NEW YORK: President Joe Biden said Monday that he hopes a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that would pause hostilities and allow for remaining hostages to be released can take effect by early next week.
Asked when he thought a ceasefire could begin, Biden said: “Well I hope by the beginning of the weekend. The end of the weekend. My national security adviser tells me that we’re close. We’re close. We’re not done yet. My hope is by next Monday we’ll have a ceasefire.”
Biden commented in New York after taping an appearance on NBC’s “Late Night With Seth Meyers.”
Negotiations are underway for a weekslong ceasefire between Israel and Hamas to allow for the release of hostages being held in Gaza by the militant group in return for Israel releasing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. The proposed six-week pause in fighting would also include allowing hundreds of trucks to deliver desperately needed aid into Gaza every day.
Negotiators face an unofficial deadline of the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan around March 10, a period that often sees heightened Israeli-Palestinian tensions.
Meanwhile, Israel has failed to comply with an order by the United Nations’ top court to provide urgently needed aid to desperate people in the Gaza Strip, Human Rights Watch said Monday, a month after a landmark ruling in The Hague ordered Israel to moderate its war.
In a preliminary response to a South African petition accusing Israel of genocide, the UN’s top court ordered Israel to do all it can to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide in the tiny Palestinian enclave. It stopped short of ordering an end to the military offensive that has triggered a humanitarian catastrophe.
Israel denies the charges against it, saying it is fighting in self-defense.
Nearly five months into the war, preparations are underway for Israel to expand its ground operation into Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost town along the border with Egypt, where 1.4 million Palestinians have sought safety.
Early Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the army had presented to the War Cabinet its operational plan for Rafah as well as plans to evacuate civilians from the battle zones. It gave no further details.
The situation in Rafah has sparked global concern. Israel’s allies have warned that it must protect civilians in its battle against the Hamas militant group.
Also Monday, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh submitted his government’s resignation, and President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to appoint technocrats in line with US demands for internal reform. The US has called for a revitalized Palestinian Authority to govern postwar Gaza ahead of eventual statehood — a scenario rejected by Israel.
In its Jan. 26 ruling, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to follow six provisional measures, including taking “immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance” to Gaza.
Israel also must submit a report on what it is doing to adhere to the measures within a month. The Israeli Foreign Ministry said late Monday that it has filed such a report. It declined to share it or discuss its contents.
Israel said 245 trucks of aid entered Gaza on Sunday. That’s less than half the amount that entered daily before the war.
Human Rights Watch, citing UN figures, noted a 30 percent drop in the daily average number of aid trucks entering Gaza in the weeks following the court’s ruling. It said that between Jan. 27 and Feb. 21, the daily average of trucks entering was 93, compared to 147 trucks a day in the three weeks before the ruling. The daily average dropped to 57, between Feb. 9 and 21, the figures showed.
The rights group said Israel was not adequately facilitating fuel deliveries to hard-hit northern Gaza and blamed Israel for blocking aid from reaching the north, where the World Food Program said last week it was forced to suspend aid deliveries.
“The Israeli government has simply ignored the court’s ruling, and in some ways even intensified its repression,” said Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch.
The Association of International Development Agencies, a coalition of over 70 humanitarian organizations working in Gaza and the West Bank, said almost no aid had reached areas in Gaza north of Rafah since the court’s ruling.
Israel denies it is restricting the entry of aid and has instead blamed humanitarian organizations operating in Gaza, saying large aid shipments sit idle on the Palestinian side of the main crossing. The UN says it can’t always reach the crossing because it is at times too dangerous.
In some cases, crowds of desperate Palestinians have surrounded delivery trucks and stripped them of supplies. The UN has called on Israel to open more crossings, including in the north, and to improve the process.
Netanyahu’s office said that the War Cabinet had approved a plan to deliver humanitarian aid safely into Gaza in a way that would “prevent the cases of looting.” It did not disclose further details.
The war, launched after Hamas-led militants rampaged across southern Israel, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking roughly 250 people hostage, has caused vast devastation in Gaza.
Nearly 30,000 people have been killed in Gaza, two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry which does not distinguish in its count between fighters and noncombatants. Israel says it has killed 10,000 militants, without providing evidence.
Fighting has flattened large swaths of Gaza’s urban landscape, displacing about 80 percent of the territory’s 2.3 million people, who have crammed into increasingly smaller spaces looking for elusive safety.
The crisis has pushed a quarter of the population toward starvation and raised fears of imminent famine, especially in the northern part of Gaza, the first focus of Israel’s ground invasion. Starving residents have been forced to eat animal fodder and search for food in demolished buildings.
“I wish death for the children because I cannot get them bread. I cannot feed them. I cannot feed my own children!” Naim Abouseido yelled as he waited for aid in Gaza City. “What did we do to deserve this?”
