ANKARA: Turkiye has detained 11 people as part of an investigation into a fire that killed 76 people and injured dozens at a ski resort in the Bolu mountains, Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said on Wednesday.
A deputy mayor of the northwestern Bolu province, the head of the municipality’s fire department, the owner and the manager of the hotel were among those detained, Tunc said on X.
Several funerals were held on Wednesday for the victims of Tuesday’s blaze, including numerous children. The fire forced panicked hotel guests to jump from windows in the middle of the night.
“Our hearts and souls are hurting,” President Tayyip Erdogan said at a funeral for eight victims from the same family in Bolu in western Türkiye.
“I pray for patience for the entire family and our nation.”
The bodies of 45 victims were handed over to their families, and forensic DNA tests were being conducted to identify the others, the government said.
The fire occurred at the Grand Kartal Hotel in the Kartalkaya ski resort, a 12-story hotel which had 238 registered guests. It was consumed by flames after the blaze started on the restaurant floor around 3:30 a.m. (0030 GMT).
Some survivors said they heard no fire alarms during the incident and guests said they had to navigate smoke-filled corridors in complete darkness.
The hotel pledged full cooperation with the investigation and said it was “deeply saddened by the losses.”
At one funeral in Ankara, the coffins of a family were lined up at the central Ahmet Hamdi Akseki mosque.
The parents, a doctor and teacher, had gone to Kartalkaya with their three children to ski during a school break, according to a Reuters witness at the funeral.
At least 20 of the fire victims were children, according to local media reports.
Erdogan declared Wednesday a day of national mourning following the tragedy, which occurred during the peak of the winter tourism season, with many families from Istanbul and Ankara traveling to the Bolu mountains to ski.
Turkiye detains 11 over ski resort hotel fire that killed 76
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Turkiye detains 11 over ski resort hotel fire that killed 76

- A deputy mayor of the northwestern Bolu province, the head of the municipality’s fire department, the owner and the manager of the hotel were among those detained
- Several funerals were held on Wednesday for the victims of Tuesday’s blaze, including numerous children
Israeli kibbutz says elderly hostage held in Gaza dead

- The kibbutz called on the Israeli government and world leaders “to continue acting with determination to bring back all the hostages, both the living and the dead, and not to allow painful stories like Shlomo’s to repeat themselves”
JERUSALEM: An elderly Israeli man taken hostage by Hamas militants on October 7, 2023, has been declared dead, a statement from his kibbutz said on Tuesday.
“With heavy hearts, we, the members of the kibbutz, received the news this morning about the murder of our dear friend, Shlomo Mansour, 86 years old, who was kidnapped from his home in Kibbutz Kissufim during the Hamas terror attack on October 7, 2023,” the community said of the Iraqi-born Israeli.
The Israeli military said in a statement on Tuesday that the “decision to confirm his death was based on intelligence gathered in recent months.”

Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a post on X that Mansour had been “murdered in captivity” by Hamas on October 7.
One of the founders of Kibbutz Kissufim, Mansour was kidnapped from a henhouse during Hamas’s attack on southern Israel.
His wife Mazal Mansour, with whom he lived for 60 years, managed to escape the attack. The couple have five children and 12 grandchildren.
The Israeli hostage forum said in a statement that Mansour, born in Baghdad, was a survivor of the Farhud pogrom — a 1941 attack on Iraq’s Jewish community — and immigrated to Israel with his family at 13.
“This is one of the most difficult days in the history of our kibbutz,” the community of Kissufim said in a statement.
“Shlomo was much more than a community member to us — he was a father, grandfather, a true friend and the beating heart of Kissufim.”
“Our hearts are broken that we couldn’t bring him back to us alive.”
The kibbutz called on the Israeli government and world leaders “to continue acting with determination to bring back all the hostages, both the living and the dead, and not to allow painful stories like Shlomo’s to repeat themselves.”
In a statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he and his wife, Sara, “share in the family’s deep mourning.”
“We will not rest and will not be silent until he is returned to a burial in Israel. We will continue to act with determination and without pause until we return all of our hostages — both the living and the fallen,” he said.
A fragile ceasefire reached last month between Hamas and Israel appeared strained on Tuesday, a day after Hamas threatened to postpone the release of Israeli hostages scheduled for Saturday.
On Monday, US President Donald Trump warned that “all hell” would break loose if every Israeli hostage is not released from Gaza within the coming days, a threat Hamas said “further complicates matters.”
The war in Gaza was triggered by the Hamas attack, the deadliest in Israel’s history, which resulted in the deaths of 1,211 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Militants also took 251 hostages, of whom 73 remain in Gaza, including 35 that Israeli officials say are dead.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says the war has killed at least 48,208 people in the territory, figures which the UN considers reliable.
Turkmenistan reaches deal with Turkiye to ship natural gas via Iran

