DEIR AL-BALAH: Israeli forces advanced deeper into the Gaza Strip’s largest city in pursuit of militants who had regrouped there, sending thousands of Palestinians fleeing on Monday from an area ravaged in the early weeks of the nine-month-long war.
Hamas warned that the latest raids and displacement in Gaza City could lead to the collapse of long-running negotiations over a ceasefire and hostage release, after the two sides had appeared to have narrowed the gaps in recent days.
Israeli troops were again battling militants in areas that the army said had been largely cleared months ago in northern Gaza. The military ordered evacuations ahead of the raids, but Palestinians said nowhere feels safe. Most of the population of 2.3 million has been displaced, often multiple times. Hundreds of thousands are packed into sweltering tent camps.
Israel ordered the evacuation of northern Gaza in the first weeks of the war and has prevented most people from returning. But hundreds of thousands of Palestinians remain, living in shelters or the shells of homes.
“We fled in the darkness amid heavy strikes,” said Sayeda Abdel-Baki, a mother of three who had sheltered with relatives in the Daraj neighborhood. “This is my fifth displacement.”
Residents reported artillery and tank fire, as well as airstrikes. Gaza’s Health Ministry, with limited access to the north, did not immediately report casualties.
Israel issued additional evacuation orders for areas in other neighborhoods of central Gaza City. The military said it had intelligence showing that militants from Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad group were in the area, and called on residents to head south to the city of Deir Al-Balah.
Israel accuses Hamas and other militants of hiding among civilians. In Shijaiyah, a Gaza City neighborhood that has seen weeks of fighting, the military said troops raided and destroyed schools and a clinic that had been converted into militant compounds.
The war has decimated large swaths of urban landscape and sparked a humanitarian catastrophe.
Obstacles to a deal
Israel and Hamas seem to be the closest they have been in months to agreeing to a ceasefire deal that would pause the fighting in exchange for the release of dozens of hostages captured by Hamas in the Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war.
CIA Director William Burns returned to the region Monday for talks in Cairo, according to Egypt’s state-run Qahera TV, which is close to the security services. An Israeli delegation was also heading to the Egyptian capital, Israeli media reported.
But obstacles remain, even after Hamas agreed to relent on its key demand that Israel commit to ending the war as part of any agreement. A key part of that shift, officials told The Associated Press, is the level of destruction caused by Israel’s rolling offensive.
Hamas still wants mediators to guarantee that negotiations conclude with a permanent ceasefire, according to two officials with knowledge of the talks. The current draft says the mediators — the United States, Qatar and Egypt — “will do their best” to ensure that negotiations lead to an agreement to wind down the war.
Israel has rejected any deal that would force it to end the war with Hamas intact — a condition Netanyahu reiterated Sunday.
Hamas on Monday said it is “offering flexibility and positivity” to facilitate a deal, while accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of “putting more obstacles in the way of negotiations.”
Meanwhile, Hamas’ top political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, warned mediators of “catastrophic consequences” if Israel continued its operations in Gaza City, saying Netanyahu and the army would bear “full responsibility” for the collapse of the talks, the group said in a subsequent statement.
The two officials said there’s also an impasse around whether Hamas can choose the high-profile prisoners held by Israel that it wants released in exchange for hostages. Some prisoners were convicted of killing Israelis, and Israel does not want Hamas to determine who is released. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the sensitive talks with the media.
Bombing keeps responders from bodies
Inside Gaza, residents saw no end to their suffering.
Maha Mahfouz fled her home with her two children and many neighbors in Gaza City’s Zaytoun neighborhood. She said their area was not included in the latest evacuation orders but “we are panicked because the bombing and gunfire are very close to us.”
Fadel Naeem, the director of the Al-Ahli hospital, said patients fled the facility even though there was no evacuation order for the surrounding area. He said those in critical condition had been evacuated to other hospitals in northern Gaza.
Marwan Al-Sultan, director of the Indonesian Hospital, said it received 80 patients and wounded people from Al-Ahli who were packed into “every corner.”
“Many cases require urgent surgeries. Many cases suffer from direct shots in the head and require intensive care. Fuel and medical supplies are dwindling,” he said in a text message. He said the hospital also received 16 bodies of people killed in the Israeli incursion, half of them women and children.
Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesman for the Civil Defense first responders who operate under the Hamas-run government, said the neighborhoods of Tufah, Daraj and Shijaiyah had become inaccessible because of Israeli bombing. In a voice message, he said the military shelled houses in Gaza City’s Jaffa area and first responders “saw people lying on the ground and were not able to retrieve them.”
The war has killed more than 38,000 people in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.
Hamas’ cross-border raid on Oct. 7 killed 1,200 people in southern Israel, most of them civilians, according to Israeli authorities. The militants took roughly 250 people hostage. About 120 are still in captivity, with about a third said to be dead.
Israeli forces push deeper into Gaza City as Hamas warns that escalation threatens ceasefire talks
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Israeli forces push deeper into Gaza City as Hamas warns that escalation threatens ceasefire talks
- Hamas warned that the latest raids and displacement in Gaza City could lead to the collapse of long-running negotiations over a ceasefire and hostage release
- Israeli troops were again battling militants in areas that the army said had been largely cleared months ago in northern Gaza
Israel orders evacuation of part of Gaza humanitarian zone
The military said it is planning to begin an operation against Hamas militants who have embedded themselves in the area and used it to launch rockets toward Israel. The area includes the eastern part of the Muwasi humanitarian zone, which is located in the southern Gaza Strip.
Many Palestinians have been uprooted multiple times in search of safety during Israeli’s punishing air and ground campaign.
Earlier this month, Israel said it estimates at least 1.8 million Palestinians are now in the humanitarian zone it declared covering a stretch of about 14 kilometers (8.6 miles) along the Mediterranean. Much of that area is now blanketed with tent camps that lack sanitation and medical facilities and have limited access to aid, UN and humanitarian groups say. Families live in the midst of mountains of trash and streams contaminated by sewage.
The announcement came during delicate negotiations seeking a ceasefire in Gaza, with US and Israeli officials expressing hope that an agreement is closer than ever, and as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to make a much-anticipated trip to the United States to meet with President Joe Biden and address Congress.
A negotiating team will be sent to continue talks on Thursday, Netanyahu’s office said. Egypt, Qatar and the United States continue to push Israel and Hamas toward a phased ceasefire deal that would stop the fighting and free the hostages.
The war in Gaza has killed more than 38,900 people, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The war began with an assault by Hamas militants on southern Israel on Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 250 hostages. About 120 remain held, about a third of them believed to be dead, according to Israeli authorities.
The Israeli military said on Monday that it is continuing to operate in central and southern Gaza. On Sunday, Israeli airstrikes killed at least 15 people, including women and children, in Gaza, according to hospital officials and a body count by an Associated Press journalist.
The already precarious humanitarian conditions inside besieged Gaza have worsened with the discovery of the polio virus as water and sanitation services have deteriorated for the territory’s 2.3 million people, most of them displaced. Traces of the virus were found in sewage samples in Gaza. The World Health Organization has said no one has been treated for symptoms caused by the disease.
Israel’s military said soldiers would be vaccinated and it would work with organizations to bring in vaccines for Palestinians.
Netanyahu has vowed to wipe out Hamas’ military and governing capabilities and secure the return of the remaining hostages. Families of hostages and thousands of other Israelis have held weekly demonstrations to urge the prime minister to reach a ceasefire deal that would bring their loved ones home.
Israel’s Netanyahu walks political tightrope on Washington trip following Biden’s exit from race
- Some Democrats will likely demonstrate their anger toward Biden and Netanyahu by skipping Wednesday’s speech
JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heads to Washington on Monday, leaving behind a brutal war to make a politically precarious speech before Congress at a time of great uncertainty following Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race.
With efforts ongoing to bring about a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, rising concerns about the war spreading to Lebanon and Yemen, and the US in the midst of a dizzying election campaign, Netanyahu’s speech has the potential to cause disarray on both sides of the ocean.
The risks only increased with Biden’s decision Sunday to drop out of the race for president, especially since the choice of a replacement Democratic nominee — and the potential next American leader — are still up in the air.
A person familiar with Biden’s schedule confirmed Sunday that the president will host Netanyahu at the White House. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly, said the exact timing of the meeting has not been established because Biden is recovering from COVID-19.
Netanyahu is scheduled to address Congress on Wednesday. He is also expected to meet with Vice President Kamala Harris, who is seeking the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.
An official in Netanyahu’s office confirmed that the Israeli leader was set to travel to Washington on Monday. The official also spoke on condition of anonymity pending a formal announcement.
Netanyahu will deliver his congressional address with an eye on several audiences: his ultranationalist governing partners, the key to his political survival; the Biden administration, which Netanyahu counts on for diplomatic and military support; and Donald Trump’s Republican Party, which could offer Netanyahu a reset in relations if he is reelected in November.
