AL MANSURAH, Egypt: Twenty people were killed on Saturday when the minibus they were traveling in toppled into a canal in northern Egypt’s Nile Delta, prosecutors said.
Eight people were injured in the accident in Dakahlia governorate, among them the driver.
Prosecutors said police had arrested the driver after a preliminary drug test suggested he had been driving under the influence of narcotics.
They said he was also suspected of using a mobile phone at the wheel at the time of accident.
Emergency crews recovered the heavily damaged minibus from the canal, an AFP photographer reported.
Traffic accidents are common in Egypt where roads are often poorly maintained and driving rules flouted.
In 2021, around 7,000 people were killed on the roads of the Arab world’s most populous country, according to official figures.
In July, 25 people died and 35 were injured in central Egypt when a bus crashed into a truck parked on the side of the road.
20 dead as Egypt minibus topples into canal
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20 dead as Egypt minibus topples into canal
- Eight people were injured in the accident in Dakahlia governorate
- Police had arrested the driver after a preliminary drug test suggested he had been driving under the influence of narcotics
Gaza rescuers says Israeli strikes kill 28 near hospital
The Israeli military said in a statement that they had struck “Hamas terrorists”
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Gaza’s civil defense agency said that Israeli strikes on Tuesday killed at least 28 people in the area surrounding the European Hospital in Khan Yunis, where the Israeli military said it hit a Hamas “command and control center.”
Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that “according to our crews on the ground, 28 martyrs have been recovered from the area” surrounding the hospital in the south of the Palestinian territory.
Ahmad Radwan, civil defense media officer in the southern Gaza Strip, had previously put the initial toll at seven dead and 30 injured “following the occupation’s bombing of the vicinity and courtyard of the European Hospital.”
The Israeli military said in a statement that they had struck “Hamas terrorists in a command and control center located in an underground terrorist infrastructure site beneath the European hospital in Khan Yunis.”
“The Hamas terrorist organization continues to use hospitals in the Gaza Strip for terrorist activity, demonstrating its cynical and brutal use of the civilian population in the hospital and its surroundings,” it added.
“It was an utterly catastrophic scene,” Amro Tabash, a local photojournalist, told AFP.
“Everyone inside the hospital — patients and wounded alike — was running in fear, some on crutches, others screaming for their children, while others were being dragged on beds,” he said.
Earlier in the day, the Israeli military said it had struck Hamas militants “operating from within a command and control center” at Nasser Hospital, also in Khan Yunis.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said the strike killed two people and wounded several others.
Bassal said that “the Israeli army bombed the surgery building at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis at dawn on Tuesday, killing journalist Hassan Aslih.”
The Israeli military had previously accused Aslih of participating in Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel.
Israel resumed its military offensive in Gaza on March 18 after a two-month truce in its war against Hamas, which was triggered by the Palestinian group’s 2023 attack.
Israeli authorities release 9 Gazan detainees
- Since October 2023, Israel has arrested more than 10,700 Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and inside Israel
- The number of those arrested in the Gaza Strip is estimated to be in the thousands
LONDON: Israeli authorities released nine Palestinian detainees from Gaza among the thousands arrested during military actions in the enclave since late 2023.
Israel has arrested more than 10,700 Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and inside Israel since October 2023. The number of those arrested in the Gaza Strip is estimated to be in the thousands, according to the Wafa news agency. However, Israel’s prison authority acknowledged that until April, there were 1,747 prisoners from the Gaza Strip in its jails.
The Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society, two organizations monitoring prisoners’ conditions, have consistently accused Israel of implementing torture practices against Palestinians in detention, including starvation, medical negligence, solitary confinement and abuse.
At least 66 Palestinian prisoners have died in Israeli prisons since the outbreak of the Gaza war in 2023. Among those who died, 40 were from the Gaza Strip.
Since Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories in 1967, 303 Palestinian prisoners have died in Israeli custody, with 75 bodies still being held by Israel.
