Another 39 people rescued and brought to shore after incident on vessel at Red Sea resort
Six Russian tourists have died and 39 people have been rescued after a submarine sank near the resort of Hurghada, the latest in a series of fatal accidents involving tourists on Egypt’s Red Sea coast.
Four survivors, including at least one child, were admitted to intensive care, according to an official statement.
Continue reading...Lt Gen Eyal Zamir says that mission to defeat Hamas is ‘not accomplished’ amid deadlock over ceasefire negotiations
An Israeli rights group says Israel demolished a record number of Palestinian homes in annexed East Jerusalem last year, reports the Associated Press (AP).
Ir Amim, which closely tracks settlement activity and demolitions in the city, said on Wednesday that 181 homes were destroyed last year, in addition to dozens of other structures.
It said that more recently, Israel appears to have dropped a longstanding policy against demolishing homes during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began last weekend. It said a residential building and three apartments have been destroyed over the past week, according to the AP.
Rights groups say discriminatory policies make it nearly impossible for Palestinians to expand or redevelop their neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem, forcing many to build without permits. Israel also demolishes the family homes of Palestinians who carry out attacks, reports the AP.
The US state department has reinstated the “foreign terrorist organization” designation for Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi group, fulfilling an order announced by Donald Trump shortly after he took office.
Continue reading...Proposal focuses on emergency relief and long-term economic development under Palestinian Authority administration
Arab leaders have endorsed a $53bn (£42bn) plan to rebuild Gaza under the future administration of the Palestinian Authority (PA), in a rushed attempt to present an alternative to Donald Trump’s idea for a property development-style plan.
Trump’s suggestion involved a relocation of the Palestinian population that has been widely criticised as effectively endorsing ethnic cleansing.
Continue reading...Israel had agreed partial troop withdrawal by 9 March, but start of second phase of truce hits impasse
Talks aimed at maintaining the ceasefire in Gaza hit an impasse in Cairo on Saturday , over whether the truce should advance to a second phase.
A Hamas official said the multilateral negotiations in the Egyptian capital had made no progress on Friday, and there was no evidence the talks had resumed on Saturday, the last day of the ceasefire’s first six-week phase.
Continue reading...Negotiations on next part of truce have begun in Egypt, but militant group has accused Israel of procrastination
The latest round of talks on the second phase of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has yet to make any progress and it was unclear whether they would resume on Saturday, a senior Hamas official has said.
The ceasefire took effect on 19 January after more than 15 months of war following Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, the deadliest in the country’s history.
Continue reading...Doctors have said there was a high risk of sudden death for Laila Soueif, mother of Alaas Abdel el-Fattah
Laila Soueif, lying in a hospital bed after refusing all food for 152 days in a bid to free her jailed son, agreed on Wednesday night to be put on a glucose drip, though it is only likely to delay her full collapse by days.
She told the Guardian she had taken the step as part of a deal she had reached with her children that they would be allowed one chance to intervene before she collapses.
Continue reading...Israeli team heads to Cairo as end of deal’s first phase approaches, but big differences remain between two sides
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has announced that he has instructed a delegation to depart for Egypt for talks on continuing the ceasefire in the war with Hamas in Gaza, two days before the first stage of the fragile agreement expires.
The Israeli team is scheduled to leave Cairo, Egypt’s capital, late on Thursday, a statement from the prime minister’s office said. The announcement was made a day after Hamas handed over the bodies of four Israeli hostages, the last due to be released under the terms of the six-week first phase of the deal agreed in January.
Continue reading...Laila Soueif was hospitalised with low blood sugar this week as she tries to secure release of son Alaa Abd el-Fattah
A mother declared at risk of sudden death due to her 150-day hunger strike to free her jailed son has been persuaded to end her fast if UK ministers show any sign of progress in efforts to seek his release.
Laila Soueif, 68, is seeking the release of her son, the British-Egyptian prize-winning writer Alaa Abd el-Fattah, from a jail in Cairo. She has attempted to protest outside Downing Street for an hour each weekday to keep her son’s cause in the minds of ministers.
Continue reading...Archaeologist believes his ‘find of the century’ – of Pharaoh Thutmose II – could be surpassed by ongoing excavation
To uncover the location of one long-lost pharaoh’s tomb is a career-defining moment for an archaeologist. But to find a second is the stuff of dreams.
Last week British archaeologist Piers Litherland announced the find of the century – the first discovery of a rock-cut pharaoh’s tomb in Egypt since Tutankhamun’s in 1922.
Continue reading...Greenpeace argues European-backed projects hamper countries’ ability to decarbonise their own economies
European countries are extracting renewable energy from Morocco and Egypt to “greenwash” their own economies, while leaving north Africans reliant on dirty imported fuels and paying the environmental costs, a Greenpeace report says.
Both Morocco and Egypt are aiming to leverage their strategic locations south of the Mediterranean, and their solar and wind power potential, to position themselves as pivotal to Europe’s quest to diversify its energy supply.
Continue reading...Uncovering tomb of Thutmose II hailed as most significant discovery since Tutankhamun in 1922
It was when British archaeologist Dr Piers Litherland saw that the ceiling of the burial chamber was painted blue with yellow stars that he realised he had just discovered the first tomb of an Egyptian pharaoh to be found in more than a century.
