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The world continues to bear the loss of human lives and revenue amid coronavirus crisis

Above, a boarded up shop in San Francisco, California as the US death toll from the coronavirus pandemic topped 5,000 late on April, 1, 2020. (AFP)
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Updated 03 April 2020
Arab News
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The world continues to bear the loss of human lives and revenue amid coronavirus crisis

  • US death toll from the coronavirus pandemic topped 5,000 late Wednesday
  • Arab airlines incurred over $8 billion in losses since the outbreak of coronavirus
Updated 03 April 2020
Arab News

DUBAI: The world continues to bear the burden of loved ones and revenue as the coronavirus pandemic rages on.

In the United States, the death toll topped 5,000 late Wednesday, lower than those of Spain and Italy but above China where the virus conflagration first emanated in December, and now leads the world in the number of coronavirus cases.

Middle East governments meanwhile continue to implement measures to contain the spread of coronavirus and mitigate its devastating effects to the private sector and its residents.

Thursday, April 2 (All times in GMT)

19:53 - Egypt reported 86 new cases of coronavirus on Thursday bringing the total number of cases to 865. Six people have also died of the virus, with 58 people dying in total.

18:43 - Qatar reported 114 new cases of coronavirus, bringing the total number of cases to 949. 

18:09 - The World Bank on Thursday approved a plan to roll out $160 billion in emergency aid over 15 months to help countries deal with the impact of the global coronavirus pandemic.
The board of the Washington-based development lender announced the first set of fast-track crisis funding, with an initial $1.9 billion going to projects in 25 countries, and operations moving forward in another 40 nations, the bank said in a statement.
India will be the largest beneficiary of the first wave of programs with a facility for $1 billion, followed by Pakistan with $200 million and Afghanistan with a little over $100 million, but funding is going to countries on nearly every continent, the bank said.

17:51 -  Britain is looking at issuing immunity certificates to people who have developed resistance to the coronavirus, but there needs to be more research into the science behind it, health minister Matt Hancock said on Thursday.
People who have had COVID-19, the disease caused by coronavirus, develop antibodies to fight the virus, but it is unclear how long any immunity they develop lasts.
"(An immunity certificate) is an important thing that we will be doing and are looking at but it's too early in the science of the immunity that comes from having had the disease," Hancock said at a news conference.
"It's too early in that science to be able to put clarity around that. I wish that we could but the reason that we can't is because the science isn't yet advanced enough." 

17:45 - The number of cumulative known deaths from coronavirus in France surged to nearly 5,400 on Thursday as the country started including fatalities in nursing homes in its data.
Jerome Salomon, head of the public health authority, said the number of coronavirus-related deaths in hospitals rose 12% on Thursday to 4,503 from a day earlier.
He added that a provisional tally showed that a cumulative 884 people in total had died in nursing homes. This makes for a total of 5,387 lives lost to coronavirus in France.
Salomon said the number of known infections rose to 59,105 from 56,989 in France. The number of patients requiring life support rose to 6,399 from 6,017 on Wednesday.

17:19 -  Jordan reports 21 new cases of coronavirus, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 299.

17:15 -  Morocco reports 49 new cases of coronavirus, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 691. 

16:43 – Jordan imposes a complete curfew from midnight.

16:20 – Death toll from coronavirus in Italy has climbed by 760 to 13,915, slightly higher than the daily rise of 727 registered a day earlier.

15:47 – Tunisia records 33 more cases of coronavirus infections, bringing the tally to a total of 455.

15:30 – Egyptian Prime Minister says that while the country has 850 cases of coronavirus infections and they are "still far from the dangerous stage," while also announcing that a number of villages have been locked down.

15:20 – Iran’s parliament says speaker Ali Larijani has tested positive for the new coronavirus and is in quarantine.

14:06 – President Vladimir Putin ordered most Russians to stay off work until the end of April due to the coronavirus pandemic on Thursday.

14:00 – Four soldiers in West Africa have tested positive for coronavirus, the French army said on Thursday.
The army also said that three of the infected soldiers have been repatriated to France. 

