“I have the feeling they’re listening to no one. I fully understand they have pressure, and Hamas, and they still have hostages. But we have to be around to table to see how we can find solutions,” Bettel told reporters.
Aid groups, meanwhile, have been told by Israel that they will need to re-register with the government and provide personal information about their staffers. They say Israel has told them that, going forward, it could bar organizations for various reasons, including criticism of Israel, or any activities it says promote the “delegitimization” of Israel.Arwa Damon, founder of the International Network for Aid, Relief and Assistance, says Israel has increasingly barred aid workers from Gaza who had previously been allowed in. In February, Damon was denied access to Gaza, despite having entered four times previously since the war began. Israel gave no reason for barring her, she said.
Aid groups are trying to stay united on a range of issues, including not allowing Israel to vet staff or people receiving aid. But they say they’re being backed into a corner.“For us to work directly with the military in the delivery of aid is terrifying,” said Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam’s policy lead for Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory. “That should worry every single Palestinian in Gaza, but also every humanitarian worker.”Mira Abu Shaar, 5, right, and her older sister, Raghad, 15, hold pots next to their family tent, as they wait for food to be prepared, in Muwasi, on the outskirts of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, April 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Mira Abu Shaar, 5, right, and her older sister, Raghad, 15, hold pots next to their family tent, as they wait for food to be prepared, in Muwasi, on the outskirts of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, April 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)Associated Press writer Sarah El Deeb in Beirut contributed to this report.
BEIRUT (AP) — As an al-Qaida fighter in Iraq, he was detained by the American military. As the leader of a U.S.-designated terror group fighting in Syria’s civil war, he had a $10 million bounty on his head.
As the leader of a fast-changing Syria, Ahmad al-SharaaZelenskyy said that he had instructed Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry to advise foreign delegations against visiting Russia during this period.
Baltic countries Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which border Russia and its Kaliningrad exclave, announced plans to close their airspace to the planes carrying Serbia’s and Slovakia’s leaders to Moscow this week for the celebrations out of safety concerns, officials there said.“Who could deny that in such a quite active cyber background … that somebody will not use this as a possible provocation to create problems and risks for the flight of these people through the Republic of Lithuania,” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda said Wednesday.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, in comments to Russian state TV, called the move “a disgrace.”Flight restrictions across Russia because of Ukrainian drone threats, including temporary closures at airports in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi and elsewhere, affected at least 350 flights and at least 60,000 passengers, the Russian Tour Operators Association said.