NEW YORK: President Joe Biden said Monday that he hopes a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that would pause hostilities and allow for remaining hostages to be released can take effect by early next week.
Asked when he thought a ceasefire could begin, Biden said: “Well I hope by the beginning of the weekend. The end of the weekend. My national security adviser tells me that we’re close. We’re close. We’re not done yet. My hope is by next Monday we’ll have a ceasefire.”
Biden commented in New York after taping an appearance on NBC’s “Late Night With Seth Meyers.”
Negotiations are underway for a weekslong ceasefire between Israel and Hamas to allow for the release of hostages being held in Gaza by the militant group in return for Israel releasing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. The proposed six-week pause in fighting would also include allowing hundreds of trucks to deliver desperately needed aid into Gaza every day.
Negotiators face an unofficial deadline of the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan around March 10, a period that often sees heightened Israeli-Palestinian tensions.
Meanwhile, Israel has failed to comply with an order by the United Nations’ top court to provide urgently needed aid to desperate people in the Gaza Strip, Human Rights Watch said Monday, a month after a landmark ruling in The Hague ordered Israel to moderate its war.
In a preliminary response to a South African petition accusing Israel of genocide, the UN’s top court ordered Israel to do all it can to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide in the tiny Palestinian enclave. It stopped short of ordering an end to the military offensive that has triggered a humanitarian catastrophe.
Israel denies the charges against it, saying it is fighting in self-defense.
Nearly five months into the war, preparations are underway for Israel to expand its ground operation into Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost town along the border with Egypt, where 1.4 million Palestinians have sought safety.
Early Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the army had presented to the War Cabinet its operational plan for Rafah as well as plans to evacuate civilians from the battle zones. It gave no further details.
The situation in Rafah has sparked global concern. Israel’s allies have warned that it must protect civilians in its battle against the Hamas militant group.
Also Monday, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh submitted his government’s resignation, and President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to appoint technocrats in line with US demands for internal reform. The US has called for a revitalized Palestinian Authority to govern postwar Gaza ahead of eventual statehood — a scenario rejected by Israel.
In its Jan. 26 ruling, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to follow six provisional measures, including taking “immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance” to Gaza.
Israel also must submit a report on what it is doing to adhere to the measures within a month. The Israeli Foreign Ministry said late Monday that it has filed such a report. It declined to share it or discuss its contents.
Israel said 245 trucks of aid entered Gaza on Sunday. That’s less than half the amount that entered daily before the war.
Human Rights Watch, citing UN figures, noted a 30 percent drop in the daily average number of aid trucks entering Gaza in the weeks following the court’s ruling. It said that between Jan. 27 and Feb. 21, the daily average of trucks entering was 93, compared to 147 trucks a day in the three weeks before the ruling. The daily average dropped to 57, between Feb. 9 and 21, the figures showed.
The rights group said Israel was not adequately facilitating fuel deliveries to hard-hit northern Gaza and blamed Israel for blocking aid from reaching the north, where the World Food Program said last week it was forced to suspend aid deliveries.
“The Israeli government has simply ignored the court’s ruling, and in some ways even intensified its repression,” said Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch.
The Association of International Development Agencies, a coalition of over 70 humanitarian organizations working in Gaza and the West Bank, said almost no aid had reached areas in Gaza north of Rafah since the court’s ruling.
Israel denies it is restricting the entry of aid and has instead blamed humanitarian organizations operating in Gaza, saying large aid shipments sit idle on the Palestinian side of the main crossing. The UN says it can’t always reach the crossing because it is at times too dangerous.
In some cases, crowds of desperate Palestinians have surrounded delivery trucks and stripped them of supplies. The UN has called on Israel to open more crossings, including in the north, and to improve the process.
Netanyahu’s office said that the War Cabinet had approved a plan to deliver humanitarian aid safely into Gaza in a way that would “prevent the cases of looting.” It did not disclose further details.
The war, launched after Hamas-led militants rampaged across southern Israel, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking roughly 250 people hostage, has caused vast devastation in Gaza.
Nearly 30,000 people have been killed in Gaza, two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry which does not distinguish in its count between fighters and noncombatants. Israel says it has killed 10,000 militants, without providing evidence.
