CAIRO: Egypt’s new foreign minister says Cairo is reevaluating its relationship with Syria following the military’s ouster of President Muhammad Mursi.
Nabil Fahmy said Saturday in his first public comments since becoming Egypt’s top diplomat that the country continues to support the Syrian uprising but that Cairo has no intention of waging jihad in Syria.
Fahmy’s comments signaled a shift from Mursi’s approach.
Just weeks before Mursi was deposed on July 3, a senior presidential aide said authorities would not prevent Egyptians from traveling to Syria to join the rebel cause.
Mursi also attended a rally on June 15 in which hard-line clerics urged young Egyptians to go fight in Syria. Speaking at the rally, Mursi announced he was severing diplomatic ties with Damascus.
Egypt to reevaluate Syria ties
Egypt to reevaluate Syria ties
Two US aid workers wounded in Gaza ‘attack’: GHF
JERUSALEM: The US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said two American staff were wounded Saturday in an “attack” on one of its aid centers in southern Gaza.
“This morning, two American aid workers were injured in a targeted terrorist attack during food distribution activities at SDS-3 in Khan Yunis,” the organization said, adding that reports indicated it was carried out by “two assailants who threw two grenades at the Americans.”
Hamas says ready to start talks ‘immediately’ on Gaza ceasefire
- Announcement came after militant group held consultations with other Palestinian factions
- Israel meanwhile said Saturday it was still mulling its response to a positive reaction from Hamas
JERUSALEM/GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Hamas said it was ready to start talks “immediately” on a proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza, where the civil defense agency said Israel’s ongoing offensive killed 20 people on Saturday.
The announcement came after it held consultations with other Palestinian factions and before a visit on Monday by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington, where President Donald Trump is pushing for an end to the war, now in its 21st month.
“The movement is ready to engage immediately and seriously in a cycle of negotiations on the mechanism to put in place” the terms of a draft US-backed truce proposal received from mediators, the militant group said in a statement.
Israel meanwhile said Saturday it was still mulling its response to a positive reaction from Hamas to the latest US-sponsored proposal for a Gaza ceasefire.
“No decision has been made yet on that issue,” a government official said on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly about it. Israel’s security cabinet was due to meet later on Saturday, after the end of the Jewish sabbath at sundown, Israeli media reported.
Hamas ally Islamic Jihad said it supported ceasefire talks, but demanded “guarantees” that Israel “will not resume its aggression” once hostages held in Gaza are freed.
Trump, when asked about Hamas’s response aboard Air Force One on Friday, said: “That’s good. They haven’t briefed me on it. We have to get it over with. We have to do something about Gaza.”
The conflict in Gaza began with Hamas’s October 2023 attack, which sparked a massive Israeli offensive aimed at destroying Hamas and bringing home all the hostages seized by Palestinian militants.
On Friday, Netanyahu again pledged to bring home the hostages, after coming under massive domestic pressure over their fate.
Two previous ceasefires mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States have seen temporary halts in fighting, coupled with the return of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
Efforts to broker a new truce have repeatedly failed, with the primary point of contention being Israel’s rejection of Hamas’s demand for guarantees that any new ceasefire will be lasting.
A previous round of talks broke down in May with Hamas and Israel trading blame for its failure.
The Palestinian militant group said it had given a “positive response” to a truce proposal from US special envoy Steve Witkoff, but its request for a guarantee that hostilities would not resume had been rejected by Israel.
A Palestinian source familiar with the negotiations told AFP earlier this week that the latest proposal included “a 60-day truce, during which Hamas would release half of the living Israeli captives in the Gaza Strip” — thought to number 22 — “in exchange for Israel releasing a number of Palestinian prisoners and detainees.”
Out of 251 hostages seized by Palestinian militants during the October 2023 attack, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
Nearly 21 months of war have created dire humanitarian conditions for the more than two million people in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has recently expanded its military operations.
Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said Israeli military operations killed 20 people across the war-battered territory on Saturday.
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.
Bassal said five of the dead were killed in a strike on a school in Gaza City.
A second strike near another school in the city where displaced civilians had found shelter killed three people and wounded around 10, including children, he said.
Many Gazans have sought shelter in schools and other public buildings since the war began with Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel.
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said it could not comment on specific strikes without precise coordinates.
The civil defense agency said Israeli strikes and gunfire killed at least 52 people on Friday.
The Hamas attack of October 2023 resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 57,268 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The United Nations considers the figures reliable.
Gaza civil defense says 20 killed in Israeli operations
- Israel has recently expanded its military operations in the Gaza Strip
- War has created dire humanitarian conditions for the Palestinians
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Gaza’s civil defense agency said Israeli military operations killed 20 people across the war-battered territory on Saturday, after nearly 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.
