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No Peace Until Hamas Is Destroyed, Israel PM Declares

Published

2 years ago

December 26, 2023

Israel bombed Gaza on Tuesday after its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed there won’t be peace until its Hamas rulers are destroyed and Palestinian society is “deradicalised”.

The army said it had struck more than 100 targets in 24 hours, including military sites and tunnel shafts in central Jabalia and Khan Yunis in the south, as heavy ground combat continued.

The withering military campaign launched after the Hamas attacks of October 7 has caused mass civilian casualties and widespread hunger and reduced much of the coastal territory to rubble.

The UN World Health Organization reported “harrowing” accounts of entire families killed during Christmas Eve strikes on the Al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central area of the Gaza Strip.

Global concern has mounted and international calls for a ceasefire have multiplied but Netanyahu vowed to stay the course in an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal late Monday.

“Hamas must be destroyed, Gaza must be demilitarised and Palestinian society must be deradicalised,” he argued.

“These are the three prerequisites for peace between Israel and its Palestinian neighbours in Gaza.”

Once the fighting ends, he said, “for the foreseeable future Israel will have to retain overriding security responsibility over Gaza” and build a “temporary security zone on the perimeter” of the territory.

Netanyahu had earlier visited Israeli troops inside Gaza, then reportedly told a meeting of his conservative Likud party that “we’re not stopping… We’re intensifying the fighting in the coming days”.

The bloodiest ever Gaza war erupted when Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7 and killed about 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

They took 250 hostages of whom 129 remain inside Gaza.

Israel launched extensive aerial bombardment and a siege followed by a ground invasion. The campaign has killed 20,674 people, mostly women and children, according to Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry.

‘Great destruction’

The Israeli army published footage showing its troops moving through the muddy war zone of shattered buildings as gunfire rings out, tanks churning up dust and a soldier firing a heavy machine gun from a window.

The army says 158 Israeli soldiers have been killed inside Gaza.

AFPTV images from Gaza City’s devastated and largely deserted Tal al-Hawa area showed dirt roads winding through mountains of rubble amid multi-storey buildings pancaked by strikes or standing askew.

“By God, the destruction is very great, and all the owners of the place have been displaced to the south,” says one Palestinian man. “May God help people through the misfortunes they are in.”

Video footage from inside the city’s Al-Quds Hospital showed an empty ward with a hole blasted into a wall, broken window glass strewn across the floor and medical equipment covered in a layer of dust.

Some residents of Al-Maghazi refugee camp returned to the ruins of their homes after strikes that Gaza’s health ministry said killed at least 70 people. AFP was unable to independently verify that toll.

One of those coming back, Zeyad Awad, said there had been no evacuation warning before the strikes.

“What should we do?” he asked. “We are civilians, living peacefully and wanting only safety and security.”

WHO staff visited a hospital treating victims of the strikes and “heard harrowing accounts” from health workers and victims, said the agency’s chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Sean Casey, a WHO emergency medical teams coordinator, described the fate of a nine-year-old being treated who was expected to die.

“He was crossing the street in front of the shelter where his family is staying and the building beside him blew up,” he said.

The Israeli army said it was “reviewing the incident” and added that it was “committed to international law including taking feasible steps to minimise harm to civilians”.

‘Real hunger’

Vast areas of Gaza lie in ruins and its 2.4 million people are enduring dire shortages of water, food, fuel and medicine, alleviated only by the limited arrival of aid trucks.

“Now there is real hunger,” said Nour Ismail, who was waiting for food to be distributed in the southern city of Rafah.

“My children are dying of hunger.”

An estimated 1.9 million Gazans have been displaced, according to the UN, many fleeing south and crowded into shelters or makeshift tents in the winter cold, even as the fighting comes ever closer.

Netanyahu told Likud party members on Monday that he was ready to support the voluntary migration of civilians out of the Gaza Strip, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.

He reportedly told party members “our problem is not whether to allow an exit, but that there will be countries that are willing to absorb an exit”.

Hamas rejected as “absurd” any such discussion. Palestinians “refuse to be deported and displaced”, it said in a statement. “There can’t be exile and there is no other choice than to remain on our land.”

The Gaza war has heightened regional tensions between, on the one hand, Israel and its ally the United States, and, on the other, Iran-backed armed groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said an Israeli air strike in Syria had killed the senior Quds Force commander Razi Moussavi, and President Ebrahim Raisi vowed Israel “will certainly pay for this crime”.

In Iraq the US military launched strikes on pro-Iran groups whom it has blamed for more than 100 attacks in recent weeks, said US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

The Iraqi government denounced the air strikes, which it said had killed one member of the security forces and wounded at least 18 others, as a “hostile act”.

Related Topics:Gaza Hamas Israel Israeli

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UK Rejects Nigeria’s Request To Transfer Ekweremadu

Published

21 hours ago

November 24, 2025

Editor

The United Kingdom has rejected a request from the Nigerian government to transfer former Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu to Nigeria to complete his prison sentence.

Ekweremadu is serving time in a UK facility after he was found guilty in 2023 of plotting to harvest the kidney of a young man.

He received a jail term of nine years and eight months following the conviction, which stemmed from a high-profile organ-trafficking case that drew international attention.

With the latest decision, Ekweremadu will remain in the UK to serve out the remainder of his sentence.

