WASHINGTON, Jan 17 – The Supreme Court upheld on Friday a law banning TikTok in the United States on national security grounds if its Chinese parent company ByteDance does not sell it, putting the popular short-video app on track to go dark in just two days.
The court’s 9-0 decision throws the social media platform – and its 170 million American users – into limbo, and its fate in the hands of Donald Trump, who has vowed to rescue TikTok after returning to the presidency on Monday.
The law was passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in Congress last year and signed by President Joe Biden, though a growing chorus of lawmakers who voted it are now seeking to keep TikTok operating in the United States.
TikTok, ByteDance and some of the app’s users challenged the law, but the Supreme Court decided that it did not violate the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment protection against government abridgment of free speech as they had argued.
PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday said that French-Israeli citizens Ofer Kalderon and Ohad Yahalomi are in the first group of hostages due to be freed by Hamas following a ceasefire with Israel.
Macron’s announcement came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said that the release of hostages held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel is expected to begin on Sunday.
“Our fellow citizens Ofer Kalderon and Ohad Yahalomi are on the list of 33 hostages to be freed in the first phase of the Gaza accord,” Macron said in a social media post.
“We remain mobilized without pause to ensure their return to their families,” he wrote.
The French president is set to meet with the families of the two Franco-Israeli hostages “very soon,” according to his entourage.
Yahalomi, who turned 50 in captivity, was kidnapped from his home in Nir Oz kibbutz.
His 12-year-old son, abducted separately, was released in November 2023 during the first truce.
Kalderon, 54, was kidnapped along with his son and daughter from Nir Oz kibbutz. The two children were released in the November 2023 truce.
JERUSALEM — The Israeli justice ministry published a list of 95 Palestinian prisoners, the majority women, who are to be freed starting Sunday as part of the first exchange for Israeli captives under a Gaza ceasefire deal.
“The release of prisoners is… subject to government approval of the (ceasefire) plan and will not take place before Sunday 16:00 (1400 GMT),” the ministry said in a statement on Friday.
Israel’s security cabinet approved the deal, while the full cabinet will convene to vote on it later on Friday.
The list includes 69 women, 16 men and 10 minors.
According to the ministry, the youngest inmate on the list is 16.
The list includes only seven prisoners who were arrested before the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.
Among those on the list is also Khalida Jarar, a leftist Palestinian lawmaker whom Israel arrested and imprisoned on several occasions.
Jarar is a prominent member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a group designated a “terrorist organization” by Israel, the United States and the European Union.
Detained in late December in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, the 60-year-old has been held since then without charge.
In September 2021, she was released after serving a two-year sentence in an Israeli prison for participating in PFLP activities.
According to the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the release of hostages as part of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas is expected to begin Sunday.
Two sources close to Hamas told AFP that the first group of hostages to be released consists of three Israeli women soldiers. However, since the Palestinian Islamist movement considers any Israeli of military age who has completed mandatory service a soldier, the reference could also apply to civilians abducted during the attack that triggered the war.
The first three names on a list obtained by AFP of the 33 hostages set to be released in the first phase are women under 30 who were not in military service on the day of the Hamas attack.
Justice ministry spokeswoman Noga Katz said the final number of prisoners to be released in the first swap would depend on the number of live hostages released by Hamas.
Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has called on political allies to vote against the Gaza deal, stating it would see the release of several Palestinian militants “serving life sentences” for killing Israelis.
Ukraine launched an attack on Russia’s Belgorod region with six US-made ATACMS missiles on Thursday, the Russian Defence Ministry said on Friday. (AFP/File)
MOSCOW — Ukraine launched an attack on Russia’s Belgorod region with six US-made ATACMS missiles on Thursday, the Russian Defence Ministry said on Friday.
It said that Russia would retaliate, but that all the missiles had been intercepted, resulting in no casualties or damage.
Moscow has said it will respond every time Ukraine fires ATACMS or British-supplies Storm Shadow cruise missiles into Russia.
