DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: At least 17 people were killed Thursday in Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip, according to local health officials, as international pressure for a ceasefire continued to grow.
On the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, French President Emmanuel Macron told France 24 his country had recognized a Palestinian state on the conviction it “is the only way to isolate Hamas,” which has proved itself able to regenerate even after many of its leaders have been killed.
“Total war in Gaza is causing civilian casualties but can’t bring about the end of Hamas,” he said in the interview Wednesday. “Factually, it’s a failure.”
He said he had been lobbying US President Donald Trump to press Israel again for a ceasefire, telling him “you have an important role to play — you who supports peace, who wants to bring peace to the world.”
“You cannot stop the war if there is no path to peace,” the French president added.
Deadly strikes hit central and southern Gaza
Meanwhile in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, 12 people were killed in an Israeli attack on the central town of Zawaida that hit a tent and a house, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the nearby city of Deir Al-Balah. Eight children were among the victims, according to the hospital, and family members said another girl was still under the rubble.
The hospital said another girl was killed in an airstrike that hit a tent in Deir Al-Balah, and that it was caring for seven others injured in that attack.
In the southern city of Khan Younis, another Israeli attack hit an apartment building, killing four people, according to the Nasser Hospital where the bodies were taken.
Netanyahu denounces leaders who have recognized a Palestinian state
On Monday ahead of the opening of the UN General Assembly meetings, France, Andorra, Belgium, Luxembourg, Malta, and Monaco announced or confirmed their recognition of a Palestinian state in the hopes of galvanizing support for a two-state solution to the Mideast conflict.
Their announcements came a day after the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Portugal did the same, in defiance of Israel and the United States.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out at the idea early Thursday before heading to New York himself where he was to address the assembly on Friday.
“At the UN, General Assembly I will speak our truth,” he told reporters. “I will denounce those leaders who, instead of denouncing the murderers, the rapists, the child burners, want to give them a state in the heart of the land of Israel. It will not happen.”
At separate events in New York on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump’s lead negotiator Steve Witkoff both offered optimistic views about what Witkoff called a “Trump 21-point plan for peace” that was presented to Arab leaders on Tuesday.
The US has not released details of the plan or said whether Israel or Hamas accepts it, but Netanyahu suggested Israel’s position had not changed.
The Israeli leader said when he travels from New York on to Washington to meet with Trump, he would “discuss with him the great opportunities our victories have brought and also our need to complete the goals of the war: to return all our hostages, to defeat Hamas and to expand the circle of peace that is open to us.”
The US, along with Egypt and Qatar, have spent months trying to broker a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release. Those efforts suffered a major setback earlier this month when Israel carried out an airstrike targeting Hamas leaders in Qatar.
Israel launched another major ground operation earlier this month in Gaza City, which experts say is experiencing famine. More than 300,000 people have fled, but up to 700,000 are still there, many because they can’t afford to relocate.
At least 17 killed in Gaza Strip as leaders ramp up pressure for a ceasefire
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At least 17 killed in Gaza Strip as leaders ramp up pressure for a ceasefire
- At least 17 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip, according to local health officials, as international pressure for a ceasefire continued to grow
Trial opens in Tunisia of NGO workers accused of aiding migrants
- Aid workers accused of assisting irregular migration to Tunisia went on trial on Monday, as Amnesty International criticized what it called “the relentless criminalization of civil society”
TUNIS: Aid workers accused of assisting irregular migration to Tunisia went on trial on Monday, as Amnesty International criticized what it called “the relentless criminalization of civil society” in the country.
Six staff members of the Tunisian branch of the France Terre d’Asile aid group, along with 17 municipal workers from the eastern city of Sousse, face charges of sheltering migrants and facilitating their “illegal entry and residence.”
If convicted, they face up to 10 years in prison.
Migration is a sensitive issue in Tunisia, a key transit point for tens of thousands of people seeking to reach Europe each year.
A former head of Terre d’Asile Tunisie, Sherifa Riahi, is among the accused and has been detained for more than 19 months, according to her lawyer Abdellah Ben Meftah.
He told AFP that the accused had carried out their work as part of a project approved by the state and in “direct coordination” with the government.
Amnesty denounced what it described as a “bogus criminal trial” and called on Tunisian authorities to drop the charges.
“They are being prosecuted simply for their legitimate work providing vital assistance and protection to refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in precarious situations,” Sara Hashash, Amnesty’s deputy MENA chief, said in the statement.
The defendants were arrested in May 2024 along with about a dozen humanitarian workers, including anti-racism pioneer Saadia Mosbah, whose trial is set to start later this month.
In February 2023, President Kais Saied said “hordes of illegal migrants,” many from sub-Saharan Africa, posed a demographic threat to the Arab-majority country.
His speech triggered a series of racially motivated attacks as thousands of sub-Saharan African migrants in Tunisia were pushed out of their homes and jobs.
Thousands were repatriated or attempted to cross the Mediterranean, while others were expelled to the desert borders with Algeria and Libya, where at least a hundred died that summer.
This came as the European Union boosted efforts to curb arrivals on its southern shores, including a 255-million-euro ($290-million) deal with Tunis.