13:09 – The United Kingdom's death toll from the coronavirus rose 24 percent to 2,921 as of April 1.
As of 0800 GMT on April 2, a total of 163,194 people had been tested of which 33,718 tested positive, the health ministry said.
"Of those hospitalised in the UK who tested positive for coronavirus, 2,921 have sadly died," the health ministry said.

12:25 – The number of deaths caused by an infection with the new coronavirus in the Netherlands has increased by 166 to 1,339, health authorities said.

12:15 - Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Interior implemented a 24-hour curfew in the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah on Thursday to limit the spread of coronavirus, Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.

11:21 – More than a half of Britons think Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government was too slow to order a lockdown to slow the spread of coronavirus, according an opinion poll published on Thursday. READ THE STORY

10:23 – Europe has recorded over 500,000 confirmed coronavirus cases. Over 95 percent who died in Europe due to coronavirus were over 60, the World Health Organization said.

09:43 – Iran’s total number of infected people with coronavirus increases to 50,468, while deaths have risen 3,160.

WATCH: Our web-shooting super hero Spider-Man pays residents of Stockport in the UK a visit while they stay at home, and stay safe from coronavirus.

09:40 – Spain’s coronavirus death toll rose to 10,003 on Thursday from 9,053 on Wednesday, while total cases increased 110,238 from 102,136 a day earlier.

09:34 – The UAE council of ministers has decided to reduce the daily maximum limit for the decline of shares to 5 percent from 10 percent to support the economy during the coronavirus pandemic.

09:16 – Kuwait has recorded 25 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total number of infected patients to 342.

09:13 – Palestine has confirmed 21 new coronavirus cases.

09:12 – Belgium has reported 183  new coronavirus deaths bringing the total to 1,111.

09:00 – The Philippines’ health ministry on Thursday recorded 11 new deaths and 322 additional cases from the coronavirus outbreak.

08:58 – Emirates Chairman Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum has said the airline has received approval to resume a limited number of passenger flights starting April 6.

08:25 – The venture capital arm of Abu Dhabi state investor Mubadala plans to launch a health care fund next year to tap into increased demand for investment in life sciences and digital health technology following the coronavirus outbreak. FOR THE STORY

08:25 – Russia has recorded six deaths and 771 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total to 30 deaths and 3,548 cases.

08:22 – Spain has shed close to 900,000 jobs, more than half of them temporary, since it went into lockdown in mid-March to fight the coronavirus outbreak, social security data showed on Thursday. READ TTHE STORY

08:02 – Kuwait’s central bank announced a stimulus package on Thursday to support vital sectors and small and medium enterprises amid the fallout from the coronavirus epidemic.

WATCH: Tennis world number one Novak Djokovic gets creative to pass the time and stay in shape as the coronavirus pandemic brought the tennis season to a halt.

08:00 – The Philippines’ ambassador to Lebanon Bernardita Catalla has died of coronavirus, the Philippine foreign affairs ministry said.

07:57 – Thailand will implement a nationwide curfew between 10p.m. and 4a.m. starting Friday, a government statement said.

07:48 – Morocco recorded 22 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total at 676.

07:17 – The head of Israel’s Mossad has been quarantined after being in contact with the health minister who tested positive for coronavirus. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will also remain in quarantine until next Wednesday.

07:12 – Bahrain has confirmed 241 new coronavirus cases; all patients arrived from Iran.




Hand sanitizers are packed at Dhaman Medical Company in Hidd, Bahrain in this March 25, 2020 photo. (Reuters)

06:59 – Oman has recorded 21 new coronavirus cases.

06:57 – China’s Foreign Ministry, asked about US doubting accuracy of China’s coronavirus data, said US officials have been making shameless comments and their actions are immoral.

06:20 – New York rushed to bring in an army of medical volunteers as the statewide death toll from the coronavirus doubled in 72 hours to more than 1,900, while the global number of people diagnosed with the illness edged closer to 1 million on Thursday. READ THE STORY

06:02 – Australia’s national science agency said on Thursday it has commenced the first stage of testing potential vaccines for COVID-19, as it joins a global race to halt the coronavirus pandemic. READ THE STORY

06:00 – British Airways has been in talks with its union about a plan to suspend around 32,000 staff in response to the coronavirus pandemic, a person familiar with the situation said.
The British flag carrier has cut flights and warned it will need to cut jobs to survive the outbreak as the battered aviation sector frantically seeks to cut costs.

