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Putin, Xi and UN Secretary-General Gutteres to attend virtual meeting on Israel-Hamas war
Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and other leaders from the BRICS bloc of developing countries will hold a virtual meeting on the Israel-Hamas war on Tuesday, with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres also participating.
The leaders of fellow BRICS members Brazil, India and South Africa, as well as of Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates, which are set to join the bloc in January, will also take part, according to the office of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Ramaphosa will chair the “extraordinary meeting” because of South Africa's position as current chair of BRICS, his office said. It said the leaders are expected to deliver statements on the “humanitarian crisis" in Gaza and will likely adopt a joint statement.
The meeting comes a day after China's top diplomat hosted the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority and Indonesia in Beijing, their first stop on a tour of U.N. Security Council permanent members. The meeting underlined China's longstanding support for the Palestinians and its growing geopolitical influence.
Russia has adopted a more cautious approach to the Israel-Hamas war, but also has an opportunity to advance its role as a global power broker.
Read: 31 premature babies are evacuated from Gaza's largest hospital, but scores of trauma patients remain
Putin has condemned the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants on towns in southern Israel that sparked Israel's offensive in Gaza. More than 12,700 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in the West Bank. Officials there say another 4,000 are missing.
But Putin has also warned Israel over its response and against blockading the Gaza Strip.
Russia and China are leading voices in BRICS, which has largely cast itself in recent years as standing against the perceived dominance of the West in global affairs. But it has also struggled to adopt united policies or positions on many issues because of the differing priorities of the five current members.
India, which also wants to be seen as a leader of the developing world, has long walked a tightrope between Israel and the Palestinians and historically has close ties to both.
Read: Israeli troops kill 5 Palestinians, including 3 militants, as West Bank violence surges
South Africa has been fiercely critical of Israel over the war in Gaza and has filed a request with the International Criminal Court to investigate it over alleged war crimes. South Africa has for years compared Israel's policies in Gaza and the West Bank with the apartheid regime of racial segregation.
South Africa's Parliament is to vote on a motion on Tuesday to shut down the Israeli Embassy and sever ties with the country over the war. Israel on Monday recalled its ambassador to South Africa for discussions.
Yemen's Houthi rebels hijack an Israeli-linked ship in the Red Sea and take 25 crew members hostage
Yemen's Houthi rebels seized an Israeli-linked cargo ship in a crucial Red Sea shipping route Sunday and took its 25 crew members hostage, officials said, raising fears that regional tensions heightened over the Israel-Hamas war were playing out on a new maritime front.
The Iran-backed Houthi rebels said they hijacked the ship over its connection to Israel and would continue to target ships in international waters that were linked to or owned by Israelis until the end of Israel's campaign against Gaza's Hamas rulers.
“All ships belonging to the Israeli enemy or that deal with it will become legitimate targets,” the Houthis said.
Mohammed Abdul-Salam, the Houthis’ chief negotiator and spokesman, later added in an online statement that the Israelis only understand “the language of force.”
“The detention of the Israeli ship is a practical step that proves the seriousness of the Yemeni armed forces in waging the sea battle, regardless of its costs and costs,” he added. “This is the beginning.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office had blamed the Houthis for the attack on the Bahamas-flagged Galaxy Leader, a vehicle carrier affiliated with an Israeli billionaire. It said the 25 crew members had a range of nationalities, including Bulgarian, Filipino, Mexican and Ukrainian, but that no Israelis had been on board.
The Houthis said they were treating the crew members “in accordance with their Islamic values,” but did not elaborate on what that meant.
Netanyahu's office condemned the seizure as an “Iranian act of terror." The Israeli military called the hijacking a “very grave incident of global consequence."
Israeli officials insisted the ship was British-owned and Japanese-operated. However, ownership details in public shipping databases associated the ship’s owners with Ray Car Carriers, which was founded by Abraham “Rami” Ungar, who is known as one of the richest men in Israel.
Ungar told The Associated Press he was aware of the incident but couldn’t comment as he awaited details. A ship linked to him experienced an explosion in 2021 in the Gulf of Oman. Israeli media blamed it on Iran at the time.
International shipping often involves a series of management companies, flags and owners stretching across the globe in a single vessel.
Two U.S. defense officials confirmed that Houthi rebels seized the Galaxy Leader in the Red Sea on Sunday afternoon local time. The rebels descended on the cargo ship by rappelling from a helicopter, the officials said, confirming details first reported by NBC News. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter. That resembles other vessel seizures conducted by Iran, which long has armed the Houthis.
Twice in the last month, U.S. warships have intercepted missiles or drones from Yemen that were believed to be headed toward Israel or posing a threat to American vessels. The USS Carney, a Navy destroyer, intercepted three land attack cruise missiles and several drones that were launched by Houthi forces toward the northern Red Sea last month.
On Nov. 15 the USS Thomas Hudner, another destroyer, was sailing toward the Bab-el-Mandeb strait when the crew saw a drone, reported to have originated in Yemen. The ship shot down the drone over the water. The officials said the crew took action to ensure the safety of U.S. personnel, and there were no casualties or damage to the ship.
