JERUSALEM: Israeli police on Tuesday demolished the east Jerusalem home of a Palestinian militant who killed an Israeli man and wounded four others in a November shooting in Jerusalem’s Old City.
Fadi Abu Shkhaidem shot Eliyahu Kay, a 26-year-old immigrant from South Africa, and wounded two police officers and two other bystanders in November’s incident near Jerusalem’s flashpoint holy site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. He was fatally shot by police at the scene.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, praised the attack as a “heroic operation” and said Abu Shkhaidem was one of its members.
Police said 150 officers were dispatched to the Shuafat refugee camp to accompany engineers carrying out a Supreme Court ruling authorizing the home’s demolition.
Palestinians have carried out numerous stabbing, shooting and car-ramming attacks targeting Israeli civilians and security personnel in recent years. Palestinians and rights groups contend some of the alleged car-rammings were accidents and accuse Israel of using excessive force against attackers.
Israel maintains a policy of demolishing the homes of Palestinian attackers. Israeli officials say the demolitions deter future attacks, while rights groups view it as a form of collective punishment.
Israel captured east Jerusalem — home to holy sites to three faiths — in the 1967 Mideast war and later annexed it in a move not recognized by most of the international community. The Palestinians seek east Jerusalem as the capital of a future state. The city’s future remains one of the most divisive issues in the century-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israel demolishes east Jerusalem home of Palestinian gunman
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Israel demolishes east Jerusalem home of Palestinian gunman
- Fadi Abu Shkhaidem shot Eliyahu Kay, a 26-year-old immigrant from South Africa, and wounded two police officers and two other bystanders in November’s
- Police said 150 officers were dispatched to the Shuafat refugee camp to accompany engineers carrying out a Supreme Court ruling authorizing the home's demolition
Sudanese on Nile island in capital recount paramilitary repression
- “I suffered from severe urinary retention,” recalled elderly islander Omar Al-Hassan, saying an RSF member stopped him from crossing a bridge to see doctors
- The RSF has either denied it violates human rights or said it would hold perpetrators to account, while accusing the army of widespread abuses
KHARTOUM: Residents of Sudan’s Tuti island at the confluence of the Blue Nile and White Nile have emerged from paramilitary control to speak of hardships suffered and relief that their oppressors have been driven away.
They say Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces, who have been forced by the army off the island between the capital Khartoum and its twin city Omdurman, would block people from medical treatment, jail others and extort inhabitants.
“I suffered from severe urinary retention,” recalled elderly islander Omar Al-Hassan, saying an RSF member stopped him from crossing a bridge to see doctors.
“He claimed our papers were incomplete, but we had all the necessary documents. He just wanted money.”
The RSF, whose war with the army erupted in April 2023 and which still controls swathes of west Sudan, did not respond to a request for comment by Reuters. The RSF has either denied it violates human rights or said it would hold perpetrators to account, while accusing the army of widespread abuses.
The UN accuses both sides in the civil war of abuses that may amount to war crimes.
Tuti island, with its green landscape overlooking the majestic Nile waters, was once one of Sudan’s most soothing spots, offering relaxation in a nation with a long history of war.
Its population of about 10,000 could relax on beaches near lemon trees swaying in the breeze. People would also pass time at coffee shops, puffing on water pipes, perhaps discussing Sudan’s complex, combustible politics.
That was before the conflict between the army and RSF — once partners in a coup that toppled veteran autocrat Omar Hassan Al-Bashir — erupted and ravaged Sudan.
’TUTI IS FREE’
Now, in a microcosm of the war’s devastation, Tuti’s close-knit farming community are at risk of famine and have been ravaged by dengue fever.
Sudan’s military, headed by career army officer Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan claimed control of Khartoum, including Tuti island, this week.
“We conducted a thorough and comprehensive cleanup of all areas of the island ... We tell the people to return and come back,” said soldier Al-Tahir Al-Tayeb.
“We will only take our rights by this,” he added, tapping on his gun. “We say to them, Tuti is free, and God is great.”
Nearby, a woman walked by a shop surveying destruction as people lingered at a mosque.
RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, rose from lowly beginnings to head a widely feared Arab militia that crushed a revolt in Darfur, winning him influence and eventually a role as the country’s second most powerful man, and one of its richest, as an enforcer for Bashir.