05:55 – The US Navy is evacuating thousands of sailors from the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt in Guam after its captain warned a coronavirus outbreak was threatening the lives of the crew.

05:55 – Kuwait confirmed one new coronavirus recovery, bringing total to 81. The country has reported 317 cases so far.

05:42 – Thailand reported 104 new coronavirus cases and three new deaths.




Medical staff dressed in protective gear test a woman for the COVID-19 novel coronavirus at a drive-through testing centre at Vibhavadi Hospital in Bangkok on March 25, 2020. (File/AFP)

05:29 – North Korea remains totally free of the coronavirus, a senior health official in Pyongyang has insisted, despite mounting skepticism overseas as confirmed global infections near one million.

05:09 – Israel’s coronavirus deaths reached 30, officials said.




Israeli police talk to a driver at a checkpoint in the city of Bnei Brak, a city near Tel Aviv with a largely ultra-Orthodox population, on March 31, 2020. (File/AFP)

04:56 – Australia announced free childcare for six months as part of a bid to keep businesses operating through the coronavirus pandemic, as data on new infections supported early signs of “flattening the curve.” READ THE STORY

04:56 – Israeli Health Minister Yaakov Litzman and his wife have tested positive for the coronavirus and have undergone quarantine, his office said late Wednesday.

02:48 – The US death toll from the coronavirus pandemic topped 5,000 late Wednesday, according to a running tally from Johns Hopkins University.

At about 0235 GMT Thursday, 5,116 people had died, the tally showed, on the same day the United States set a one-day record of 884 people killed in 24 hours.

LOOK: The usually bustling streets of Saudi Arabia have gone silent as the Kingdom’s curfew measures remain in place to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

02:12 – A woman from the Kokama ethnic group in the Amazon rainforest is the first indigenous person in Brazil to test positive for the new coronavirus, authorities said.  The coronavirus pandemic has fueled fears about the possible impact for indigenous peoples in the Amazon, who are particularly vulnerable to imported diseases.

01:31 – IAG-owned British Airways is expected to announce a suspension of about 36,000 of its employees, BBC News reported.

The airline has reached a broad deal with Unite union that will include suspension of jobs of 80 percent of BA’s cabin crew, ground staff, engineers and those working at head office, the news agency reported, adding that no staff were expected to be made redundant.

01:04 – Singapore suffered its fourth coronavirus-related death on Thursday, a day after the city-state reported a record number of new cases that took the island-state’s total infections to 1,000.

00:00 – A British man accused of smuggling a phony coronavirus cure into the United States was charged Wednesday with a federal crime, prosecutors said. Frank Richard Ludlow, 59, of West Sussex was charged in Los Angeles federal court with introducing misbranded drugs into interstate commerce and could face up to three years in federal prison if convicted, according to the US attorney’s office.

Wednesday, April 1 (All times in GMT)

23:00 – Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi has signed a declaration that Tahya Misr (Long Live) Egypt, a donation-based national fund, will take care of the expense of quarantine for Egyptians evacuated from abroad over the novel coronavirus. Sisi’s decision comes a day after many Egyptian nationals who arrived from Britain and Kuwait refused to be quarantined for 14 days at their expense.

16:00 – Arab airlines incurred over $8 billion in losses since the outbreak of coronavirus, the Arab Air Carriers’ Organization said. “In the Arab world, millions of reservations have been canceled so far with airlines and hotels in various countries, and the flow of pilgrims to the world’s leading Arab tourist destinations has stopped. Thousands of flights to Arab airlines have been canceled, and 800 aircraft belonging to them have been stopped at airports so far,” a statement said.

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Hamas sending delegation to Egypt for further ceasefire talks in latest sign of progress

Updated 50 min 42 sec ago
AP
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Hamas sending delegation to Egypt for further ceasefire talks in latest sign of progress

  • After months of stop-and-start negotiations, the ceasefire efforts appear to have reached a critical stage
  • Question remains whether Israel will accept end to war without reaching its stated goal of destroying Hamas
Updated 50 min 42 sec ago
AP

BEIRUT: Hamas said Thursday that it was sending a delegation to Egypt for further ceasefire talks, in a new sign of progress in attempts by international mediators to hammer out an agreement between Israel and the militant group to end the war in Gaza.

