Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah spoke by telephone with Hamas' exiled leader in a new bid to end Gaza's factional fighting, as Israeli missiles hit two suspected Hamas rocket workshops yesterday.
Also yesterday, gunmen clashed near Gaza City's Islamic University, a Hamas stronghold, and two Fatah fighters were injured. In northern Gaza, where Israeli tanks patrol the edge of the coastal strip to push back rocket squads, one man was wounded by tank fire, hospital officials said.
The weeklong Hamas-Fatah fighting has killed more than 50 Palestinians and wounded dozens, while the death toll from several days of Israeli airstrikes on Hamas command centers has reached 20.
Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, the most senior Hamas politician in Gaza, have failed to make a ceasefire stick, suggesting that they have largely lost control to gunmen and their political patrons.
Abbas spoke late on Friday to the supreme leader of Hamas, Damascus-based Khaled Mashaal, who urged senior Hamas and Fatah officials to meet.
Some of the heaviest fighting has taken place around Abbas' heavily fortified seaside compound in Gaza City.
During periods of lull, residents of the area ventured out onto their balconies or even into the streets, while some security men slept on sidewalks after guarding street corner positions through the night.
A local supermarket owner, Mohammed Badrasawi, said the security forces posted in the neighborhood bought most of his bottled water and the entire stock of playing cards -- 150 decks -- along with chess boards and dominos for the long hours of guard duty.
After a week of fighting, garbage piles were growing. A few children were picking up spent ammunition.
In Israel, more homemade Hamas rockets hit the border town of Sderot on Friday, injuring four Israelis. One rocket fell yesterday, hitting a house in another area. Israel retaliated with airstrikes on two suspected Hamas rocket workshops in Gaza City.
Despite an escalating air campaign, a senior Israeli army officer said there were no immediate plans for a major ground offensive against rocket teams, saying Israel was reluctant to do something that might unite the Palestinian factions. He spoke on condition of anonymity because no final decision had been made.
In a new tactic, Hamas abducted two senior civilians with ties to Fatah late on Friday.
The gunmen freed Abdel Salam Abu Askar, a veteran journalist who advises Fatah's Gaza strongman, Mohammed Dahlan, after several hours. But Majed Abu Ghoneima was still being held. He is the office manager for Abdullah Franji, a senior Fatah official.
In related news, the Israeli ambassador to the US on Friday warned that Israel's air strikes on the Gaza Strip had been a "very measured" response to Palestinian attacks, but it could take "other actions" if necessary.
"Our response so far has been very measured because we understand the game plan of the other side, because we carefully assess the different options," Israeli Ambassador Sallai Meridor said.
"But the situation is very volatile and the trend is very negative, which may necessitate other actions in the future -- or not so much in the future, depending on the developments," he said.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition