Region

DUBAI — Qatar has suspended its role as a key mediator for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal after concluding that Hamas and Israel were unwilling to negotiate "in good faith", a diplomatic source told AFP Saturday.

The Gulf emirate, which has hosted Hamas's political leadership since 2012 with US blessing, has been involved in months of protracted diplomacy aimed at ending the war triggered by the Palestinian group's October 7 attack on Israel last year.

But the talks, also mediated by Cairo and Washington, have repeatedly hit snags since a one-week truce in November 2023 -- the only one so far -- with both sides trading blame for the impasse.

"The Qataris informed both the Israelis and Hamas that as long as there is a refusal to negotiate a deal in good faith, they cannot continue to mediate," said the diplomatic source, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"The Qataris conveyed to the US administration that they would be ready to re-engage in mediation when both sides... demonstrate a sincere willingness to return to the negotiating table," the source added.

There was no official confirmation from Qatar or any comment from Egypt and the United States.

With Gaza truce talks at a deadlock, the Hamas political office in Doha "no longer serves its purpose", said the source, without specifying whether Qatar intends to ask leaders of the Palestinian group to leave the country.

During talks over the past year, both Qatari and US officials indicated that Hamas would remain in Doha as long as its presence offered a viable channel of communication.

A senior Hamas official in Doha told AFP that "we have not received any request to leave Qatar".

 'Insufficient willingness' 

Despite last November's truce, when scores of Hamas-held hostages were released, successive rounds of negotiations -- as recently as late last month -- have failed to end the war.

The diplomatic source said Saturday that Qatar had "concluded that there is insufficient willingness from either side" to bridge gaps in negotiations.

A crucial hurdle has been Hamas's insistence that Israel withdraw completely from Gaza, which Israeli officials have repeatedly rejected.

On the ground in the besieged Gaza Strip, the fighting showed no signs of abating Saturday.

The territory's civil defence agency said Israeli air strikes killed at least 14 Palestinians overnight, including nine at a tent camp in the southern area of Khan Yunis.

Afaf Tafesh told AFP she had lost relatives in that strike.

"We have no food, no water, no place to sleep and we are all the time moving from place to place," she said.

Israel's military said its troops killed "dozens of terrorists" in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza, where it has been conducting a sweeping air and ground operation for more than a month.

Visiting Jabalia on Friday, Israeli army chief Herzi Halevi told troops that "we are not stopping or slowing down", vowing "to bring back the hostages, to ensure security" for Israeli communities near the Gaza border, a statement from the military said.

The conflict has expanded to Lebanon, where Israel intensified its air campaign in September and later sent in ground troops after a year of cross-border clashes with Hamas ally Hizbollah.

Hizbollah said Saturday it attacked targets in northern Israel and also downed an Israeli drone over south Lebanon.

Lebanon's health ministry reported at least 20 dead in Israeli strikes on the east of the country and 11 killed in the south, including six rescuers affiliated to Hizbollah and its ally Amal.

The ministry said earlier seven people including two children were killed in Israeli strikes on Tyre on Friday.

More than 2,700 people have been killed in Lebanon since September 23, according to ministry figures.

Iran, which backs both Hizbollah and Hamas, warned that the war could spread beyond the Middle East.

"The world should know that in case of the expansion of war... insecurity and instability can spread to other regions, even far away," Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in speech aired on state TV.

TEL AVIV — Israel's airports authority said operations at its main airport near Tel Aviv were not affected after Hizbollah claimed it fired missiles at an Israeli military base nearby on Wednesday.

"Ben Gurion airport is open and operating as normal for takeoffs and landings," the authority's spokeswoman, Liza Dvir, told AFP, adding that the runway had been unaffected.

Lebanon's Hizbollah said it fired missiles at an Israeli military base near the airport on Wednesday, the first such attack in more than a month of war.

In a statement, the Iran-backed group said the salvo of missiles targeted the Tzrifin military base near Ben Gurion International Airport, south of the Israeli commercial hub of Tel Aviv.

Images posted on social media showed smoke rising near the airport while AFP photos from Ben Gurion showed no damage on the tarmac.

The Israeli military did not confirm whether the base had been targeted.

It said that "approximately 10 projectiles crossed from Lebanon" following sirens in northern and central Israel.

"Most of the projectiles were intercepted and one fallen projectile was identified in central Israel," it added. 

