Foreign News
Trump urges mediators to ‘move fast’ as key Gaza peace talks set to begin
US President Donald Trump has urged everyone involved in efforts to end the Gaza war to “move fast” as mediators are set to meet in Egypt on today [06] for indirect peace talks between Hamas and Israel.
The talks come after Hamas agreed to some parts of a 20-point US peace plan, including freeing hostages and handing over Gaza governance to Palestinian technocrats, but is seeking negotiations on other issues.
The group’s response did not mention the key demands of its disarmament and playing no future role in Gaza’s governance.
Writing on social media that talks had been “very successful”, Trump said: “I am told the first phase should be completed this week, and I am asking everyone to move fast.”
The US president added that “time is of the essence or massive bloodshed will follow”.
Speaking to reporters earlier, Trump said he thought the hostages would start to be freed “very soon”.
When asked about flexibility over his peace plan, Trump said “we don’t need flexibility because everybody has pretty much agreed to it, but there will always be some changes”.
“It’s a great deal for Israel, it’s a great deal for the entire Arab world, Muslim world, and world, so we’re very happy about it,” he added.
Meanwhile, Israeli air strikes continued in Gaza, despite Trump telling Israel to “immediately stop the bombing” on Friday after Hamas responded to the proposed plan.
Israeli government spokesperson Shosh Bedrosian told reporters on Sunday that “while certain bombings have actually stopped inside of the Gaza Strip, there’s no ceasefire in place at this point in time”.
Bedrosian said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had given orders “to fire back for defensive purposes… if there is a threat to their life in the battlefield in Gaza”.
Reports from Gaza say Israel continued air strikes and tank fire overnight and into Sunday, destroying a number of residential buildings in Gaza City.
A BBC correspondent heard explosions from inside Gaza and saw a plume of smoke while near the border in Kibbutz Be’eri, Israel, on Sunday morning.
Another 65 people were killed by Israeli military operations in the 24 hours leading up to midday, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the BBC’s US news partner CBS News that bombing needs to stop to facilitate a hostage release.
“You can’t release hostages while there’s still bombardments going on… that has to stop, but you also have to work through the other logistics,” he told CBS News’ Face the Nation on Sunday.
“We want to get the hostages out as soon as possible,” he added.
The 20-point plan proposes an immediate end to fighting and the release of 48 hostages, only 20 of whom are thought to be alive, in exchange for hundreds of detained Gazans.
Netanyahu said in a televised address on Saturday that he hoped to announce the release of hostages “in the coming days”.
The prime minister has “made it clear that in an agreement with the Trump administration talks will be confined to a few days maximum”, Bedrosian said.
Netanyahu ordered the departure of the Israeli delegation on Monday for the crucial talks.
A Hamas delegation headed by chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya, one of the targets of an Israeli assassination attempt in Doha, Qatar last month, was due to arrive in Cairo on Sunday night.
US special envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Qatari foreign minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani will also attend.
The talks are expected to be among the most consequential since the start of the war and could determine whether a path toward ending the conflict is finally within reach.
Many Palestinians described Hamas’ response to the peace plan as unexpected, after days of indications that the group was preparing to reject or at least heavily condition its acceptance of Trump’s peace plan proposal.
Instead, Hamas refrained from including its traditional “red lines” in the official statement, a move many interpret as a sign of external pressure.
A senior Palestinian official familiar with the talks told the BBC that Qatari, Egyptian and Turkish mediators played a major role in convincing Hamas to tone down its objections and to leave contentious points such as the fate of its weapons, Gaza’s post-war governance and its other concerns for the negotiation table.
Many Gazans warn that this tactical flexibility carries considerable risk.
Every additional day of delay means more deaths, destruction, and displacement for hundreds of thousands of Gazans.
Yet Hamas’ decision to enter the talks without explicit preconditions could also be seen as a recognition of its limited leverage after nearly two years of war.
Trump, when asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper what would happen if Hamas insists on staying in power in Gaza, responded in a text message that the group would face “complete obliteration”.
The US president posted on social media that Israel had agreed to an initial withdrawal line in Gaza, the first in a proposed series of pull-backs by Israeli forces.
According to population distribution data in the Gaza Strip, the withdrawal map published by Trump would initially exclude nearly 900,000 Palestinians from returning to their homes.
The proposed lines carve out Rafah at the southernmost edge, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia in the north, nearly a quarter of Gaza City, and half of Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah in the centre and south.
Hamas had rejected a similar map during previous rounds of talks in March and May this year.
The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
Since then, 67,139 have been killed by Israeli military operations in Gaza, the health ministry says.
International journalists have been banned by Israel from entering the Gaza Strip independently since the start of the war, making verifying claims from both sides difficult.
For now, the region holds its breath as negotiators prepare to gather in Egypt, hoping that despite deep mistrust and political fragility this round might finally open the way toward a ceasefire.
[BBC]
Tributes have been paid to the war photographer Paul Conroy who has died at the age of 61.
He covered conflicts around the world and was wounded in the Syrian army’s bombardment of Homs, which killed his Sunday Times colleague Marie Colvin in 2012.
Their fateful assignment was depicted in the 2018 movie A Private War, with the actor Jamie Dornan playing Conroy.
The Liverpool-born photographer died from a heart attack on Saturday in Devon, where he had lived, his brother Alan told the BBC.
“He did all his life what he wanted to do to make a difference – he found great pleasure in exposing wrongs,” Alan added.
BBC newsreader Clive Myrie posted that he was “utterly devastated” by the news, describing Conroy as “a wonderful photojournalist and a wonderful human being”.
