‘Welcome back’: Israelis cheer, cry as hostages freed from Gaza

A woman holds pictures of Israeli hostages in Tel Aviv on Feb. 15, 2025 as families gather in the city’s Hostages Square while waiting for the release by Hamas of three double-nationals held in the Gaza Strip since the Oct. 7, 2023. (AFP)
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Updated 15 February 2025
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‘Welcome back’: Israelis cheer, cry as hostages freed from Gaza

  • All three men were taken from Nir Oz, a kibbutz community near the Gaza border
  • They watched the release from the town of Carmei Gat in southern Israel

TEL AVIV: Holding up signs reading “sorry and welcome back” and “complete the ceasefire,” hundreds of Israelis gathered in Tel Aviv’s “Hostages Square” on Saturday to watch Hamas release three Israeli hostages from Gaza.
In smaller groups, friends and relatives of the released men — Israeli-American Sagui Dekel-Chen, 36, Israeli-Russian Sasha Trupanov, 29, and Israeli-Argentine Yair Horn, 46 — shed tears of joy at the sight of their loved ones, who were made to address a crowd in Gaza from a stage alongside rifle-wielding militants.
All three men were taken from Nir Oz, a kibbutz community near the Gaza border, during Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 which sparked the war.
Dekel-Chen’s wife, Avital, who gave birth to the couple’s third daughter two months after her husband was seized, was waiting for him at an army base in southern Israel.
“My breath has returned. He looks so handsome,” she said following his release in a call to her sister aired by Israel’s Kan public broadcaster.
Other relatives of Dekel-Chen said they were relieved to see him alive.
“I am excited, and I see that he looks OK, and I want to hug him,” his mother-in-law told Kan, wiping away tears.
Dekel-Chen’s sister-in-law said: “Thank God that everything is OK and they were on their feet.”
They watched the release from the town of Carmei Gat in southern Israel, where some residents of Nir Oz have moved to since the attack.
In Kfar Saba, in central Israel, a friend of the Horn family, Ronnie Milo, told AFP that she was experiencing “unimaginable joy” on seeing him return alive.
Ronli Nissim, of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum campaign group, said: “It’s an emotional roller coaster, and also very bittersweet.”
“Every time someone comes back... we are just a jumble of emotions,” she said.
“But then we’re thinking about everyone who’s left behind, and we know that they are mistreated, we know that they’re in hell, and they’re just waiting to be released.”
So far under the Gaza truce, 19 Israeli hostages have been released in exchange of hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli custody.
The 42-day first phase of the truce stipulates the release of a total of 33 hostages, including eight Israel says are dead, in exchange for some 1,900 Palestinian prisoners.
Out of the 251 people abducted during the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas militants, 70 remain in Gaza, with half of them dead according to the Israeli military.
In Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv, Trupanov’s friends and family clapped, cheered and cried as they watched the 29-year-old, who had been held by Hamas’s ally Islamic Jihad, step out of a car in Gaza.
In a statement from the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, Trupanov’s family said they were grateful to see him return.
“Finally, Sasha can be surrounded by his loved ones and begin a new path,” said the statement, adding that they did not know if Trupanov was “aware that his father, Vitaly, was murdered on October 7.”
“This knowledge — or lack thereof — will completely transform his homecoming from a day of great joy to one of deep mourning for his beloved father,” they said.


Turkish prosecutors add charges of forging diploma against jailed Istanbul mayor

Updated 57 min 9 sec ago
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Turkish prosecutors add charges of forging diploma against jailed Istanbul mayor

  • Imamoglu denies the allegations against him, which his party says are orchestrated to protect Erdogan in power
  • His indictment over his diploma was reported by Milliyet newspaper

ANKARA: Turkish prosecutors charged Istanbul’s mayor Ekrem Imamoglu on Friday with falsifying his university diploma, a new case threatening more years in prison for President Tayyip Erdogan’s main rival, already jailed pending corruption charges he denies.

Imamoglu, at the center of a sprawling legal crackdown on the main opposition party, has been jailed since March 23 pending trial. He denies the allegations against him, which his party says are orchestrated to protect Erdogan in power.

His indictment over his diploma was reported by Milliyet newspaper, which said prosecutors were seeking eight years and nine months of prison time for the new charges. Reuters could not immediately obtain the document.