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Trump Blasts Ukraine For ‘Zero Gratitude’ Amid Talks To Halt War

Published

2 days ago

November 23, 2025

Editor

US President Donald Trump on Sunday accused Ukraine again of lacking “gratitude” for Washington’s support against Russia’s invasion, as top US and Ukrainian representatives met in Geneva for talks on a proposal to halt the war.

“UKRAINE ‘LEADERSHIP’ HAS EXPRESSED ZERO GRATITUDE FOR OUR EFFORTS,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, also blasting European countries for not doing enough to stop the war, but offering no direct condemnation of Moscow.

His comments came as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was meeting with top Ukrainian officials in a wintery Geneva Sunday to discuss the US president’s controversial 28-point plan for ending the nearly four-year conflict.

The Ukrainian delegation, headed by Andriy Yermak, also met with high-level officials from Britain, France and Germany in the Swiss city, as European countries scramble to have a seat at the table in the discussions.

Trump had given Ukraine until November 27 to approve the plan, but Kyiv wants changes to a draft that accepts a range of Russia’s hardline demands, including requiring the invaded country to cede territory, cut its army and pledge never to join NATO.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Sunday said he was “sceptical” a deal could be reached by that deadline.

The US president told reporters Saturday the proposal was not his final offer and he hoped to stop the fighting “one way or the other”, raising hopes that it would be possible to strengthen Kyiv’s position.

– ‘Ukrainian perspectives’ included –

A US official, who asked not to be named, told AFP that a number of meetings were held throughout the day Sunday, with the US and Ukrainian delegation holding “detailed discussions about the peace agreement”.

“It was productive and even conclusive in some areas,” the official said, adding that a second round of talks underway at the US mission in Geneva aimed at “ironing out the details of the agreement”.

By late Sunday afternoon, Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov said the latest version of the US draft plan, which AFP has not seen, “already reflects most of Ukraine’s key priorities”.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also said on social media that the “American proposals may include a number of elements based on Ukrainian perspectives and critical for Ukrainian national interests”, hailing that “diplomacy has been reinvigorated”.

– Recognise European ‘centrality’ –

The US plan was drafted without input from Ukraine’s European allies, who were striving Sunday to make their voices heard and boost Kyiv’s position.

“Ukraine must have the freedom and sovereign right to choose its own destiny. They have chosen a European destiny,” EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement, stressing that the “centrality” of the European Union’s role must be “fully reflected” in any peace plan.
Ukraine’s European allies gathered at the G20 summit in South Africa stressed that the US plan requires “additional work”.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb told AFP that he and Italian leader Giorgia Meloni had called Trump early Sunday to discuss his Ukraine proposal.

“Of course, we discussed the situation, the 28-point plan, and some of the developments here in Johannesburg related to the peace plan,” he said, declining to reveal the content of the discussions.

French President Emmanuel Macron told a news conference at the G20 that the plan contained points that had to be more broadly discussed as they concerned European allies, such as Ukraine’s NATO ties and Russian frozen assets held in the EU.

He said the 30 countries in the “coalition of the willing” supporting Kyiv will hold a video call on Tuesday following the Geneva talks.
European Union countries were also planning to meet to discuss the Ukraine situation on the sidelines of a meeting with African leaders in Angola on Monday.

– ‘Wish list’ –

Questions were meanwhile being raised over how much input Moscow may have had in drafting the original proposal, which was welcomed by the Kremlin.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the blueprint could “lay the foundation” for a final peace settlement, but threatened more land seizures if Ukraine walked away from negotiations.
Ahead of Sunday’s talks, Washington insisted the Trump proposal was official US policy, denying claims by a group of US senators that Rubio told them the document was a Russian “wish list”.

Rubio himself insisted on social media late Saturday that “the peace proposal was authored by the US”.

“It is offered as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations. It is based on input from the Russian side. But it is also based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”
That did not calm all concerns.

“Together with the leaders of Europe, Canada and Japan, we have declared our readiness to work on the 28-point plan despite some reservations,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on X Sunday.

“However, before we start our work, it would be good to know for sure who is the author of the plan and where was it created.”

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Pope Leo XIV Demands Immediate Release Of 315 Abducted Niger Students, Teachers

Published

2 days ago

November 23, 2025

Editor

Pope Leo XIV has appealed for the immediate release of 315 people abducted from St. Mary’s Catholic Primary and Secondary Schools in Papiri, Agwarra Local Government Area of Niger State.

Speaking on Sunday, the Pontiff expressed deep distress over the mass kidnapping, which included students, teachers, priests, and other members of the Catholic community.

“I received with profound sorrow the news of the abduction of priests, faithful, and schoolchildren. I make a heartfelt plea for the swift and unconditional release of all those being held,” Pope Leo XIV said.

The attack occurred in the early hours of Friday when armed men reportedly invaded the private Catholic school in a well-coordinated operation.

According to local sources, the assailants arrived in large numbers, riding on more than 60 motorcycles and supported by a van, before forcing their way into the premises.

During the assault, the school’s gatekeeper was shot and left critically injured.

A resident of Agwarra confirmed the incident, noting that the exact number of abducted students has yet to be verified.

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“It happened between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m.. The number of students taken is still unclear,” the source said.

Another community source added that several teachers were also seized during the raid, raising further concerns about the scale of the attack and the safety of the victims.