Israeli and Palestinian leaders were meeting in Jerusalem to try to map out a joint program for next month's Middle East peace conference, a day after Israel completed the release of 86 prisoners as a goodwill gesture.
At their meeting yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were expected to take the first concrete steps toward a framework agreement for the international community at the summit next month. The two have been sparring in their previous meetings, but aides said actual work was about to begin.
In apparent internal Palestinian violence on Tuesday, four people were killed when a car exploded near the Hamas marine police headquarters in Gaza City, Hamas and hospital officials said.
The Fatah-affiliated Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades said in a statement that three of the dead were members of the militia who were killed on their way to a ``holy mission,'' meaning an attack apparently against Hamas, when Hamas militants fired a rocket-propelled grenade at their car.
A Web site affiliated with Hamas said the three Fatah militants were on their way to bomb a Hamas installation but the explosives went off prematurely. The fourth man killed was a bystander, the statement said.
Officially, the Hamas rulers of Gaza did not give any details about the incident after backing down from an earlier accusation that Israel was involved. Early yesterday, at least 15 relatives of the three men were arrested by Hamas security forces in their neighborhood east of Gaza City, residents said.
In further violence in Gaza, four Hamas fighters were injured early yesterday near the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel in an explosion the militant group blamed on an Israeli air strike.
The Israeli army denied any involvement in the blast. One of the militants later died of his wounds.
In a gesture meant to bolster Abbas in his struggle with Hamas, Israel sent 29 Palestinians back to the Gaza Strip on Tuesday.
Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss, the stepsister of teenage diarist Anne Frank and a tireless educator about the horrors of the Holocaust, has died. She was 96. The Anne Frank Trust UK, of which Schloss was honorary president, said she died on Saturday in London, where she lived. Britain’s King Charles III said he was “privileged and proud” to have known Schloss, who cofounded the charitable trust to help young people challenge prejudice. “The horrors that she endured as a young woman are impossible to comprehend and yet she devoted the rest of her life to overcoming hatred and prejudice, promoting kindness, courage, understanding
Tens of thousands of Filipino Catholics yesterday twirled white cloths and chanted “Viva, viva,” as a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ was paraded through the streets of Manila in the nation’s biggest annual religious event. The day-long procession began before dawn, with barefoot volunteers pulling the heavy carriage through narrow streets where the devout waited in hopes of touching the icon, believed to hold miraculous powers. Thousands of police were deployed to manage crowds that officials believe could number in the millions by the time the statue reaches its home in central Manila’s Quiapo church around midnight. More than 800 people had sought
DENIAL: Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.” Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its efforts to restore ties with Pyongyang. North Korean forces used special electronic warfare assets on Sunday to bring down a South Korean drone flying over North Korea’s border town. The drone was equipped with two cameras that filmed unspecified areas, the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement. South Korea infiltrated another drone
Cambodia’s government on Wednesday said that it had arrested and extradited to China a tycoon who has been accused of running a huge online scam operation. The Cambodian Ministry of the Interior said that Prince Holding Group chairman Chen Zhi (陳志) and two other Chinese citizens were arrested and extradited on Tuesday at the request of Chinese authorities. Chen formerly had dual nationality, but his Cambodian citizenship was revoked last month, the ministry said. US prosecutors in October last year brought conspiracy charges against Chen, alleging that he had been the mastermind behind a multinational cyberfraud network, used his other businesses to launder
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