His words risk angering any one of those constituencies, which the Israeli leader cannot afford if he hopes to hold on to his tenuous grip on power.
“There are a few land mines and pitfalls on this trip,” Eytan Gilboa, an expert on US-Israel relations at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, said before Biden’s withdrawal. “He is thought of as a political wizard who knows how to escape from traps. I am not sure he still knows how to do that.”
It is Netanyahu’s fourth speech to Congress — more than any other world leader. During his address, his far-right governing partners will want to hear his resolve to continue the war and topple Hamas.
The Biden administration will look for progress toward the latest US-backed ceasefire proposal and details on a postwar vision. Republicans hope Netanyahu besmirches Biden and bolsters the GOP’s hoped-for perception as Israel’s stalwart supporter.
Upon receiving the invitation, Netanyahu said he would “present the truth about our just war against those who seek to destroy us.”
The war, which was sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, has tested Israel’s ties with its top ally as never before.
The Biden administration has stood staunchly beside Israel. But it has grown increasingly alarmed about the conduct of the Israeli military, the continued difficulties of getting humanitarian aid into Gaza, especially after the short-lived US military pier off Gaza coast, as well as Israel’s lack of postwar plans and the harm to civilians in Gaza. Similar concerns will likely persist if Americans elect a new Democratic president.
Biden earlier this year froze the delivery of certain bombs over fears they would be used in Israel’s incursion into the southern Gaza city of Rafah, which at the time sheltered more than half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million.
The US abstained from a United Nations Security Council vote in March that called for a ceasefire and the release of hostages but did not link the two. Netanyahu called the decision a “retreat” from a “principled position” by Israel’s ally.
Biden has had to walk a fine line of his own. He has faced harsh criticism from progressive Democrats and many Arab Americans. Even Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the highest-ranking elected US Jewish official, lambasted Netanyahu in March for his handling of the war.
Some Democrats will likely demonstrate their anger toward Biden and Netanyahu by skipping Wednesday’s speech. Netanyahu is also likely to be hounded by pro-Palestinian activists during his trip.
The last time Netanyahu spoke to Congress in 2015 was at the invitation of the Republican Party. The trip drove Israeli-American politics deep into the partisan divide as Netanyahu railed against then-President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal.
Netanyahu has not shied away from making Israel a partisan issue. With his nationalist conservative ideology, he has been perceived as throwing his support behind Republican candidates in the past, rankling Democrats and Israelis who want to keep the US-Israel relationship bipartisan.
It’s unclear if he will meet Trump. If there is a meeting, it could expose Netanyahu to accusations that he is once again taking sides. But if he doesn’t meet with Trump, the former president could feel slighted.
The speech also offers Netanyahu opportunity. He will be able to show Israelis that despite the tensions with the Biden administration, US support for him remains ironclad.
“He wants the Israeli public to believe that he is very much still very welcome in the United States. And this shows that the American people are with him,” said David Makovsky, director of the program on Arab-Israel Relations at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
For critics of Netanyahu, that embrace is unacceptable and grants legitimacy to a deeply polarizing leader whose public support has plummeted. Netanyahu faces widespread protests and calls to resign over the failures of Oct. 7 and his handling of the war.
In a letter to Congress, 500 Israeli writers, scholars and public figures expressed their dismay over the invitation to Netanyahu, saying he will use the platform to advance misguided policies that align with his far-right governing partners.
“His only interest is preserving his own power,” they wrote. “Does the United States Congress wish to support such a model of cynical and manipulative leadership in these times?”
Israeli media reported that Netanyahu will be joined by rescued hostage Noa Argamani and her father. But for many of the families of hostages held in Gaza, the trip is an affront.
“This is not the time for trips,” Ayelet Levy Shachar, whose daughter Naama was kidnapped on Oct. 7, told reporters.
“Netanyahu: First a deal, then you can travel.”
Iran condemns Israeli attack on Yemen’s Hodeidah port
- Kanani added that Israel and its supporters, including the United States, were “directly responsible for the dangerous and unpredictable consequences of the continued crimes in Gaza, as well as the attacks on Yemen”
TEHRAN: Iran has condemned Israel’s deadly retaliatory strike on the Houthi-controlled port of Hodeidah in Yemen that the rebels say killed six people and wounded dozens more.
Late on Saturday, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani “strongly condemned” the attack saying it was “an expression of the aggressive behavior of the child-killing Israeli regime“
Israeli warplanes on Saturday struck the vital port of Hodeidah in response to a deadly drone attack by the Iran-backed Houthis on Tel Aviv, which killed one civilian.