Fighting has flattened large swaths of Gaza’s urban landscape, displacing about 80 percent of the territory’s 2.3 million people, who have crammed into increasingly smaller spaces looking for elusive safety.
The crisis has pushed a quarter of the population toward starvation and raised fears of imminent famine, especially in the northern part of Gaza, the first focus of Israel’s ground invasion. Starving residents have been forced to eat animal fodder and search for food in demolished buildings.
“I wish death for the children because I cannot get them bread. I cannot feed them. I cannot feed my own children!” Naim Abouseido yelled as he waited for aid in Gaza City. “What did we do to deserve this?”
Bushra Khalidi with UK aid organization Oxfam told The Associated Press that it had verified reports that children have died of starvation in the north in recent weeks, which she said indicated aid was not being scaled up despite the court ruling.
Aid groups say deliveries also continue to be hobbled by security issues. The French aid groups Médecins du Monde and Doctors Without Borders each said that their facilities were struck by Israeli forces in the weeks following the court order.
Biden hopes ceasefire, hostage deal to pause Israel-Hamas war can take effect by next Monday
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Biden hopes ceasefire, hostage deal to pause Israel-Hamas war can take effect by next Monday

- Negotiations are underway for a ceasefire between Israel, Hamas to allow for release of hostages in Gaza
- Israel has killed over 29,000 Palestinians since October 7, according to Gaza Health Ministry figures
A confidential brief to the ICC accuses Russia-linked Wagner of promoting atrocities in West Africa
In the videos, men in military uniform are shown butchering corpses of what appear to be civilians with machetes, hacking out organs and posing with severed limbs. One fighter says he is about to eat someone’s liver. Another says he is trying to remove their heart.
Violence in the Sahel, an arid belt of land south of the Sahara Desert, has reached record levels as military governments battle extremist groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Daesh group. Turning from Western allies like the United States and France, the governments in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have instead embraced Russia and its mercenary fighters as partners in offensives.
Observers say the new approach has led to the kind of atrocities and dehumanization not seen in the region for decades. Social media offers a window into the alleged horrors that often occur in remote areas with little or no oversight from governments or outside observers.
Experts say the images, while difficult to verify, could serve as evidence of war crimes. The confidential brief to the ICC goes further, arguing that the act of circulating the images on social media could constitute a war crime, too. It is the first such argument made to the international court.
“Wagner has deftly leveraged information and communications technologies to cultivate and promote its global brand as ruthless mercenaries. Their Telegram network in particular, which depicts their conduct across the Sahel, serves as a proud public display of their brutality,” said Lindsay Freeman, director of the Technology, Law & Policy program at the Human Rights Center, UC Berkeley School of Law.
Under the Rome Statute that created the ICC, the violation of personal dignity, mainly through humiliating and degrading treatment, constitutes a war crime. Legal experts from UC Berkeley, who submitted the brief to the ICC last year, argue that such treatment could include Wagner’s alleged weaponization of social media.
“The online distribution of these images could constitute the war crime of outrages on personal dignity and the crime against humanity of other inhumane acts for psychologically terrorizing the civilian population,” Freeman said. She said there is legal precedent in some European courts for charging the war crime of outrages on personal dignity based predominantly on social media evidence.
The brief asks the ICC to investigate individuals with Wagner and the governments of Mali and Russia for alleged abuses in northern and central Mali between December 2021 and July 2024, including extrajudicial killings, torture, mutilation and cannibalism. It also asks the court to investigate crimes “committed through the Internet, which are inextricably linked to the physical crimes and add a new dimension of harm to an extended group of victims.”
The Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC said their investigations have focused on alleged war crimes committed since January 2012, when insurgents seized communities in Mali’s northern regions of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu.
The ICC told the AP it could not comment on the brief but said it was aware of “various reports of alleged massive human rights violations in other parts of Mali,” adding that it “follows closely the situation.”
Wagner did not respond to questions about the videos.
World’s deadliest region for terrorism, think tank says
As the world largely focuses on wars in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan, the Sahel has become the deadliest place on earth for extremism. Half of the world’s nearly 8,000 victims of terrorism were killed across the territory last year, according to the Institute for Economics and Peace, which compiles yearly data.
