an industrial-scale solar farm that would secure about a tenth of the country’s energy needs.
“The solution to the problem isn’t putting solar panels on roofs,” Syria’s interim Energy Minister Mohammad Al-Bashir told The Associated Press. “It’s securing enough power for the families through our networks in Syria. This is what we’re trying to do.”

Restoring the existing energy infrastructure
Some of the efforts focus on simply repairing infrastructure destroyed in the war. The World Bank recently announced a $146 million grant to help Syria repair damaged transmission lines and transformer substations. Al-Bashir said Syria’s infrastructure that has been repaired can provide 5,000 megawatts, about half the country’s needs, but fuel and gas shortages have hampered generation. With the sanctions lifted, that supply could come in soon.
More significantly, Syria recently signed a $7 billion energy deal with a consortium of Qatari, Turkish, and American companies. The program over the next three and a half years would develop four combined-cycle gas turbines with a total generating capacity estimated at approximately 4,000 megawatts and a 1,000-megawatt solar farm. This would “broadly secure the needs” of Syrians, said Al-Bashir.
While Syria is initially focusing on fixing its existing fossil fuel infrastructure to improve quality of life, help make businesses functional again, and entice investors, the UN Development Program said in May that a renewable energy plan will be developed in the next year for the country.
The plan will look at Syria’s projected energy demand and determine how much of it can come from renewable sources.
“Given the critical role of energy in Syria’s recovery, we have to rapidly address energy poverty and progressively accelerate the access to renewable energy,” Sudipto Mukerjee, UNDP’s resident representative in Syria, said in a statement announcing the plan.

Sanctions crippled the power grid
While the war caused significant damage to Syria’s infrastructure, crippling Washington-led sanctions imposed during the Assad dynasty’s decades of draconian rule made it impossible for Syria to secure fuel and spare parts to generate power.
“Many companies over the past period would tell us the sanctions impact matters like imports, implementing projects, transferring funds and so on,” Al-Bashir said.
During a visit to Turkiye in May, the minister said Syria could only secure about 1700 megawatts, a little less than 20 percent, of its energy needs.
A series of executive orders by US President Donald Trump lifted many sanctions on Syria, aiming to end the country’s isolation from the global banking system so that it can become viable again and rebuild itself.
The United Nations estimates the civil war caused hundreds of billions of dollars in damages and economic losses across the country. Some 90 percent of Syrians live in poverty. Buying solar panels, private generators or other means of producing their own energy has been out of reach for most of the population.
“Any kind of economic recovery needs a functional energy sector,” said Joseph Daher, Syrian-Swiss economist and researcher, who said that stop-gap measures like solar panels and private generators were luxuries only available to a few who could afford it. “There is also a need to diminish the cost of electricity in Syria, which is one of the most expensive in the region.”
Prices for electricity in recent years surged as the country under its former rulers struggled with currency inflation and rolling back on subsidies. The new officials who inherited the situation say that lifting sanctions will help them rectify the country’s financial and economic woes, and provide sufficient and affordable electricity as soon as they can.
“The executive order lifts most of the obstacles for political and economic investment with Syria,” said Qutaiba Idlibi, who leads the Americas section of the Foreign Ministry.
Syria has been under Washington-led sanctions for decades, but designations intensified during the war that started in 2011. Even with some waivers for humanitarian programs, it was difficult to bring in resources and materials to fix Syria’s critical infrastructure — especially electricity — further compounding the woes of the vast majority of Syrians, who live in poverty.

The focus is economic recovery
The removal of sanctions signals to US businesses that Trump is serious in his support for Syria’s recovery, Idlibi said.
“Right now, we have a partnership with the United States as any normal country would do,” he said.
Meanwhile, Al-Jenan is able to turn on both his fans on a hot summer day while he watches the afternoon news on TV, as the temperature rises to 35 degrees Celsius (95 F). He doesn’t want to let go of his solar panel but hopes the lifting of sanctions will eventually bring sustainable state electricity across the country.
“We can at least know what’s going on in the country and watch on TV,” he said. “We really were cut off from the entire world.”


UN teams deploy to Syrian coast as wildfires force hundreds to flee

UN teams deploy to Syrian coast as wildfires force hundreds to flee
Updated 07 July 2025

UN teams deploy to Syrian coast as wildfires force hundreds to flee

UN teams deploy to Syrian coast as wildfires force hundreds to flee
  • UN teams are ‘conducting urgent assessments to determine the scale of the disaster and to identify the most immediate humanitarian needs’
  • Firefighting teams from Turkiye and Jordan have joined Syrian civil defense teams, providing support from the air with helicopters

LATAKIA, Syria: United Nations teams have deployed Sunday to the Syrian coast, where firefighters are battling wildfires for a fourth day.

UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Syria Adam Abdelmoula said in a statement that the fast-spreading blazes in the northwestern province of Latakia “have forced hundreds of families to flee their homes, while vast tracts of agricultural land and vital infrastructure have been destroyed.”

UN teams are “conducting urgent assessments to determine the scale of the disaster and to identify the most immediate humanitarian needs,” he said.

Firefighting teams from Turkiye and Jordan have joined Syrian civil defense teams, providing support from the air with helicopters. Syria’s state-run SANA news agency reported that emergency crews are attempting to prevent the blazes from reaching the Al-Frunloq natural reserve, with its “large, interconnected forests.”

Syrian Minister of Emergency and Disaster Management Raed Al-Saleh called the situation “extremely tragic.”