Ukraine first used those weapons to strike at Russian territory in November after obtaining permission from Washington and London. Russia replied by firing a new intermediate-range hypersonic missile, the Oreshnik, and has said it may do so again.
The defence ministry said that over the past week, Russia shot down 12 ATACMS, eight Storm Shadows, 48 US HIMARS rockets, seven French-made Hammer guided bombs and 747 drones. Reuters could not verify those figures.
It reported for the first time that Russian forces had captured the village of Slovianka in eastern Ukraine, one of eight Ukrainian settlements it said had been taken in the past week.
The statement said Russia had carried out eight major strikes in the past week on parts of Ukraine’s gas and energy infrastructure that it said were supporting military facilities and the Ukrainian defence industry.
Ukrainian officials said a Russian missile attack killed at least four people and partially destroyed an educational facility in the city of Kryvyi Rih in southern-central Ukraine on Friday.
At least seven others were hurt, some of them seriously, Serhiy Lysak, the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, said on Telegram.
A Ukrainian serviceman reacts after firing a 120mm mortar toward Russian troops at a frontline in the Kharkiv region on Jan. 16, 2025. (Reuters)
KYIV — Ukraine said Friday it had launched a missile strike one day earlier on the western Belgorod region targeting air defense systems and damaging military radars.
Kyiv has stepped up its cross border drone and missile attacks on Russian territory and said this week it had launched its largest barrage of the war on military sites and energy installations over the border.
The Ukrainian General Staff wrote on social media that missile units had carried out “precision strikes” on Russian military targets in Belgorod, which borders Ukraine.
It said it had attacked air defense systems under the 568th anti-aircraft missile regiment and claimed that an S-400 radar had been damaged alongside equipment linked to another brigade.
There was no immediate response from Moscow to the claims, which could not be verified by AFP.
Moscow in turn has been targeting Ukrainian energy facilities and this week launched dozens of missiles and drones at sites mainly in western Ukraine near the border with Poland.
Kyiv said Friday that its air defense systems had shot down 33 Russian drones over 11 Ukrainian region at night.
SEOUL — Investigators probing the Jeju Air crash that killed 179 people last month have found feathers in both engines, according to South Korean media reports, with a bird strike being examined as one possible cause.
The Boeing 737-800 was flying from Thailand to Muan, South Korea, on December 29 carrying 181 passengers and crew when it belly-landed at Muan airport and exploded in a fireball after slamming into a concrete barrier.
It was the worst aviation disaster on South Korean soil.
“Feathers were found in both engines,” the government-linked National Institute of Biological Resources told South Korean broadcaster MBN, without specifying who gave them the information.
“We have completed the analysis of a total of 17 samples, including feathers and blood,” it said.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport declined to confirm the report when asked by AFP.
South Korean and US investigators are still probing the cause of the crash, which prompted a national outpouring of mourning with memorials set up across the country.
Investigators have pointed to a bird strike, faulty landing gear and the runway barrier as possible issues.
The pilot warned of a bird strike before pulling out of a first landing attempt. The plane crashed on its second attempt when the landing gear did not emerge.
Lead investigator Lee Seung-yeol told reporters last week that “feathers were found” in one of the plane’s recovered engines but cautioned that a bird strike does not lead to an immediate engine failure.
“We need to investigate whether it affected both engines. It is certain that one engine has definitely experienced a bird strike,” he said.
The investigation was further clouded on Saturday when the transport ministry said the black boxes holding the flight data and cockpit voice recorders for the crashed flight had stopped recording four minutes before the disaster.
Authorities have raided offices at Muan airport, a regional aviation office in the southwestern county, and Jeju Air’s office in the capital Seoul as part of the investigation. The land ministry has extended Muan airport’s closure until January 19.