The Houthi rebels have since threatened a “huge” retaliation against Israel.
Kanani added that Israel and its supporters, including the United States, were “directly responsible for the dangerous and unpredictable consequences of the continued crimes in Gaza, as well as the attacks on Yemen.”
Regional tensions have soared since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October, drawing in Iran-backed militant groups in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels, along with the Hezbollah group in Lebanon, and Hamas in Gaza are part of a Tehran-aligned “axis of resistance” against Israel and its allies.
The Islamic republic has reiterated support for the groups but insisted they were independent in their decision-making and actions.
Insect infestation ravages North African prickly pear
- Tunisian authorities estimate that about 150,000 families make a living from cultivating Opuntia
- Prickly pear is consumed as food and used to make oils, cosmetics and body-care products
CHEBIKA, Tunisia: Amor Nouira, a farmer in Tunisia’s Chebika village, has lost hope of saving his prickly pear cacti, ravaged by the cochineal insect spreading across North Africa.
The 50-year-old has seen his half-hectare of cactus crops wither as the invasive insect wreaked havoc on about a third of the country’s cacti after an outbreak in 2021.
“At first, I wanted to experiment with prickly pear production and gradually develop investments while looking for customers outside the country, especially for its natural oil,” said Nouira.
“But... as the cacti became damaged, I abandoned the idea of investing and stopped thinking about it altogether.”
Prickly pear is consumed as food and used to make oils, cosmetics and body-care products.
In Chebika, as in other rural areas in central Tunisia, many farmers’ fields of prickly pear — also known as Opuntia — have been spoiled by the cochineal, which swept through North Africa 10 years ago, beginning in Morocco.
The insect, like the prickly pear, is native to the Americas and feeds on the plant’s nutrients and fluids, often killing it.
The infestations have resulted in significant economic losses for thousands of farmers reliant on prickly pear, as authorities struggle to combat the epidemic in a country where its fruit is widely consumed as a summertime snack.
Tunisian authorities estimate that about 150,000 families make a living from cultivating Opuntia.
The North African country is the world’s second-largest producer of its fruit, after Mexico, with about 600,000 hectares of crops and a yield of about 550,000 tons per year, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Only production allocated for export — about a third of overall crops — has remained in good condition, said Rabeh Hajjlaoui, head of the department of plant health at Tunisia’s agriculture ministry.
“We’re making every effort to save these plants, which are an important source of income to some locals,” he explained, as one liter of extracted Opuntia oil can be sold for as much as $4,200.
Farmers also plant prickly pear cacti for their resistance to drought and desertification, and sometimes use them to demarcate and fence property in Tunisia and neighboring Libya.
In Morocco, where the first cases of cochineal were found in 2014, Opuntia is cultivated over a total of 160,000 hectares.
In 2016, the Moroccan government issued an “emergency plan” to combat cochineal infestation by experimenting with various chemicals, burying infected cacti and conducting research on developing variants resilient to the insect.
Despite the plan, by August 2022, about 75 percent of Opuntia crops in Morocco had been infested, according to Mohamed Sbaghi, a professor at Rabat’s National Institute of Agricultural Research (INRA) and the emergency plan coordinator.
In neighboring Algeria, authorities recorded an outbreak in 2021 in Tlemcen, a city near the border with Morocco.
Prickly pear cultivation in the country covers around 60,000 hectares, and the fruit is so cherished that a festival dedicated to it is held every year in the eastern Kabylia region.
Neither the plant nor cochineal is native to North Africa, but the region’s dry climate helped them spread, said Tunisian entomologist Brahim Chermiti.
“Climate change, with increasing drought and high temperatures, facilitates their reproduction,” he told AFP.
The region has experienced severe drought in recent years, with declining rainfall and intense heat.
Chermiti believes it’s a matter of “public safety” to combat cochineal infestation, requiring “strict border crossing monitoring and public awareness.”
The researcher fears total contagion, as “sooner or later, it will spread, with the help of many factors such as the wind and livestock.”
Hajjlaoui, from Tunisia’s agriculture ministry, said the issue could even cause social unrest if it spreads to farms in marginalized areas, such as Tunisia’s Kasserine governorate, where Opuntia is nearly the only source of livelihood for many.
He said the “slowness of administrative procedure” during the first major outbreaks in Tunisia impeded efforts to stem the spread of cochineal.