Satellite tracking data from MarineTraffic.com analyzed by the AP showed the Galaxy Leader traveling in the Red Sea southwest of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, more than a day ago. The vessel had been in Korfez, Turkey, and was on its way to Pipavav, India, at the time of the seizure reported by Israel.
It had its Automatic Identification System tracker, or AIS, switched off, the data showed. Ships are supposed to keep their AIS active for safety reasons, but crews will turn them off if it appears they might be targeted or to smuggle contraband, which there was no immediate evidence to suggest was the case with the Galaxy Leader.
The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, which provides warnings to sailors in the Persian Gulf and the wider region, put the hijacking as having occurred some 150 kilometers (90 miles) off the coast of Yemen’s port city of Hodeida, near the coast of Eritrea. It later cited a security officer with the ship's company saying the vessel had been taken to Hodeida.
The Red Sea, stretching from Egypt’s Suez Canal to the narrow Bab el-Mandeb Strait separating the Arabian Peninsula from Africa, remains a key trade route for global shipping and energy supplies. That’s why the U.S. Navy has stationed multiple ships in the sea since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7.
Since 2019, a series of ships have come under attack at sea as Iran began breaking all the limits of its tattered nuclear deal with world powers. As Israel expands its devastating campaign against Hamas in the besieged Gaza Strip following the militant group's unprecedented attack on southern Israel, fears have grown that the military operations could escalate into a wider regional conflict.
The Houthis have repeatedly threatened to target Israeli ships in the waters off Yemen. Such attacks both back its Iranian benefactors, as well as bolsters the Houthis' position in Yemen as anger has grown against their rule in recent months as that country's civil war grinds on without resolution, said Gregory D. Johnsen, a Yemen expert with the Arabian Gulf States Institute in Washington.
“The Houthis view the war between Israel and Hamas as an opportunity to mute some of this domestic criticism,” Johnsen wrote in an analysis earlier this month. “If they are attacking Israel, their local rivals will be less inclined to attack them.”
31 premature babies are evacuated from Gaza's largest hospital, but scores of trauma patients remain
Health officials said 31 premature babies in “extremely critical condition” were transferred safely Sunday from Gaza 's main hospital and will go to Egypt, while over 250 patients with severely infected wounds and other urgent conditions remained stranded days after Israeli forces entered the compound to look for Hamas operations.
The plight of the babies, along with the Israeli claims against Shifa Hospital, have become potent symbols in the devastating war between Israel and Hamas. An Israeli offensive has taken a heavy toll on Palestinian civilians, while Israel has accused Hamas of using Shifa and other hospitals as headquarters for military operations.
The newborns from the hospital, where power was cut and supplies ran out while Israeli forces battled Palestinian militants outside, were receiving urgent care in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. They had dehydration, hypothermia and sepsis in some cases, said Mohamed Zaqout, director of Gaza hospitals. Four other babies died in the two days before the evacuation, he said.
READ: Tens of thousands of religious party supporters rally in Pakistan against Israel's bombing in Gaza
A World Health Organization team that visited Shifa said most of the remaining patients had amputations, burns or other trauma. Plans were being made to evacuate them in coming days.
Later Sunday, Israel’s army said it had strong evidence supporting its claims that Hamas maintains a sprawling command post inside and under Shifa. Israel has portrayed the hospital as a key target in its war to end Hamas’ rule in Gaza following the militant group’s into southern Israel six weeks ago.
The army said it found a 55-meter (60-yard) tunnel about 10 meters (33 feet) under the hospital’s 20-acre complex, which includes several buildings, garages and a plaza. It said the tunnel included a staircase, blast-proof door and a firing hole that could be used by snipers.
The Associated Press couldn’t independently verify Israel’s findings, which included security camera video showing what the military said were two foreign hostages, one Thai and one Nepalese, taken to the hospital following the Oct. 7 attack.
The army also said an independent medical report had determined that Israeli army Cpl. Noa Marciano, whose body was recovered in Gaza, had been killed by Hamas in the hospital. Marciano had been injured in an Israeli strike Nov. 9 that killed her captor, according to Israel's intelligence assessment. The injuries were not life-threatening but she was then killed by a Hamas militant in Shifa, the army said.
READ: 32 babies in critical condition are among the patients left at Gaza's main hospital, UN team says
Hamas and hospital staff have denied the allegations of a command post under Shifa. Critics describe the hospital as a symbol of what they call Israel’s reckless endangerment of civilians. Thousands have been killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza, which is severely short of food, water, medicine and fuel.
Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan dismissed the Israeli military’s announcement and didn't deny that Gaza has hundreds of kilometers of tunnels. However, he said, “the Israelis said there was a command and control center, which means that the matter is greater than just a tunnel.”
HOSTAGE NEGOTIATIONSAbout 1,200 people have been killed on the Israeli side, mainly civilians during the Oct. 7 attack in which Hamas dragged some 240 captives back into Gaza and shattered Israel’s sense of security. The military says 63 Israeli soldiers have been killed, including 12 over the past 24 hours.