17 Palestinian children return to Gaza after medical treatment in Jordan
- The nation’s ‘Medical Corridor’ initiative aims to alleviate humanitarian suffering of Palestinians amid war in Gaza
- 12 other children from Gaza continue to receive medical treatment at Jordanian hospitals
LONDON: Seventeen Palestinian children and their families crossed the King Hussein Bridge on Tuesday on their way back to the Gaza Strip after receiving medical treatment at hospitals in Jordan.
Their care was provided as part of the country’s “Medical Corridor” initiative, which provides urgent medical aid for people from the coastal territory in coordination with the Jordanian Armed Forces, the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization. The children were part of the first group of evacuees brought from Gaza on March 4.
All 17 fully recovered after receiving specialized medical care, the Jordan News Agency reported. Twelve others are still being treated in Jordanian hospitals.
More than 52,000 Palestinians have been killed during the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, which began in October 2023. According to a UNICEF report, about 15,000 children have died during the conflict, more than 34,000 have been injured, and nearly 1 million displaced.
The Medical Corridor is one of several Jordanian initiatives that aim to alleviate the suffering of Palestinians amid the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Others include the deployment of field hospitals, humanitarian convoys carrying medical and food aid, a mobile bakery, and the evacuations of children and the wounded.
Netanyahu says there is ‘no way’ Israel halts the war in Gaza until Hamas is defeated
- Netanyahu said Israeli forces were just days away from a promised escalation of force
- “There will be no way we will stop the war,” Netanyahu said
TEL AVIV: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says there is “no way” Israel will halt its war in Gaza, even if a deal is reached to release more hostages.
His comments are likely to complicate talks on a new ceasefire that had seemed to gain momentum after Hamas released the last living American hostage on Monday in a gesture to US President Donald Trump, who is visiting the region but skipping Israel.
They pointed to a potentially widening rift between Netanyahu and Trump, who had expressed hope that Monday’s release of Israeli-American soldier Edan Alexander would be a step toward ending the 19-month war.
In comments released by his office Tuesday from a visit to wounded soldiers the previous day, Netanyahu said Israeli forces were just days away from a promised escalation of force and would enter Gaza “with great strength to complete the mission. ... It means destroying Hamas.”
Any ceasefire deal reached would be temporary, the prime minister said. If Hamas were to say they would release more hostages, “we’ll take them, and then we’ll go in. But there will be no way we will stop the war,” Netanyahu said. “We can make a ceasefire for a certain period of time, but we’re going to the end.”
Hamas has said it will only release the remaining hostages in return for more Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. The dispute over whether to end the conflict has been the main obstacle in negotiations going back more than a year.
Israel says 58 hostages remain in captivity, with as many as 23 of them said to be alive, although authorities have expressed concern about the condition of three of them. Many of the 250 hostages taken by Hamas-led militants in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack that started the war were freed in ceasefire deals.
Trump to ease sanctions on Syria, restore relations with new leader after discussions with Saudi crown prince
- Decision to lift sanctions came following discussions with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
RIYADH: President Donald Trump said Tuesday he will move to normalize relations and lift sanctions on Syria’s new government to give the country “a chance at peace.”
Trump was set to meet Wednesday in Saudi Arabia with Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa.
“There is a new government that will hopefully succeed,” Trump said of Syria, adding, “I say good luck, Syria. Show us something special.”
Speaking at the Saudi-US Investment Forum in Riyadh, he said the effort toward rapprochement came following discussions with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Trump received a standing ovation after his announcement, and added: “Oh, what I do for the crown prince.”
Al-Sharaa was named president of Syria in January, a month after a stunning offensive by insurgent groups led by Al-Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham or HTS that stormed Damascus ending the 54-year rule of the Assad family.
The US has been weighing how to handle Al-Sharaa since he took power in December. Gulf leaders, have rallied behind the new government in Damascus and will want Trump to follow.
Then-President Joe Biden left the decision to Trump, whose administration has yet to formally recognize the new Syrian government. Sanctions imposed on Damascus under Assad also remain in place.
“The President agreed to say hello to the Syrian President while in Saudi Arabia tomorrow,” the White House said before Trump’s remarks.
* With AP