After months of stop-and-start negotiations, the ceasefire efforts appear to have reached a critical stage, with Egyptian and American mediators reporting signs of compromise in recent days. But chances for the deal remain entangled with the key question of whether Israel will accept an end to the war without reaching its stated goal of destroying Hamas.
The stakes in the ceasefire negotiations were made clear in a new UN report that said if the Israel-Hamas war stops today, it will still take until 2040 to rebuild all the homes that have been destroyed by nearly seven months of Israeli bombardment and ground offensives in Gaza. It warned that the impact of the damage to the economy will set back development for generations and will only get worse with every month fighting continues.
The proposal that US and Egyptian mediators have put to Hamas -– apparently with Israel’s acceptance — sets out a three-stage process that would bring an immediate six-week ceasefire and partial release of Israeli hostages, but also negotiations over a “permanent calm” that includes some sort of Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, according to an Egyptian official. Hamas is seeking guarantees for a full Israeli withdrawal and complete end to the war.
Hamas officials have sent mixed signals about the proposal in recent days. But on Thursday, its supreme leader, Ismail Haniyeh, said in a statement that he had spoken to Egypt’s intelligence chief and “stressed the positive spirit of the movement in studying the ceasefire proposal.”
The statement said that Hamas negotiators would travel to Cairo “to complete the ongoing discussions with the aim of working forward for an agreement.” Haniyeh said he had also spoken to the prime minister of Qatar, another key mediator in the process.
The brokers are hopeful that the deal will bring an end to a conflict that has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, caused widespread destruction and plunged the territory into a humanitarian crisis. They also hope a deal will avert an Israeli attack on Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have sought shelter after fleeing battle zones elsewhere in the territory.
If Israel does agree to end the war in return for a full hostage release, it would be a major turnaround. Since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack stunned Israel, its leaders have vowed not to stop their bombardment and ground offensives until the militant group is destroyed. They also say Israel must keep a military presence in Gaza and security control after the war to ensure Hamas doesn’t rebuild.
Publicly at least, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to insist that is the only acceptable endgame.
He has vowed that even if a ceasefire is reached, Israel will eventually attack Rafah, which he says is Hamas’ last stronghold in Gaza. He repeated his determination to do so in talks Wednesday with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was in Israel on a regional tour to push the deal through.
The agreement’s immediate fate hinges on whether Hamas will accept uncertainty over the final phases to bring the initial six-week pause in fighting — and at least postpone what it is feared would be a devastating assault on Rafah.
Egypt has been privately assuring Hamas that the deal will mean a total end to the war. But the Egyptian official said Hamas says the text’s language is too vague and wants it to specify a complete Israeli pullout from all of Gaza. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to talk about the internal deliberations.
On Wednesday evening, however, the news looked less positive as Osama Hamdan, a top Hamas official, expressed skepticism, saying the group’s initial position was “negative.” Speaking to Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV, he said that talks were still ongoing but would stop if Israel invades Rafah.
Blinken hiked up pressure on Hamas to accept, saying Israel had made “very important” compromises.
“There’s no time for further haggling. The deal is there,” Blinken said Wednesday before leaving for the US
An Israeli airstrike, meanwhile, killed at least five people, including a child, in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza. The bodies were seen and counted by Associated Press journalists at a hospital.
The war broke out on Oct. 7. when Hamas militants broke into southern Israel and killed over 1,200 people, mostly Israelis, taking around 250 others hostage, some released during a ceasefire on November.
The Israel-Hamas war was sparked by the Oct. 7 raid into southern Israel in which militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250 hostages. Hamas is believed to still hold around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.
Since then, Israel’s campaign in Gaza has wreaked vast destruction and brought a humanitarian disaster, with several hundred thousand Palestinians in northern Gaza facing imminent famine, according to the UN More than 80 percent of the population has been driven from their homes.
The “productive basis of the economy has been destroyed” and poverty is rising sharply among Palestinians, according to the report released Thursday by the United Nations Development Program and the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia.
It said that in 2024, the entire Palestinian economy — including both Gaza and the West Bank -– has so far contracted 25.8 percent. If the war continues, the loss will reach a “staggering” 29 percent by July, it said. The West Bank economy has been hit by Israel’s decision to cancel the work permits for tens of thousands of laborers who depended on jobs inside Israel.
“These new figures warn that the suffering in Gaza will not end when the war does,” UNDP administrator Achim Steiner said. He warned of a “serious development crisis that jeopardizes the future of generations to come.”