Hamas has released four hostages, Israel has rescued one, and the bodies of two were found near Shifa.
Israel, the United States and Qatar, which mediates with Hamas, have been negotiating a hostage release for weeks. “We are hopeful that we can get a significant number of hostages freed in the coming days,” Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Michael Herzog, told ABC’s “This Week.”
Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said the sticking points were "more practical, logistical.”
Israel's three-member war cabinet is to meet with representatives of the hostages’ families on Monday evening.
SHIP SEIZED
Yemen's Houthi rebels seized a Israeli-linked cargo ship in the southern Red Sea and took its 25 crew members hostage Sunday, an action that raised fear the region's tensions heightened by the war were playing out on a new maritime front. The Iran-backed rebel group said it would continue to target ships connected to Israel.
READ: Israeli troops kill 5 Palestinians, including 3 militants, as West Bank violence surges
Israeli officials said no Israelis were aboard the Bahamas-flagged Galaxy Leader, which had a mix of foreign crew. Public shipping databases associated the ship’s owners with Ray Car Carriers, which was founded by Abraham “Rami” Ungar, who is known as one of the richest men in Israel.
Ungar told The Associated Press he was aware of the incident but couldn’t comment as he awaited details. A ship linked to him experienced an explosion in 2021 in the Gulf of Oman. Israeli media blamed it on Iran at the time.
The Galaxy Leader was taken to the port city of Hodeida, near the coast of Eritrea, according to the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, citing a security officer with the ship’s company.
HEAVY FIGHTING IN THE NORTHHeavy clashes were reported in the built-up Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza. “There was the constant sound of gunfire and tank shelling,” Yassin Sharif, who is sheltering in a U.N.-run hospital there, said by phone.
The commissioner-general of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, said 24 people were killed the day before in what witnesses described as an Israeli airstrike on a U.N.-run school in Jabaliya. The Israeli military, which has repeatedly called on Palestinians to leave northern Gaza, said only that its troops were active in the area “with the aim of hitting terrorists.”
“This war is having a staggering and unacceptable number of civilian casualties... . This must stop,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement on that strike and another on a U.N.-run school within 24 hours.
READ: Israel signals wider operations in southern Gaza as search of hospital has yet to reveal Hamas base
More than 11,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to Palestinian health authorities. Another 2,700 have been reported missing, believed buried in rubble. The count does not differentiate between civilians and combatants; Israel says it has killed thousands of militants.
Attacks by Israeli forces and settlers have killed 215 Palestinians in the West Bank since the war began, according to Palestinian health officials.
COLDER WEATHER ARRIVINGMore than two-thirds of Gaza's population of 2.3 million have fled their homes. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA, is struggling to provide basic services to hundreds of thousands of displaced people. Seventeen of its facilities have been directly hit, the agency said.
Their misery has worsened in recent days because of cold winds and driving rain.
Over the weekend, Israel allowed UNRWA to import enough fuel to continue humanitarian operations for another couple of days, and to keep internet and telephone systems running. Israel cut off all fuel imports at the start of the war, causing Gaza's sole power plant and most water treatment systems to shut down.
Israel has repeatedly struck what it says are militant targets across the south, often killing civilians.
The evacuation zone is already crowded with displaced civilians, and it was not clear where they would go if the offensive moved closer. Egypt has refused to accept any influx of Palestinian refugees, in part because of fears that Israel would not allow them to return.
But some patients and foreign nationals reportedly got through. Turkey's Health Ministry said it evacuated 110 people — including patients and their relatives — from an unspecified part of Gaza to Egypt. Another 87 people who were from Turkey or breakaway northern Cyprus entered Egypt from Gaza late Sunday, Turkish officials said, with the groups to be flown Monday to Turkey.
Palestinian-Canadian Khalil Manaa, 71, left Gaza for Egypt on Sunday. After fleeing to southern Gaza, he said he and relatives shared a crammed home of 40 people. “And there, we also were subjected to intense strikes. … A rocket hit our house," he said.
Israeli troops kill 5 Palestinians, including 3 militants, as West Bank violence surges
Israeli forces on Friday killed five Palestinians, including three militants, across the West Bank, deepening a surge of violence in the occupied territory that has accompanied Israel's war in the Gaza Strip.
The deaths raised to 205 the number of Palestinians killed in West Bank violence since the Gaza war erupted on Oct. 7, making it the deadliest period in the territory since the second Palestinian uprising in the early 2000s.
Israel signals wider operations in southern Gaza as search of hospital has yet to reveal Hamas base
Israel says the crackdown is aimed at Hamas, the ruling group in Gaza, and other militant groups active in the West Bank. But rights groups say the Israeli tactics, including deadly raids, home demolitions and arrests, are being carried out with increased frequency.
The war erupted on Oct. 7 when Hamas militants in Gaza crossed into Israel and killed at least 1,200 people and kidnapped 240 others. Israel launched a war that has claimed over 11,000 lives in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to health officials in the Hamas-ruled territory. At the same time, Israel has cracked down on suspected militants across the West Bank.
