Efforts toward a truce to stop three years of bloody Israeli-Palestinian violence were resuming in the shadow of Hamas threats for revenge after a botched Israeli air strike in Gaza, with Israeli security forces on high alert.
Osama el-Baz, top aide to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, was due in the West Bank yesterday for talks with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, part of Egyptian efforts to forge a cease-fire.
With Egyptian help, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia has been trying for weeks to forge a truce agreement among Palestinian factions, but without success. Qureia hoped to present Palestinian agreement to the Israelis in his first meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, pressuring the Israelis to go along. However, failure of Palestinian truce efforts has led to postponement of the summit.
The threat of attacks was in the air as Israeli forces went on high alert for the New Year, setting up roadblocks and patrolling highways and popular gathering spots. Last week Israeli security warned about a mega-terror attack timed for the New Year, listing possible targets like schools, public buildings and holy sites.
The level of public edginess was evident Wednesday afternoon when a bus blew a tire in Tel Aviv, sending the city into a near-panic and triggering special radio station broadcasts in a terror attack mode.
In the West Bank late Wednesday, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a 16-year-old Palestinian who was in a group of youths throwing rocks at Israeli cars on a road west of Nablus, relatives said. The military said the youth was building a stone barrier across the road.
Also, the military expelled a Palestinian, 25-year-old Mustafa Abed from a refugee camp next to Nablus, to the Gaza Strip late Wednesday.
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
ALLIES: Calling Putin his ‘old friend,’ Xi said Beijing stood alongside Russia ‘in the face of the international counter-current of unilateralism and hegemonic bullying’ Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday was in Moscow for a state visit ahead of the Kremlin’s grand Victory Day celebrations, as Ukraine accused Russia’s army of launching air strikes just hours into a supposed truce. More than 20 foreign leaders were in Russia to attend a vast military parade today marking 80 years since the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, taking place three years into Russia’s offensive in Ukraine. Putin ordered troops into Ukraine in February 2022 and has marshaled the memory of Soviet victory against Nazi Germany to justify his campaign and rally society behind the offensive,
CONFLICTING REPORTS: Beijing said it was ‘not familiar with the matter’ when asked if Chinese jets were used in the conflict, after Pakistan’s foreign minister said they were The Pakistan Army yesterday said it shot down 25 Indian drones, a day after the worst violence between the nuclear-armed rivals in two decades. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed to retaliate after India launched deadly missile strikes on Wednesday morning, escalating days of gunfire along their border. At least 45 deaths were reported from both sides following Wednesday’s violence, including children. Pakistan’s military said in a statement yesterday that it had “so far shot down 25 Israeli-made Harop drones” at multiple location across the country. “Last night, India showed another act of aggression by sending drones to multiple locations,” Pakistan military spokesman Ahmed
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said that he would make a decision about how the US government would refer to the body of water commonly known as the Persian Gulf when he visits Arab states next week. Trump told reporters at the White House that he expects his hosts in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates will ask him about the US officially calling the waterway the Arabian Gulf or Gulf of Arabia. “They’re going to ask me about that when I get there, and I’ll have to make a decision,” Trump said. “I don’t want to hurt anybody’s
RSS