GAZA CITY: Hamas’s armed wing said Tuesday it had “lost contact” with the group holding Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander following an air strike on their location in Gaza.
“We announce that we have lost contact with the group holding soldier Edan Alexander following a direct strike on their location. We are still trying to reach them at this moment,” Abu Obeida, spokesman for the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, said on his Telegram channel.
The Brigades released a video on Saturday showing Alexander alive, in which he criticized the Israeli government for failing to secure his release.
Alexander appeared to be speaking under duress in the video, making frequent hand gestures as he criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
AFP was unable to determine when the video was filmed.
Alexander was serving as a soldier in an elite infantry unit on the Gaza border when he was abducted by Palestinian militants during their October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
The soldier, who turned 21 in captivity, was born in Tel Aviv and grew up in the US state of New Jersey, returning to Israel after high school to join the army.
Out of the 251 hostages taken on October 7, 58 remain in captivity, including 34 whom the Israeli military says are dead.
Nearly a month after Israel resumed its aerial and ground assaults across Gaza, the Palestinian militant group said on Monday it had received a new ceasefire proposal from Israel.
A senior Hamas official told AFP that Israel had proposed a 45-day ceasefire in exchange for the release of 10 living hostages.
The Hamas official said that the Israeli proposal calls for the release of Alexander on the first day of the ceasefire as a “gesture of goodwill.”
Hamas says ‘lost contact’ with group holding Israeli-American hostage after strike
https://arab.news/nhdzq
Hamas says ‘lost contact’ with group holding Israeli-American hostage after strike
- The Brigades released a video on Saturday showing Alexander alive, in which he criticized the Israeli government for failing to secure his release
Red Crescent clearing bodies ‘everywhere’ in Khartoum
- In one day, Sudan Red Crescent chief said volunteers had found ‘250 in one street’
GENEVA: Since Sudan’s army retook Khartoum last month, Red Crescent volunteers have been working to collect and clear the bodies littering the streets of the war-ravaged capital.
Aida El Sayed, head of the Sudan Red Crescent, told AFP the organization’s volunteers were finding bodies “in the street, inside the buildings, everywhere.”
She said it remained unclear how many bodies are still lying out in the open in Khartoum.
But during just one day, she said Red Crescent volunteers had found “250 in one street.”
Since April 2023, the conflict has pitted army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan against his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who heads the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
The war, which entered its third year on Tuesday, has killed tens of thousands, uprooted 13 million and created what the United Nations describes as the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises.
In Khartoum alone, more than 61,000 people have died of various causes during the first 14 months of war, according to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine — a 50 percent increase in the pre-war death rate.
Of those deaths, 26,000 were attributed directly to violence, the report found last year.
Until the army reseized control of the capital “nobody could enter Khartoum,” Sayed said.
Consequently, some of the bodies being found have been there “since the beginning of the war,” she said.
“Sometimes we are collecting bones.”
The Sudan Red Crescent counts some 12,000 volunteers in the country, providing assistance to the millions of displaced people, handing out food and water, and offering psychological support.
The Sudan Red Crescent is meanwhile struggling to keep up with the towering needs in the country amid a dire lack of funding.
“Sudan is a neglected, forgotten war,” said Sayed.
Only highly-trained teams handle the organization’s “dead body management” program, decked out in special protective gear as they gather up remains in plastic bags before transporting them to a designated safe area, Sayed said.
The main challenge is identifying the bodies.
Those found with ID cards are carefully registered and buried in a designated area, easy to find and visit.
The others are registered with all the known details and taken to another area, where family members searching for missing relatives can come and make inquiries.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said this week that at least 8,000 people were reported missing across Sudan last year alone, warning this was just “the tip of the iceberg.”
The Red Crescent volunteers are helping in the painstaking work to track down the missing, Sayed said, adding that this was “a very big problem” in Sudan.
“You get the call in the middle of the night: I cannot find my daughter, my husband, my brother... We always hear from people asking about their family members or neighbors.”
In addition to tracking missing people and clearing bodies from Kartoum’s streets, the volunteers are taking part in a “cleaning campaign,” in a bid to make it safe for the many displaced people now eager to return home.
The United Nations said this week that it expected more than two million people to return to the capital within the next six months.
Asked if it was safe for them to return, Sayed acknowledged that “there are no guarantees of that,” but stressed that people were “really tired” and just wanted to see their homes.
She herself is from Khartoum. So far, she has only seen a picture of the house she grew up in and started her own family in.
“It has completely collapsed, and bombed in some areas.”
“It is hard.”
Even as the Sudan Red Crescent strives to support communities across the war-ravaged country, its workers are facing the same dangers and the communities they serve.