The latest violence began Thursday night, when Israeli military trucks and bulldozers drove into the Jenin refugee camp and positioned snipers atop several buildings, local journalists said. Gunbattles erupted in several locations, drawing in Hamas militants.
At one point, an Israeli aircraft targeted militants who threw explosives toward Israeli forces, the Israeli military said. Airstrikes, once a rare attack mode in the West Bank, have become increasingly common since the war began. Three men were killed, and the Islamic Jihad militant group claimed them as members.
Israeli forces raid Gaza’s largest hospital, where hundreds of patients are stranded by fighting
Palestinian health officials said at least 15 people were wounded, four seriously. Patients flooded into the emergency room of the nearby Ibn Sina Hospital. But Israeli forces followed.
The chief surgeon, Dr. Tawfeeq Al-Shobaki, said that around 4 a.m., Israeli military vehicles surrounded the complex and ordered the medical staff outside. A small group of paramedics walked outside, but not a single emergency room doctor left the hospital, Al-Shobaki said.
“No doctors or nurses responded to their calls because our patients were very injured and some were dying,” Al-Shobaki said. He said Israeli forces interrogated the paramedics and then approached the emergency room drop-off area, but did not enter the hospital.
Jenin's refugee camp, a densely populated urban neighborhood known as a militant stronghold, has seen near-nightly incursions since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, but Al-Shobaki said it was the first time that Israeli forces had ordered all emergency room staff out of the hospital at gunpoint. Israel said its forces had flocked to the hospital in pursuit of militants hiding inside ambulances — a similar claim it has made against militants in Gaza.
“Because we have seen what has happened in Gaza, we still feel okay. We’re not worried yet,” said Al-Shobaki. ““But we never know what will happen next.”
Also on Friday, two Palestinians who shot at Israeli forces near the southern city of Hebron were killed by Israeli fire, the military said. The incident happened a day after three Palestinian attackers killed an Israeli soldier and wounded three people at a West Bank checkpoint before they were killed.
Israeli military forces raid Gaza's largest hospital in operation against Hamas
The Israeli military said Friday it had already mapped the homes of the checkpoint attackers — a common precursor to home demolition. Israel says the demolitions deter future attacks, but Palestinian rights groups have long decried the practice as a form of collective punishment.
“When it’s clear who the attacker is, they move fast,” said Jessica Montell, the executive director for HaMoked, an Israeli group that provides legal aid for Palestinians. “These days they are moving quickly.”
Voting begins in Madagascar presidential election boycotted by most opposition leaders
People in Madagascar trickled to polling stations Thursday as voting opened in a presidential election boycotted by the majority of candidates following weeks of unrest and court battles.
In the capital of Antananarivo, where a night-time curfew ended two hours before voting started, many people said they were heeding calls by a collective of 10 candidates to stay away from voting booths.
Opposition leaders and civil society groups had also called for a postponement of the election.
The situation was calm in the capital despite weeks of unrest, but tension was palpable at some polling stations where some people refused to talk to journalists. At one polling station, people warned each other against making comments after being approached by an Associated Press journalist.
Voters’ choices were limited to three men after 10 candidates announced they were pulling out of the election this week, alleging that conditions for a legitimate and fair vote haven’t been met.
Andry Rajoelina is seeking reelection for a second term and is riding on a record of being the “Builder President” for infrastructure projects that some say have turned into white elephants.
A violent crackdown on protests by security forces ahead of the election has tainted his democratic credentials, while a struggling economy, lack of social services and widespread poverty weigh down his popularity.
The 49-year-old former DJ’s biggest challenge comes from a former ally-turned-foe, Siteny Randrianasoloniaiko. Randrianasoloniaiko is a wealthy 51-year-old businessman who is also the deputy for Tuléar city under Rajoelina’s IRD party in the island’s far south. He distanced himself from Rajoelina ahead of the election.
A third candidate is Sendrison Daniela Raderanirina, a relatively unknown 62-year-old who has lived mainly in France to pursue a career in information technology.
Rajoelina says he is confident, declaring that “no one can take victory away from me.”
Opposition figures boycotting the election, including two former presidents, say he should have been stripped of his Malagasy nationality and disqualified because he obtained French citizenship in 2014. Rajoelina said he took up dual citizenship to secure his children’s education in former colonizer France. The country’s highest court ruled in his favor.
They also allege that the national electoral commission and judiciary lack independence.
Most of Madagascar’s 30 million people live in poverty in a country whose economy is anchored in agriculture and tourism and but is largely dependent on foreign aid.
Thousands of Starbucks workers are expected to go on a one-day strike
Thousands of workers at more than 200 U.S. Starbucks stores plan to walk off the job Thursday in what organizers say is the largest strike yet in the two-year-old effort to unionize the company’s stores.
The Workers United union chose Starbucks' annual Red Cup Day to stage the walkout since it’s usually one of the busiest days of the year. Starbucks expects to give away thousands of reusable cups Thursday to customers who order holiday drinks.
The union said it was expecting more than 5,000 workers to take part in its “Red Cup Rebellion.” Around 30 stores also staged walkouts on Wednesday.