On March 18, Istanbul University said it had annulled Imamoglu’s diploma. He was detained a day later on the corruption charges, triggering Turkiye’s largest protests in a decade, and later jailed pending trial.

His detention has drawn sharp criticism from opposition parties and some foreign leaders, who call the case politically motivated and anti-democratic. The government denies the case is political.

Imamoglu is the main opposition Republican People’s Party’s presidential candidate in any future election. He won re-election as mayor in March last year by a wide margin against a candidate from Erdogan’s ruling AK Party.


Gaza’s Nasser Hospital operating as ‘one massive trauma ward’

Updated 04 July 2025
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Gaza’s Nasser Hospital operating as ‘one massive trauma ward’

  • 613 killed at aid distribution sites, near humanitarian convoys, says UN human rights office

GENEVA: Nasser Hospital in Gaza is operating as “one massive trauma ward” due to an influx of patients wounded at non-UN food distribution sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

The US- and Israeli-backed GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of deliveries that the UN says is neither impartial nor neutral. It has repeatedly denied that incidents involving people killed or wounded at its sites have occurred.
The GHF said on Friday that “the most deadly attacks on aid sites have been linked to UN convoys,” and said the UN and humanitarian groups should work “collaboratively” with the GHF to “maximize the amount of aid being securely delivered into Gaza.” The UN in Geneva was immediately available for comment.

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Hundreds of patients, mainly young boys, were being treated for traumatic injuries, including bullet wounds to the head, chest, and knees, according to the WHO.

Referring to medical staff at the Nasser Hospital, Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative in the West Bank and Gaza, told reporters in Geneva: “They’ve seen already for weeks, daily injuries ... (the) majority coming from the so-called safe non-UN food distribution sites. The hospital is now operating as one massive trauma ward.”
Israel lifted an 11-week aid blockade on Gaza on May 19.
The UN human rights office said on Friday that it had recorded at least 613 killings, both at aid points run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and near humanitarian convoys.
“We have recorded 613 killings, both at GHF points and near humanitarian convoys — this is a figure as of June 27. Since then ... there have been further incidents,” Ravina Shamdasani, the spokesperson for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in Geneva.
The OHCHR said 509 of the 613 were killed near GHF distribution points. The GHF dismissed these numbers as coming “directly from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry” and were being used to “falsely smear” its effort.
The GHF has previously said it has delivered more than 60 million meals to hungry Palestinians in five weeks “safely and without interference,” while other humanitarian groups had “nearly all of their aid looted.”
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that there have been some instances of violent looting and attacks on aid truck drivers, which it described as unacceptable.
Hundreds of patients, mainly young boys, were being treated for traumatic injuries, including bullet wounds to the head, chest, and knees, according to the WHO.
Peeperkorn said health workers at Nasser Hospital and testimonies from family members and friends of those wounded confirmed that the victims had been trying to access aid at sites run by the GHF.
Peeperkorn recounted the cases of a 13-year-old boy shot in the head, as well as a 21-year-old with a bullet lodged in his neck, which rendered him paraplegic.
“There is no chance for any reversal or any proper treatment. Young lives are being destroyed forever,” Peeperkorn said, urging for the fighting to stop and for more food aid to be allowed into Gaza.

 


French President Macron and Malaysian PM reaffirm calls for Gaza ceasefire

Updated 04 July 2025
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French President Macron and Malaysian PM reaffirm calls for Gaza ceasefire

  • “Our two countries are urging, more than ever, for a ceasefire,” said Macron

PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim reaffirmed on Friday their calls for a ceasefire in the fighting in Gaza, as Macron hosted Ibrahim in Paris.

“Our two countries are urging, more than ever, for a ceasefire, the release of the hostages, and for aid to get through,” said Macron, referring to Israeli hostages held by Hamas.