The organization has lost 28 staff members and volunteers in the war, Sayed said.
“In Sudan, everyone is a target.”
WFP halts food shipments to Houthi-held parts of Yemen after militia seize warehouse
- WFP said 62 percent of households it surveyed couldn’t get enough food
- The seizure was the latest friction between the Houthis and the United Nations
CAIRO: The World Food Program has halted food shipments to Houthi-held areas of Yemen and suspended food distribution there after the militants looted one of its warehouses in the north, its deputy director said Thursday.
The suspension is a further blow in the war-torn country, where hunger has been growing. In February, the WFP said 62 percent of households it surveyed couldn’t get enough food, a figure that has been rising for the past nine months. It estimates that some 17 million people – early half Yemen’s population — are food insecure.
Carl Skau, WFP’s deputy executive director and chief operating officer, told The Associated Press that Houthis seized the warehouse in the northern region of Saada in mid-March and took around $1.6 million in supplies.
The seizure was the latest friction between the Houthis and the United Nations. The militants in recent months have detained dozens of UN staffers, as well as people associated with aid groups, civil society and the once-open US Embassy in Sanaa, Yemen’s capital.
UN agencies, including the WFP, had already halted operations in Saada, the Houthis’ stronghold, in February after seven WFP staffers and another UN worker were detained, and one of the WFP members died in prison. It continued low-level operations in other parts of Yemen under the Houthis’ control.
After the seizure of the warehouse, the WFP halted shipments of new supplies to Houthi-held areas, Skau said.
“The operating environment needs to be conducive for us to continue,” he said. “We cannot accept that our colleagues are being detained, and much less so that our colleagues are dying in detention. And we cannot accept our assets are being looted.”
“It’s something we don’t take lightly because the needs are massive,” he said. “The humanitarian implications of this are deep and extensive … It’s clear the food security situation is deteriorating.”
Yemen has been torn by civil war for more than a decade. Houthi militants hold the capital Sanaa and much of the north and center of the country, where the majority of its population of nearly 40 million live. The internationally recognized government controls the south and west.
Throughout the war, Yemen has been threatened by hunger, nearly falling into full-fledged famine. The impoverished nation imports most of its food.
Skau said the WFP is seeking Houthi permission to distribute food that remains in other warehouses in the north. He said that if UN workers are released, it could resume programs distributing food to some 3 million people in Houthi-held areas.
The WFP is also providing food assistance to some 1.6 million people in southern Yemen, areas controlled by the government and its allies.
But the organization has warned its programs there could be hurt after US President Donald Trump’s administration has cut off funding for WFP’s emergency programs in Yemen.
A WFP official said the organization was reducing its staff in Yemen, and that around 200 employees – 40 percent of its workforce – have been given a month’s notice. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the personnel situation.
“We have now a challenge in the south when it comes to the funding,” Skau said. “But we’re hoping that that can be resolved moving forward.”
Hamas ready to release all remaining hostages for end to Gaza war, Hamas’ Gaza chief says
- Al-Hayya, who leads the Hamas negotiating team for indirect talks with Israel, said the group refused an interim truce deal”
- “Netanyahu and his government use partial agreements as a cover for their political agenda”
CAIRO: Hamas’ Gaza chief said the group was ready to immediately negotiate a deal to swap all hostages for an agreed number of Palestinians jailed by Israel as part of a broader deal to end the war in the enclave.
In a televised speech, Khalil Al-Hayya, who leads the Hamas negotiating team for indirect talks with Israel, said the group refused an interim truce deal.
“Netanyahu and his government use partial agreements as a cover for their political agenda, which is based on continuing the war of extermination and starvation, even if the price is sacrificing all his prisoners (hostages). We will not be part of passing this policy,” said Hayya, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Egyptian mediators have been working to revive the January ceasefire agreement that halted fighting in Gaza before breaking down last month, but there has been little sign of progress with both Israel and Hamas blaming each other for the lack of a deal.
The latest round of talks on Monday in Cairo to restore the ceasefire and free Israeli hostages ended with no apparent breakthrough, Palestinian and Egyptian sources said.
Hayya said that Hamas accepted a proposal by the mediators, Qatar and Egypt, to release some hostages in return for Palestinians jailed by Israel and begin talks on implementing the second phase of the ceasefire agreement that includes ending the war and Israeli forces’ withdrawal from Gaza.
He accused Israel of offering a counterproposal with “impossible conditions.”