Neha Cremin, a Starbucks barista in Oklahoma City, said she was striking to protest understaffing in stores, especially during promotions like Red Cup Day. Cremin said workers are already overwhelmed filling delivery orders, drive-thru orders, mobile orders and in-store orders; promotions add another layer of stress.
Read: Rishi Sunak fires UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman who accused police of favoring pro-Palestinian protesters
“Understaffing hurts workers and also creates an unpleasant experience for customers,” Cremin said. “Starbucks has made it clear that they won’t listen to workers, so we’re advocating for ourselves by going on strike.”
Thursday’s strike was the fifth major labor action by Starbucks workers since a store in Buffalo, New York, became the first to unionize in late 2021. Workers at 110 stores walked out last year on Red Cup Day; most recently, a strike in June protested reports that Starbucks had removed Pride displays from its stores.
But the strikes have had little impact on Starbucks’ sales. For its 2023 fiscal year, which ended Oct. 1, Starbucks reported its revenue rose 12%,to a record $36.0 billion.
Starbucks downplayed any potential impact of the strike Wednesday, saying it would occur at a “small subset” of the company’s 9,600 company-owned U.S. stores.
“We remain committed to working with all partners, side-by-side, to elevate the everyday, and we hope that Workers United’s priorities will shift to include the shared success of our partners and negotiating contracts for those they represent,” Starbucks said in a statement.
At least 363 company-operated Starbucks stores in 41 states have voted to unionize since late 2021. The Starbucks effort was at the leading edge of a period of labor activism that has also seen strikes by Amazon workers, auto workers and Hollywood writers and actors. At least 457,000 workers have participated in 315 strikes in the U.S. just this year, according to Johnnie Kallas, a Ph.D. candidate and the project director of Cornell University’s Labor Action Tracker.
Starbucks opposes the unionization effort and has yet to reach a labor agreement with any of the stores that have voted to unionize. The process has been contentious; regional offices with the National Labor Relations Board have issued 111 complaints against Starbucks for unfair labor practices, including refusal to bargain. Starbucks says Workers United is refusing to schedule bargaining sessions.
Read: Islamic parties stage protest condemning Israeli attacks on Palestine
Starbucks noted that it has started bargaining with the Teamsters union, which organized a Starbucks store outside of Pittsburgh in June 2022. But the two sides have not reached a labor agreement. The Teamsters didn’t say Wednesday whether workers at the unionized store would also be striking.
Relations between Starbucks and Workers United have grown increasingly tense. Last month, Starbucks sued Workers United, saying a pro-Palestinian post on a union account damaged its reputation and demanding that the union stop using the name Starbucks Workers United. Workers United responded with its own lawsuit, saying Starbucks defamed the union by suggesting it supports terrorism and violence.
Takeaways from Biden’s long-awaited meeting with Xi
It was a meeting a year in the making.
President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping sat down together on Wednesday just outside of San Francisco, where Asian leaders gathered for an annual summit. It was almost exactly one year since their last encounter in Bali, Indonesia, on the sidelines of another global gathering.
In addition to a formal bilateral meeting, Biden and Xi shared a lunch with top advisers and strolled the verdant grounds of the luxury estate where their meeting took place.
Biden, Xi met for hours and agreed to 'pick up the phone' for any urgent concerns. 'That's progress'
There’s no word on whether Chinese pandas will return to Washington’s zoo. But Biden said the meeting included “some of the most constructive and productive discussions we’ve had” and will lead to stronger dialogue between the two leaders.
Here’s a look at how the day panned out.
NEW AGREEMENTSBiden left the meeting with commitments on key issues.
Xi agreed to help curb the production of the illicit fentanyl that is a deadly component of drugs sold in the United States. A senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private meeting, said the shift will be a setback for Latin American drug dealers.
Biden says his goal for Xi meeting is to get US-China communications back to 'normal'
“It’s going to save lives, and I appreciated President Xi’s commitment on this issue,” Biden said at a press conference after his meeting.
In addition, Biden and Xi reached an agreement to resume military-to-military communications. That means Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will speak with his Chinese counterpart once someone is named to the job, the official said. Similar engagements will take place up and down the military chain of command.
The official said Biden was “very clear” to Xi that such communications between U.S. and China should be institutionalized and that they are “not done as a gift or as a favor to either side.”
Biden said the U.S. and China would talk more about artificial intelligence as well.
White House hoping Biden-Xi meeting brings progress on military communications, fentanyl fight
“We’re going to get our experts together and discuss risk and safety issues,” he said.
The agreements helped fulfill the White House’s goal for the meeting — prove to voters that Biden’s dedication to personal diplomacy is paying off.
On Sunday, national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN that Biden wanted “practical ways” to show that meeting with Xi can help “defend American interests and also deliver progress on the priorities of the American people.”
Zoe Liu, a fellow for China studies at the Council for Foreign Relations, described the meeting between Biden and Xi as a positive step, albeit an incremental one.
“These agreements will not change the structural challenges in the bilateral relations, but it paves the way for more detailed working-level discussions, which is more important,” she said.