The RSF, menacing young men armed with rocket-propelled grenades and machine-guns mounted on trucks, mastered desert warfare in the Darfur region but lack the discipline of the regular army.
That was clear on Tuti island, said resident Abdul Fattah Abdullah, describing how RSF men followed him on four motorcycles and grabbed him as he was carrying vegetables from a market.
The next 20 days, locked up in a small room with 32 army officers, were the hardest in his whole life, he complained. It did not end there. RSF fighters demanded the equivalent of $400, he said.
“They harassed people, demanding either their gold or their money. May God punish them,” said Abdullah.
Hamas says Gaza truce talks with mediators stepping up
- “We hope that the coming days will bring a real breakthrough in the war situation ,” Naim told AFP
- Naim said Friday the proposal “aims to achieve a ceasefire, open border crossings, (and) allow humanitarian aid in“
GAZA CITY: Hamas spokesman Basem Naim told AFP Friday that talks over a ceasefire deal between the Palestinian Islamist movement and mediators are gaining momentum as Israel continues intensive operations in Gaza.
“We hope that the coming days will bring a real breakthrough in the war situation, following intensified communications with and between mediators in recent days,” Naim told AFP.
Palestinian sources close to Hamas had told AFP that talks began Thursday evening between the militant group and mediators from Egypt and Qatar to revive a ceasefire and hostage release deal for Gaza.
Naim said Friday the proposal “aims to achieve a ceasefire, open border crossings, (and) allow humanitarian aid in.”
Most importantly, he said, the proposal aims to bring about a resumption in “negotiations on the second phase, which must lead to a complete end to the war and the withdrawal of occupation forces.”
A fragile ceasefire that had brought weeks of relative calm to the Gaza Strip ended on March 18 when Israel resumed its bombing campaign across the territory.
Negotiations on a second phase of the truce had stalled — Israel wanted the ceasefire’s initial phase extended, while Hamas demanded talks on a second stage that was meant to lead to a permanent ceasefire.
According to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, at least 896 people have been killed since Israel resumed strikes.
Days later, Palestinian militants resumed rocket launches toward Israel from Gaza.
During the first phase of the truce which took hold on January 19, 1,800 Palestinian prisoners were freed in exchange for 33 hostages held in Gaza, most of them since the start of the war on October 7, 2023.
Of 251 hostages seized by Palestinian militants during Hamas’s attack which triggered the war, 58 are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
The talks in Doha started a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to seize parts of Gaza if Hamas did not release hostages, and Hamas warned they would return “in coffins” if Israel did not stop bombing the Palestinian territory.
Naim said Hamas was approaching talks “with full responsibility, positivity, and flexibility,” focusing on ending the war.
EU urges South Sudan president to ‘reverse’ course over VP arrest
- The European Commission said it was scaling back staff presence in the African nation due to the deteriorating security outlook
- “The European Union expresses its deep concern about the house arrest of First Vice President Machar,” commission spokesman Anouar El Anouni said
BRUSSELS: The EU on Friday urged South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir to reverse course and defuse tensions after the arrest of his rival, First Vice President Riek Machar, sparked fears the country was tipping toward civil war.
The bloc’s executive body, the European Commission, said it was scaling back staff presence in the African nation due to the deteriorating security outlook.
“The European Union expresses its deep concern about the house arrest of First Vice President Machar. We call on President Kiir to reverse this action and defuse the situation,” commission spokesman Anouar El Anouni said.
Machar’s arrest late on Wednesday marked a dramatic escalation of tensions that have been building for weeks in the world’s youngest country.
A power-sharing deal between Kiir and Machar has been gradually unraveling, risking a return of the civil war that killed around 400,000 people between 2013 and 2018.
“Due to the deteriorating security situation in South Sudan, we have taken the decision to temporarily scale back the presence of staff within the European Union delegation,” El Anouni told a press conference in Brussels.
Juba appeared calm on Friday with shops open and people on the streets, an AFP correspondent saw.
But a heavy military presence including a tank remained outside Machar’s home, which is located just meters (yards) from the president’s home.
South Sudan — which declared independence from Sudan in 2011 — has remained plagued by poverty and insecurity since the 2018 peace deal.