Jordanian mobile bakery provides bread to Palestinians amid Gaza flour shortage
- The initiative is part of Jordan’s ongoing efforts to provide humanitarian and medical aid to Gaza
- It produces about 3,500 loaves per hour and over 75,000 loaves daily
LONDON: A Jordanian mobile bakery has been left as one of the few operational bakeries in the Gaza Strip as fuel and flour run low after Israel barred aid entering Palestinian enclave in mid-March.
The Jordanian bakery was dispatched to Gaza in December to supply bread to the Palestinians amid an acute flour shortage that led to most bakeries’ shutdown.
It has teamed up with the World Central Kitchen, an international organization that provides meals to Palestinians in Gaza to alleviate the humanitarian suffering caused by ongoing Israeli military operations.
The bakery produces about 3,500 loaves per hour and over 75,000 loaves daily, crucial for reducing food insecurity in the coastal enclave, the Petra news agency reported.
The initiative is part of Jordan’s ongoing efforts to provide humanitarian and medical aid to Gaza, whether through land or airlifts, it added.
The WCK, which saw seven of its aid workers killed by an Israeli drone strike in April 2024, affirmed its commitment to supporting the people of Gaza during this critical period.
UN envoy calls for swift political compromise to end prolonged crisis in Libya
- In her first in-person Security Council briefing, Hanna S. Tetteh says Libyan leaders broadly agree on need for elections but remain divided on the process for them
- On humanitarian matters, she denounces the targeting of migrants and aid workers, linking a surge in xenophobic rhetoric to increased violence, arrests and deaths
NEW YORK CITY: The UN’s top envoy for Libya, Hanna S. Tetteh, warned the Security Council on Thursday that continued political gridlock and institutional fragmentation risk plunging the country further into instability, unless urgent compromise can be achieved and a unified path to elections agreed.
Addressing council members in person for the first time since her appointment in February as the secretary-general’s special representative for Libya, Tetteh noted that although the country’s leaders broadly agree on the need for elections, deep divisions remain over whether they should be preceded by the development of a constitutional framework or proceed under existing arrangements.
“Political will for compromise is crucial to develop a consensual road map resolving Libya’s political crisis and completing the transition,” she said.
“Elections must be integrated into a comprehensive political framework promoting state-building by unifying and strengthening institutions.”
Tetteh reported that the UN Support Mission in Libya has been facilitating consultations through an advisory committee tasked with addressing electoral challenges. The committee, which held sessions in Benghazi and Tripoli, is expected to submit its report by the end of this month.
“We will assess these options and use them as a foundation for forging consensus on the next steps of the Libyan-led and owned political process,” she added.
Although a fragile 2020 ceasefire agreement continued to hold for now, Tetteh warned that military tensions continue to run high, particularly in the south of the country where clashes in Qatroun have resulted in heavy casualties. She also noted that recent armed mobilizations among western factions in Tripoli have raised fears of renewed violence.
“The situation will remain fragile until there is political will to unify security and military forces under a shared vision,” Tetteh said.
She also highlighted worsening economic conditions marked by currency depreciation, inflation and disputes over oil revenues. A recent decision by Libya’s National Oil Corporation to halt oil-
for-fuel transactions was welcomed for promoting transparency, but disagreements continue, particularly following the Central Bank’s devaluation of the national currency, the dinar.
“Several stakeholders have suggested an audit of key Libyan state institutions by a top-five international firm,” Tetteh said. “This would help address lapses in financial management and promote accountability.”
On the humanitarian front, Tetteh decried the targeting of migrants and aid workers, and linked a surge in xenophobic rhetoric to increased violence, arrests and even deaths.
“The targeting of humanitarian organizations, migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees must stop,” she said.
She also expressed concern about arbitrary detentions, with legal professionals and political opponents among those targeted. She called for the immediate release of all individuals held without due process, and for the adoption of legislation to protect women from violence.
“Women in Libya face significant challenges and violence without adequate social or legal protection,” Tetteh said as she highlighted the need for swift passage of the long-delayed Protection of Women Against Violence Law.
The voter registration process recently concluded for municipal elections in 62 cities and towns, including Tripoli, Benghazi and Sabha. More than 570,000 people registered, 31 percent of them women.
Tetteh hailed this as a “crucial step for grassroots democratic governance” but noted several cases of interference and called for legal procedures to be respected.
She also pressed for resolution of political standoff within the High Council of State Presidency, warning that it undermines national governance.
“Every day, ordinary Libyans face recurring crises: economic, security and political,” Tetteh said. “The aspirations and needs of the Libyan people are held captive by protracted divisions and harmful unilateral actions.”
She concluded with a stark warning to the international community: “Inaction will be more detrimental than the cost of change.”
Tetteh urged the Security Council and the wider international community to unify behind a political plan to support democratic governance and sustainable development in Libya.
