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Hamas says three captives to be released amid ceasefire deal collapse fears

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Hamas says three captives to be released amid ceasefire deal collapse fears

Hamas says it will release captives according to timeline set out in truce after fears agreement would not hold following Israel’s violations.

Hamas says it is committed to the release of captives held in Gaza according to a timeline set out in a ceasefire, days after fears arose that the truce would not hold following Israel’s violation of the agreement.

In a statement released on Thursday, Hamas said it “confirms continuation in implementing the agreement in accordance with what was signed, including the exchange of prisoners according to the specified timetable”.

Hamas spokesperson Abdul Latif al-Qanoua also confirmed to the Anadolu news agency that the group will release captives on Saturday if Israel adheres to the terms of the ceasefire.

“The [Israeli] occupation has violated the agreement multiple times, whether by preventing the return of displaced people or blocking the entry of humanitarian aid,” he said. “If Israel does not adhere to the terms of the agreement, the prisoner exchange process will not take place.”

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A Palestinian source quoted by AFP news agency said on Thursday that mediators had obtained from Israel a “promise … to put in place a humanitarian protocol starting from this morning” that would allow construction equipment and temporary housing into the devastated territory.

The Hamas statement added that talks being held this week in Cairo aimed at overcoming an impasse in implementing the deal had been “positive”.

Later on Thursday, Israel said Hamas must release three living captives on Saturday or Israel will return to war.

This week, the agreement with Israel has come under severe strain.

Hamas warned it would delay the next release of captives scheduled for Saturday due to Israel violating the truce by shooting Palestinians in Gaza and not allowing the agreed-upon number of tents, shelters and other vital aid to enter the besieged enclave.

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Israel responded by saying that if Hamas failed to free captives according to the schedule, it would resume its war.

Since the ceasefire went into effect on January 19, Israeli forces have killed at least 92 Palestinians and wounded more than 800, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

A Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo on Wednesday to discuss the ceasefire with mediators Egypt and Qatar.

Egyptian state-linked media said heavy equipment and trucks carrying mobile homes were ready to enter Gaza from Egypt on Thursday. The AFP news agency shared images showing a row of bulldozers on the Egyptian side of the border.

However, Israel later said they would not be allowed to enter through the crossing.

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“There is no entry of caravans or heavy equipment into the Gaza Strip, and there is no coordination for this,” Omer Dostri, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, wrote on X, adding: “No goods are allowed to enter the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing.”

Bulldozers and trucks carrying caravans wait to enter Gaza at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza [Mohamed Arafat/AP Photo]

Hamas has previously accused Israel of holding up the delivery of heavy machinery needed to clear the vast amounts of rubble across the enclave.

United States President Donald Trump had warned this week that “hell” would break loose if Hamas failed to release “all” the remaining captives by noon (10:00 GMT) on Saturday.

If fighting resumes, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said: “The new Gaza war … will not end without the defeat of Hamas and the release of all the hostages.”

“It will also allow the realisation of US President Trump’s vision for Gaza,” he added.

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Trump, whose return to the White House has emboldened the Israeli far right, caused a global outcry over his proposal for the US to take over the Gaza Strip and move its 2.3 million residents to Egypt or Jordan.

The Gaza truce, currently in its first phase, has seen Israeli captives released in small groups in exchange for Palestinians in Israeli custody.

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US military shoots down Houthi drones as Trump's strikes against terrorist group continue

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US military shoots down Houthi drones as Trump's strikes against terrorist group continue

U.S. warships have shot down roughly a dozen Houthi drones since President Donald Trump launched airstrikes against the terrorist organization on Saturday, Fox News has learned.

A senior defense official told Fox News of the developments on Sunday. The drones were aimed at the U.S. Navy’s Truman Carrier Strike Group, and were shot down “well before” they posed a serious threat, the official added.

The latest military action came after nearly a year and a half of attacks from Houthis, both on commercial merchant vessels and U.S. military ships. In a Truth Social post on Saturday, Trump wrote that he had “ordered the United States Military to launch decisive and powerful Military action against the Houthi terrorists in Yemen.”

“It has been over a year since a U.S.-flagged commercial ship safely sailed through the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, or the Gulf of Aden,” Trump continued. “The last American Warship to go through the Red Sea, four months ago, was attacked by the Houthis over a dozen times.”

US NAVY SHIPS REPEL ATTACK FROM HOUTHIS IN GULF OF ADEN

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U.S. warships intercepted and shot down around a dozen Houthi drones since President Donald Trump’s airstrikes were launched on Mar. 15. (Getty Images/AP)

Trump wrote that the “relentless assaults have cost the U.S. and World Economy many BILLIONS of Dollars while, at the same time, putting innocent lives at risk.”