Israel builds ‘cyber dome’ against Iran’s hackers

Updated 03 May 2024
AFP
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Israel builds ‘cyber dome’ against Iran’s hackers

  • Israeli cybersecurity agency had thwarted around 800 significant attacks since the Oct. 7 Gaza war erupted
  • But some attacks could not be foiled, including against hospitals in which patient data was stolen
Updated 03 May 2024
AFP

TEL AVIV: Israel’s Iron Dome defense system has long shielded it from incoming rockets. Now it is building a “cyber dome” to defend against online attacks, especially from arch foe Iran.

“It is a silent war, one which is not visible,” said Aviram Atzaba, the Israeli National Cyber Directorate’s head of international cooperation.
While Israel has fought Hamas in Gaza since the October 7 attack, it has also faced a significant increase in cyberattacks from Iran and its allies, Atzaba said.
“They are trying to hack everything they can,” he told AFP, pointing to Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement but adding that so far “they have not succeeded in causing any real damage.”
He said around 800 significant attacks had been thwarted since the war erupted. Among the targets were government organizations, the military and civil infrastructure.
Some attacks could not be foiled, including against hospitals in the cities of Haifa and Safed in which patient data was stolen.
While Israel already has cyber defenses, they long consisted of “local efforts that were not connected,” Atzaba said.
So, for the past two years, the directorate has been working to build a centralized, real-time system that works proactively to protect all of Israeli cyberspace.
Based in Tel Aviv, the directorate works under the authority of the prime minister. It does not reveal figures on its staff, budget or computing resources.
Israel collaborates closely with multiple allies, including the United States, said Atzaba, because “all states face cyber terrorism.”
“It takes a network to fight a network,” he said.

Israel’s arch foe Iran is “an impressive enemy” in the online wars, said Chuck Freilich, a researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, which is affiliated with Tel Aviv University.
“Its attacks aim to sabotage and destroy infrastructure, but also to collect data for intelligence and spread false information for propaganda purposes,” he said.
Iran has welcomed Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive against Hamas has killed at least 34,596 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Regional tensions have soared, particularly after Iran for the first time fired hundreds of missiles directly at Israel last month in retaliation for a deadly Israeli air strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus.
It was the most dramatic escalation yet after a years-long shadow war of killings and sabotage attacks between Israel and Iran.
Freilich argued in a study published in February that Iran was relatively slow to invest in cyberwarfare, until two key events triggered a change.
First, its leaders took note of how anti-government protesters used the Internet as a tool to mobilize support for a 2009 post-election uprising.
In the bloody crackdown that crushed the movement, Iran’s authorities cut access to social media and websites covering the protests.
Then, in September 2010, a sophisticated cyberattack using the Stuxnet virus, blamed by Iran on Israel and the United States, caused physical damage to Tehran’s nuclear program.
Freilich said the attack “demonstrated Iran’s extreme vulnerability and led to a severe national shock.”
Since then, Iran has gained substantial expertise to become “one of the most active countries in cyberspace,” he said

While Israel is considered a major cyber power, Iran was only likely to improve, said Freilich.
He pointed to assistance from Russia and China, as well as its much larger population and an emphasis on cyber training for students and soldiers alike, adding that the trend was “concerning for the future.”
Atzaba insisted that the quantity of hackers is secondary to the quality of technology and the use it is put to.
“For the past two years, we have been developing a cyber dome against cyberattacks, which functions like the Iron Dome against rockets,” he said.
“With cyber dome, all sources are fed into a large data pool that enables a view of the big picture and to invoke a national response in a comprehensive and coordinated manner.”
The Israeli system has various scanners that continuously “monitor Israeli cyberspace for vulnerabilities and informs the stakeholders of the means to mitigate them,” he said.
Israel’s cyber strength relied on close cooperation between the public, private and academic sectors, as well as Israel’s “white hat” hackers who help identify weaknesses.
“We work hand in hand,” he said.