“I counted him as a friend and a decent, principled and kind man. My brutha you will be sorely missed. RIP”
Lindsey Hilsum, international editor at Channel 4, added: “All of us who knew and loved him are devastated.”
Conroy also spent seven years with the Royal Artillery as a soldier before becoming a professional photographer and was a trustee of the Frontline Club for media professionals, diplomats and aid workers.
Its founder Vaughan Smith, who was also in the Army, said: “He was one of the characters – those people who stand out because everybody adores them and they make you feel better.”
The 2018 documentary Under the Wire was made about Conroy’s escape from the 2012 bombardment of a makeshift media centre in Homs, where his colleagues Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik were killed.
Referring to the Syrians who were killed in the area, he said: “These beautiful people who were being slaughtered, I wanted to tell their story.”
He only realised how badly injured he was when he returned to the UK.
“Obviously I knew I had a huge hole in the back of my leg,” he said.
“But in London I found out I also had a great big piece of shrapnel wedged under my kidneys. I had 23 operations on my leg and others on my abdomen and back. I was in hospital for five months.”
Conroy worked in Libya and Ukraine and had recently returned from an assignment in Cuba.
He also took photos for the British singer Joss Stone and wrote music with her.
She said she was “so grateful to have known him and honoured to call him my friend”.
“I wouldn’t be the person I am today without Paul. Paul Conroy was a legend. A wonderful person through and through. Always standing up for what was right. Always there for those in need.”
He leaves behind a wife, three sons and grandchildren.
[BBC]
Iran has begun 40 days of mourning after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in ongoing attacks by the United States and Israel, according to Iranian state media.
Top security officials were also killed in Saturday’s strikes, along with Khamenei’s daughter, son-in-law and grandson. The killings mark one of the most significant blows to Iran’s leadership since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
President Masoud Pezeshkian condemned the killing as “a great crime”, according to a statement from his office. He also declared seven days of public holidays in addition to the 40-day mourning period.
Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi said people were pouring into the streets of the capital following the news of Khamenei’s killing.
“There will be expected ceremonies,” he said, noting they would likely take place amid continuing bombardment across the country.
Protests denouncing Khamenei’s killing were also reported elsewhere, including Shiraz, Yasuj and Lorestan.
Footage aired by Iranian state media showed supporters mourning at the shrine of Imam Reza in Mashhad, with several people seen crying and collapsing in grief.
The killing also led to protests in neighbouring Iraq, which declared three days of public mourning. In Baghdad, protesters confronted security forces in the heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses Iraqi government buildings and foreign embassies.
Videos verified by Al Jazeera showed demonstrators waving flags and shouting slogans, with witnesses saying some were attempting to mobilise towards the US Embassy. Footage also showed protesters blocking vehicles at a roundabout near one of the entrances to the area.
There was also a protest in the Pakistani city of Karachi, where footage, verified by Al Jazeera, showed people setting fire to and smashing the windows of the US consulate.
However, there have also been reports of celebrations in Iran, with the Reuters news agency quoting witnesses as saying some people had taken to the streets in Tehran, the nearby city of Karaj and the central city of Isfahan.
Meanwhile, the official IRNA news agency reported that a three-person council, consisting of the country’s president, the chief of the judiciary, and one of the jurists of the Guardian Council, will temporarily assume all leadership duties in the country. The body will temporarily oversee the country until a new supreme leader is elected.
Khamenei assumed leadership of Iran in 1989 following the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who had led the Islamic revolution a decade earlier.
While Khomeini was regarded as the ideological force behind the revolution that ended the Pahlavi monarchy, Khamenei went on to shape Iran’s military and paramilitary apparatus, strengthening both its domestic control and its regional influence.
Meanwhile, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) pledged revenge and said it had launched strikes on 27 bases hosting US troops in the region, as well as Israeli military facilities in Tel Aviv.
[Aljazeera]
A 24-year-old British man is among 19 people who were killed in a bus crash in Nepal, police say.
The bus – which had been carrying tourists – had been travelling to the capital, Kathmandu, when it lost control and fell 200m on to the bank of the Trishuli river, in the country’s central Dhading district, in the early hours of Monday morning.
There were 44 people onboard including the driver, 25 of whom suffered injuries. The bus had been travelling from Pokhara, a popular tourist spot.
Nepal’s Home Ministry has created a five-member taskforce to investigate the cause of the incident. The UK Foreign Office said it was assisting the family of the Briton who was killed.
Nepalese authorities identified him as Stewart Dominic Ethan. His name has not been confirmed by the Foreign Office.
Nepalese police say they have identified all 19 bodies, including a 40-year-old Chinese woman and a 32-year-old man from India. Among the injured is a Chinese national and a New Zealander.
All the injured had been taken to hospitals in the capital, they added. Children were among those onboard.
Multiple teams were sent to the site, including police units, the army and a rescue team of divers, authorities said.
Police spokesman Abinarayan Kafle said 17 people died at the scene, with two more dying while receiving treatment, BBC Nepali reported.
Road accidents are relatively commonplace in Nepal, due to a range of factors including poor road maintenance and narrow paths in mountainous areas.
In 2024, at least 14 people died after a bus travelling from Pokhara to Kathmandu fell into the Marsyangdi river in the Tanahun district.
“We are supporting the family of a British man who has died in Nepal and are in contact with the local authorities,” a Foreign Office spokesman told the BBC.
Nepal is a popular destination for many international visitors, especially climbers, who travel there to access a key section of the Himalaya mountain range that includes Mount Everest.
Home to eight of the world’s tallest peaks, mountaineering is a significant source of revenue for the country – in 2024 climbing fees brought in $5.9m.
[BBC]
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