Analysts say the aging Kiir, 73, has been seeking to ensure his succession and sideline Machar politically for months through cabinet reshuffles.
More than 20 of Machar’s political and military allies in the unity government and army have also been arrested since February, many held incommunicado.
Israel conducts first strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs since truce
- The evacuation directive sent residents of the area into a panic
- Netanyahu said on Friday Israel would continue to attack anywhere in Lebanon to counter threats and enforce the ceasefire accord
BEIRUT/JERUSALEM: Israel on Friday carried out its first major airstrike on Beirut’s southern suburbs in months, retaliating for an earlier rocket launch from Lebanon in the most serious test of a shaky ceasefire deal agreed in November.
The strike targeted a building in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital, a Hezbollah stronghold known as the Dahiyeh, that Israel said was a drone storage facility belonging to the Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim militant group.
The ceasefire has looked increasingly flimsy in recent weeks. Israel delayed a promised troop withdrawal in January and said last week it had intercepted rockets fired on March 22, which led it to bombard targets in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah has denied any involvement in the rocket firing.
Israel is also renewing its military campaign in Gaza after the collapse of a January ceasefire with Hamas — a resumption of major warfare that has set the wider region back on edge.
The south Beirut airstrike was heard across the Lebanese capital and produced a large column of black smoke. It followed an evacuation order by Israel’s military for the neighborhood, and three smaller targeted drone strikes on the building intended as warning shots, security sources told Reuters.
The evacuation directive sent residents of the area into a panic. They rushed to escape on foot as traffic clogged the streets out of the area, Reuters reporters in the area said.
Beirut’s southern suburbs were pounded last year by Israeli airstrikes that killed many of Hezbollah’s top leaders, including its powerful long-time chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in a September air attack.
In south Lebanon, smoke rose from Israeli artillery strikes against targets in the hills just across the border.
The truce in November halted the fighting and mandated that southern Lebanon be free of Hezbollah fighters and weapons, that Lebanese troops deploy to the area and that Israeli ground troops withdraw from the zone. But each side accuses the other of not entirely living up to those terms.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday Israel would continue to attack anywhere in Lebanon to counter threats and enforce the ceasefire accord.
“Whoever has not yet internalized the new situation in Lebanon, has (today) received an additional reminder of our determination,” he said. “We will not allow firing at our communities, not even a trickle.”
No group has claimed responsibility for the rocket fire. The Lebanese army said it was able to locate the launch site of Friday’s rocket attacks and had begun an investigation to identify those responsible.
CRITICISM
Israeli ministers have vowed to ensure that the tens of thousands of Israelis who evacuated their homes in border areas when Hezbollah began bombarding the area in 2023 would be able to return safely.
But with more Israeli military units deployed around Gaza, where 19 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes on Friday, according to local health authorities, it remained unclear whether Israel was prepared for any wider intervention.
Hezbollah denied any role in the rocket fire on March 22 and on Friday. President Joseph Aoun said a Lebanese investigation into last week’s attack did not point to Hezbollah and called Friday’s strike on Beirut unjustified.
French President Emmanuel Macron, whose government helped mediate the ceasefire in November, criticized Israel for what he called “unacceptable strikes on Beirut” that he said did not respect the ceasefire and played into Hezbollah’s hands.
“The Israeli army must withdraw as quickly as possible from the five positions it continues to occupy in Lebanese territory,” he said, adding he would speak with both Israeli and US leaders.
Israel’s statement confirming its air raid on Dahiyeh said that the Friday morning rocket fire amounted to “a blatant violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon and a direct threat to the citizens of the State of Israel.”
It added that the Lebanese state bears responsibility for upholding the agreement.
Israel has vowed a strong response to any threats to its security, stirring fears that last year’s conflict — which displaced more than 1.3 million people in Lebanon and destroyed much of the country’s south — could resume.
The United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, said the firing across the southern border on Friday was “deeply concerning.”
“Any exchange of fire is one too many. A return to wider conflict in Lebanon would be devastating for civilians on both sides of the Blue Line and must be avoided at all costs,” she said in a written statement.
How fatal boating incidents, shark attacks cast shadow on Egypt’s tourism
- Recent series of boating incidents and shark attacks on tourists have raised concerns, with several fatalities reported over the years
DUBAI: The Red Sea, renowned for its coral reefs and marine life, is a major hub for Egypt’s tourism industry, a pillar of the economy.