Topics: Israel Iran Iron Dome Hamas Gaza Hezbollah cyber hacking

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Kurds deny torturing detainees in north Syria camps

Updated 03 May 2024
Arab News
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Kurds deny torturing detainees in north Syria camps

  • Rights group alleges cruelty against Daesh militant prisoners and their families
Updated 03 May 2024
Arab News

JEDDAH: Kurdish authorities in northeast Syria on Thursday denied claims by Amnesty International that they tortured Daesh militants and their dependents detained in internment camps.
More than 56,000 prisoners with links to the Islamist militant group are still being held five years after Daesh were driven out of their last territory in Syria. They include militants locked up in prisons, and Daesh fighters’ wives and children in Al-Hol and Roj camps.
Amnesty secretary general Agnes Callamard said Kurdish authorities had “committed the war crimes of torture and cruel treatment, and probably committed the war crime of murder.”
The semi-autonomous Kurdish administration in northeast Syria said it “respects its obligations to prevent the violation of its laws, which prohibit such illegal acts, and adheres to international law.”

Any such crimes that may have been perpetrated were “individual acts,” it said, and asked Amnesty to provide it with any evidence of wrongdoing by its security forces and affiliates.

“We are open to cooperating with Amnesty International regarding its proposed recommendations, which require concerted regional and international efforts,” it said.
Kurdish authorities said they had repeatedly asked the international community for help in managing the camps, which required “huge financial resources.”

Al-Hol is the largest internment camp in northeast Syria, with more than 43,000 detainees from 47 countries, most of them women and children related to Daesh fighters.

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Hamas is sending a delegation to Egypt for further ceasefire talks in the latest sign of progress

Updated 03 May 2024
AP
Follow

Hamas is sending a delegation to Egypt for further ceasefire talks in the latest sign of progress

  • US and Egyptian mediators have put to Hamas a proposal -– apparently with Israel’s acceptance — that sets out a three-stage process that would bring an immediate six-week ceasefire and partial release of Israeli hostages
Updated 03 May 2024
AP

BEIRUT: Hamas said Thursday that it was sending a delegation to Egypt for further ceasefire talks, in a new sign of progress in attempts by international mediators to hammer out an agreement between Israel and the militant group to end the war in Gaza.

