Israeli troops and tanks left the Gaza Strip yesterday, witnesses said, ending an incursion into the Hamas-ruled enclave made after the bloodiest clash in 14 months killed two soldiers and at least one Palestinian.
The violence underscored the deadlock in US-mediated talks between Israel and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose peace strategy has been sapped by Hamas hostility along with continued Israeli settlement construction on occupied land. The impasse has triggered sporadic rocket attacks this month from Gaza which drew Israeli airstrikes.
On Friday, Palestinians ambushed soldiers who, the army said, had crossed the border to dismantle a mine. Two infantrymen were killed and two wounded. The skirmish — in which the Israelis said they killed two Palestinian gunmen — was the fiercest since the three-week Gaza war early last year. Some 1,400 Palestinians, mainly civilians, and 13 Israelis, mainly troops, died in that conflict.
Hamas, having largely held fire since, announced that its men took part in the border clash, calling it self-defense. That drew veiled threats of escalation from Israel.
“We have been used to seeing breakaway [Palestinian] groups doing the firing and Hamas trying to calm things down. Possibly it is loosening its grip, for all sorts of reasons,” Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Israeli TV on Friday.
“Should that indeed prove to be the case, then there will also be ramifications for Hamas,” he said, but added: “We have no interest in returning the region to what was in the past.”
Gazan doctors said a 23-year-old civilian was killed in the clash and five other Palestinians wounded. Hamas and another faction that took part in the fighting said they lost no men.
Israel captured Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Egypt and Jordan in a 1967 war. It withdrew from Gaza in 2005 but has expanded Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Palestinians want statehood in all the territories.
Resisting US pressure in what analysts called a bruising encounter with US President Barack Obama in Washington this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would not stop building in West Bank areas it annexed to East Jerusalem.
Netanyahu vowed to find a way out of the faceoff, but a Friday meeting of his senior Cabinet convened to discuss confidence-building measures ended without breakthroughs.
“Israeli construction policy in Jerusalem has remained the same for 42 years and isn’t changing,” spokesman Nir Hefez said.
Four Palestinians have died in West Bank clashes with Israeli forces this month. Obama wants Israel to halt settlement in East Jerusalem, an issue that created new friction when a plan to build 1,600 more houses was published as US Vice President Joe Biden visited to urge indirect talks under US mediation.
“The prime minister set further discussion in the forum for the coming days, as well as continued contacts with the US administration in order to reach an agreed path for getting the diplomatic process moving,” Hefez said after Friday’s meeting.
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
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
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