Bushra Khalidi with UK aid organization Oxfam told The Associated Press that it had verified reports that children have died of starvation in the north in recent weeks, which she said indicated aid was not being scaled up despite the court ruling.
Aid groups say deliveries also continue to be hobbled by security issues. The French aid groups Médecins du Monde and Doctors Without Borders each said that their facilities were struck by Israeli forces in the weeks following the court order.
Biden hopes ceasefire, hostage deal to pause Israel-Hamas war can take effect by next Monday
https://arab.news/wwf48
Biden hopes ceasefire, hostage deal to pause Israel-Hamas war can take effect by next Monday
- Negotiations are underway for a ceasefire between Israel, Hamas to allow for release of hostages in Gaza
- Israel has killed over 29,000 Palestinians since October 7, according to Gaza Health Ministry figures
Mass shooting in gang-plagued Mexican state leaves 12 dead and more injured
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said the victims included children
MEXICO CITY: At least 12 people were killed, including a teenager, and more wounded in a Tuesday night shooting in the central Mexican city of Irapuato, authorities said on Wednesday.
The attorney general’s office in Guanajuato, the violence-plagued state where Irapuato is located, said some 20 others were hospitalized with gunshot wounds.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said earlier on Wednesday that the victims included children, although the attorney general’s office later confirmed only one casualty was a minor, aged 17.
“It is very unfortunate what happened. An investigation is under way,” Sheinbaum said.
Local media reported the shooting happened during an evening party celebrating a Catholic holiday, the Nativity of John the Baptist.
A video circulating on social media showed people dancing in the patio of a housing complex while a band played in the background, before gunfire erupted. Reuters was not immediately able to verify the video.
Guanajuato has been for many years one of the most violent regions in the country.
On Tuesday, five other people were killed in other parts of the state, according to the attorney general’s office.
29 pupils taking high school exams killed in Central Africa crush
- In the ensuing panic, supervisors and students tried to flee, some jumping from the first floor of the school
- “I would like to express my solidarity and compassion to the parents of the deceased candidates, to the educational staff, to the students,” Touadera said
BANGUI: Twenty-nine students taking their high school exams in the Central African Republic died in a stampede sparked by an exploding power transformer, the health ministry told AFP Thursday.
Just over 5,300 students were sitting the second day of the baccalaureate exams at the time of the explosion early Wednesday afternoon in Bangui, the capital of the deeply poor nation.
In the ensuing panic, supervisors and students tried to flee, some jumping from the first floor of the school.
The injured were transported by ambulance, on the back of pickup trucks or by motorbike taxi, AFP journalists saw.
“I would like to express my solidarity and compassion to the parents of the deceased candidates, to the educational staff, to the students,” President Faustin Archange Touadera said in a video published on his party’s Facebook page.
Touadera, who is attending a summit of the Gavi vaccine alliance in Brussels, also announced three days of national mourning.
According to a document circulating on social media and authenticated by the health ministry, 29 deaths were registered by hospitals in the city.
“The hospital was overwhelmed by people to the point of obstructing caregivers and ambulances, a health ministry source stated.
UN peacekeepers, police and other security were seen around the Barthelemy Boganda high school and hospitals.
Education Minister Aurelien-Simplice Kongbelet-Zingas said in a statement Wednesday that “measures will be taken quickly to shed light on the circumstances of this incident.”
The minister added that a further statement would follow regarding selection of a date for the students to resume their exams program.
The Republican Bloc for the Defense of the Constitution (BRDC), a coalition of opposition parties, condemned what it termed “the irresponsibility of the authorities in place, who have failed in their duty to ensure the safety of students and school infrastructure.”
The CAR is among the poorest countries in the world and, since independence from France in 1960, has endured a succession of coups, authoritarian rulers and civil wars.
The latest civil war started more than a decade ago. The government has secured the main cities and violence has subsided in recent years.
But fighting occasionally erupts in remote regions between rebels and the national army, which is backed by Wagner mercenaries and Rwandan troops.
Municipal, legislative, and presidential elections are scheduled for August and December of this year but UN experts are calling for urgent institutional reform of the electoral authority before the polls and for “transparent internal governance,” as tensions between the government and the opposition intensify.
Kremlin says no date yet for next round of Ukraine peace talks
- Peskov said Russia was in favor of continued US efforts to mediate
- They have made no progress toward a ceasefire
MOSCOW: The Kremlin said on Thursday there was no progress yet toward setting a date for the next round of peace talks with Ukraine, Interfax news agency reported.
Another agency, TASS, quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying Russia was in favor of continued US efforts to mediate.
Resuming negotiations after a gap of more than three years, Russia and Ukraine held face-to-face talks in Istanbul on May 16 and June 2 that led to a series of prisoner exchanges and the return of the bodies of dead soldiers.
But they have made no progress toward a ceasefire which Ukraine, with Western backing, has been pressing for.