BIDEN PRESSES CHINA TO ACT LIKE A SUPERPOWER IN COOLING GLOBAL TENSIONSBeijing has long sought to be treated as an equal by Washington, and Biden sought to leverage those ambitions with Xi to address two devastating wars.
In their private session, Biden appealed to Xi to use his influence to try to calm global tensions, particularly to try to pressure Iran not to widen the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
A U.S. official said Biden did most of the talking on the matter, and that Xi mostly listened, and that it was too soon to tell what sort of message China was sending to Tehran and how it was being received.
Biden has also pressed Xi to continue to withhold military support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
A ‘CLEAR-HEADED’ EXCHANGE AND A WARNING ON TAIWANBiden and Xi held a “clear-headed” and “not heated” discussion on Taiwan — the most sensitive topic in the relationship with the greatest potential to spiral into wider conflict. Biden said he reaffirmed the United States’ “One China” policy and its belief that any resolution must be peaceful.
“I’m not going to change that,” Biden said. “That’s not going to change.”
He reiterated, though, that the U.S. would continue to arm Taiwan as a deterrent against any attempt by China to use force to reunify the self-governing island with the mainland. The U.S. had maintained strategic ambiguity about whether it would directly intervene to protect Taiwan in the event of an invasion by Beijing.
Xi, a U.S. official said, told Biden he had no plans to invade the island, though Biden chided him for China’s massive military build-up around Taiwan. Biden also called on China to avoid meddling in Taiwan’s elections next year.
ECONOMIC CHALLENGESXi arrived in San Francisco at a time of economic challenges back in China, where an aging population and growing debt have hampered its recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to Beijing’s description of the meeting, Xi pressed Biden to lift sanctions and change policies on export controls for sensitive equipment.
“Stifling China’s technological progress is nothing but a move to contain China’s high-quality development and deprive the Chinese people of their right to development,” the readout said. “China’s development and growth, driven by its own inherent logic, will not be stopped by external forces.”
There’s no indication that Biden will agree to take such steps. But even the meeting itself could calm jittery nerves back in China, where there have been signs foreign investment is tapering off.
Zhang Lei, a Chinese businessman whose company, Cheche Group, is listed on NASDAQ, said high-level meetings such as the one between Biden and Xi can help assure companies that have been hesitant to invest in China.
“Confrontations don’t work,” he said. “You don’t make money with confrontations.”
IT’S PERSONALBiden and Xi go back years, and Biden often repeats the story of their meetings when they were both vice presidents.
But on Wednesday, it was Xi’s turn to reference their previous encounters during brief public remarks, although he eschewed the embellishments that Biden usually adds to the tale.
“It was 12 years ago,” Xi said. “I still remember our interactions very vividly, and it always gives me a lot of thoughts.”
Biden also emphasized the length of their relationship and the value of their interactions.
“We haven’t always agreed, which was not a surprise to anyone, but our meetings have always been candid, straightforward and useful,” Biden said. He added that “it’s paramount that you and I understand each other clearly, leader to leader, with no misconceptions or miscommunication.”
Bilateral meetings aren’t always conducive to a personal touch, and Biden and Xi were flanked by advisers on opposite sides of a long table. However, a senior administration official said they spoke about their wives, and Biden wished Xi’s wife a happy birthday.
The official, who requested anonymity to discuss a private conversation, said Xi was embarrassed, and he admitted that he had forgotten his wife’s upcoming birthday because he’s been working so hard.
Sand and dust storms become more frequent worldwide: UN
Sand and dust storms are "dramatically" more frequent in some places worldwide, with at least a quarter of the storms caused by humans, according to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
Bus accident leaves 30 dead in Indian-controlled Kashmir
"The sight of rolling dark clouds of sand and dust engulfing everything in their path and turning day into night is one of nature's most intimidating spectacles. It is a costly phenomenon that wreaks havoc everywhere from Northern and Central Asia to sub-Saharan Africa," said Ibrahim Thiaw, UNCCD's executive secretary.
ASEAN defense chiefs call for the fighting in Gaza to cease, but they struggle to address Myanmar
"Sand and dust storms present a formidable challenge to achieving sustainable development. However, just as sand and dust storms are exacerbated by human activities, they can also be reduced through human actions," said Thiaw.
Biden says his goal for Xi meeting is to get US-China communications back to 'normal'
While sand and dust storms are a prevalent and seasonal natural phenomenon in some regions, the problem is exacerbated by poor land and water management, droughts, and climate change, according to UNCCD experts.
Israeli military forces raid Gaza's largest hospital in operation against Hamas
The Israeli military raided Gaza's largest hospital early Wednesday, conducting what it called a "precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area” of the facility, which has been the site of a standoff with the ruling militant group.
Israeli authorities claim the militants conceal military operations in the Shifa Hospital. But with hundreds of patients and medical personnel inside, the military has refrained from entering.
In recent weeks, Israeli defense forces have publicly warned that such use of the hospital “jeopardizes its protected status under international law,” the military said. On Tuesday, military officials conveyed again to Gaza authorities that all military activity in the hospital must cease within 12 hours.