“To all Houthi terrorists, YOUR TIME IS UP, AND YOUR ATTACKS MUST STOP, STARTING TODAY. IF THEY DON’T, HELL WILL RAIN DOWN UPON YOU LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN BEFORE!” his post concluded.

TRUMP RE-DESIGNATES IRANIAN-BACKED HOUTHIS AS TERRORISTS: ‘THREATEN[S] SECURITY OF AMERICAN CIVILIANS’

U.S. President Donald Trump speaking at a meeting

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on February 26, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Trump re-designated the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) in January. His first administration had named the Houthis as an FTO, but the Biden administration later reversed the move.

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On Sunday, the White House released photos of Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz monitoring the strikes.

Trump, in golf attire, monitoring airstrikes

President Trump is taking action against the Houthis to defend U.S. shipping assets and deter terrorist threats, the White House posted on X on March 15, 2025. (The White House)

“President Trump is taking action against the Houthis to defend US shipping assets and deter terrorist threats,” the White House wrote on X. “For too long American economic & national threats have been under assault by the Houthis. Not under this presidency.” 

Fox News Digital’s Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.

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Swallowed by the sea, Pakistan’s Indus delta now threatened by canals

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Swallowed by the sea, Pakistan’s Indus delta now threatened by canals

Thatta, Pakistan – On a sunny afternoon at Dando Jetty, a small fishing village in Pakistan’s sprawling Indus Delta, a boat is being unloaded and another is about to leave for the Arabian Sea.

The melodious voice of Sindhi folk singer Fouzia Soomro rises from a loudspeaker playing on a nearby parked boat.

About 130km (81 miles) from Pakistan’s largest city of Karachi, Dando Jetty sits on the bank of Khobar Creek, one of the two surviving creeks of the Indus River in Thatta, a coastal district in the eastern Sindh province.

“There should be freshwater in this creek, flowing into the sea,” Zahid Sakani tells Al Jazeera as he embarks on a boat to visit his ancestral village, Haji Qadir Bux Sakani, in Kharo Chan, a sub-district of Thatta, three hours away. “Instead, it’s seawater.”

Zahid Sakani’s farmland in Thatta was swallowed by the Arabian Sea [Manesh Kumar/Al Jazeera]

Six years ago, Sakani, 45, used to be a farmer. But his land, along with the rest of Haji Qadir Bux Sakani village, was swallowed by the sea, forcing him to migrate to Baghan, 15km (nine miles) from Dando Jetty, and turn to tailoring for survival.

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Now, the Kharo Chan port wears a deserted look – no human beings in sight, stray dogs roam freely, and abandoned boats outnumber those that are still in service. Sakani sometimes goes to Kharo Chan to visit the graves of his father and other ancestors.

“We cultivated 200 acres [81 hectares] of land and raised livestock here,” said Sakani as he stood at the port. “But all were lost to the sea.”

Kharo Chan was once a prosperous area comprising of 42 “dehs” (villages), of which only three now exist. The rest were submerged into the sea, forcing thousands of people to migrate to other villages or Karachi city.

According to the government census, Kharo Chan’s population shrunk from 26,000 in 1988 to 11,403 in 2023.

It was not only Kharo Chan that met this fate. In the past decade, dozens of villages in the Indus Delta have disappeared, swallowed by the advancing sea.

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New canal projects

And now, a new threat has emerged in an already fragile ecosystem.

As part of a so-called Green Pakistan Initiative, the Pakistan government is seeking $6bn investment from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain over the next three to five years for corporate farming, aiming to cultivate 1.5 million acres (600,000 hectares) of barren land, and mechanise the existing 50 million acres (20 million hectares) of agricultural land across the country.

The project aims to irrigate a total of 4.8 million acres (1.9 million hectares) of barren land by constructing six canals – two each in Sindh, Balochistan, and Punjab provinces. Five of those canals will be on the Indus, while the sixth will be constructed along the Sutlej River to irrigate the Cholistan Desert in Pakistan’s most populous Punjab province.

According to the 1960 Indus Water Treaty, a World Bank-brokered water distribution agreement between India and Pakistan, the waters of the Sutlej primarily belong to India. It is one of the five rivers that originate in India and fall into the Indus in Pakistan. Along with the Sutlej, the waters of the Ravi and Beas Rivers also belong to India under the treaty, while the waters of the Chenab and Jhelum, apart from Indus itself are Pakistan’s.