- Turkiye imports gas via pipelines from Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran
ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan: Turkmenistan has struck a deal to ship natural gas to Turkiye via Iran, a government daily reported Tuesday.
The official daily Neutral Tyrkmenistan said that Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, the chairman of the country’s People’s Council, welcomed the deal in a phone call with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. Berdymukhamedov said it was a major development in the regional energy cooperation.
Gas supplies under the contract that was signed between the state-run Turkmengas company and Turkiye’s state-owned BOTAS will begin on March 1.
“With this agreement, which we have been working on for many years, we will strengthen the natural gas supply security of our country and our region, while furthering the strategic cooperation between the two countries,” Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said in a statement.
Turkiye imports gas via pipelines from Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran.
Last year, Turkmenistan signed a contract with Iran for 10 billion cubic meters (353 billion cubic feet) of natural gas to be shipped on to Iraq.
The ex-Soviet Central Asian country relies heavily on the export of its vast natural gas reserves. China is the nation’s main customer for gas and Turkmenistan also is working on a pipeline to supply gas to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.
Jordan to take sick Gaza kids as Trump pushes takeover plan

- Jordan would take in some 2,000 sick children from war-torn Gaza
- US president called it a 'beautiful gesture' and said he didn’t know about it before the Jordanian monarch’s arrival at the White House
WASHINGTON: Jordan’s King Abdullah II on Tuesday told Donald Trump that his country would take in some 2,000 sick children from war-torn Gaza, as the US president pushed his plan to take over the territory and push out Palestinians.
Speaking at the White House, King Abdullah added that Egypt would present a proposal on how countries in the region could “work” with Trump on the plan, despite Arab nations and the Palestinians having rejected it outright.
“I think one of the things that we can do right away is take 2,000 children, cancer children who are in a very ill state, that is possible,” King Abdullah said as Trump welcomed him and Crown Prince Hussein in the Oval Office.
Trump called it a “beautiful gesture” and said he didn’t know about it before the Jordanian monarch’s arrival at the White House.
The US president meanwhile backed down on a suggestion that he could withhold aid for Jordan and Egypt if they refused to take in more than two million Palestinians from Gaza.
“I think we’ll do something. I don’t have to threaten that, I do believe we’re above that,” Trump said.
Trump stunned the world when he announced a proposal last week for the United States to “take over” Gaza, envisioning rebuilding the devastated territory into the “Riviera of the Middle East” — but only after resettling Palestinians elsewhere, with no plan for them ever to return.
Jordan’s King Abdullah was repeatedly pressed by reporters on whether he supported the plan, but said only that Egypt was coming up with a response and that Arab nations would then discuss it at talks in Riyadh.
“The president is looking at Egypt coming to present that plan... (then) we will be in Saudi Arabia to discuss how we should work with the president and with the United States,” King Abdullah said.
“The point is, how do we make this work in a way that is good for everybody," he added.
UN experts warn Trump Gaza plan would return world to ‘dark days of colonial conquest’

