World
Third round of hostage releases begins as part of Hamas' Gaza ceasefire agreement with Israel
Hamas began a third round of freeing hostages in Gaza Thursday as part of an ongoing ceasefire agreement with Israel.
Hamas handed female Israeli soldier Agam Berger, 20, to the Red Cross at a ceremony in the heavily destroyed urban refugee camp of Jabaliya in northern Gaza. She was later transferred to the Israel Defense Forces.
“The Government of Israel embraces IDF soldier Agam Berger,” read a post on the official X account of the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office. “Her family has been updated by the responsible authorities that she is with our forces. The Government, together with all of the security officials, will accompany her and her family.”
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Agam Berger, 19 (Courtesy: Bring Them Home Now)
Another ceremony was planned in the southern city of Khan Younis, in front of the destroyed home of slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. Both were attended by hundreds of people, including masked militants and onlookers.
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Hamas has agreed to handover three Israelis and five Thai captives on Thursday. In exchange, Israel was expected to release 110 Palestinian prisoners.
Israeli forces monitor activity in the Gaza strip. (IDF)
The truce is aimed at winding down the deadliest and most destructive war ever fought between Israel and Hamas, whose Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel sparked the fighting. It has held despite a dispute earlier this week over the sequence in which the hostages were released.
In Israel, people cheered, clapped and whistled at a square in Tel Aviv where supporters of the hostages watched Berger’s handover on big screens next to a large clock that’s counted the days the hostages have been in captivity. Some held signs saying: “Agam we’re waiting for you at home.”
Berger was among five young, female soldiers abducted in the Oct. 7 attack. The other four were released on Saturday. The other two Israelis set to be released Thursday are Arbel Yehoud, 29, and Gadi Moses, an 80-year-old man.
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There was no official confirmation of the identities of the Thai nationals who will be released.
The families of the four released hostages reunite with their daughters on January 25, 2025. (IDF Spokesman’ Unit)
A number of foreign workers were taken captive along with dozens of Israeli civilians and soldiers during Hamas’ attack. Twenty-three Thais were among more than 100 hostages released during a weeklong ceasefire in November 2023. Israel says eight Thais remain in captivity, two of whom are believed to be dead.
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Of the people set to be released from prisons in Israel, 30 are serving life sentences after being convicted of deadly attacks against Israelis. Zakaria Zubeidi, a prominent former militant leader and theater director who took part in a dramatic jailbreak in 2021 before being rearrested days later, is also among those set to be released.
Protesters hold placards that say ‘We’re sorry’ with the photos of Israeli hostages Chaim Peri, Yoram Metzger, Amiram Cooper, and Nadav Popplewell who were announced to be dead last week during the demonstration. (Matan Golan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Israel said Yehoud was supposed to have been freed Saturday and delayed the opening of crossings to northern Gaza when she was not.
The United States, Egypt and Qatar, which brokered the ceasefire after a year of tough negotiations, resolved the dispute with an agreement that Yehoud would be released Thursday. Another three hostages, all men, are set to be freed Saturday along with dozens more Palestinian prisoners.
On Monday, Israel began allowing Palestinians to return to northern Gaza, the most heavily destroyed part of the territory, and hundreds of thousands streamed back. Many found only mounds of rubble where their homes had been.
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In the first phase of the ceasefire, Hamas is set to release a total of 33 Israeli hostages, including women, children, older adults and sick or wounded men, in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. Israel says Hamas has confirmed that eight of the hostages to be released in this phase are dead.
Palestinians have cheered the release of the prisoners, who they widely see as heroes who have sacrificed for the cause of ending Israel’s decades-long occupation of lands they want for a future state.
Israeli forces have meanwhile pulled back from most of Gaza, allowing hundreds of thousands of people to return to what remains of their homes and humanitarian groups to surge assistance.
The deal calls for Israel and Hamas to negotiate a second phase in which Hamas would release the remaining hostages and the ceasefire would continue indefinitely. The war could resume in early March if an agreement is not reached.
Israel says it is still committed to destroying Hamas, even after the militant group reasserted its rule over Gaza within hours of the truce. Hamas says it won’t release the remaining hostages without an end to the war and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
Israel’s ensuing air and ground war after Oct. 7, 2023 has been among the deadliest and most destructive in decades. More than 47,000 Palestinians have been killed, over half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were militants.