Nearly all 2.4 million people in Gaza have been displaced at least once, and aid agencies warn of obstacles from destroyed infrastructure, massive need and collapsed law and order to deliver live-saving help for them. (AFP)
CAIRO — An Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal expected to take effect on Sunday has sparked hope for life-saving aid to reach Palestinians, but aid agencies warn of obstacles from destroyed infrastructure, massive need and collapsed law and order.
Announcing the truce, United States President Joe Biden said on Wednesday it would “surge much needed humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians.”
The United Nations’ humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher called it “a moment of hope and opportunity” but said “we should be under no illusions how tough it will still be to get support to survivors.”
On the ground in the territory, where nearly all 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once, aid workers worry nothing will be enough to meet the need.
“Everything has been destroyed. Children are on the streets. You can’t pinpoint just one priority,” Doctors Without Borders (MSF) coordinator Amande Bazerolle said by phone from Gaza.
Speaking from the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis, Mohammed Al-Khatib, of Medical Aid for Palestinians, said local aid workers haven’t stopped for 15 months even though they themselves are displaced.
“Everyone is exhausted,” he said.
In the hunger-stricken makeshift shelters set up in former schools, bombed-out houses and cemeteries, hundreds of thousands lack even plastic sheeting to protect from winter rains and biting winds, Gavin Kelleher, of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said.
Even if the bombs stop, agencies like his have to focus on the basics of emergency response, including bringing in “tarpaulins, rope and fixtures to close gaping holes” in buildings.
“At least until we stop seeing children dying of hypothermia,” he said via text message from Gaza.
By last week, hypothermia had killed at least eight people – four newborns, three infants and one adult – according to a health ministry toll used by the World Health Organization.
On Wednesday, Egypt’s state-linked Al-Qahera News reported coordination was underway to reopen the Rafah crossing on the Gaza border. It was one of the main humanitarian entry points but has been closed since Israeli forces seized the Palestinian side in May.
The truce is based on a plan Biden presented in mid-2024 that foresaw a surge in aid to 600 trucks per day, or more than eight times the December average reported by the United Nations.
The World Food Programme said Thursday it had enough food for one million people “waiting outside Gaza or on its way.”
On the Egyptian side of the border, a source in the Egyptian Red Crescent said up to 1,000 trucks are waiting “for their entry into Gaza.”
But with air strikes continuing to pound the territory, where aid groups and the UN have regularly accused Israel of impeding aid flows – which Israeli denies – aid workers were skeptical.
MSF’s Bazerolle said the promise of hundreds of trucks a day “is not even feasible technically.”
“Since Rafah has been destroyed, the infrastructure is not there to be able to cope with that level of logistics,” she explained, with bombs audible in the background.
Aid that does arrive is subject to looting by both armed gangs and desperate civilians.
“The Israelis have targeted the police, so there’s no one to protect the shipments” from looting, which Bazerolle said will continue “as long as there’s not enough aid entering.”
After more than a year of the “systematic dismantling of the rule of law” in Gaza, NRC’s Kelleher called for “the resumption of a Palestinian civilian police force.”
The situation is especially dire in northern Gaza.
Bazerolle, who says MSF missions in the area have been targeted by Israel, says the group hopes to send teams to the north “to at least treat patients where they are,” in the absence of hospitals.
According to the WHO, only one hospital, Al-Awda, is partially functioning in the north.
WHO’s Rik Peeperkorn said that, in addition to hospital capacity, his agency will focus on “the very basic things” including water, electricity and waste management systems in Gaza.
Still, the displaced will hope to head back – including Khatib himself – if the truce holds.
Many, he said, “will return to find their entire neighborhoods destroyed” and without food or shelter.
“People aren’t even talking about rebuilding their houses, but just the most basic essential needs,” he continued.
“We’re closing one chapter of suffering and opening a new one,” he predicted, before adding: “At least there is some hope of the bloodshed ending.”
BRUSSELS — The European Commission is taking further steps to clarify the compliance of social media platform X’s recommender systems with the obligations under the Digital Services Act (DSA), Henna Virkkunen, executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, security and democracy, said Friday.