While the US and other Western powers withdraw from the region, Russia has taken advantage, expanding military cooperation with several African nations via Wagner, the private security company. The network of mercenaries and businesses is closely linked to Russia’s intelligence and military, and the US State Department has described it as “a transnational criminal organization.”
Since Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed in a plane crash in 2023, Moscow has been developing a new organization, the Africa Corps, as a rival force under direct command of Russian authorities.
Earlier this month, Wagner announced its withdrawal from Mali, declaring “mission accomplished” in a Telegram post.
In a separate Telegram post, Africa Corps said it is staying. In Mali, about 2,000 Russian mercenaries are fighting alongside the country’s armed forces, according to US officials. It is unclear how many have been with Wagner or are with the Africa Corps.
Both the Russian mercenaries and local military allies have shared bloody imagery on social media to claim battlefield wins, observers say.
“The mutilation of civilians and combatants by all sides is disturbing enough,” said Corinne Dufka, a Sahel expert and the former head of Human Rights Watch in the region. “But the dissemination of these scenes on social media further elevates the depravity and suggests a growing and worrying level of dehumanization is taking root in the Sahel.”
The confidential brief, along with AP reporting, shows that a network of social media channels, likely administrated by current or former Wagner members, has reposted content that the channels say are from Wagner fighters, promoting videos and photos appearing to show abuses by armed, uniformed men, often accompanied by mocking or dehumanizing language.
While administrators of the channels are anonymous, open source analysts believe they are current or former Wagner fighters based on the content as well as graphics used, including in some cases Wagner’s logo.
AP analysis of the videos confirms the body parts shown are genuine, as well as the military uniforms.
The videos and photos, in a mix of French and local languages, aim to humiliate and threaten those considered the enemies of Wagner and its local military allies, along with civilian populations whose youth face pressure to join extremist groups. But experts say it often has the opposite effect, prompting reprisal attacks and recruitment into the ranks of jihadis.
If the videos aim to deter and terrorize, it’s working, some in Mali say.
The ones appearing to show atrocities committed by Malian soldiers “caused a psychological shock in the Fulani community,” a representative of the nomadic community’s civil society told the AP, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. The Fulani are often caught in the middle of the fight against extremism, the focus of violence from both government forces and extremists, and of jihadi recruitment.
Thousands of Fulani have fled to neighboring countries in fear of being victimized, the representative said, and asserted that at least 1,000 others disappeared last year after encountering Mali’s army or allied militias, including Wagner.
Condemnation and investigations
In July last year, a Wagner-affiliated Telegram channel reposted three videos of what appeared to be Mali’s armed forces and the Dozo hunters, a local defense group often fighting alongside them, committing apparent abuses that allude to cannibalism.
One video shows a man in the uniform of Mali’s armed forces cooking what he says are body parts. Another shows a man dressed as a Dozo hunter cutting into a human body, saying he is about to eat the liver. In a third video, a group of Dozo fighters roasts what appears to be a human torso. One man carves off a hunk of flesh and tosses it to another.
Mali’s army ordered an investigation into the viral videos, which were removed from X for violating the platform’s rules and put behind a paywall on Telegram. The army chief described it as “rare atrocity” which was not aligned with the nation’s military values, and “competent services” would confirm and identify the perpetrators. It was not clear whether anyone was identified.
A video apparently from Burkina Faso, shared on X the same month, showed an armed man in military pants and sleeveless shirt dancing, holding a severed hand and foot, at one point grinning as the foot dangled from his teeth. In another, a man in Burkinabe military uniform cuts through what appears to be a human body. He says: “Good meat indeed. We are Cobra 2.” Another man is heard saying: “This is BIR 15. BIR 15 always does well its job, by all means. Fatherland or death, we shall win.”
BIR 15 Cobra 2 is the name of a special intervention unit created by Burkina Faso’s ruler, Ibrahim Traore, to combat extremists. “Fatherland or death” is the motto of pro-government forces.
The videos were removed from X and put behind a paywall on Telegram. Burkina Faso’s army condemned the videos’ “macabre acts” and described them as “unbearable images of rare cruelty.” The army said it was working to identify those responsible, adding that it “distances itself from these inhumane practices.” It was not clear whether anyone has been identified.