"Unfortunately, it did not,” the military said.
Hamas has denied the Israeli accusations that it uses the hospital for cover.
Israeli military officials gave no further details but said they were taking steps to avoid harm to civilians.
Is Hamas hiding in Gaza's main hospital? Israel's claim is now a focal point in a dayslong stalemate
The operation unfolded after the military seized broader control of northern Gaza on Tuesday, including capturing the territory's legislature building and its police headquarters, in gains that carried high symbolic value in the country's quest to crush Hamas.
Meanwhile, Israeli defense officials said they have agreed to allow some fuel shipments into the Gaza Strip for humanitarian operations. It was the first time that Israel has allowed fuel into the besieged territory since Hamas' bloody cross-border invasion on Oct. 7.
China, Iran, Arab nations condemn Israeli minister's statement about dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza
Inside some of the captured buildings, soldiers held up the Israeli flag and military flags in celebration. In a nationally televised news conference, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Hamas had “lost control” of northern Gaza and that Israel made significant gains in Gaza City.
But asked about the time frame for the war, Gallant said: “We’re talking about long months, not a day or two.”
One Israeli commander in Gaza, identified only as Lt. Col. Gilad, said in a video that his forces near Shifa Hospital had seized government buildings, schools and residential buildings where they found weapons and eliminated fighters.
The army said it had captured the legislature, the Hamas police headquarters and a compound housing Hamas’ military intelligence headquarters. The buildings are powerful symbols, but their strategic value was unclear. Hamas fighters are believed to be positioned in underground bunkers.
For days, the Israeli army has encircled Shifa Hospital. Hundreds of patients, staff and displaced people were trapped inside, with supplies dwindling and no electricity to run incubators and other lifesaving equipment. After days without refrigeration, morgue staff on Tuesday dug a mass grave in the yard for more than 120 bodies, officials said.
Elsewhere, the Palestinian Red Crescent said Tuesday it had evacuated patients, doctors and displaced families from another Gaza City hospital, Al-Quds.
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Israel has vowed to end Hamas rule in Gaza after the militants' Oct. 7 attack into Israel in which they killed some 1,200 people and took roughly 240 hostages. The Israeli government has acknowledged it doesn’t know what it will do with the territory after Hamas’ defeat.
The Israeli onslaught — one of the most intense bombardments so far this century — has been disastrous for Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians.
More than 11,200 people, two-thirds of them women and minors, have been killed in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah. About 2,700 people have been reported missing. The ministry’s count does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths.
Almost the entire population of Gaza has squeezed into the southern two-thirds of the tiny territory, where conditions have been deteriorating even as bombardment there continues. About 200,000 fled the north in recent days, the U.N. said Tuesday, though tens of thousands are believed to remain.
The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees said Tuesday that its fuel storage facility in Gaza was empty and that it would soon end relief operations, including bringing limited supplies of food and medicine in from Egypt for more than 600,000 people sheltering in schools and other facilities in the south.
"Without fuel, the humanitarian operation in Gaza is coming to an end. Many more people will suffer and will likely die,” said Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of UNRWA.
Israeli defense officials, who repeatedly rejected allowing fuel into Gaza saying Hamas would divert it for military use, changed course early Wednesday. Israel will allow some 24,000 liters (6,340 gallons) of fuel into the Gaza Strip for humanitarian operations, officials said.
The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, the Israeli defense body responsible for Palestinian affairs, said it would allow U.N. trucks to refill at the Rafah crossing on the Egyptian border later Wednesday. It said the decision was in response to a request from the U.S.
PLIGHT OF HOSPITALSFighting has raged for days around the Shifa Hospital complex at the center of Gaza City that has now “turned into a cemetery,” its director said in a statement.
The Health Ministry said 40 patients, including three babies, have died since Shifa’s emergency generator ran out of fuel Saturday. Another 36 babies are at risk of dying because there is no power for incubators, according to the ministry.
The Israeli military said it started an effort to transfer incubators to Shifa. But they would be useless without electricity, said Christian Lindmeier, a World Health Organization spokesman.
The Health Ministry has proposed evacuating the hospital with the supervision of the International Committee of the Red Cross and transferring the patients to hospitals in Egypt, but has not received any response, ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra said.
While Israel says it is willing to allow staff and patients to evacuate, some Palestinians who have made it out say Israeli forces have fired at evacuees.
Israel says its claims of a Hamas command center in and beneath Shifa are based on intelligence, but it has not provided visual evidence to support them. Denying the claims, the Gaza Health Ministry says it has invited international organizations to investigate the facility.
The evacuation at the Al-Quds Hospital followed “more than 10 days of siege, during which medical and humanitarian supplies were prevented from reaching the hospital,” Palestinian Red Crescent officials said.
In a post on X, they blamed the Israeli army for bombarding the hospital and firing at those inside.
The White House’s national security council spokesperson, John Kirby, said the U.S. has unspecified intelligence that Hamas and another Palestinian militants use Shifa and other hospitals and tunnels underneath them to support military operations and hold hostages.