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories  — Palestinians in war-ravaged Gaza told AFP on Tuesday that whoever emerges victorious in the US presidential election must end the conflict in the territory, which has taken an appalling human toll.

"We are hanging by a thread, and like every other people in the world, we are looking for someone who can stop the war," said Ayman Al Omreiti, 45, from Gaza City's Al Daraj neighbourhood.

"Our hope is that the American people will choose someone who can end the suffering of the Palestinian people."

Millions of Americans began to cast their ballots on Tuesday in a contest that pre-election polling suggested was too close to call.

Omreiti, who has been displaced several times during the 13 months since the war broke out, said he hoped Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris would defeat Republican rival Donald Trump.

"The Palestinian people are worried about a possible Trump victory, and we hope the results will be favourable for his opponent, Harris, because she has called for an end to the war several times," he said.

Another Palestinian resident of Gaza City, Hani Ajur, is clear in his view: Whoever becomes president must end the war.

Ajur's son and brother were killed in the war, while his home was destroyed by Israeli shelling.

"We hope that after all these sacrifices... whoever wins, whether it is Trump or Harris, will put an end to this war and bring peace to the region," he said.

"We are exhausted with the bombings, the destruction, the martyrs, the wounded and the devastation. We're just tired of this life."

Recent polls in Israel show a majority of Israelis favour Trump, but photographer Andy Alpern's choice for the White House is Harris.

He said Trump "might give us more of a free hand [but] do I think it's worth it? I don't," Alpern, 57, who resides in Israeli-occupied Golan Heights said.

"I don't think Kamala is as bad as everyone thinks she is, and she will do good things."

But he hoped the United States would continue to support Israel to "rid Lebanon of Hizbollah and Gaza of Hamas".

"These are evil organisations," he said.

"They have just as much against America and the West as they do against us."

Israel has been fighting Hamas in Gaza since the Palestinian militant group launched a deadly attack on Israel on October 7 last year, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel's retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 43,391 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to the territory's health ministry, figures considered reliable by the UN.

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Lebanon said Israel struck locations across the country on Tuesday, killing one person, as the Israeli military said it struck a Hizbollah weapons depot in a Syrian town near the Lebanese border.

The strikes came more than a month into the Hizbollah-Israel war which has left at least 1,964 dead in Lebanon since September 23, according to an AFP tally of health ministry figures.

Lebanon's health ministry said one person was killed and 20 others were wounded following an Israeli strike on the coastal town of Jiyeh, south of Beirut.

A security source, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said the raid targeted an apartment used by Hizbollah in Jiyeh.

The strike destroyed the top floor of a four-storey complex, said an AFP correspondent.

Israeli raids also hit southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley on Tuesday, according to the official National News Agency (NNA), as operations were underway to retrieve corpses from flashpoint areas.

The Lebanese Red Cross and the army retrieved seven corpses from a village in the southern region of Tyre following heavy raids in the area in recent weeks, according to NNA, which said the bodies appeared decomposed.

In a separate mission, the Lebanese Red Cross was also working on Tuesday to retrieve more than a dozen corpses that had been trapped in the flashpoint border town of Khiam for more than one week, NNA said.

Rescuers first entered on Sunday, having previously been unable to reach the area, where Hizbollah has said it is battling Israeli ground forces, according to NNA.

Hizbollah, meanwhile, claimed rocket and drone strikes at northern Israel, as well as on Israeli troops near the border inside Lebanon.

Syria strike 

Also on Tuesday, the Israeli military said it "conducted an intelligence-based strike on weapons storage facilities used by Hezbollah's munitions unit in the area of Al Qusayr" in Syria, near the border with Lebanon.

"Hizbollah's munitions unit is responsible for the storage of weapons in Lebanon and has recently expanded its activities into Syria in the area of Al Qusayr," it added.

Syria's official SANA news agency said: "An Israeli aggression targeted the industrial zone in Al Qusayr.

"The Israeli aggression also targeted some residential buildings surrounding the industrial zone," it added.

It did not report any casualties.

Areas along the Syria-Lebanon border have come under mounting attack as Israel has sought to prevent Hizbollah from replenishing its arsenal after the conflict escalated in September.

The main border crossing, known as Masnaa on the Lebanese side, was put out of service by an Israeli strike last month.

On Thursday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 10 people were killed in Israeli strikes on Al Qusayr.