16 dead, thousands of businesses destroyed after Kenya protests
- The marches had been called to mark one year since anti-tax demonstrations
- “What unfolded yesterday was not a protest. It was terrorism disguised as dissent,” Kipchumba Murkomen, interior cabinet secretary, said
NAIROBI: At least 16 people died in protests across Kenya on Wednesday, Amnesty International said Thursday, as businesses and residents were left to clean up the devastation in the capital and beyond.
The marches had been called to mark one year since anti-tax demonstrations that peaked when a huge crowd stormed parliament and dozens were killed by security forces.
The anniversary marches began peacefully Wednesday but descended into chaos as young men held running battles with police, lit fires, and ripped up pavements to use as projectiles.
“What unfolded yesterday was not a protest. It was terrorism disguised as dissent,” Kipchumba Murkomen, interior cabinet secretary, said in a televised speech.
“We condemn the criminal anarchists who in the name of peaceful demonstrations unleashed a wave of violence, looting, sexual assault and destruction upon our people,” he added.
In Nairobi’s business district, the epicenter of the unrest, AFP journalists found entire shopping centers and thousands of businesses destroyed, many still smoldering.
At least two banks had been broken into, while businesses ranging from supermarkets to small electronics and clothing stores were reduced to ashes or ransacked by looters.
“When we came we found the whole premise burnt down,” said Raphael Omondi, 36, owner of a print shop, adding that he had lost machines worth $150,000.
“There were guys stealing, and after stealing they set the whole premises on fire... If this is what protest is, it is not worth it.”
“They looted everything... I do not know where to start,” said Maureen Chepkemoi, 32, owner of a perfume store.
“To protest is not bad but why are you coming to protest inside my shop? It is wicked,” she added.
Several business owners told AFP that looting had started in the afternoon after the government ordered TV and radio stations to stop broadcasting live images of the protests.
Amnesty International’s Kenya director Irungu Houghton said the death toll had risen to 16.
Rights group Vocal Africa, which was documenting the deaths and helping affected families at a Nairobi morgue, said at least four bodies had been brought there so far.
“All of them had signs of gunshots, so we suspect they all died of gunshot wounds,” its head Hussein Khalid told AFP.
“We condemn this excessive use of force,” he said. “We believe that the police could have handled themselves with restraint.”
“You come out to protest police killings, and they kill even more.”
A coalition of rights groups had earlier said at least 400 people were wounded, with 83 in serious condition in hospital. It recorded protests in 23 counties around Kenya.
Emergency responders reported multiple gunshot wounds, and there were unconfirmed local media reports that police had opened fire on protesters, particularly in towns outside the capital.
There is deep resentment against President William Ruto, who came to power in 2022 promising rapid economic progress.
Many are disillusioned by continued economic stagnation, corruption and high taxes, as well as police brutality after a teacher was killed in custody earlier this month.
Vehicle hits pedestrians near school in Beijing: Chinese police
- A grey SUV wedged against a tree as several people and clothing were seen in the road
- “On June 26, 2025, at around 13:00, a traffic accident occurred near the intersection of Yucai Road and Dongmen Street in Miyun district,” local police wrote
BEIJING: A vehicle crashed into pedestrians in an “accident” near a school in Beijing on Thursday, Chinese police said, with footage shared online appearing to show young people lying injured in the street.
Videos geolocated by AFP to an intersection in Miyun district in the northeast of the capital showed a grey SUV wedged against a tree as several people and clothing were seen in the road.
In one clip a bloodied young person was seen being given first aid by somebody in white overalls.
“On June 26, 2025, at around 13:00, a traffic accident occurred near the intersection of Yucai Road and Dongmen Street in Miyun district,” local police wrote in an online statement.
A 35-year-old man surnamed Han “collided” with people “due to an improper operation,” it said, adding those injured were taken to hospital.
It did not give the number of injured.
“The accident is under further investigation,” the statement said.
China has seen a string of mass casualty incidents — from stabbings to car attacks — challenging its reputation for good public security.
Last year a man who plowed his car into a crowd of mostly school children in central China was handed a suspended death sentence with a two-year reprieve.
In November 2024 the attacker named as Huang Wen repeatedly rammed his car into a crowd outside a primary school in Hunan province.
When the vehicle malfunctioned and stopped, Huang got out and attacked bystanders with a weapon before being apprehended.
Thirty people, including 18 pupils, sustained minor injuries.
Some analysts have linked the incidents to growing anger and desperation at the country’s slowing economy and a sense that society is becoming more stratified.
In November last year, a man killed 35 people and wounded more than 40 when he rammed his car into a crowd in the southern city of Zhuhai, the country’s deadliest attack in a decade.
And in the same month, eight people were killed and 17 wounded in a knife attack at a vocational school in the eastern Chinese city of Yixing.