The Commission has requested that X submit internal documentation related to its recommender systems, including any recent modifications, by Feb. 15. Additionally, X has been asked to preserve internal documents concerning the design and functioning of these algorithms until the end of the year, unless the investigation concludes earlier.
The Commission has also sought access to specific commercial APIs from X. These technical interfaces will allow for a direct examination of content moderation practices and the mechanisms driving account virality.
The investigation into X commenced in December 2023. By July 2024, the Commission’s preliminary findings indicated that X had violated the DSA in several areas, including the use of dark patterns, lack of advertising transparency, and restricted data access for researchers.
X’s owner, Elon Musk, has recently clashed with EU regulators. Some European politicians have accused him of election interference, pointing to his livestreamed discussion with the leader of Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
Italian journalist Cecilia Sala reacts as she arrives at her home, after she was freed from detention in Iran, in Rome, Italy, January 8, 2025. REUTERS/Remo Casilli/File Photo
ROME — Elon Musk played no role in negotiations between Italy and Iran for the release of a journalist who was held in a Tehran prison, Italy’s foreign minister said on Friday, dismissing a media report that the U.S. billionaire had been involved.
Italian journalist Cecilia Sala returned home last week after being detained in Iran last month during a reporting trip.
Shortly afterwards, Italy released an Iranian businessman who had been arrested in Milan on a U.S. warrant a few days before Sala was taken to prison.
“Musk … has nothing to do with Cecilia Sala’s case. He played no role. The case was settled by the Italian government,” Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani told broadcaster SkyTG24.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Musk had helped secure Sala’s release, at the request of her boyfriend, by reaching out to Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who is a friend of Musk’s, told reporters on Jan. 9 that she had no information on whether he had been involved in the case.
Musk, who was a leading supporter of President-elect Donald Trump’s White House campaign and is poised to take up a role advising him on cutting government spending, said on Thursday he had “played a small role.”
“I did not have any interaction with Iran. Just recommended support from the U.S. side,” he wrote on his social network X.
Sala was released three days after Meloni made a surprise visit to Florida to see Trump. The trip played a role in the reporter’s release, an Italian political source said.
MOSCOW — Russian forces have regained control of 63.2 percent of the territory in the Kursk region previously seized by Ukraine, the Russian Ministry of Defense said Friday.
Units of the North military group took back four settlements in the Kursk region over the course of two weeks in January, it said.
Russian forces are continuing their offensive in all directions, said the ministry, adding that Ukrainian troops are retreating from occupied territories despite reinforcements.
MOSCOW — Tentera Rusia menguasai semula 63.2 peratus wilayah di Kursk yang sebelum ini dirampas oleh Ukraine, kata Kementerian Pertahanan Rusia pada Jumaat.
Unit-unit kumpulan tentera Utara mengambil semula empat penempatan di wilayah Kursk dalam tempoh dua minggu pada Januari, katanya.
Tentera Rusia meneruskan serangan mereka ke semua arah, kata kementerian, sambil menambah bahawa tentera Ukraine berundur dari wilayah yang diduduki walaupun diberi bantuan.
NEW DELHI — At least seven people, mostly spectators, were killed and over 400 others injured by bulls at the bullfighting sports events in southern India, multiple local media reported Friday.
The deaths and injuries were reported on Thursday during the events held in various parts of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
The reports said two bulls also died in separate incidents. A bull died during an event in Pudukkottai, while a bull owner and his bull died at Siravayal village in Sivaganga district during a bull chasing event.
Officials said most of the deaths and injuries took place outside the arenas, where bull owners usually collect their bulls after the run in the presence of huge crowds.
SYDNEY — Two people have been injured after a tree fell amid heavy winds in central Sydney.
The large tree was brought down by strong winds at about 3 p.m. local time on Friday in Hyde Park in the central business district of Sydney, the capital city of the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW).
Emergency services attended the scene where two women, aged 35 and 66, were treated for minor injuries by ambulance paramedics before being taken to hospital.