Other posts shared by alleged Wagner-affiliated channels include images of what appear to be mutilated corpses and beheaded, castrated and dismembered bodies of people, including ones described as extremist fighters, often accompanied with mocking commentary. One post shows two white men in military attire with what appears to be a human roasting on a spit, with the caption: “The meat you hunt always tastes better,” along with an emoji of a Russian flag.
It is hard to know at what scale cannibalism might occur in the context of warfare in the Sahel, and actual cases are “likely rare,” said Danny Hoffman, chair in international studies at the University of Washington.
But “the real force of these stories comes from the fascination and fear they create,” Hoffman said of the videos, with the digital age making rumors of violence even more widespread and effective.
“Whether it is Wagner or local fighters or political leaders, being associated with cannibalism or ritual killings or mutilations is being associated with an extreme form of power,” he said.
Some of the graphic posts have been removed. Other content was moved behind a paywall.
Telegram told the AP in a statement: “Content that encourages violence is explicitly forbidden by Telegram’s terms of service and is removed whenever discovered. Moderators empowered with custom AI and machine learning tools proactively monitor public parts of the platform and accept reports in order to remove millions of pieces of harmful content each day.” It did not say whether it acts on material behind a paywall.
’White Uncles in Africa’
The Telegram channel White Uncles in Africa has emerged as the leading source of graphic imagery and dehumanizing language from the Sahel, reposting all the Mali videos. UC Berkeley experts and open source analysts believe it is administered by current or former Wagner members, but they have not been able to identify them. While the channel re-posts images from subscribers, it also posts original content.
In May of this year, the channel posted a photo of eight bodies of what appeared to be civilians, face-down on the ground with hands bound, with the caption: “The white uncles found and neutralized a breeding ground for a hostile life form.” It also shared an image of a person appearing to be tortured, with the caption describing him as a “hostile life form” being taken “for research.”
Human Rights Watch has documented atrocities committed in Mali by Wagner and other armed groups. It says accountability for alleged abuses has been minimal, with the military government reluctant to investigate its armed forces and Russian mercenaries.
It has become difficult to obtain detailed information on alleged abuses because of the Malian government’s “relentless assault against the political opposition, civil society groups, the media and peaceful dissent,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi, the group’s Sahel researcher. That has worsened after a UN peacekeeping mission withdrew from Mali in December 2023 at the government’s request.
That void, she said, “has eased the way for further atrocities” — and left social media as one of the best ways to glimpse what’s happening on the ground.
Thai PM claims she has coalition support after resignation calls

- Paetongtarn Shinawatra has faced criticism for her perceived mishandling of a border row with Cambodia
BANGKOK: Thailand’s prime minister, seeking to fend off calls for her resignation, said on Sunday all coalition partners have pledged support for her government, which she said would seek to maintain political stability to address threats to national security.
Paetongtarn Shinawatra has faced criticism for her perceived mishandling of a border row with Cambodia, including over a phone call with the country’s former leader, Hun Sen, the audio of which was leaked on Wednesday.
After the initial leak, Hun Sen released the full audio, in which Paetongtarn appeared to kowtow before the veteran Cambodian politician and to denigrate a senior Thai military commander – crossing red lines for her critics and some former allies.
A major coalition partner, the Bhumjaithai Party, quit the ruling alliance soon after the leak, overshadowing Paetongtarn’s premiership and a parliamentary majority cobbled together by her Pheu Thai party.
“The country must move forward. Thailand must unite and push policies to solve problems for the people,” Paetongtarn, the daughter of influential former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, posted on X after a meeting with coalition partners, including the United Thai Nation party.
Prior to the post, the UTN had looked set to demand her resignation in return for backing the ruling coalition.
The government and the country’s influential military share a common position, to back democratic principles and follow the provisions of the constitution, said the 38-year-old leader, a political neophyte who was appointed prime minister last year.
Activists, among them groups with a history of influential rallies against the Shinawatra administration, have scheduled a protest in Bangkok starting on June 28 to demand Paetongtarn’s resignation.
Ukraine army chief vows to expand strikes on Russia

- Commander Syrsky said Ukraine would continue its strikes on Russian military targets, which he said had proved “effective"
KYIV: Ukraine’s top military commander vowed to increase the “scale and depth” of strikes on Russia in remarks made public Sunday, saying Kyiv would not sit idly by while Moscow prolonged its three-year invasion.