The intelligence is based on multiple sources, and the U.S. independently collected the information, a U.S. official said on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
Kirby said the U.S. doesn't support airstrikes on hospitals and does not want to see “a firefight in a hospital where innocent people" are trying to get care.
MARCH FOR HOSTAGESFamilies and supporters of the around 240 people being held hostage by Hamas started a protest march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The plight of the hostages has dominated public discourse since the Oct. 7 attack, with solidarity protests held across the country. The marchers, who expect to reach Jerusalem on Saturday, say the government must do more to bring home their loved-ones.
“Where are you?” Shelly Shem Tov, whose 21-year-old son, Omer, is among the captives, called out to Netanyahu. “We have no strength anymore. We have no strength. Bring back our children and our families home.”
BATTLE IN GAZA CITYIndependent accounts of the fighting in Gaza City have been nearly impossible to gather, as communications to the north have largely collapsed.
Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said Israeli forces have completed the takeover of Shati refugee camp, a densely built district bordering Gaza City's center, and are moving about freely in the city as a whole.
Videos released by the Israeli military show troops moving through the city, firing into buildings. Bulldozers push down structures as tanks roll through streets surrounded by partially collapsed towers.
The videos portray a battle where troops are rooting out pockets of Hamas fighters and tearing down buildings where they find them, while gradually dismantling the group’s tunnel network.
Israel says it has killed several thousand fighters, including important mid-level commanders, while 46 of its own soldiers have been killed in Gaza.
China, Iran, Arab nations condemn Israeli minister's statement about dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza
China, Iran and a multitude of Arab nations condemned an Israeli minister’s statement that a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip was an option in the Israel-Hamas war, calling it a threat to the world.
At Monday’s long-planned opening of a United Nations conference whose goal is to establish a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East, many ambassadors expressed condemnations and criticisms of comments by Israel’s Heritage Minister Amihai Eliyahu, who later called his remarks in a radio interview Sunday “metaphorical.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quickly disavowed the comments and suspended him from cabinet meetings.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its nuclear capability. It is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, and a former employee at its nuclear reactor served 18 years in Israeli prison for leaking details and pictures of Israel’s alleged nuclear arsenal program to a British newspaper in 1986.
China’s deputy U.N. ambassador Geng Shuang said Beijing was “shocked,” calling the statements “extremely irresponsible and disturbing” and should be universally condemned.
He urged Israeli officials to retract the statement and become a party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, considered the cornerstone of nuclear disarmament, as a non-nuclear weapon state “as soon as possible.”
Read: As fighting empties north Gaza, humanitarian crisis worsens in south
Geng said China is ready to join other countries “to inject new impetus” to establishing a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Mideast, saying there is greater urgency because of the situation in the current region.
U.N. disarmament chief Izumi Nakamitsu, who opened Monday’s fourth conference, didn’t mention Israel. But she said: “Any threat to use nuclear weapons is inadmissible.”
Nakamitsu reiterated the “urgency ... of a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction,” stressing that “cool heads and diplomatic efforts” must prevail to achieve peace between Israel and the Palestinians, based on a two-state solution.
Oman’s U.N. Ambassador Mohamed Al-Hassan, speaking on behalf of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council which includes Saudi Arabia, said the threat to use nuclear weapons in Gaza “reaffirms the extremes and brutality of the Israeli occupation against the Palestinian people” and their “disregard for innocent life.” He called on the U.N Security Council and the IAEA to take decisive action on the matter.
Read: Hundreds trapped inside Gaza’s biggest hospital
Lebanon’s Charge d’Affaires Hadi Hachem also condemned the Israeli heritage minister’s comments, stressing that “this self-acknowledgment of having nuclear weapons and the threat of using them by its officials, poses a serious threat to both regional and international peace and security."
He urged Israel to stop “such rhetoric or posturing” and join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear weapon state.
Iran’s U.N. Ambassador Amir Iravani told the conference the nuclear threats directed toward Palestinians by high-ranking Israeli officials highlight Israel’s “pride” in having these weapons in its hands.
“The secrecy surrounding Israel’s nuclear capabilities poses a significant threat to regional stability,” he said. “In these critical times, the imperative to establish such a zone in the Middle East has never been more urgent.”
Israel did not speak Monday but Netanyahu has said his country's biggest threat remains the possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran, and it is prepared to prevent that from happening.
Efforts to create a nuclear-weapon-free zone date back to the 1960s and include a call by parties to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1995 and a 1998 General Assembly resolution asking countries to contribute to establishing it. The first U.N. conference aimed at creating a zone was held in November 2019.
Read: Battles force Palestinians out of hospitals in Gaza, leaving patients, babies stranded
Russia’s ambassador to the IAEA and other U.N. organizations based in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, told delegates Monday that given the new escalation of violence in the Middle East, a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the region “is more pertinent than ever.”
But he said Moscow is “extremely uncomfortable” that along with the two other sponsors of the 1995 resolution – the United States and the United Kingdom – the promise to establish a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Mideast has not been met after almost 30 years. And for more than 20 years, “there’s been almost no progress whatsoever,” he said.