Police said they were working to clear the fallen tree from Elizabeth Street, a major road running north-south through central Sydney, and have put traffic diversions in place.
Sydney and surrounding areas in NSW have been hit by a series of intense storms and damaging winds since Wednesday.
PHNOM PENH — A 49-year-old woman had died after being attacked by a swarm of bees in northeastern Cambodia’s Mondulkiri province, the National Police said on Friday.
The rare accident occurred on Wednesday afternoon in Pechreada district’s Pu Kreng village when the victim was lying in a hammock under an avocado tree.
“Experts inspected the victim’s face and body and found that the swarm of bees stung her 67 times,” the National Police said on its website.
The woman was soon taken to a local health center, but the doctor pronounced that she was dead from complications due to the bee stings before reaching the health center.
“Our experts concluded that the woman was killed by bee stings,” the National Police said.
According to the police, the swarm was likely a traveling one because there was no evidence of a bee colony in trees around the scene.
ISTANBUL — Three illegal migrants died and three others went missing after falling from a rubber boat into the Aegean Sea off the coast of Türkiye’s Aydin province, local media reported on Friday.
According to NTV, the accident occurred near the coastal town of Kusadasi when the boat carrying migrants failed to heed a “stop” warning from security forces.
As the boat attempted to flee, several migrants fell into the sea. The Coast Guard rescued 32 individuals and recovered the bodies of three others.
The report added that three people are still missing as search and rescue operations are ongoing.
Preliminary reports suggest that the migrants were attempting to illegally cross to a Greek island.
The Aegean Sea has long been a key route for migrants attempting to reach Europe via Türkiye.
As one of the world’s leading destinations for refugees, Türkiye currently hosts over 4 million migrants, the majority of whom are Syrians, according to the Presidential Directorate of Communications.
JUBA — South Sudan on Friday imposed a curfew across the country in the wake of targeted revenge attacks on Sudanese nationals triggered by graphic footage on social media of South Sudanese nationals being killed in Sudan.
The curfew, which will come into force from 6 p.m. local time (1600 GMT), is aimed at preventing any violations of public and private property, the Inspector General of the South Sudan National Police Service, Abraham Manyuat Peter, announced on state television.
“We are closely monitoring the situation and call on citizens to report any criminal violations,” he said. “The police will not tolerate any violations that harm public security and will deal with them according to the law.”
Peter said four people were injured Thursday night in clashes between security forces and rioters, who attacked, looted, and vandalized businesses owned by Sudanese nationals in Juba, the capital of South Sudan.
The riots came after video clips circulating on social media platforms of Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) soldiers executing unarmed civilians, including South Sudanese nationals, in Wad Medani, Al Gezira State, Sudan.
There have since been attacks on Sudanese nationals in Juba, Aweil, and Warrap State, according to reports.
South Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation on Wednesday summoned the Sudanese Ambassador to South Sudan, Isam Mohamed Hassan Karar, to protest the killing of its nationals.
John Samuel Bwogo, undersecretary in South Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, has requested that the Sudan Sovereign Council allow a high-level committee from Juba to visit Wad Madani, where the alleged attacks took place.
He urged both the Sudan Sovereign Council and the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces to protect South Sudanese nationals caught up in the violence.
The Sudanese ambassador to South Sudan said an investigation committee has been formed to investigate the killings in Wad Madani, which happened after the SAF retook the area from the rebels.
“There are many nationalities engaging in war within Sudan. The investigation committee will work closely with the undersecretary and ambassador of South Sudan based in Port Sudan, and we will update South Sudanese and the public on the situation of citizens in Al Gezira,” he said.
JERUSALEM — The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement on Friday that the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza is expected to begin on Sunday.
The statement noted that the release could take place according to the planned outline, subject to approval by the security cabinet and the government and the agreement with Hamas coming into effect.