Litherland had been exploring the Valley of the Kings in Egypt for more than a decade when he discovered a staircase that led to the tomb, now known to have belonged to Thutmose II, who reigned from 1493 to 1479BC.
Continue reading...Remains of Shiri Bibas and young sons Kfir and Ariel, whose deaths had not been confirmed, to be returned on Thursday
Hamas has said it will release six hostages from Gaza this week and hand over the bodies of four others, including the remains of two young children from the same family whose deaths had not previously been confirmed.
Khalil al-Hayya, a Hamas negotiator, said the four bodies to be handed over on Thursday would include those of 32-year-old Shiri Bibas and her sons, Kfir and Ariel, who were nine months old and four years old when Hamas abducted them from the Nir Oz kibbutz during the 7 October 2023 attack that ignited the Gaza war.
Continue reading...Alternative to Trump plan would involve committee of technocrats but future military status of Hamas unresolved
An alternative to Donald Trump’s plan to turn the Gaza Strip into a US-owned “Riviera of the Middle East” is being prepared by Egypt in conjunction with the World Bank, under which Hamas would be formally excluded from governance and control of the territory’s reconstruction.
The process would be handed over on an interim basis to the control of a social or community support committee. No member of Hamas would sit on the committee. But the future military status of Hamas within Gaza is unresolved, which is likely to be a barrier to Israeli endorsement of the plan.
Continue reading...Though heavily dependent on US aid, Amman and Cairo face political calamity at home should they comply
International outrage in recent days has focused on Donald Trump’s proposal that the US take “ownership” of Gaza, and that more than two million Palestinians be displaced to allow the territory to be transformed from “a demolition site” into a “riviera” in the Middle East.
In Jordan and Egypt, the demand that both countries accept huge numbers of Palestinians from Gaza – potentially on a permanent basis – has prompted equal concern. Leaders of both countries immediately rejected the proposal, and the Jordanian king, Abdullah II, and the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, are heading to Washington in an attempt to convince Trump to change course.
Continue reading...President’s plan for US to take over Gaza Strip and move Palestinians out also rejected by allies Saudi Arabia and Jordan
Donald Trump’s proposal for a US takeover of Gaza was met with anger and blunt rejection from regional allies, delight from Israel’s far right and a warning against “ethnic cleansing” from the head of the UN.
The secretary general, António Guterres, planned to tell a UN meeting on Wednesday that “it is essential to avoid any form of ethnic cleansing” after the US president said he wanted to “own” Gaza and resettle its Palestinian residents elsewhere.
Continue reading...Deployment of special forces veterans is unprecedented and poses risk that Americans could be drawn into fighting
A US security firm is hiring nearly 100 US special forces veterans to help run a checkpoint in Gaza during the Israel-Hamas truce, introducing armed American contractors into the heart of one of the world’s most violent conflict zones.
UG Solutions, a low-profile company founded in 2023 and based in Davidson, North Carolina, is offering a daily rate starting at $1,100 with a $10,000 advance to veterans it hires, according to a recruitment email.
Continue reading...Alaa Abd el-Fattah’s family reveal letters showing his despair after initial hopes David Lammy could get him freed from Cairo jail
Alaa Abd el-Fattah, the British-Egyptian political dissident held in a Cairo jail for more than five years, has reached such a state of despair over the UK’s inability to secure his release that he has contemplated renouncing both his British and Egyptian citizenship, his letters reveal.
His family have given permission for some of his private letters to be published to show his situation and his concern for his 68-year-old mother, Laila Soueif, on hunger strike seeking his release.
Continue reading...US president insists leaders of both countries would agree to move that could be ‘temporary or long-term’
Donald Trump has repeated his suggestion that large numbers of Palestinians should leave Gaza for Egypt or Jordan, despite widespread opposition to the proposal from Palestinian leadership, the UN and US allies in the region.
Speaking to reporters onboard Air Force One on Monday night, the US president was asked about his comments over the weekend about “cleaning out” the Gaza Strip either “temporarily or long-term”. Trump reiterated he would “like to get [Palestinians from Gaza] living in an area where they can live without disruption and revolution and violence so much”.
Continue reading...US president has already caused trouble abroad and at home with incoherent ideas about Middle East politics
The suggestion by the US president, Donald Trump, that Gaza’s Palestinian population could be “cleaned out” and moved to Egypt and Jordan is an idea that has long been circulated by the Israeli right.
Over the decades since the Six Day war in 1967, when Israeli forces first captured the Gaza Strip, which had been under Egyptian military rule, Israeli officials and commentators have periodically pushed the notion that Palestinians in Gaza could be resettled in Egypt.
Continue reading...Report by rights groups alleges border police refused to rescue boys and blocked activists’ efforts to save them
Bulgarian authorities have been accused of ignoring emergency calls and obstructing efforts to rescue three Egyptian teenage boys, who later died in sub-zero temperatures near the Bulgarian-Turkish border in late December.
A dossier of evidence compiled by two humanitarian organisations, seen by the Guardian, contains photos, testimonies and geolocations allegedly showing the authorities’ failure to save the boys, who called for help as they struggled cold and lost in the forests of Burgas, in south-eastern Bulgaria.
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