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Israel reported to boycott ceasefire talks in Cairo
© Reuters. A tank maneuvres near the Israel-Gaza border, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, as seen from Southern Israel, March 2, 2024. REUTERS/Amir Cohen
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By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Bassam Masoud
CAIRO/RAFAH, Gaza Strip (Reuters) -Israel boycotted Gaza ceasefire talks in Cairo on Sunday after Hamas rejected its demand for a complete list naming hostages that are still alive, an Israeli newspaper reported.
A Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo for the talks, billed as a possible final hurdle before an agreement that would halt the fighting for six weeks. But by early evening there was no sign of the Israelis.
“There is no Israeli delegation in Cairo,” Ynet, the online version of Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, quoted unidentified Israeli officials as saying. “Hamas refuses to provide clear answers and therefore there is no reason to dispatch the Israeli delegation.”
Washington has insisted the ceasefire deal is close and should be in place in time to halt fighting by the start of Ramadan, a week away. But the warring sides have given little sign in public of backing away from previous demands.
After the Hamas delegation arrived, a Palestinian official told Reuters the deal was “not yet there”. From the Israeli side, there was no official comment.
One source briefed on the talks had said on Saturday that Israel could stay away from Cairo unless Hamas first presented its full list of hostages who are still alive. A Palestinian source told Reuters Hamas had so far rejected that demand.
In past negotiations Hamas has sought to avoid discussing the wellbeing of individual hostages until after terms for their release are set.
A U.S. official told reporters on Saturday: “The path to a ceasefire right now literally at this hour is straightforward. And there’s a deal on the table. There’s a framework deal.”
Israel had agreed to the framework and it was now up to Hamas to respond, the U.S. official said.
An agreement would bring the first extended truce of the war, which has raged for five months so far with just a week-long pause in November. Dozens of hostages held by the militants would be freed in return for hundreds of Palestinian detainees.
Aid would be ramped up for Gazans pushed to the verge of famine. Fighting would cease in time to head off a massive planned Israeli assault on Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are penned in against the enclave’s southern border fence abutting Egypt. Israeli forces would pull back from some areas and let Gazans return to abandoned homes.
But the proposal appears to stop short of fulfilling the main Hamas demand for a permanent end to the war, while also leaving unresolved the fate of more than half of the more than 100 remaining hostages – including Israeli men not covered by terms to free women, children, the elderly and wounded.
Egyptian mediators have suggested those issues could be set aside for now, with assurances to resolve them in later stages. A Hamas source told Reuters the militants were still holding out for a “package deal”.
OVERNIGHT AIRSTRIKE
At a morgue outside a Rafah hospital on Sunday morning, women wept and wailed beside rows of bodies of the Abu Anza family, 14 of whom were killed in their home in airstrike overnight. Relatives opened a black plastic body bag to kiss the face of a dead schoolgirl in a torn sweatshirt and pink unicorn pyjamas.
Later, the bodies were brought to a graveyard and buried, including two infant twins, a boy and a girl, passed down in white bundles and placed in the ground.
“My heart is gone,” wailed their mother, Rania Abu Anza, who also lost her husband in the attack. “I haven’t had enough time with them.”
Gaza authorities said at least eight people were killed on Sunday when a truck carrying food aid from a Kuwaiti charity was hit by an air strike. There was no immediate Israeli comment.
The war was unleashed in October after Hamas fighters stormed through Israeli towns killing 1,200 people and capturing 253 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Since then, Israeli forces have killed more than 30,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, with thousands more dead feared unrecovered under rubble.
Swathes of the Gaza Strip have been laid to waste, nearly the entire population has been made homeless, and the United Nations estimates a quarter of Gazans are on the verge of famine.
Residents described heavy bombardment overnight of Khan Younis, the main southern Gaza city, just to the north of Rafah. Further north, where aid no longer reaches, Gaza health authorities said 15 children had now died of malnutrition or dehydration inside the Kamal Adwan hospital where there was no power for the intensive care unit. Staff fear for the lives of six more children there.
Washington dropped 38,000 meals from military aircraft into Gaza on Saturday, though aid agencies say this was only enough to have a marginal impact given the scale of the need.
The final days leading up to the anticipated truce have been exceptionally bloody, with talks overshadowed last week by the deaths of 118 people and wounding of hundreds more near a food convoy.
Israel said on Sunday its initial review of the incident had found that most of those killed or wounded had died in a stampede. Military spokesman Daniel Hagari said Israeli troops at the scene initially fired only warning shots, though they later shot at some “looters” who “approached our forces and posed an immediate threat”.
Muatasem Salah, a member of the Emergency Committee at the Ministry of Health in Gaza, told Reuters the Israeli account was contradicted by machine gun wounds.
“The wounded and martyrs are the result of being shot with heavy-calibre bullets,” he said. “Any attempt to claim that people were martyred due to overcrowding or being run over is incorrect.”
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Palantir, Anduril join forces with tech groups to bid for Pentagon contracts, FT reports
(Reuters) – Data analytics firm Palantir Technologies (NASDAQ:) and defense tech company Anduril Industries are in talks with about a dozen competitors to form a consortium that will jointly bid for U.S. government work, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.
The consortium, which could announce agreements with other tech groups as early as January, is expected to include SpaceX, OpenAI, autonomous shipbuilder Saronic and artificial intelligence data group Scale AI, the newspaper said, citing several people with knowledge of the matter.
“We are working together to provide a new generation of defence contractors,” a person involved in developing the group told the newspaper.
The consortium will bring together the heft of some of Silicon Valley’s most valuable companies and will leverage their products to provide a more efficient way of supplying the U.S. government with cutting-edge defence and weapons capabilities, the newspaper added.