Earlier in the day, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a separate statement that Netanyahu has been updated by the negotiating team that agreements have been reached on a deal for the release of the hostages. The prime minister has directed that the cabinet be convened on Friday.
Ahead of the cabinet discussion, a security-operational situation assessment was held for the implementation of the agreement, headed by Netanyahu, along with the Israeli negotiating team.
Netanyahu has also directed the Coordinator for the Hostages and the Missing Gal Hirsch to coordinate the preparations to receive the hostages upon their return to Israel.
WASHINGTON, Jan 16 – Several journalists who are outspoken critics of U.S. support for Israel loudly lambasted U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken over the war in Gaza on Thursday, repeatedly interrupting his final press conference as he sought to defend his handling of the 15-month-old conflict.
Israel’s assault on Gaza is likely to define the foreign policy legacy of the outgoing Biden administration, despite a deal reached with Palestinian militant group Hamas on Wednesday on a ceasefire in exchange for the release of hostages.
“Criminal! Why aren’t you in The Hague,” shouted Sam Husseini, an independent journalist and longtime critic of Washington’s approach to the world. The Hague is where the International Criminal Court is located.
The unusually confrontational scene in the State Department briefing room only ended when security personnel forcibly picked up Husseini and carried him out of the room as he continued to heckle Blinken.
Blinken has faced criticism for providing Israel with weapons and diplomatic support since the latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent military assault on Gaza has killed over 46,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while also drawing accusations of genocide in a World Court case brought by South Africa and of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court. Israel denies the allegations. The assault has displaced nearly Gaza’s entire 2.3 million population and drawn the concern of the world’s main hunger monitor.
“Why did you keep the bombs flowing when we had a deal in May?” Max Blumenthal, editor of the Grayzone, an outlet that strongly criticizes many aspects of U.S. foreign policy, called out to Blinken, before he was escorted out.
Blinken, who leaves office on Monday when the administration of President-elect Donald Trump takes over, calmly asked for quiet while he delivered his remarks, and later took questions from reporters.
He has been frequently heckled at appearances in Washington since the Gaza conflict began. Demonstrators camped outside his Virginia home for months and repeatedly threw red paint – resembling blood – on cars carrying Blinken and his family.
Asked during the press conference if he would change anything about his dealings with Israel, Blinken said the Israeli government had carried out policies that “were basically supported by an overwhelming majority of Israelis after the trauma of October 7” and said that had to be factored in to the U.S. response.
The Biden administration had been unable to reach final determinations on individual incidents that could constitute violations of international law because Hamas embedded itself within the civilian population, he said.
“I’d also point out that in Israel itself, there are hundreds of cases that are being investigated,” Blinken said. “They have a process, they have procedures, they have rule of law… That’s the hallmark of any democracy.”
An Israeli youngster with red-stained hands protests a ceasefire deal that they see as an act of surrender, ahead of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, January 16, 2025. REUTERS
DOHA/CAIRO/JERUSALEM — The Israeli cabinet will meet to give final approval to a deal with Palestinian militant group Hamas for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and release of hostages, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Friday.
In Gaza itself, Israeli warplanes kept up intense strikes, and Palestinian authorities said late on Thursday that at least 86 people were killed in the day after the truce was unveiled.
With longstanding divisions apparent among ministers, Israel delayed meetings expected on Thursday when the cabinet was expected to vote on the pact, blaming Hamas for the hold-up.
But in the early hours of Friday, Netanyahu’s office said approval was imminent.
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was informed by the negotiating team that agreements have been reached on a deal to release the hostages,” his office said in a statement.
The security cabinet would meet on Friday before a full meeting of the cabinet later to approve the deal, it said.
It was not immediately clear whether the full cabinet would meet on Friday or Saturday or whether there would be any delay to the start of the ceasefire on Sunday.
White House spokesperson John Kirby said Washington believed the agreement was on track and a ceasefire in the 15-month-old conflict was expected to proceed “as soon as late this weekend.”