However, a recent series of boating incidents and shark attacks on tourists have raised concerns, with several fatalities reported over the years.
Attacks by militant groups on foreigners damaged tourism in Egypt in the past, with fewer arriving to see other attractions such as the Great Pyramids of Giza or take a Nile cruise in Luxor and Aswan.
BOATING INCIDENTS
“Sindbad” tourist submarine sinks
On March 27, 2025, a tourist submarine named “Sindbad” sank near the Red Sea resort of Hurghada, killing six Russian tourists. The vessel was carrying 50 people, including 45 tourists from Russia, India, Norway, and Sweden, along with five Egyptian crew members.
Authorities rescued 39 people and launched an investigation into the cause of the incident.
“Sea Story” yacht capsizes
On November 25, 2024, a tourist boat named “Sea Story” capsized off the Red Sea coast near Marsa Alam during a multi-day diving trip. Four people drowned. The vessel was carrying 31 tourists and 13 crew members when it was struck by high waves, and it sank within minutes. Thirty-three survivors were rescued with minor injuries and seven individuals remained missing as rescue operations continued.
“Hurricane” boat fire
On June 11, 2023, a fire consumed a motorboat named “Hurricane” near the diving resort of Marsa Shagra, north of Marsa Alam.
The vessel was carrying scuba divers on holiday, with 15 British tourists and 14 Egyptian crew and guides on board. Twelve tourists and all crew members were rescued, but three British tourists who were initially reported missing were later announced to have died.
Sinking of tourist boat
On August 20, 2015, 26 French tourists and 10 Egyptians were rescued after a boat transporting them hit coral reefs and sank off the Red Sea coast.
SHARK ATTACKS
Shark kills Italian tourist in waters off Marsa Alam resort
On December 29, 2024, an Italian tourist was killed and another injured in a shark attack at Marsa Alam resort. The incident occurred in deep water outside the designated swimming zone near the jetties.
Tiger shark kills Russian citizen near Hurghada beach
On June 9, 2023, a Russian citizen was fatally injured by a tiger shark near a beach at the Red Sea resort of Hurghada.
Authorities then issued a ban on swimming, snorkelling and other water activities on several nearby beaches.
Shark attacks kill two women south of Hurghada
On July 3, 2022, two women were killed in separate shark attacks south of Hurghada. The victims, one Austrian and one Romanian, were attacked within 600 meters (2,000 feet) of each other near Sahl Hasheesh.
Shark kills German woman swimming in Sharm el-Sheikh On December 5, 2010, a 70-year-old German tourist was killed by a shark while swimming near the shore at the major Sinai Peninsula resort Sharm el-Sheikh.
MILITANT ATTACKS ON TOURISTS
Russian Metrojet flight 9268 crash On October 31, 2015, a Russian airliner crashed in the Sinai Peninsula shortly after takeoff from Sharm el-Sheikh, killing all 224 people on board.
Investigations revealed the aircraft broke up mid-air after a loud noise was heard in the cockpit.
It was later determined that a bomb likely caused the explosion. Islamic State’s official magazine later claimed responsibility, publishing a photo of a Schweppes can, alleging it was used to make the bomb.
Egypt’s initial report stated the crash was not terrorism-related. However, nearly a year later, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi acknowledged that terrorists downed the plane to harm tourism and strain Cairo’s relations with Russia.
Taba bus bombing
On February 16, 2014, a suicide bomber targeted a tourist bus in Taba, near the Israeli border, resulting in the deaths of three South Korean tourists and the Egyptian bus driver.
The attack was claimed by the Sinai-based jihadist group Ansar Bayt Al-Maqdis, which stated it was part of their economic war against the Egyptian regime.
Luxor massacre
On November 17, 1997, six gunmen disguised as security forces killed 58 foreign tourists and four Egyptians at the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut in Luxor.
The assailants were armed with automatic firearms and knives. The Islamist militant group Al-Jama’a Al-Islamiyya claimed responsibility, stating it was an attempt to undermine the government and damage the tourism industry.
Successive governments in Egypt have waged successful crackdowns on Islamist militant groups, launching campaigns that helped the tourism industry recover.