The Britain-based war monitor said the dead were mostly civilians but also included three Syrian fighters for Hizbollah.

CAIRO — Egypt has condemned Israel's decision to ban the United Nations agency for Palestinians, calling it an "unacceptable disregard" for the UN, its agencies and the international community.

Israel officially informed the United Nations on Monday of its decision to cut ties with UNRWA, following a vote by Israeli lawmakers to bar the organisation, which is seen as vital for Palestinians.

"Egypt strongly condemns Israel's withdrawal from the agreement governing the operations of UNRWA and its formal suspension of operations," Egypt's foreign ministry said in a statement posted on Facebook late Monday.

The ministry called the move a "dangerous development" aimed at erasing the Palestinian cause, particularly the issue of refugees and their right of return.

It added that the decision represented "a new chapter in Israel's blatant and systematic violations of international law and international humanitarian law".

Israel's parliament passed a law last week prohibiting UNRWA activities in Israel and east Jerusalem, where the agency operates schools, healthcare centres and other essential services.

A second law forbids Israeli officials from engaging with UNRWA, which is likely to severely impact the organisation's operations and humanitarian efforts.

Egypt's foreign ministry warned of "serious consequences for innocent Palestinian civilians", saying the decision could lead to "the complete collapse of humanitarian efforts and vital services" provided by UNRWA.

The ministry held the Israeli government "fully responsible for the repercussions of this decision" and emphasised UNRWA's role "cannot be replaced or dispensed with".

Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit on Sunday said there was "no alternative" to the role of UNRWA in supporting Palestinian refugees.

UNRWA was established in December 1949 by the UN General Assembly after the first Arab-Israeli conflict following Israel's creation a year earlier.

It aids nearly six million Palestinian refugees across Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

PORT SUDAN, SUDAN  — Sudan's army leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, at war with paramilitaries, has announced a cabinet reshuffle that replaces four ministers including those for foreign affairs and the media.

The late Sunday announcement comes with the northeast African country gripped by the world's worst displacement crisis, threatened by famine and desperate for aid, according to the UN.

In a post on its official Facebook page, Sudan's ruling sovereignty council said Burhan had approved replacement of the ministers of foreign affairs, the media, religious affairs and trade.

The civil war that began in April 2023 pits Burhan's military against the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries under the command of his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo. 

Since then, the army-aligned Sudanese government has been operating from the eastern city of Port Sudan, which has largely remained shielded from the violence.

But the Sudanese state "is completely absent from the scene" in all sectors, economist Haitham Fathy told AFP earlier this year.

The council did not disclose reasons behind the reshuffle but it coincides with rising violence in al-Jazira, south of the capital Khartoum, and North Darfur in Sudan's far west bordering Chad. 

On Friday the spokesman for United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said he condemned attacks by paramilitaries in al-Jazira, after the United States made a similar call over the violence against civilians.

Among the key government changes, Ambassador Ali Youssef al-Sharif, a retired diplomat who previously served as Sudan's ambassador to China and South Africa, was appointed foreign minister.

He replaces Hussein Awad Ali who had held the role for seven months.

Journalist and TV presenter Khalid Ali Aleisir, based in London, was named minister of culture and media.

The reshuffle also saw Omar Banfir assigned to the trade ministry and Omar Bakhit appointed to the ministry of religious affairs.

Over the past two weeks, the RSF increased attacks on civilians in al-Jazira following the army's announcement that an RSF commander had defected.

According to an AFP tally based on medical and activist sources, at least 200 people were killed in al-Jazira last month alone. The UN reports that the violence has forced around 120,000 people from their homes.

In total, Sudan hosts more than 11 million displaced people, while another 3.1 million are now sheltering beyond its borders, according to the International Organisation for Migration. 

OCCUPIED JESRUALEM — Israel said Monday it had formally notified the United Nations of its decision to sever ties with UNRWA, the agency supporting Palestinian refugees, after lawmakers voted to ban the organisation.

"On the instruction of Foreign Minister Israel Katz, the ministry of foreign affairs notified the UN of the cancellation of the agreement between the State of Israel and UNRWA," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

"UNRWA, the organisation whose employees participated in the October 7 massacre and many of whose employees are Hamas operatives, is part of the problem in the Gaza Strip and not part of the solution," Katz was quoted as saying.