After months of stop-and-start negotiations, the ceasefire efforts appear to have reached a critical stage, with Egyptian and American mediators reporting signs of compromise in recent days. But chances for the deal remain entangled with the key question of whether Israel will accept an end to the war without reaching its stated goal of destroying Hamas.
The stakes in the ceasefire negotiations were made clear in a new UN report that said if the Israel-Hamas war stops today, it will still take until 2040 to rebuild all the homes that have been destroyed by nearly seven months of Israeli bombardment and ground offensives in Gaza. It warned that the impact of the damage to the economy will set back development for generations and will only get worse with every month fighting continues.
The proposal that US and Egyptian mediators have put to Hamas -– apparently with Israel’s acceptance — sets out a three-stage process that would bring an immediate six-week ceasefire and partial release of Israeli hostages, but also negotiations over a “permanent calm” that includes some sort of Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, according to an Egyptian official. Hamas is seeking guarantees for a full Israeli withdrawal and complete end to the war.
Hamas officials have sent mixed signals about the proposal in recent days. But on Thursday, its supreme leader, Ismail Haniyeh, said in a statement that he had spoken to Egypt’s intelligence chief and “stressed the positive spirit of the movement in studying the ceasefire proposal.”
The statement said that Hamas negotiators would travel to Cairo “to complete the ongoing discussions with the aim of working forward for an agreement.” Haniyeh said he had also spoken to the prime minister of Qatar, another key mediator in the process.
The brokers are hopeful that the deal will bring an end to a conflict that has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, caused widespread destruction and plunged the territory into a humanitarian crisis. They also hope a deal will avert an Israeli attack on Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have sought shelter after fleeing battle zones elsewhere in the territory.
If Israel does agree to end the war in return for a full hostage release, it would be a major turnaround. Since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack stunned Israel, its leaders have vowed not to stop their bombardment and ground offensives until the militant group is destroyed. They also say Israel must keep a military presence in Gaza and security control after the war to ensure Hamas doesn’t rebuild.
Publicly at least, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to insist that is the only acceptable endgame.
He has vowed that even if a ceasefire is reached, Israel will eventually attack Rafah, which he says is Hamas’ last stronghold in Gaza. He repeated his determination to do so in talks Wednesday with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was in Israel on a regional tour to push the deal through.
The agreement’s immediate fate hinges on whether Hamas will accept uncertainty over the final phases to bring the initial six-week pause in fighting — and at least postpone what it is feared would be a devastating assault on Rafah.
Egypt has been privately assuring Hamas that the deal will mean a total end to the war. But the Egyptian official said Hamas says the text’s language is too vague and wants it to specify a complete Israeli pullout from all of Gaza. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to talk about the internal deliberations.
On Wednesday evening, however, the news looked less positive as Osama Hamdan, a top Hamas official, expressed skepticism, saying the group’s initial position was “negative.” Speaking to Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV, he said that talks were still ongoing but would stop if Israel invades Rafah.
Blinken hiked up pressure on Hamas to accept, saying Israel had made “very important” compromises.
“There’s no time for further haggling. The deal is there,” Blinken said Wednesday before leaving for the US
An Israeli airstrike, meanwhile, killed at least five people, including a child, in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza. The bodies were seen and counted by Associated Press journalists at a hospital.
The war broke out on Oct. 7. when Hamas militants broke into southern Israel and killed over 1,200 people, mostly Israelis, taking around 250 others hostage, some released during a ceasefire on November.
The Israel-Hamas war was sparked by the Oct. 7 raid into southern Israel in which militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250 hostages. Hamas is believed to still hold around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.
Since then, Israel’s campaign in Gaza has wreaked vast destruction and brought a humanitarian disaster, with several hundred thousand Palestinians in northern Gaza facing imminent famine, according to the UN More than 80 percent of the population has been driven from their homes.
The “productive basis of the economy has been destroyed” and poverty is rising sharply among Palestinians, according to the report released Thursday by the United Nations Development Program and the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia.
It said that in 2024, the entire Palestinian economy — including both Gaza and the West Bank -– has so far contracted 25.8 percent. If the war continues, the loss will reach a “staggering” 29 percent by July, it said. The West Bank economy has been hit by Israel’s decision to cancel the work permits for tens of thousands of laborers who depended on jobs inside Israel.
“These new figures warn that the suffering in Gaza will not end when the war does,” UNDP administrator Achim Steiner said. He warned of a “serious development crisis that jeopardizes the future of generations to come.”
 

Topics: War on Gaza Israel-Hamas war Egypt

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Syria says Israeli strike outside Damascus injures eight troops

Updated 03 May 2024
Reuters
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Syria says Israeli strike outside Damascus injures eight troops

  • A security source said the strike hit a building operated by government forces
  • Defense ministry acknowledged only that the strike caused some material damage
Updated 03 May 2024
Reuters

An Israeli airstrike on the outskirts of Damascus injured eight Syrian military personnel late on Thursday, the Syrian defense ministry said, the latest such attack amid the war in Gaza.

The Israeli strike, launched from the occupied Golan Heights toward “one of the sites in the vicinity of Damascus,” caused some material damage, the Syrian defense ministry said in a statement.
The strike hit a building operated by Syrian security forces, a security source in the alliance backing Syria’s government earlier told Reuters.
The Israeli military said it does not comment on reports in the foreign media.
Israel has for years been striking Iran-linked targets in Syria and has stepped up its campaign in the war-torn country since Oct. 7, when Iran-backed Palestinian militants Hamas crossed into Israeli territory in an attack that left 1,200 people dead and led to more than 250 taken hostage.
Israel responded with a land, air and sea assault on the Gaza Strip, escalated strikes on Syria and exchanged fire with Lebanese armed group Hezbollah across Lebanon’s southern border.
The security source said the location struck in Syria on Thursday sat just south of the Sayyeda Zeinab shrine, where Hezbollah and Iranian forces are entrenched.
But the source said the site struck was not operated by Iranian units or Hezbollah.

Topics: Golan Heights Israel Syria Damascus

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