In a statement posted on X, he said the fires had destroyed “hundreds of thousands of trees” covering an area estimated at 10,000 hectares (38.6 square miles).

“We regret and mourn every tree that burned, which was a source of fresh air for us,” Al-Saleh said.

The Syrian Civil Defense had expressed concerns over the presence of unexploded ordnance left over from the country’s nearly 14-year civil war in some of the wildfire areas.

Summer fires are common in the eastern Mediterranean region, where experts warn that climate change is intensifying conditions.

Below-average rainfalls over the winter have also left Syrians struggling with water shortages this summer, as the springs and rivers that normally supply much of the population with drinking water have gone dry.


Crew abandons Liberian-flagged, Greek-owned ship attacked in the Red Sea, UK military says

Crew abandons Liberian-flagged, Greek-owned ship attacked in the Red Sea, UK military says
Updated 07 July 2025

Crew abandons Liberian-flagged, Greek-owned ship attacked in the Red Sea, UK military says

Crew abandons Liberian-flagged, Greek-owned ship attacked in the Red Sea, UK military says
  • The ship was first targeted by gunfire and self-propelled grenades launched from eight small boats, with armed security on the ship returning fire, UKMTO said

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates: Crew members aboard a Liberian-flagged ship set ablaze by a series of attacks in the Red Sea abandoned the vessel Sunday night as it took on water, marking the first serious assault in the vital corridor for trade after a monthslong campaign by Yemen’s Houthi rebels there.
Suspicion for the attack on the Greek-owned bulk carrier Magic Seas immediately fell on the Houthis, particularly as a security firm said it appeared bomb-carrying drone boats hit the ship after it was targeted by small arms and rocket-propelled grenades. The rebels’ media reported on the attack but did not claim it. It can take them hours or even days before they acknowledge an assault.
A renewed Houthi campaign against shipping could again draw in US and Western forces to the area, particularly after President Donald Trump targeted the rebels in a major airstrike campaign.
Shortly before midnight in Yemen, Israel’s military issued a warning for three Houthi-held ports and said airstrikes would begin shortly in Hodeidah, Ras Isa and Salif along with at the Ras Al-Khatib power station.
Attack comes at a delicate time
The ship attack comes at a sensitive moment in the Middle East, as a possible ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war hangs in the balance and as Iran weighs whether to restart negotiations over its nuclear program following American airstrikes targeting its most-sensitive atomic sites amid an Israeli war against the Islamic Republic.
“It likely serves as a message that the Houthis continue to possess the capability and willingness to strike at strategic maritime targets regardless of diplomatic developments,” wrote Mohammad Al-Basha, a Yemen analyst at the Basha Report risk advisory firm.
The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center first said that an armed security team on the unidentified vessel had returned fire against an initial attack and that the “situation is ongoing.” It described the attack as happening some 100 kilometers (60 miles) southwest of Hodeida, Yemen, which is held by the country’s Houthi rebels.
“Authorities are investigating,” it said. It later said the ship was on fire after being “struck by unknown projectiles.”
Possibly a major escalation
Ambrey, a private maritime security firm, issued an alert saying that a merchant ship had been “attacked by eight skiffs while transiting northbound in the Red Sea.”
Ambrey later said the ship also had been attacked by bomb-carrying drone boats, which could mark a major escalation. It said two drone boats struck the ship, while another two had been destroyed by the armed guards on board.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said the ship was taking on water and its crew had abandoned the vessel.
The US Navy’s Mideast-based 5th Fleet referred questions to the military’s Central Command, which said it was aware of the incident without elaborating.
Moammar Al-Eryani, the information minister for Yemen’s exiled government opposing the Houthis, identified the vessel attacked as the Magic Seas and blamed the rebels for the attack. The ship had been broadcasting it had an armed security team on board in the vicinity the attack took place and had been heading north.
“The attack also proves once again that the Houthis are merely a front for an Iranian scheme using Yemen as a platform to undermine regional and global stability, at a time when Tehran continues to arm the militia and provide it with military technology, including missiles, aircraft, drones, and sea mines,” Al-Eryani wrote on the social platform X.
The Magic Seas’ owners did not respond to a request for comment.
Houthi attacks came over Israel-Hamas war
The Houthi rebels have been launching missile and drone attacks against commercial and military ships in the region in what the group’s leadership has described as an effort to end Israel’s offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The group’s Al-Masirah satellite news channel acknowledged the attack occurred, but offered no other comment on it as it aired a speech by its secretive leader, Abdul Malik Al-Houthi. However, Ambrey said the vessel targeted met “the established Houthi target profile,” without elaborating.
Between November 2023 and January 2025, the Houthis targeted more than 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two of them and killing four sailors. That has greatly reduced the flow of trade through the Red Sea corridor, which typically sees $1 trillion of goods move through it annually.
The Houthis paused attacks in a self-imposed ceasefire until the US launched a broad assault against the rebels in mid-March. That ended weeks later and the Houthis haven’t attacked a vessel, though they have continued occasional missile attacks targeting Israel. On Sunday, the group claimed launching a missile at Israel which the Israeli military said it intercepted. Shipping through the Red Sea, while still lower than normal, has increased in recent weeks.
The Yemeni Coast Guard, which is loyal to the exiled government, has engaged in a firefight with at least one vessel in the Red Sea in the past as well.
Pirates from Somalia also have operated in the region, though typically they’ve sought to capture vessels either to rob or ransom their crews. But neither the Yemeni Coast Guard nor the pirates have been known to use drone boats in their attacks.