Sunday, Apr 06th
Last update07:36:39 AM GMT
International Glance
A Palestinian director of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land has been arrested by the Israeli army after masked settlers attacked his house.
According to five Jewish American activists who witnessed the attack, Hamdan Ballal, one of the four directors of the the film that documented the destruction of villages in the West Bank, was surrounded and attacked by a group of about 15 armed settlers in Susya in the Masafer Yatta area south of Hebron.
US negotiators are holding talks in the Saudi capital Riyadh with their Ukrainian counterparts and separately with the Russians on Monday.
Washington's aim is to bring about an immediate partial ceasefire to the war in Ukraine, followed by a comprehensive peace deal.
So could these Riyadh talks produce the breakthrough so many are hoping for?
It depends who you listen to.
"I feel that he (Putin) wants peace," said President Trump's personal envoy Steve Witkoff, adding: "I think that you're going to see in Saudi Arabia on Monday some real progress."
Yet Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman has dampened expectations. "We are only at the beginning of this path," he told Russian state TV.
The number of Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip since the start of Israel's war with Hamas has surpassed 50,000, according to health officials in Gaza.
Gaza's Health Ministry said Sunday the Palestinian death toll in Gaza had risen to 50,021 since Israel's military offensive began in October 2023, following the Hamas-led attack on Israel.
It is the latest milestone in the conflict, which reignited when Israel broke a ceasefire with the Palestinian militant group last Tuesday.
President Trump said “contracts” are being negotiated to divide up land as part of a final deal ending Russia’s war in Ukraine and reiterated that a ceasefire could come “pretty soon.”
“They are fighting against each other,” Trump told reporters Friday in the White House. “I think we’re going to have ceasefire on a lot of areas and so far, that’s all held very well.”
“In getting that ceasefire, they had a lot of guns pointing at each other. You had some soldiers unfortunately surrounded by other soldiers,” the president said. “They are going to be — I believe we’re going to pretty soon have a full ceasefire, and then we’re going to have a contract, and the contract’s being negotiated, the contract in terms of dividing up the lands, etc., etc. It’s being negotiated as we speak.”
Russia controls nearly 20 percent of Ukraine’s land.
The Trump administration has pushed to secure a partial ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine that would involve energy facilities and infrastructure. Russian President Vladimir Putin offered his support for the limited ceasefire involving energy facilities but rejected the U.S.-proposed 30-day ceasefire that Kyiv endorsed earlier this month.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed in a Saturday speech that the decision to fire the country’s domestic security chief Ronen Bar was made before the announcement that Bar was investigating the prime ministry for alleged ties to the Qatari government.
Netanyahu said that he had decided to fire Bar, the director of Shin Bet, after the agency’s report on the 7 October 2023 attack, rather than after it opened its investigation.
“Ronen Bar will not remain head of the Shin Bet. There will not be a civil war, and Israel will remain a democratic state,” said Netanyahu.
Shin Bet has said that it began its investigation into connections between officials in the prime minister’s office and the Qatari government in early February, before the release of the 7 October report. The investigation is looking into allegations that some members of the prime minister’s office, as well as other government agencies, took money to promote the interests of Qatar.
Israel carried out a strike in Tyre, south Lebanon, on Saturday, killing one and wounding seven people and endangering the shaky truce that ended a year-long conflict against Hezbollah, as 40 survivors of Hamas captivity called on the Israeli government to halt the “endless war”.
The strike on a building came after Israel carried out dozens of airstrikes in Lebanon on Saturday, its most intense aerial assault on the country in four months. In total, six people were killed, including a child, and 28 injured, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
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