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.
Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said five of the dead were killed in a strike on a school in Gaza City.
A second strike near another school in the city where displaced civilians had found shelter killed three people and wounded around 10, including children, he said.
Many Gazans have sought shelter in schools and other public buildings since the war began with Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel.
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said it could not comment on specific attacks without precise coordinates.
The latest strikes came hours after Hamas said it was ready to start talks “immediately” on a US-sponsored proposal for a Gaza ceasefire.
The proposal came ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s departure for talks on Monday in Washington, where US President Donald Trump has intensified calls for an end to the war.
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.
Out of 251 hostages seized by Palestinian militants on October 7, 2023, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed more than 57,000 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The United Nations considers its figures reliable.
Lebanon says 1 killed in Israeli strike on south
- An “Israeli enemy drone strike on a vehicle” in Bint Jbeil “killed one person and wounded two others”
BEIRUT: Lebanon said one person was killed on Saturday in an Israeli strike in the country’s south, the latest deadly raid despite a ceasefire between Israel and militant group Hezbollah.
An “Israeli enemy drone strike on a vehicle” in Bint Jbeil “killed one person and wounded two others,” Lebanon’s health ministry said in a statement carried by the official National News Agency (NNA), noting the toll was provisional.
Earlier Saturday, the ministry reported that a separate Israeli drone strike wounded one person in Shebaa, elsewhere in the south, with the NNA saying that raid targeted a house.
Israel has kept up its bombardment of Lebanon since a November 27 ceasefire that sought to end more than a year of hostilities with Hezbollah including two months of all-out war that left the Iran-backed group severely weakened.
On Thursday, an Israeli strike on a vehicle at the southern entrance of Beirut killed one man and wounded three other people, Lebanon said, as the Israeli army said it hit a “terrorist” working for Iran.
Under the ceasefire deal, Hezbollah was to pull its fighters back north of the Litani river, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the Israeli border, leaving the Lebanese army and United Nations peacekeepers as the only armed parties in the region.
Israel was required to fully withdraw its troops from the country, but has kept them in five locations in south Lebanon that it deems strategic.
Israel has warned that it would keep striking Lebanon until Hezbollah has been disarmed.
3 mayors arrested in southern Turkey as part of crackdown on opposition
- Abdurrahman Tutdere, the mayor of Adiyaman, and Zeydan Karalar, who heads Adana municipality, were detained in early morning raids
ISTANBUL: The mayors of three major cities in southern Turkey were arrested Saturday, state-run media reported, joining a growing list of opposition figures detained since the mayor of Istanbul was imprisoned in March.
Abdurrahman Tutdere, the mayor of Adiyaman, and Zeydan Karalar, who heads Adana municipality, were detained in early morning raids, according to Anadolu Agency. Both are members of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP.
The CHP mayor of Antalya, Muhittin Bocek, was arrested with two other suspects in a separate bribery investigation by the Antalya Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, Anadolu reported.
Karalar was arrested in Istanbul and Tutdere was arrested in the capital, Ankara, where he has a home. Tutdere posted on X that he was being taken to Istanbul.
Ten people, including Karalar and Tutdere, were arrested as part of an investigation by the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office into allegations involving organized crime, bribery and bid-rigging.
Details of the charges against them were not immediately released by prosecutors but the operation follows the arrests of scores of officials from municipalities controlled by the CHP in recent months.
Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, widely considered the main challenger to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ’s 22-year rule, was jailed four months ago over corruption allegations.
The former CHP mayor of Izmir, Turkey’s third-largest city, and 137 municipal officials were detained earlier this week as part of an investigation into alleged tender-rigging and fraud. On Friday, ex-mayor Tunc Soyer and 59 others were jailed pending trial in what Soyer’s lawyer described as “a clearly unjust, unlawful and politically motivated decision.”
Also Friday, it was reported by state-run media that the CHP mayor of Manavgat, a Mediterranean resort city in Antalya province, and 34 others were detained over alleged corruption.
CHP officials have faced waves of arrests this year that many consider aimed at neutralizing Turkey’s main opposition party. The government insists prosecutors and the judiciary act independently but the arrest of Istanbul’s Imamoglu led to the largest street protests Turkey has seen in more than a decade.
Imamoglu was officially nominated as his party’s presidential candidate following his imprisonment. Turkey’s next election is due in 2028 but could come sooner.
The crackdown comes a year after the CHP made significant gains in local elections. Adiyaman, which was severely affected by the 2023 earthquake, was among several cities previously considered strongholds for Erdogan to fall to the opposition.