- Call for US to facilitate permanent ceasefire, resume UNRWA funding, and compensate Palestinians for damage caused by US weapons
- US should pressure Israel to pay for reconstruction and reparations, hold perpetrators of atrocities accountable, and support Palestinian statehood, experts say
NEW YORK: A group of more than 30 independent UN experts on Tuesday denounced threats by US President Donald Trump to “take over” and “own” Gaza, warning that such a move would usher in a new era of “predatory lawlessness.”
Referring to Trump’s suggestion that Gaza’s Palestinian population could be relocated through the use of military force if required, the experts said: “Such blatant violations by a major power would break the global taboo on military aggression and embolden other predatory countries to seize foreign territories, with devastating consequences for peace and human rights globally.”
They added that implementing the US proposal would “shatter the most fundamental rules of the international order and the United Nations Charter since 1945, which the US was instrumental in creating to restore peace after the catastrophic Second World War and Holocaust.
“It would return the world to the dark days of colonial conquest.”
The experts underscored that it was clearly unlawful to invade and seize foreign land by force; to forcibly expel inhabitants; and to deny the Palestinian people their fundamental right to self-determination, which includes keeping Gaza as part of a sovereign Palestinian state.
“Such violations would replace the international rule of law and the stability it brings with the lawless ‘rule of the strongest’.”
The experts include Ben Saul, the special rapporteur on the promotion of human rights while countering terrorism; Francesca Albanese, special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian territories, and George Katrougalos, an independent expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order.
They said that just as more than 50 years of Israeli occupation of Palestine had failed to bring peace or security to either Israel or Palestine, a US occupation would have the same disastrous outcome, driving endless war, death, and destruction.
The mass deportation of civilians from occupied territories was classified as a war crime under the 1949 Geneva Conventions following the Second World War to prevent the repetition of actions such as Nazi Germany’s forced expulsion of populations from European nations.
“The US proposal would accelerate forced displacement of Palestinians from their lands, which began in the 1947-48 Nakba, and has since included home demolitions, evictions, destruction and theft of natural resources and the criminal building of illegal Israeli colonial settlements,” the experts warned.
During his previous term, Trump unlawfully acknowledged Israel’s illegal annexations of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, actions that have been condemned by the International Court of Justice, the UN General Assembly, the Security Council, and a vast majority of countries.
“If the US president is genuinely concerned for the welfare of Palestinians, the US should broker a lasting ceasefire, resume funding to UNRWA, compensate Palestinians for damage resulting from US weapons and munitions supplied to Israel despite the serious risk of violations of humanitarian law, and end arms transfers. It should also pressure Israel to fund reconstruction and provide reparation for violations, pursue accountability for perpetrators of international crimes, and meaningfully support Palestinian statehood,” they said.
The experts said that if the US president truly cares about the well-being of Palestinians, the US should facilitate a lasting ceasefire, resume funding to UNRWA, compensate Palestinians for the damage caused by US weapons and munitions provided to Israel despite the significant risk of humanitarian law violations, and halt arms transfers.
They added that the US should also urge Israel to finance reconstruction, offer reparations for violations, seek accountability for those responsible for international crimes, and genuinely support Palestinian statehood.
Israeli military action in Gaza has resulted in the deaths of over 48,100 Palestinians and left 110,000 injured, mostly women and children. The attacks have rendered 85 percent of the population, roughly 1.9 million people, homeless, and without access to sufficient food, water, and other basic needs. They have also severely damaged or destroyed most homes, agricultural land, public infrastructure, and caused extensive environmental harm.
Kuwait sends 22nd relief plane to Syria

- Kuwaiti air bridge to deliver aid to Damascus beyond the month of Ramadan
- 10 tons of food aid brings total relief supply to 591 tons
LONDON: The 22nd Kuwaiti relief plane arrived at Damascus International Airport, delivering essential aid to Syria as part of Kuwaiti efforts to alleviate the Syrian crisis.
An air force plane delivered 10 tons of food aid, which was organized by the Kuwait Red Crescent Society in cooperation with the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense, the Kuwait News Agency reported late on Monday.
The Kuwait Red Crescent is working with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent to deliver food and shelter materials as part of an air bridge planned to operate between Kuwait and Syria beyond the month of Ramadan, which starts in March.
Kuwaiti aid provided to Syria through the air bridge has reached 591 tons of various relief supplies, the KUNA added.