Region

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories — A boat laden with food for Palestinians in war-ravaged Gaza was "ready" to set sail from Cyprus, an NGO said, as fighting raged between Israeli forces and Hamas fighters ahead of Ramadan.

The sea route aims to counter aid access restrictions, which humanitarians and foreign governments have blamed on Israel, more than five months into the war which has left Gaza's 2.4 million people struggling to survive.

Hopes were fading fast for a pause in the fighting before Ramadan, which could begin as early as Sunday depending on the lunar calendar, as Israel accused Hamas of seeking to "inflame" the region during the Muslim fasting month.

US President Joe Biden said Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu's approach to the war was "hurting Israel more than helping Israel", during an interview with MSNBC broadcast Saturday.

Netanyahu “has a right to defend Israel, a right to continue to pursue Hamas” Biden said, but added that “he must pay more attention to the innocent lives being lost as a consequence of the actions taken”.

The United Nations has repeatedly warned of looming famine, particularly in north Gaza where no overland border crossings are open.

In Rafah, in Gaza’s far south, “We can barely get water,” said displaced Palestinian woman Nasreen Abu Yussef.

Roughly 1.5 million Palestinians have sought refuge in the city, where Atallah al-Satel said he wanted an end to the war.

“We are just exhausted citizens,” said Satel, who had fled to Rafah from Khan Yunis.

Spanish charity Open Arms said its boat, which docked three weeks ago in Cyprus’s Larnaca Port, was “ready” to embark but awaits final authorisation.

It would be the first shipment along a maritime corridor from Cyprus — the closest European Union country to Gaza — that the EU Commission hopes will open on Sunday.

Open Arms spokeswoman Laura Lanuza told AFP that Israeli authorities were inspecting the cargo of “200 tonnes of basic foodstuffs, rice and flour, cans of tuna”.

US charity World Central Kitchen, which has partnered with Open Arms, has teams in the besieged Gaza Strip who were “constructing a dock” to unload the shipment, Lanuza said.

Meanwhile, the US Central Command said a US Army ship left Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia on Saturday carrying the “first equipment to establish a temporary pier” to receive aid off Gaza.

The Pentagon said Friday it would take up to 60 days to set up the temporary pier, which Biden announced the previous night.

With ground access limited, countries have also turned to airdropping aid, although a parachute malfunction turned one delivery deadly on Friday.

‘Only part of the solution’ 

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Saturday the number of deaths in Israel’s bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza had risen to 30,960, including 82 people killed in strikes over the previous day.

At least 23 children had died from malnutrition and dehydration, according to the ministry.

Israel’s campaign to destroy Hamas began after the movement’s October 7 sudden attack on Israel.

The Israeli forces said another of its soldiers had died in Gaza, taking its overall losses to 248 since the start of ground operations.

The UN’s World Food Programme has warned that the volume of aid that can be delivered by sea will do little if anything to stave off famine in Gaza.

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, in Larnaca on Friday, said a “pilot operation” would be launched in partnership with World Central Kitchen, supported by aid from the United Arab Emirates.

The US effort for a “temporary pier” off Gaza builds upon the maritime corridor proposed by Cyprus, senior US officials said.

Humanitarian workers and UN officials say easing the entry of trucks to Gaza would be more effective than aid airdrops or maritime shipments.

The US military said it airdropped more than 41,000 meals into Gaza on Saturday, and Canada has said it too will join aerial aid delivery missions.

But a steady flow of relief into Gaza was “only part of the solution”, said International Committee of the Red Cross chief Mirjana Spoljaric.

The warring sides must do more to “safeguard civilian life and human dignity”, she said, decrying the “unacceptable” civilian death toll.

‘Tough’ truce talks 

In their October attack, Gaza militants took about 250 Israeli and foreign hostages, some of whom were released during a week-long truce in November. Israel believes 99 hostages remain alive in Gaza and that 31 have died.

After a week of talks with mediators in Cairo failed to produce a breakthrough, Hamas’s armed wing said it would not agree to a hostage-prisoner exchange unless Israeli forces withdraw.

Israel has rejected such a demand.

On Saturday, Netanyahu’s office said Mossad spy agency chief David Barnea had met CIA director William Burns on Friday “as part of the ceaseless efforts to advance another hostage release deal”.

Biden has acknowledged it would now be “tough” to secure a new truce deal in time for Ramadan.

Saturday’s Israeli statement accused Hamas of “entrenching its positions like someone who is not interested in a deal and is striving to inflame the region during Ramadan”.

Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said Israel was preparing for “all possible operational scenarios” during the Muslim holy month.

On the ground in southern Gaza, the Israeli army said fighting persisted in the area of Khan Yunis. Hamas authorities reported Saturday more than 30 air strikes overnight.

Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh called for the speedy distribution of aid to Gazans and for the full opening of border crossings “to end the siege of our people”.

The war’s effects have been felt across the region, including off Yemen, where the US military said it and allied forces shot down 28 one-way attack drones fired by Iran-backed Houthi rebels towards the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden on Saturday.

ISTANBUL — Turkey is ready to host a peace summit between Russia and Ukraine, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday after talks with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky in Istanbul.

NATO member Turkey has been positioning itself as a potential mediator between Moscow and Kyiv since Russia launched its invasion more than two years ago.

Erdogan’s proposal comes as Ukraine faces mounting pressure on the front line, where it has lost ground to Moscow in recent months amid hold-ups to aid from its Western allies.

“We are ready to host a peace summit where Russia is also present,” Erdogan told a press conference alongside the Ukrainian leader.

“While we continue our solidarity with Ukraine, we will continue our work to end the war with a just peace on the basis of negotiations,” Erdogan said.

Zelensky dismissed the idea of negotiating directly with Russia, arguing that Ukraine and Western leaders must set out peace on their own terms.

He noted there would be an upcoming peace summit in Switzerland, where Kyiv would promote its own “peace formula”, but ruled out Russia’s participation.

“We don’t see how we can invite people who block, destroy and kill everything. We want to get results,” Zelensky said.

He called the talks with Erdogan “productive” and thanked Turkey for its mediation efforts on Ukraine’s Black Sea grain exports and prisoner exchanges.

Ankara has sought to maintain good relations with both Moscow and Kyiv, helping the two sign a now shuttered agreement to ensure the safe passage of grain via the Black Sea in July 2022.

‘We are not hopeless’

Erdogan said he and Zelensky had discussed issues of port security, navigation safety in the Black Sea, prisoner exchanges and food security, and that they shared the same opinions.

“We are not hopeless,” he said.

“We believe that there are some opportunities that Turkey can provide with its stance.”

Turkey hosted failed ceasefire talks between Kyiv and Moscow in the first weeks of the war and wants to revive them.

Its strategic location on the Black Sea and its control of the Bosphorus Strait gives it a unique military, political and economic role in the conflict.

In July 2022, Ankara with the United Nations brokered the Black Sea grain deal, the most significant diplomatic agreement so far reached between Kyiv and Moscow.

Moscow ditched the initiative — which allowed the safe passage of Ukrainian agricultural exports across the mine-laden Black Sea — a year later, complaining that the terms were unfair.

Since the collapse of the deal, Kyiv has used an alternative shipping route hugging the coastline to avoid contested international waters.

Turkey has been lobbying hard for an agreement to ensure cargo can once again navigate those waters in safety.

Russia-Turkey relations

Turkey’s Western allies have expressed concern over its relations with Moscow. Ankara is reliant on Russian energy and has faced scrutiny as Russia seeks to avoid Western trading restrictions.

The United States has sanctioned several Turkish companies for helping Russia purchase goods that could be used by its armed forces.

The Erdogan-Zelensky meeting comes a week after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan at a diplomatic forum in Antalya.

President Vladimir Putin was to visit Turkey last month, but postponed the trip, according to Turkish and Russian media citing diplomatic sources.

The Kremlin has said it is rescheduling the visit, but has given no date.

Russia and Ukraine both accused each other of killing civilians in drone strikes deep behind enemy lines on Friday.

A Ukrainian drone attack on the Russian border region of Belgorod killed two people, the region’s governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

In Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, a Russian drone attack on the town of Vovchansk killed a man and a woman in a car, regional head Oleg Sinegubov said.

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories — Shell-shocked Palestinians who returned Thursday to part of Khan Yunis where Israeli soldiers have carried out extensive military operations took stock of the outcome: Dead bodies, toppled buildings and destroyed landmarks.

Across the grey ruins of central Khan Yunis, southern Gaza’s largest city, the streets were filled with thousands of residents who piled whatever they could salvage onto cars, donkey-carts and even their own heads.

The authorities stressed that much had been lost for ever.

As of Thursday afternoon, six bodies had been retrieved and “dozens of missing citizens are still under the rubble”, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said in a statement.

One municipal official in Khan Yunis offered a detailed rundown of the destruction.