Egypt says Ethiopia’s power-generating dam lacks a legally binding agreement

This general view shows the site of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) in Guba, Ethiopia, on February 19, 2022. (AFP)
Updated 04 July 2025
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Egypt says Ethiopia’s power-generating dam lacks a legally binding agreement

  • Egypt firmly rejects Ethiopia’s continued policy of imposing a fait accompli through unilateral actions concerning the Nile River, which is an international shared watercourse

CAIRO: Egypt said on Friday that Ethiopia has consistently lacked the political will to reach a binding agreement on its now-complete dam, an issue that involves Nile River water rights and the interests of Egypt and Sudan.
Ethiopia’s prime minister said Thursday that the country’s power-generating dam, known as the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, on the Nile is now complete and that the government is “preparing for its official inauguration” in September.
Egypt has long opposed the construction of the dam because it would reduce the country’s share of Nile River waters, which it almost entirely relies on for agriculture and to serve its more than 100 million people.
The more than $4 billion dam on the Blue Nile near the Sudan border began producing power in 2022. 
It is expected to eventually produce more than 6,000 MW of electricity — double Ethiopia’s current output.
Ethiopia and Egypt have spent years negotiating an agreement over the dam, which Ethiopia began building in 2011. 
Both countries reached no deal despite negotiations spanning 13 years, and it remains unclear how much water Ethiopia will release downstream in the event of a drought.
Egyptian officials, in a statement, called the completion of the dam “unlawful” and said that it violates international law, reflecting “an Ethiopian approach driven by an ideology that seeks to impose water hegemony” instead of equal partnership.
“Egypt firmly rejects Ethiopia’s continued policy of imposing a fait accompli through unilateral actions concerning the Nile River, which is an international shared watercourse,” Egypt’s Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation said in a statement on Friday.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, in his address to lawmakers on Thursday, said that his country “remains committed to ensuring that our growth does not come at the expense of our Egyptian and Sudanese brothers and sisters.”
“We believe in shared progress, shared energy, and shared water,” he said. 
“Prosperity for one should mean prosperity for all.”
However, the Egyptian Water Ministry said on Friday that Ethiopian statements calling for continued negotiations “are merely superficial attempts to improve its image on the international stage.”
“Ethiopia’s positions, marked by evasion and retreat while pursuing unilateralism, are in clear contradiction with its declared willingness to negotiate,” the statement read.
However, Egypt is addressing its water needs by expanding agricultural wastewater treatment and improving irrigation systems, according to the ministry, while also bolstering cooperation with Nile Basin countries through backing development and water-related projects.

 


Firefighters master one Turkiye wildfire as two others rage on

Updated 04 July 2025
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Firefighters master one Turkiye wildfire as two others rage on

  • Firefighters have been battling more than 600 fires in the drought-hit nation
  • By Friday morning, they had gained control over a major fire near the resort town of Cesme

ISTANBUL: Firefighters early Friday gained control over a major wildfire in the western Turkish province of Izmir but two others continued to ravage forests there, a minister said.

Although Turkiye was spared the recent heatwaves that hit the rest of southern Europe, firefighters have been battling more than 600 fires in the drought-hit nation over the past week which have been fueled by high winds.

By Friday morning, they had gained control over a major fire near the resort town of Cesme, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) west of Turkiye’s third city Izmir, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Ibrahim Yumakli said.

The firefighters’ “intense work overnight and the air intervention that resumed at dawn have brought the fire in Cesme under control,” he wrote on X.

But they were still battling two other wildfires, one in Buca just south of Izmir and another in Odemis, about 100 kilometers further east where an 81-year-old man and a forestry worker died on Thursday.

Forecasters said temperatures were set to rise over the weekend and would reach around 40 degrees Celsius (104 degree Fahrenheit) in the province early next week.

With the fire under control in Cesme, the road linking the peninsular to Izmir was reopened, Anadolu state news agency said.

But the motorway connecting Izmir and Aydin to the southeast was closed because of the Buca fire, which began at 4:00 p.m. on Thursday and spread quickly due to the wind, CNN Turk said.

It said two people who had been cutting iron for use in construction had been arrested on suspicion of starting the fire.

On Monday, more than 50,000 people were evacuated, mostly in the Izmir area but also from the southern province of Hatay, the AFAD disaster management agency said.

According to figures on the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) website, there have been 96 wildfires in Turkiye so far this year that have ravaged more than 49,652 hectares (122,700 acres) of land.

The area of land burnt has more than doubled since Monday when it stood at nearly 19,000 hectares. EFFIS only maps fires that cover an area of 30 hectares or more.

Experts say human-driven climate change is causing more frequent and more intense wildfires and other natural disasters, and have warned Turkiye to take measures to tackle the problem.