The Israeli military says it killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence, and that it went to great lengths to try to spare civilians. It blames civilian deaths on Hamas because its fighters operate in dense residential neighborhoods and put military infrastructure near homes, schools and mosques.
The Israeli offensive has transformed entire neighborhoods into mounds of gray rubble, and it’s unclear how or when anything will be rebuilt. Around 90% of Gaza’s population has been displaced, often multiple times, with hundreds of thousands of people living in squalid tent camps or shuttered schools.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
World
Stocks fall and oil prices gain after Trump warns the Iran ‘clock is ticking’
HONG KONG (AP) — Asian stocks mostly retreated and oil prices jumped on Monday after U.S. President Donald Trump warned Tehran that the “clock is ticking” as U.S.-Iran negotiations over a permanent end to the war stall.
U.S. futures fell and markets in Japan and South Korea pulled further back from their records. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 1% to 60,815.95, a decline led by technology-related stocks. It reached all-time intraday high levels last week above 63,000.
The yield on the 10-year Japanese government bond surged to as high as 2.8%, its highest level since the late 1990s, part of a shift toward higher yields as the Bank of Japan gradually raises interest rates and higher energy costs raise expectations of rising inflation. That’s up from around 2.55% just one week ago.
Seoul’s Kospi climbed 0.3% to 7,516.04 after trading lower earlier in the day. It crossed the 8,000 mark for the first time on Friday, supported by buying of technology shares driven by the boom in artificial intelligence, but later declined partly on profit-taking by investors.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 1.4% to 25,596.68. The Shanghai Composite index edged 0.1% lower to 4,131.53, after China reported weaker-than-expected retail data for April.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 declined 1.5% to 8,505.30.
Taiwan’s Taiex dropped 0.7%, while India’s Sensex fell 0.1%.
Oil prices rose after Trump warned Iran in a social media post that “the Clock is Ticking, and they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them” following a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Trump has set deadlines for Iran and then backed off, so investors have remained cautious about the situation in the Strait of Hormuz and how it is impacting global energy flows, including oil and gas. The strait is still mostly closed, and the U.S. has also imposed its own sea blockade on Iranian ports since last month.
A drone strike over the weekend on a United Arab Emirates’ nuclear power plant added to worries over a potential escalation in the conflict.
Brent crude, the international standard, gained 0.7% to $110.02 per barrel. It was trading at roughly $70 a barrel in late February before the start of the Iran war. Benchmark U.S. crude was trading 0.8% higher to $106.31 per barrel.
“Re-escalation risks are increasing,” ING commodities strategists Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey wrote in a research note. While there has also been a pick up on shipping activities over the past week around the strait, they said, “this can change quickly.”
The pair also noted that the oil market was reacting to the lack of tangible results on the Iran war after last week’s widely-watched summit between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, even as the White House said both the U.S. and China had agreed that the Strait of Hormuz must remain open.
U.S. officials had hoped that Beijing could use its influence, given its economic ties with Iran, to help broker a peace agreement and reopen the strait. Trump said last week in an interview that Xi told him China “would like to be of help” in negotiating an end to the war. So far it’s been unclear how Beijing might do that.
The yield on the U.S. 10-year Treasury was at around 4.60%, up from 4.47% last Thursday and sharply higher than the nearly 4% level it was holding at before the Iran war.
On Friday, the benchmark S&P 500 dropped 1.2% from the record it set the day before. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.1% and the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite lost 1.5%.
In other dealings early Monday, the U.S. dollar rose to 158.86 Japanese yen from 158.62 yen. The euro was trading at $1.1635, up from $1.1622.
World
Canada confirms hantavirus case linked to cruise ship outbreak that has killed three passengers
Hantavirus outbreak on cruise ship sparks concern as passengers return to US
Fox News senior medical analyst Dr. Marc Siegel discusses the Hantavirus outbreak aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship, where three deaths occurred. Siegel explains that while human-to-human spread is rare, it’s not impossible. The segment highlights the return of passengers to the U.S. from locations like Tenerife and Praia, raising new public health concerns and emphasizing the need for containment.