Israel's parliament last month approved a proposal to shut down UNRWA's operations in Israel and occupied east Jerusalem, despite condemnation from the international community, including its ally the United States.

The ban on the UN agency -- which has provided essential aid and assistance across Palestinian territories and to Palestinian refugees elsewhere for more than seven decades -- would be a blow to humanitarian work in Gaza if implemented, according to experts.

But Katz dismissed the argument, saying only a part of aid was being delivered into Gaza by UNRWA.

"The State of Israel is committed to international law and will continue to facilitate the entrance of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip in a manner that does not harm the security of the citizens of Israel," Katz said.

In January, Israel accused a dozen of UNRWA's Gaza employees of involvement in the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, which sparked the deadliest war in the territory.

A series of probes found some "neutrality related issues" at UNRWA, and determined that nine employees "may have been involved" in the October 7 attack, but found no evidence for Israel's central allegations.

The ban has also raised fears UNRWA employees in the occupied West Bank could potentially face problems moving from one place to another as well as accessing east Jerusalem or Israel because they would lose their ability to coordinate with the Israeli authorities to cross checkpoints. 

The same fears apply to visas and permits delivered by Israeli authorities. 

UNRWA and other humanitarian agencies have accused Israeli authorities of restricting aid flows into Gaza, where almost all the territory's 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once during the war.

TEHRAN — Thousands of Iranians rallied Sunday by the former US embassy in Tehran to mark the 1979 hostage crisis, burning American flags and ridiculing Joe Biden and Donald Trump just two days before the US presidential election.

"There's no difference between Biden and Trump, between the donkey and the elephant," said protester Saber Danaie, 23, of the animal mascots that represent the Democratic and Republican parties in the United States. 

"They both follow the same policy," said the construction worker, as a giant puppet meant to represent US President Joe Biden hung over the crowd.

A picture of his predecessor Donald Trump, who hopes to beat his rival Kamala Harris and win the American presidential election on Tuesday, lay trampled on the ground.

Sunday's rally commemorated the 1979 hostage crisis, which began nine months after the Islamic revolution led by Iran's late supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ousted the Western-backed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.

Students loyal to Khomeini stormed the embassy compound and held 52 staff hostage for 444 days while demanding that Washington hand over Iran's recently toppled shah, who was being treated in the United States for cancer.

Washington officially broke off relations with Tehran in 1980, midway through the crisis, and they have been frozen ever since.

Iran celebrates the event every year in Tehran in front of the former embassy that has been transformed into a museum known as the "Den of Spies".

 'Destruction of Israel' 

"Death to America, death to Israel!" chanted crowds of Iranians, including many schoolchildren and students, as they sang revolutionary songs outside the building.

The embassy's seizure has shaped relations between the United States and Iran for decades, with Tehran considering it an act of defiance against what they describe as the "global arrogance" of the West.

Israel's war with Palestinian militants Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah, two militant groups supported financially and militarily by Tehran, took centre stage at the rally.

Demonstrators brandished portraits of prominent figures, including slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, killed by an Israeli strike in Beirut, as well as Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"I am here for the destruction of Israel and America," Hassani, a 42-year-old civil servant who did not wish to give his full name, told AFP.

"Criminal America is at the root of all these wars and all this hatred" in the region, he said.

Nearby, a mural depicted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu digging his country's grave.

Iran does not recognise Israel and considers it an extension of the United States in the Middle East.

 Difficult relations 

Iranian leaders have made support for the Palestinian cause one of the pillars of their foreign policy since the Islamic Republic was established in 1979.

The presidential campaigns of both Harris and Trump have been closely followed in Iran.

However, most of the Iranians AFP spoke to on Sunday said the vote's outcome is unlikely to mend relations between the two countries.

"Relations between Iran and America cannot return to normal," said Mohammadi, a 40-year-old housewife, who gave only her last name.

"We have repeatedly shown America our honesty" to improve relations "but America does not care," she said, cloaked in a black chador.

Iran, subject to significant international sanctions, reached an agreement with the major powers in 2015 to limit its nuclear programme in exchange for a gradual lifting of sanctions.

But the pact was torpedoed three years later under Trump whose administration withdrew from it and reimposed sanctions.

"It doesn't matter who the next American president is," said a woman at the protest, who asked that AFP not identify her.

"We have never liked any of them and that won't change now."