Palantir, Anduril, OpenAI, Scale AI and Saronic did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. SpaceX could not be immediately reached for a comment.
Reuters reported earlier this month that President-elect Donald Trump’s planned U.S. government efficiency drive involving Elon Musk could lead to more joint projects between big defense contractors and smaller tech firms in areas such as artificial intelligence, drones and uncrewed submarines.
Musk, who was named as a co-leader of a government efficiency initiative in the incoming government, has indicated that Pentagon spending and priorities will be a target of the efficiency push, spreading anxiety at defense heavyweights such as Boeing (NYSE:) , Northrop Grumman (NYSE:) , Lockheed Martin (NYSE:) and General Dynamics (NYSE:) .
Musk and many small defense tech firms have been aligned in criticizing legacy defense programs like Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter jet while calling for mass production of cheaper AI-powered drones, missiles and submarines.
Such views have given major defense contractors more incentive to partner with emerging defense technology players in these areas.
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Weakened Iran could pursue nuclear weapon, White House’s Sullivan says
By Simon Lewis (JO:)
(Reuters) -The Biden administration is concerned that a weakened Iran could build a nuclear weapon, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday, adding that he was briefing President-elect Donald Trump’s team on the risk.
Iran has suffered setbacks to its regional influence after Israel’s assaults on its allies, Palestinian Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, followed by the fall of Iran-aligned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Israeli strikes on Iranian facilities, including missile factories and air defenses, have reduced Tehran’s conventional military capabilities, Sullivan told CNN.
“It’s no wonder there are voices (in Iran) saying, ‘Hey, maybe we need to go for a nuclear weapon right now … Maybe we have to revisit our nuclear doctrine’,” Sullivan said.
Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful, but it has expanded uranium enrichment since Trump, in his 2017-2021 presidential term, pulled out of a deal between Tehran and world powers that put restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activity in exchange for sanctions relief.
Sullivan said that there was a risk that Iran might abandon its promise not to build nuclear weapons.
“It’s a risk we are trying to be vigilant about now. It’s a risk that I’m personally briefing the incoming team on,” Sullivan said, adding that he had also consulted with U.S. ally Israel.
Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, could return to his hardline Iran policy by stepping up sanctions on Iran’s oil industry.
Sullivan said Trump would have an opportunity to pursue diplomacy with Tehran, given Iran’s “weakened state.”
“Maybe he can come around this time, with the situation Iran finds itself in, and actually deliver a nuclear deal that curbs Iran’s nuclear ambitions for the long term,” he said.
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Ukraine says Russian general deliberately targeted Reuters staff in August missile strike
(Reuters) -Ukraine’s security service has named a Russian general it suspects of ordering a missile strike on a hotel in eastern Ukraine in August and said he acted “with the motive of deliberately killing employees of” Reuters.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said in a statement on Friday that Colonel General Alexei Kim, a deputy chief of Russia’s General Staff, approved the strike that killed Reuters safety adviser Ryan Evans and wounded two of the agency’s journalists on Aug. 24.
In a statement posted on Telegram messenger the SBU said it was notifying Kim in absentia that he was an official suspect in its investigation into the strike on the Sapphire Hotel in Kramatorsk, a step in Ukrainian criminal proceedings that can later lead to charges.
In a separate, 15-page notice of suspicion, in which the SBU set out findings from its investigation, the agency said that the decision to fire the missile was made “with the motive of deliberately killing employees of the international news agency Reuters who were engaged in journalistic activities in Ukraine”.
The document, which was published on the website of the General Prosecutor’s Office on Friday, said that Kim had received intelligence that Reuters staff were staying in Kramatorsk. It added that Kim would have been “fully aware that the individuals were civilians and not participating in the armed conflict”.
The Russian defence ministry did not respond to a request for comment on the SBU’s findings and has not replied to previous questions about the attack. The Kremlin also did not respond to a request for comment. Kim did not reply to messages sent by Reuters to his mobile telephone seeking comment about the SBU’s statement and whether the strike deliberately targeted Reuters staff.
The SBU did not provide evidence to support its claims, nor say why Russia targeted Reuters. In response to questions from the news agency, the security agency declined to provide further details, saying its criminal investigation was still under way and it was therefore not able to disclose such information.
Reuters has not independently confirmed any of the SBU’s claims.
Reuters said on Friday: “We note the news today from the Ukrainian security services regarding the missile attack on August 24, 2024, on the Sapphire Hotel in Kramatorsk, a civilian target more than 20 km from Russian-occupied territory.”
“The strike had devastating consequences, killing our safety adviser, Ryan Evans, and injuring members of our editorial team. We continue to seek more information about the attack. It is critically important for journalists to be able to report freely and safely,” the statement said.
Reuters declined to comment further on the allegation that its staff were deliberately targeted.
The SBU statement said Kim had been named a suspect under two articles of the Ukrainian criminal code: waging an aggressive war and violating the laws and customs of war.
“It was Kim who signed the directive and gave the combat order to fire on the hotel, where only civilians were staying,” it said.
Evans, a 38-year-old former British soldier who had worked as a safety adviser for Reuters since 2022, was killed instantly in the strike.
The SBU statement gave some details about how the strike had occurred, according to its investigation.
“To carry out the attack, the Russian colonel general involved one of his subordinate missile forces units,” the Ukrainian agency said, adding that the strike was carried out with an Iskander-M ballistic missile.
The SBU did not identify the specific unit.
Ivan Lyubysh-Kirdey, a videographer for the news agency who was in a room across the corridor, was seriously wounded. Kyiv-based text correspondent Dan Peleschuk was also injured.
The remaining three members of the Reuters team escaped with minor cuts and scratches.
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