At first, Morocco and Tunisia burned and uprooted infected crops, but authorities now aim for “natural resistance” to the insect, said Hajjlaoui.
Last summer, Morocco’s INRA said it identified eight cochineal-resistant Opuntia varieties that could potentially be cultivated.
The other solution, added the expert, is spreading the Hyperaspis trifurcata ladybird — also native to the Americas — among the cacti, which preys on cochineal.
In Morocco, farmers began raising the ladybird “so that it is always ready” in case of outbreaks, said Aissa Derhem, head of the environmental association Dar Si Hmad.
Last month, Tunisia received 100 ladybirds along with an emergency budget of $500,000 to battle cochineal, allocated by the FAO.
Five things to know about Turkiye’s interests in Africa
- Turkiye has accumulated considerable soft power in the region, notably through education, the media and its shared religion with Africa’s many Muslim countries
- Turkiye has signed defense agreements with a number of states spanning the breadth of the continent, including Somalia, Libya, Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Ghana
ISTANBUL: Turkiye is pushing for diplomatic and economic influence on the world stage — not least in Africa, where it announced plans this week to search for oil and gas off Somalia.
Over President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s two decades in power, Ankara has consolidated its foothold on the continent, quadrupling its number of embassies there.
Here are five of Turkiye’s diplomatic and economic interests and strategies in Africa:
At a time when many African countries are turning away from their former colonial rulers, Turkiye has looked to fill the void left behind.
“Erdogan presents himself as an alternative to the West,” said Selin Gucum, author of a study on Turkish interests in Africa for Paris’s Observatory of Contemporary Turkiye.
Gucum told AFP that Ankara often emphasizes the “sincerity” of its presence on the continent compared to that of Europeans, who bear the legacy of colonialism.
And Erdogan can be less squeamish about what partners he chooses, according to a report on Turkiye’s defense accords with African countries by Teresa Nogueira Pinto, an analyst at Geopolitical Intelligence Services.
“Unlike the West, Turkiye does not make this assistance conditional on governance or human rights commitments,” Pinto wrote.
Turkiye has signed defense agreements with a number of states spanning the breadth of the continent, including Somalia, Libya, Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Ghana.
Those agreements have opened up contracts for Turkiye’s defense manufacturers, notably for its reputedly reliable and inexpensive drones.
Popularly used in the fight against terrorism, Turkish drones have been recently delivered to Chad, Togo, and the junta-led Sahel trio of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.
Turkiye is also expanding its interests in Africa’s energy sector.
In September or October it plans to launch an oil and gas exploration mission off the coast of Somalia, similar to the one it is carrying out in Libyan waters.
Ankara is also said to be coveting Niger’s abundant uranium deposits which it needs to operate its future Russian-built Akkuyu nuclear power station — although Ankara’s diplomats deny this.
Nonetheless, Erdogan has bolstered ties with Niger’s ruling generals since their 2023 coup d’etat. Niamey received Turkiye’s intelligence chief and foreign, energy and defense ministers on Wednesday.
Ankara is generally seen as a “reliable partner,” said Didier Billion, Turkiye specialist at the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs — “particularly in the construction and infrastructure sectors.”
When Turkish companies build big-ticket projects like hospitals, airports, or mosques, “deadlines and budgets are met, he added.
That reputation means more demand: in 2023, Turkish contractors were involved in $85.5 billion worth of projects, according to the trade ministry.
Turkish Airlines also crisscrosses the continent, flying to 62 destinations in Africa.
In 2012, it became the first airline to return to Mogadishu, whose airport was rebuilt with Turkish funding and assistance.
Turkiye has accumulated considerable soft power in the region, notably through education, the media and its shared religion with Africa’s many Muslim countries.
The religious Turkish Maarif Foundation has expanded to a network of 140 schools and institutions catering for 17,000 pupils, while 60,000 Africans are students in Turkiye.
Ankara’s powerful Directorate of Religious Affairs has stepped up its humanitarian activities and support for mosques and religious education across the region.
Billing itself as the first Turkish television channel on the continent, NRT boasts on its website that it serves 49 African countries, spreading the Turkish language.
Public broadcaster TRT also has programs in French, English, Swahili and Hausa and is developing training courses for future journalists.
Turkiye’s religious conservatism likewise resonates with many African countries, at a time when anti-LGBTQ laws are being adopted on the continent.
“When Erdogan denounces ‘LGBTQ people who undermine family values’, for many Africans, that’s music to their ears,” Billion said.
