Gaza Strip: A senior Hamas official said the Palestinian militant group was sending a delegation to Cairo on Saturday but that they would not attend Gaza ceasefire talks in the Egyptian capital.
Egypt, Qatar and the United States have for months tried to reach a deal to end more than 10 months of war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas.
“The delegation will meet with senior Egyptian intelligence officials to be briefed on developments in the ongoing round of Gaza ceasefire talks... but this does not mean it will take part in the negotiations,” the Hamas official told AFP on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to talk publicly on the issue.
“Hamas has said from the beginning that it will not participate in this round of negotiations, which began last week in Doha.”
Hamas’s decision to send a delegation to Cairo comes after the United States said progress had been made at the latest round of talks.
Previous optimism during months of on-off truce talks has proven unfounded, and this time Israel’s insistence on keeping troops on the Egyptian border has emerged as a key sticking point.
The Hamas official said the Islamist group insisted that Israel withdraws its forces from across Gaza, including “from the border area with Egypt” — a zone known as the Philadelphi Corridor.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted on keeping the troops along the corridor between Egypt and Gaza.
On Friday, the White House said CIA chief William Burns was among US officials taking part in the discussions in Cairo, joining the heads of Israel’s spy agency and security service.
“The discussions are taking place in Cairo... in preparation for an enlarged round of negotiations which will begin on Sunday,” an Egyptian source close to negotiations told AFP on Friday.
“Washington is discussing with mediators’ new proposals to bridge the gap between Israel and Hamas and for mechanisms to implement” the plan.
Hamas official says delegates going to Cairo but won’t attend Gaza talks
https://arab.news/9pa9c
Hamas official says delegates going to Cairo but won’t attend Gaza talks
Algeria inaugurates strategic railway to giant Sahara mine
- The mine is expected to produce 4 million tons per year during the initial phase, with production projected to triple to 12 million tons per year by 2030
- The project is financed by the Algerian state and partly built by a Chinese consortium
ALGEIRS: Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune on Sunday inaugurated a nearly 1,000-kilometer (621-mile) desert railway to transport iron ore from a giant mine, a project he called one of the biggest in the country’s history.
The line will bring iron ore from the Gara Djebilet deposit in the south to the city of Bechar located 950 kilometers north, to be taken to a steel production plant near Oran further north.
The project is financed by the Algerian state and partly built by a Chinese consortium.
During the inauguration, Tebboune described it as “one of the largest strategic projects in the history of independent Algeria.”
This project aims to increase Algeria’s iron ore extraction capacity, as the country aspires to become one of Africa’s leading steel producers.
The iron ore deposit is also seen as a key driver of Algeria’s economic diversification as it seeks to reduce its reliance on hydrocarbons, according to experts.
President Tebboune attended an inauguration ceremony in Bechar, welcoming the first passenger train from Tindouf in southern Algeria and sending toward the north a first charge of iron ore, according to footage broadcast on national television.
The mine is expected to produce 4 million tons per year during the initial phase, with production projected to triple to 12 million tons per year by 2030, according to estimates by the state-owned Feraal Group, which manages the site.
It is then expected to reach 50 million tons per year in the long term, it said.
The start of operations at the mine will allow Algeria to drastically reduce its iron ore imports and save $1.2 billion per year, according to Algerian media.