However, the Sutlej does bring water to Pakistan during the monsoons in India, with Cholistan historically reliant on rainfall for irrigation.

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“They will divert water from Indus to Sutlej through Chenab and then to Cholistan canal,” said Obhayo Khushuk, a former irrigation engineer. “You cannot build a new irrigation system depending on [monsoon] floodwater.”

Pakistan Indus
A view of the Indus Delta [Manesh Kumar/Al Jazeera]

Meanwhile, corporate farming has already begun in Cholistan under the Green Pakistan Initiative, with the authorities approving 4,121 cusecs of water to irrigate 0.6 million acres (24,000 hectares) of land in the Cholistan Desert – an area larger than Lahore, Pakistan’s second-largest city.

Mohammad Ehsan Leghari, Sindh’s representative in the Indus River System Authority (IRSA), a regulatory body established in 1992 to oversee the allocation of water to Pakistan’s four provinces, strongly opposed the move.

“From 1999 to 2024, not a single year has passed without water shortage in Pakistan, with Sindh and Balochistan provinces facing up to 50 percent water scarcity during the summer. In this situation, where will the water for the proposed canal system come from?” he asked.

In a letter to the Council of Common Interest (CCI), a constitutional body authorised to resolve issues between the federal government and provinces, the Sindh government also criticised the project, saying that IRSA had no right to issue certificates of water availability. CCI is headed by the prime minister, with the chief ministers of the four provinces and three federal ministers as its members.

Sindh’s Irrigation Minister Jam Khan Shoro warned the Cholistan canal would “turn Sindh barren”. However, federal Planning and Development Minister Ahsan Iqbal said that the Sindh government’s objections were “baseless” as new canals would not affect its share of water.

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But Hassan Abbas, an Islamabad-based independent water and environment consultant, calls the Cholistan canal an “unscientific” project. According to him, building a canal system needs even and steady land, not sand dunes as present in Cholistan.

“Water does not know how to climb a sand dune,” Abbas said.

The delta’s destruction

The mighty Indus River has been flowing for thousands of years and once cradled one of the earliest known human civilisations spread across modern Pakistan, Afghanistan and India.

But as the British colonised the subcontinent two centuries ago, they also engineered the river, building dams and diverting its course. After independence in 1947, the same colonial policies were followed by successive governments, as more barrages, dams and canals led to the destruction of the Indus Delta – the fifth largest in the world.

“A delta is made up of sand, silt and water. The process of the destruction of the Indus Delta began back in 1850 when the Britishers established a canal network. Every canal built in Pakistan, India or China since contributed to the destruction of the Indus Delta,” Abbas told Al Jazeera. The Indus originates from the Chinese-controlled Tibet region, where China has built a dam on the river.

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Pakistan Indus delta
Abandoned boats at Dando Jetty, a small fishing village in Thatta, Pakistan [Manesh Kumar/Al Jazeera]

According to a 2019 study by the US-Pakistan Center for Advanced Studies in Water, the Indus Delta was spread over 13,900 square kilometres (5,367sq miles) in 1833, but shrunk to just 1,067sq km (412sq miles) in 2018 – a 92 percent decline in its original area.

“A delta is like an open hand and its creeks are its fingers that fall into the sea,” Sakani said. “The space between those fingers is home to millions of people, animals and other creatures, but it is rapidly shrinking.”

As more and more land got degraded, residents were forced to migrate upstream. But not everyone could afford to move. Those who remained in the Delta switched from farming to other professions, mainly fishing.

Sidique Katiar, 55, a resident of Haji Yousif Katiar village near Dando Jetty, became a fisherman some 15 years ago.

“I remember there used to be only a few boats in our village. Now, every household has boats [and] the number of fisherfolk is growing day by day,” he told Al Jazeera.

Loss of livelihood

At Sanhiri Creek along the Arabian Sea, a seven-hour boat journey from Dando Jetty, about a dozen makeshift huts are inhabited by the so-called “fishing labourers”.

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Nathi Mallah, 50, a resident of Joho village in Thatta’s Keti Bandar area, is one of them. She shoves a small iron rod into a jar of salt and then inserts it into the sandy ground. She waits briefly before pulling the rod back, quickly grabbing a small aquatic creature locally known as “maroarri” (razor shell in English), because of its long, narrow and rectangular shape, resembling an old-fashioned razor.

Mallah works with her husband and six children to catch “maroarri”, which the fisherfolks say is only exported to China. None of Mallah’s children go to school as the family works for 10-12 hours a day for a local contractor, who provides them some salt and drinking water.