“We are seeing nothing that would tell us that this is going to get derailed at this point,” he said on CNN on Thursday.
A group representing families of Israeli hostages in Gaza, 33 of whom are due to be freed in the first six-week phase of the accord, urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to move forward quickly.
“For the 98 hostages, each night is another night of terrible nightmare. Do not delay their return even for one more night,” the group said in a statement late on Thursday carried by Israeli media.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said earlier on Thursday a “loose end” in the negotiations needed to be resolved.
A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said this was a dispute over the identities of some prisoners Hamas wanted released. Envoys of President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump were in Doha with Egyptian and Qatari mediators working to resolve it, the official said.
Hamas senior official Izzat el-Reshiq said the group remained committed to the ceasefire deal.
Biden said on Thursday that Netanyahu had to “find a way to accommodate the legitimate concerns” of Palestinians for the long term sustainability of Israel.
“And the idea that Israel is going to be able to sustain itself for the long term without accommodating the Palestinian question … It’s not going to happen,” Biden, a Democrat who hands over to Republican President-elect Trump on Monday, said in an interview on MSNBC.
Inside Gaza, joy over the truce gave way to sorrow and anger at the intensified bombardment that followed the ceasefire announcement on Wednesday.
Tamer Abu Shaaban’s voice cracked as he stood over the tiny body of his young niece wrapped in a white shroud at a Gaza City morgue. She had been hit in the back with missile shrapnel as she played in the yard of a school where the family was sheltering, he said.
“Is this the truce they are talking about? What did this young girl, this child, do to deserve this?” he asked.
VOTE EXPECTED
Israel’s acceptance of the deal will not be official until it is approved by the security cabinet and government. The prime minister’s office has not commented on the timing.
Some political analysts speculated that the start of the ceasefire, scheduled for Sunday, could be delayed if Israel does not finalise approval until Saturday.
Hardliners in Netanyahu’s government, who say the war has not achieved its objective of wiping out Hamas and should not end until it does so, had hoped to stop the deal.
Nevertheless, a majority of ministers were expected to back the agreement.
In Jerusalem, some Israelis marched through the streets carrying mock coffins in protest at the ceasefire, blocking roads and scuffling with police. Other protesters blocked traffic until security forces dispersed them.
The ceasefire accord emerged on Wednesday after mediation by Qatar, Egypt and the U.S. The deal outlines a six-week initial ceasefire with the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces.
Dozens of hostages taken by Hamas including women, children, elderly and sick people would be freed in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners detained in Israel.
It paves the way for a surge in humanitarian aid for Gaza, where the majority of the population has been displaced, facing hunger, sickness and cold.
Israel launched its campaign in Gaza after Hamas-led gunmen burst into Israeli border-area communities on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 soldiers and civilians and abducting over 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
If successful, the ceasefire would halt fighting that has razed much of heavily urbanised Gaza, killed over 46,000 people, and displaced most of the tiny enclave’s pre-war population of 2.3 million, according to Gaza authorities.
Metalliferous Mobile Rescue Winder operators look on as a cage is lifted from an abandoned gold shaft in Stilfontein on January 16, 2025. (AFP)
STILFONTEIN, South Africa — The death toll in a monthslong standoff between police and miners trapped while working illegally in an abandoned gold mine in South Africa has risen to at least 87, police said Thursday.
Authorities faced growing anger and a possible investigation over their initial refusal to help the miners and instead “smoke them out” by cutting off their food supplies.
National police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe said that 78 bodies were retrieved in a court-ordered rescue operation, with 246 survivors also pulled out from deep underground since the operation began on Monday. Mathe said nine other bodies had been recovered before the rescue operation, without giving details.
Community groups launched their own rescue attempts when authorities said last year they would not help the hundreds of miners because they were “criminals.”
The miners are suspected to have died of starvation and dehydration, although no causes of death have been released.