Diplomatic efforts to end the war have stalled in recent weeks.
The last direct meeting between the two sides was almost three weeks ago and no follow-up talks have been scheduled.
Russian attacks on Ukraine have killed dozens of people during the interim, including in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, according to officials.
“We will not just sit in defense. Because this brings nothing and eventually leads to the fact that we still retreat, lose people and territories,” Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky told reporters including AFP.
Syrsky said Ukraine would continue its strikes on Russian military targets, which he said had proved “effective.”
“Of course, we will continue. We will increase the scale and depth,” he said.
Ukraine has launched retaliatory strikes on Russia throughout the war, targeting energy and military infrastructure sometimes hundreds of kilometers from the front line.
Kyiv says the strikes are a fair response to deadly Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure and civilians.
In wide-ranging remarks, Syrsky also conceded that Russia had some advantages in drone warfare, particularly in making fiber-optic drones that are tethered and difficult to jam.
“Here, unfortunately, they have an advantage in both the number and range of their use,” he said.
He also claimed that Ukraine still held 90 square kilometers (35 square miles) of territory in Russia’s Kursk region, where Kyiv launched an audacious cross-border incursion last August.
“These are our pre-emptive actions in response to a possible enemy offensive,” he said.
Russia said in April that it had gained full control of the Kursk region and denies that Kyiv has a presence there.
Moscow occupies around a fifth of Ukraine and claims to have annexed four Ukrainian regions as its own since launching its invasion in 2022 — in addition to Crimea, which it captured in 2014.
Kyiv has accused Moscow of deliberately sabotaging a peace deal to prolong its full-scale offensive on the country and to seize more territory.
The Russian army said Sunday that it had captured the village of Petrivske in Ukraine’s northeast Kharkiv region.
Russian forces also fired at least 47 drones and three missiles at Ukraine between late Saturday and early Sunday, the Ukrainian air force said.
At least two people were killed in the attacks on Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, including a 17-year-old boy, the region’s governor said.
Pope Leo urges international diplomacy to prevent ‘irreparable abyss’

VATICAN CITY: Pope Leo on Sunday said the international community must strive to avoid war that risks opening an “irreparable abyss,” and that diplomacy should take the place of conflict.
US forces struck Iran’s three main nuclear sites overnight, joining an Israeli assault in a major new escalation of conflict in the Middle East as Tehran vowed to defend itself.
“Every member of the international community has a moral responsibility: to stop the tragedy of war before it becomes an irreparable abyss,” Pope Leo said during his weekly prayer with pilgrims.
“No armed victory can compensate for the pain of mothers, the fear of children, the stolen future. Let diplomacy silence the weapons, let nations chart their future with peace efforts, not with violence and bloody conflicts,” he added.
“In this dramatic scenario, which includes Israel and Palestine, the daily suffering of the population, especially in Gaza and other territories, risks being forgotten, where the need for adequate humanitarian support is becoming increasingly urgent,” Pope Leo said.
Winds fuel fears of new Croatia wildfires

ZAGREB: Firefighters in southern Croatia were on high alert Sunday in fear that expected strong winds could rekindle blazes in the Balkan nation.
Crews, with the help of water bombers, managed to get control Saturday over wildfires on the southern Adriatic coast, after a series of blazes started in recent days.
The fires, near Croatia’s second largest city Split, that started Saturday morning close to the coastal village of Pisak was put under control but were still smoldering.
They have burnt 300 hectares (740 acres) and dozen of houses, authorities said.
According to the Split-Dalmatia county firefighting commander, Ivan Kovacevic during the night several small fires were put down by the firefighters.
“The damage is huge, but it could have been bigger having given the number of structures that were threatened,” Kovacevic said.
No death have been report, while one firefighter and some civilians have suffered minor injuries.
According to Civil protection headquarters at least 94 people, mostly tourists were evacuated in Omis, but late Saturday they returned to their accommodation.
Deputy prefect of Split-Dalmatia county, Stipe Cogelja said the village of Marusic on the Adriatic coast suffered the most damages, adding it was “pure luck” that no one had died.
Police said they are “intensively investigating” the possibility of arson in the fires and called on the citizens to help by immediately reporting any suspicious behavior.