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Canadian health officials on Sunday confirmed that one of four Canadians who returned from the MV Hondius cruise ship, the subject of an international Andes hantavirus outbreak, tested positive for hantavirus. Three people connected to the outbreak have died.
The Public Health Agency of Canada confirmed the positive test after British Columbia’s top public health officer previously described the case as a “presumptive positive.”
“One individual’s sample was confirmed positive for hantavirus,” the agency said in a statement.
Officials said additional testing will be conducted at a national laboratory. It was not immediately clear whether that testing was for confirmation, strain characterization or another purpose.
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Experts say cruise outbreaks get more attention due to public reporting rules, but many travelers still plan to sail as booked. (Myloupe/Universal Images Group)
The development comes as global health officials continue monitoring the rare hantavirus outbreak tied to the MV Hondius, which has sickened multiple passengers.
As of May 13, the World Health Organization said 11 cases had been identified in connection with the cruise outbreak, including eight confirmed cases, two probable cases and one inconclusive case. Those figures included three deaths. The Associated Press later reported that the Canadian confirmation brought the number of people from the ship who had tested positive to 10.
Canadian health officials said four Canadians returned home from the MV Hondius, though only one has tested positive for the virus.
RARE HANTAVIRUS HUMAN-TO-HUMAN TRANSMISSION SUSPECTED ON LUXURY CRUISE SHIP WHERE 3 HAVE DIED
The rare Andes virus, which was linked to the MV Hondius cruise ship outbreak, is the only known hantavirus strain that has the capability to spread from person to person, usually through prolonged close contact. (Andres Gutierrez/Anadolu)
The confirmed patient and a traveling companion — identified as a Yukon couple in their 70s — returned from the cruise together. The companion later tested negative, officials said.
A third person in their 70s from Vancouver Island remains in isolation, along with a British Columbia resident in their 50s.
So far, no confirmed U.S. cases tied to the cruise ship have been reported, though WHO said as of May 13 that one U.S.-repatriated passenger had inconclusive laboratory results and was undergoing retesting.
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Pictured is the MV Hondius, the cruise ship tied to a hantavirus outbreak after a stop in Argentina that left three passengers dead. (Europa Press Canarias via Getty Images)
Last week, however, health officials in Ontario County, New York, announced they were investigating a suspected locally acquired hantavirus case unrelated to the cruise ship.
The Ontario County Public Health Department said there was no risk to the general public. Officials also said the strain typically seen in the United States is not known to spread from person to person.
The outbreak linked to the MV Hondius began after the Dutch cruise ship, carrying 147 passengers and crew members, departed Argentina on April 1 for a South Atlantic voyage.
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The outbreak has prompted heightened precautions internationally, including in the Netherlands, where Radboud University Medical Center quarantined 12 staff members after officials said a hantavirus patient’s blood and urine were not handled under the strictest protocols recommended for the virus strain.
The outbreak has also sparked comparisons to the coronavirus pandemic. However, Fox News senior medical analyst Dr. Marc Siegel previously told Fox News Digital there is “no comparison.”
He noted hantavirus is difficult to spread.
Passengers evacuated from the hantavirus-stricken Hondius cruise ship walk with their belongings after disembarking at Eindhoven Air Base, Netherlands, on May 12. (Piroschka van de Wouw)
“It’s not airborne … in terms of respiratory droplets hanging in the air,” he said. “It’s very difficult to transmit.”
While coronavirus “moved in the direction of humans in a significant way,” hantavirus has not, except for “very rare” cases of human-to-human transmission, he added.
The World Health Organization has assessed the risk to the global population as low, while noting that current evidence suggests subsequent human-to-human transmission may have occurred on board. Andes virus is the only hantavirus known to have documented person-to-person transmission, though such spread is considered rare.
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Siegel also noted hantavirus cases have been reported in the United States for decades, though they remain “very rare.”
Fox News Digital’s Brittany Miller and Angelica Stabile, along with The Associated Press, contributed to this report.
World
Moment of collision between two Navy jets at Idaho air show
Two US Navy jets collided during an air show at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho, sending both aircraft crashing to the ground in front of spectators. All four crew members ejected safely before impact.
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