South African authorities have been fiercely criticized for cutting off food and supplies to the miners in the Buffelsfontein Gold Mine last year. That tactic to “smoke them out,” as described by a prominent Cabinet minister, was condemned by one of South Africa’s biggest trade unions.
Police and the mine owners were also accused of taking away ropes and dismantling a pulley system the miners used to enter the mine and send supplies down from the surface.
A court ordered authorities last year to allow food and water to be sent down to the miners, while another court ruling last week forced them to launch a rescue operation.
Many say the unfolding disaster underground was clear weeks ago, when community members sporadically pulled decomposing bodies out of the mine, some with notes attached pleading for food to be sent down.
“If the police had acted earlier, we would not be in this situation, with bodies piling up,” said Johannes Qankase, a local community leader. “It is a disgrace for a constitutional democracy like ours. Somebody needs to account for what has happened here.”
South Africa’s second biggest political party, which is part of a government coalition, called for President Cyril Ramaphosa to establish an independent inquiry to find out “why the situation was allowed to get so badly out of hand.”
“The scale of the disaster underground at Buffelsfontein is rapidly proving to be as bad as feared,” the Democratic Alliance party said.
Authorities now believe that nearly 2,000 miners were working illegally in the mine near the town of Stilfontein, southwest of Johannesburg, since August last year. Most of them resurfaced on their own over the last few months, police said, and all the survivors have been arrested, even as some emerged this week badly emaciated and barely able to walk to waiting ambulances.
A convoy of mortuary vans arrived at the mine to carry away the bodies.
Mathe said at least 13 children had also come out of the mine before the official rescue operation.
Police announced Wednesday that they were ending the operation after three days and believed no one else was underground. To be sure, a camera was sent down Thursday in a cage that was used to pull out survivors and bodies.
Two volunteer rescuers from the community had gone down in the small cage during the rescue operation to help miners as authorities refused to allow any official rescue personnel to go into the shaft because it was too dangerous.
“It has been a tough few days, there were many people who (we) saved but I still feel bad for those whose family members came out in body bags,” said Mandla Charles, one of the volunteer rescuers. “We did all we could.” The two volunteers were being offered trauma counselling, police said.
The mine is one of the deepest in South Africa and is a maze of tunnels and levels and has several shafts leading into it.
The miners were working up to 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) underground in different groups.
Police have maintained that the miners were able to come out through several shafts but refused out of fear of being arrested. That’s been disputed by groups representing the miners, who say hundreds were trapped and left starving in dark and damp conditions with decomposing bodies around them.
Police Minister Senzo Mchunu denied in an interview with a national TV station that the police were responsible for any starvation and said they had allowed food to go down.
The initial police operation last year to force the miners to come out and give themselves up for arrest was part of a larger nationwide clampdown on illegal mining called Vala Umgodi, or Close the Hole. Illegal mining is often in the news in South Africa and a major problem for authorities as large groups go into mines that have been shut down to extract leftover deposits.
Gold-rich South Africa has an estimated 6,000 abandoned or closed mines.
The illicit miners, known as “zama zamas” — “hustlers” or “chancers” in the Zulu language — are usually armed and part of criminal syndicates, the government says, and they rob South Africa of more than $1 billion a year in gold deposits.
They are often undocumented foreign nationals and authorities said that the vast majority who came out of the Buffelsfontein mine were from Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Lesotho, and were in South Africa illegally.
Police said they seized gold, explosives, firearms and more than $2 million in cash from the miners and have defended their hard-line approach.
“By providing food, water and necessities to these illegal miners, it would be the police entertaining and allowing criminality to thrive,” Mathe said Wednesday.
But the South African Federation of Trade Unions questioned the government’s humanity and how it could “allow anyone — be they citizens or undocumented immigrants — to starve to death in the depths of the earth.”
While the police operation has been condemned by civic groups, the disaster hasn’t provoked a strong outpouring of anger across South Africa, where the mostly foreign zama zamas have long been considered unwelcome in a country that already struggles with high rates of violent crime.