“The occupation [Israel] destroyed thousands of residential units in Khan Yunis, causing massive destruction and damage,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to brief the media.

“It destroyed markets, stores, clinics, medical centres, dozens of restaurants and stalls,” he said.

“It destroyed hospitals, destroyed all roads, water networks, electricity, communications and the internet. It dug up all the roads and changed the shape of the city.”

The war in the Gaza Strip was triggered by Hamas’s surprise attack on southern Israel on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s resulting military campaign to destroy the Islamist Hamas movement has killed at least 30,800 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the territory.

The Israeli military has yet to respond to an AFP request to confirm a withdrawal from central Khan Yunis, but both the army and Hamas authorities said military operations were continuing in the city’s west.

Israel’s military also did not immediately respond to AFP’s request to comment on the destruction reported in central Khan Yunis.

As residents picked through the rubble, some of them wearing surgical masks to try to keep out the dust, Wajih Abu Zarifa struck a defiant tone even though his own house was among those destroyed.

“Israeli warplanes... destroyed thousands of houses, toppling them and turning them into rubble, but they were unable and will be unable to defeat memory and recollections,” the 55-year-old said.

Jamil Agha, 49, said he would stay with his family in what remained of their house.

“What do we do? Crying is useless,” he said.

“Sadness covers our lives.”

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories — Hopes dimmed on Thursday for a truce before Ramadan in the Israel-Hamas war that entered its sixth month with dozens more killed in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

The ministry said 83 more people had been killed over the previous day, adding to a toll it says has reached 30,800, mostly women and children, in a war that China called "a disgrace to civilisation".

In the wasteland of Jabalia, northern Gaza, Palestinians gathered to receive meals at a distribution point.

"There is no gas to cook our food on. There is no flour or rice," said Bassam Al Hou, standing beside large, blackened cooking pots among the dusty rubble.

He said children "are dying and fainting in the streets from hunger. What can we do?"

In Deir Al Balah in central Gaza, the bodies of about 14 people lay in front of a hospital. The bare feet of some protruded from under coloured cloths that covered them.

US President Joe Biden had urged Hamas to accept a ceasefire plan with Israel before the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan begins, as early as Sunday depending on the lunar calendar.

The proposed deal would pause fighting for "at least six weeks", see the "release of sick, wounded, elderly and women hostages" and allow for "a surge of humanitarian assistance", the White House said.

Gaps 'being narrowed' 

But on Thursday, Hamas's delegation voiced dissatisfaction with Israeli responses so far and left Cairo for consultations with the movement's leadership in Qatar.

Egypt's Al Qahera News channel said the talks will now resume "next week".

US ambassador to Israel Jack Lew denied the talks had "broken down".

"The differences are being narrowed. It's not yet an agreement. Everyone's looking towards Ramadan, which is coming close. I can't tell you that it will be successful, but it is not yet the case that it is broken down," Lew said.

Israeli war cabinet member Gadi Eisenkot said Hamas was under "very serious pressure" from mediators to make a "counter offer".

“Then it will be possible to advance it and take a position,” he said.

As talks drag on, the United Nations has warned repeatedly that famine looms for Palestinians struggling to survive in the territory.

“It is a tragedy for humankind and a disgrace for civilisation that today, in the 21st century, this humanitarian disaster cannot be stopped,” said Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

By late January the war had damaged around half of all buildings in Gaza and rendered the territory “uninhabitable” for its 2.4 million people, a UN agency said, warning the impact would only worsen if the war continued.

The health ministry on Wednesday said 20 people had died of malnutrition and dehydration, at least half of them children.

Only limited aid has reached Gaza’s north.

The UN’s food agency on Thursday said it was pressing Israel to allow it to use the Ashdod Port north of Gaza to make it easier to reach starving Palestinians.

“We have several requests with the Israelis,” World Food Programme (WFP) Deputy Executive Director Carl Skau told AFP in Rome, after its latest failed attempt to get food to northern Gaza.

“We want to use the Ashdod Port, which would be much more efficient than going through Jordan or even Egypt,” Skau said.

Since the start of the war between Hamas and Israel, Gaza has been plunged into a food crisis, with outside aid severely restricted.

The UN estimates that 2.2 million people — most of Gaza’s population — are on the brink of famine, particularly in the north.

“There is catastrophic hunger situation. People are desperate and the tensions are high. And there is a complete breakdown also of civil order,” Skau said.

DUBAI — A missile fired by Yemen's Houthi rebels hit a bulk carrier in the Gulf of Aden on Wednesday, with the crew reporting three people killed and at least four wounded, the US military said.