Marroarri sells for 42 Pakistani rupees (15 US cents) a kilo and each member of the Mallah family collects about 8-10kg daily, earning them enough to survive. Nathi entered the business some five years ago when their fishing profession in Joho went into losses.

Muhammad Sadique Mallah, Nathi’s husband, says increasing land degradation pushed people to switch from farming to fishing. “There are more fishermen on the sea than there used to be in my youth,” the 55-year-old told Al Jazeera.

A 2019 report by the World Bank says catches of fish dwindled from 5,000 tonnes a year in 1951 to a meagre 300 tonnes now due to the Indus Delta’s degradation, forcing Pakistan to face a loss of $2bn annually.

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“There was a time when our men would go to the sea and return in 10 days,” said Nathi. “Now they don’t come back even after a month.”

No water for crops

Allah Bux Kalmati, 60, lives in Dando Jetty where he cultivates tomato, chilli, some vegetables, and betel leaves. He says freshwater is only available during the two months of the monsoon season.

But Kalmati’s betel-leaf garden needs water every two weeks. “It has now been a month and there is no water for the plants,” he says.

According to the Water Apportionment Accord (WAA) of 1991, an agreement between Pakistan’s four provinces on sharing water, at least 10 million acre feet (MAF) of water has to be discharged annually down the Kotri Barrage, the last diversion on Indus, for the downstream deltaic ecosystem.

In 1991, the Switzerland-based International Union for Conservation for Nature, however, recommended a release of 27MAF annually – a goal that could never be materialised. Moreover, IRSA data showed that water flow was less than 10MAF during 12 of the past 25 years because officials diverted it elsewhere before it reached the sea.

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“Ten MAF water is not enough for Indus Delta. It received 180 to 200MAF water annually before the canal system and it requires the same amount of water to survive,” said researcher Abbas as he attributed the water shortage to dams and barrages.

“We have 10 percent more water than the last century. But building canal after canal has diverted the flow of water, resulting in waterlogging upstream and sedimentation in the dams,” he said.

Mahmood Nawaz Shah, president of a growers’ association in Sindh, said Pakistan’s irrigation system has become “old and outdated”. “Our average grain production stands at 130 grams per cubic metre while it is 390 grams in neighbouring India,” he said.

Shah explained that instead of expanding the irrigation system, Pakistan needs to fix the existing water network and better manage the resource. “Pakistan utilises 90 percent of its water in agriculture, while the world’s usage is 75 percent maximum,” he said, citing an International Water Management Institute study.

“There are areas where canals are available but water doesn’t reach when required. Take for example the Indus Delta. You don’t have water for the existing cultivable lands. Pakistan should learn how to save water and increase its production.”

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Back at Dando Jetty, Sakani has just returned after visiting his ancestral village in Kharo Chan. Before heading home, he wanted to buy some fresh fish at Dando, but no boat had arrived from the sea that day.

“There was a time when we would distribute palla [hilsa herring] among the beggars,” he said. “But now, we can’t get fish at this place.”

Meanwhile, the high tide makes Khobar Creek look like the sea, now only 7-8km (4-5 miles) from Baghan, Sakani’s new hometown.

“The sea was 14-15km [8-9 miles] away when we shifted here from Kharo Chan,” he told Al Jazeera. “If there is no freshwater left downstream, the sea will continue to erode the land and, in the next 15 years, Baghan, too, will perish. We will have to move again to another place.

“More canals and impediments to Indus River would completely block the flow of water into the sea. It will be the final nail in the coffin of the Indus Delta.”

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Houthis Vow Retaliation After U.S. Strikes in Yemen

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Houthis Vow Retaliation After U.S. Strikes in Yemen

The Houthi militia in Yemen has vowed to retaliate after President Trump ordered large-scale military strikes on targets controlled by the group that it says killed at least 53 people.

The group, which is backed by Iran, said that women and children were among those killed in the strikes on Saturday, the most significant U.S. military action in the Middle East since Mr. Trump took office in January.

For more than a year, the Houthis have launched attacks against Israel and threatened commercial shipping in the Red Sea in solidarity with their ally Hamas, which led the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that set off the war in Gaza. The Houthis suspended the campaign in January after a cease-fire was reached in Gaza but have vowed to step up attacks again after Israel instituted a blockade on aid to the enclave this month.

The U.S. airstrikes targeted Houthi-controlled areas across Yemen, including the capital, Sana, as well as Saada, al-Bayda, Hajjah and Dhamar Provinces, according to reports from Houthi-run media channels. The strikes killed at least 53 people and wounded 98, Anis al-Asbahi, a spokesman for the Houthi-run health ministry, said on Sunday.