The Iran-backed Houthis have been targeting merchant vessels transiting the vital Red Sea trade route for months but Wednesday's deaths appear to be the first fatalities resulting from such an attack.

An anti-ship ballistic missile struck the Barbados-flagged, Liberian-owned M/V True Confidence, after which its crew reported "three fatalities, at least four injuries, of which three are in critical condition, and significant damage to the ship", the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement.

"The crew abandoned the ship and coalition warships responded and are assessing the situation," it said, noting that the attack was the fifth time the Houthis had launched an anti-ship ballistic missile in two days.

"These reckless attacks by the Houthis have disrupted global trade and taken the lives of international seafarers," CENTCOM said.

The Philippine government's Department of Migrant Workers said in a statement on Thursday that two of the crew members killed were Filipinos and two others were "severely injured".

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree wrote on social media that the True Confidence was targeted with multiple missiles "after the ship's crew rejected warning messages" from the Houthis.

US military strikes 

CENTCOM said several hours after the True Confidence was hit that it had carried out strikes against "two unmanned aerial vehicles in a Houthi controlled area of Yemen that presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels and US Navy ships".

"These actions are taken to protect freedom of navigation and make international waters safer and more secure for US Navy and merchant vessels," it said in a separate statement without elaborating.

The United States and Britain have launched repeated strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen since January in response to the ship attacks but the rebels have continued to target merchant vessels.

The British embassy in Sanaa said earlier the death toll on board the True Confidence was at least two, describing the loss of life as “the sad but inevitable consequence of the Houthis recklessly firing missiles at international shipping”.

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron promised that “we will continue to stand up for freedom of navigation and back our words with actions”.

The Houthis began attacking ships in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea in November, a campaign they say is intended to signal solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

They have vowed to strike Israeli, British and American ships, as well as vessels heading to Israeli ports, disrupting traffic through the vital trade route off Yemen’s shores.

The latest incident comes after a Belize-flagged, Lebanese-operated ship sank on Saturday with 21,000 metric tonnes of ammonium phosphate sulfate fertiliser on board.

The ship, called the Rubymar, had been taking on water since it was hit by a Houthi missile on February 18 that damaged its hull and forced the evacuation of its crew to Djibouti.

The flurry of Houthi strikes has caused several major shipping firms to suspend passage through the Red Sea, which usually carries around 12 per cent of global trade.

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories — Envoys pushed on with efforts for a Gaza truce and hostage release deal in Cairo talks Wednesday, hoping to halt nearly five months of fighting before the start of Ramadan next week.

US President Joe Biden had urged Hamas to accept a ceasefire plan with Israel before the Muslim fasting month begins, which could be as early as Sunday, depending on the sighting of the crescent moon.

As negotiators in Egypt sought to overcome tough stumbling blocks, deadly fighting again rocked Gaza where the UN warns famine looms and desperate crowds have stopped and looted food aid trucks.

Dire shortages of food and water amid the devastating Gaza war sparked by Hamas's October 7 attack have killed at least 18 people, said medics in the Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory.

Biden on Tuesday called on the Palestinian resistance group to accept the truce plan brokered by US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators, saying “it’s in the hands of Hamas right now”.

The proposed deal would pause fighting for “at least six weeks”, according to a White House statement on talks between US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and the Qatari prime minister.

It would also see the “release of sick, wounded, elderly and women hostages” and allow for “a surge of humanitarian assistance”, they said in a Washington meeting on Tuesday.

One known sticking point centres on an Israeli demand for Hamas to hand it a list of the about 100 hostages believed to still be alive, a task Hamas says it can’t complete while bombing continues.

The group said in a statement that it had “shown the required flexibility with the aim of reaching an agreement requiring a comprehensive cessation of aggression against our people”.

Biden stressed that “there’s got to be a ceasefire because Ramadan, if we get into circumstances where this continues to Ramadan, Israel and Jerusalem could be very, very dangerous”.

In past years, violence has flared during Ramadan in annexed east Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa Mosque compound — Islam’s third-holiest site and Judaism’s most sacred, known to Jews as the Temple Mount.

Hamas has urged Muslims to flock there in great numbers, as they do every year, while some Israeli far-right politicians have argued they should be banned this year.

Israel’s government said on Tuesday that Muslim worshippers would initially be allowed to the site “in similar numbers” as in recent years, but that this would be followed by a weekly “situation assessment in terms of security and safety”.