The casualty figures could not be independently verified, and the United States has not given any estimates for the number of people killed or wounded in the strikes.

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On Sunday, Michael Waltz, Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, described the U.S. weekend attacks on Yemen as both successful and effective. “We hit the Houthi leadership, killing several of their key leaders last night, their infrastructure, the missiles,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.” He cast the Houthis as “essentially Al Qaeda with sophisticated Iranian-backed air defenses and anti-ship cruise missiles and drones” that have attacked the entire global economy.

The U.S. Central Command, which posted a video of a bomb leveling a building compound in Yemen, said that Washington had employed precision strikes to “defend American interests, deter enemies and restore freedom of navigation.”

U.S. airstrikes also targeted a power facility in the northwestern town of Dahyan, causing a nightlong electricity blackout, residents said.

A United Nations spokesperson expressed concern about the American strikes while also noting recent Houthi threats to resume attacks on shipping in the Red Sea.

The Houthi-run Al-Masirah television channel reported that 13 people were killed and nine others wounded in airstrikes on al-Jeraf, a district in Sana that is considered a stronghold of the group. In Saada Province, in the northwest, 10 people, including four children, were killed when airstrikes hit two buildings, the report said.

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Residents in Sana shared images and videos on social media showing shattered windows and fireballs rising from sites that were struck. Others posted anguished messages as the airstrikes hit.

Abdul Rahman al-Nuerah, a resident of Sana, said the blasts had shattered the windows of his home and terrified his four children. “I instantly embraced and comforted them,” Mr. al-Nuerah said by telephone. “Children and mothers are afraid and still in shock.”

Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a senior Houthi leader, vowed retaliation against the United States, calling the strikes unjustified. “We shall respond to the escalation by escalating,” he wrote on X.

The Houthi rebels, who control most of northern Yemen, had temporarily halted attacks in the Red Sea when a cease-fire took effect in Gaza in January. But last week, they said they would target any Israeli ships violating their ban on Israeli vessels passing through the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, the Bab el-Mandeb and the Gulf of Aden.

The Bab el-Mandeb is a strait between the Horn of Africa and the Middle East that connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, which opens into the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean.

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Mr. Trump said in a statement on his Truth Social platform that the strikes were also intended as a warning to Iran, the Houthis’ main backer.

“Support for the Houthi terrorists must end IMMEDIATELY!” he wrote. He also warned Iran against threatening the United States, saying, “America will hold you fully accountable, and we won’t be nice about it!”

Some military analysts and former American commanders said on Sunday that a more aggressive campaign against the Houthis, particularly against Houthi leadership, was necessary to degrade the group’s ability to threaten international shipping. “This is long, long overdue,” Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., a retired head of the Pentagon’s Central Command, said in a telephone interview on Sunday.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Sunday that the United States would conduct an “unrelenting” campaign of strikes against the Houthis until the militant group ceased its actions in the Red Sea.

“This isn’t a one-night thing. This will continue until you say, ‘We’re done shooting at ships. We’re done shooting at assets,’” Mr. Hegseth told Fox News on Sunday. “This campaign is about freedom of navigation and restoring deterrence.”

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Iran strongly condemned the strikes.

Esmaeil Baghaei, a spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, called them a violation of international law regarding the use of force and respect for national sovereignty.

And Hossein Salami, the commander in chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards force, denied on Sunday that his country was making policy decisions for the rebels in Yemen. The Houthi militia “makes its own strategic decisions” and Tehran plays “no role in setting the national or operational policies” of the group, he was quoted as saying by Iranian state news agencies.

Days after taking office, Mr. Trump issued an executive order to redesignate the Houthis a “foreign terrorist organization,” calling the group a threat to regional security.

The order restored a designation given to the group late in the first Trump administration. The Biden administration lifted the designation shortly after taking office, partly to facilitate peace talks in Yemen’s civil war.

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Last year, the Biden administration labeled the Houthis a “specially designated global terrorist” group — a less severe category — in response to attacks against vessels in the Red Sea.

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, on Saturday told Secretary of State Marco Rubio that all sides should cease from the “use of force” in Yemen and enter a “political dialogue,” according to the Russian foreign ministry. Moscow has condemned past U.S. and British strikes on Yemen.

Hezbollah, another armed proxy for Iran in the region, voiced its condemnation of the U.S. strikes on Yemen and described it as a “war crime,” according to a statement on Sunday.

Carol Rosenberg, Eric Schmitt and Leily Nikounazar contributed reporting.

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