The parties agreed that a private American security company will assume management of the crossing after the IDF concludes its operation. Israel has also pledged not to damage the crossing's facilities to ensure its continuous operation.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Wednesday that he is not aware of Israel agreeing to transfer control of the crossing. The White House also said it was unaware of such an agreement.

As part of Israel's efforts to win agreement for a Rafah operation, negotiations have been underway with a private company in the U.S. that specializes in assisting armies and governments around the world engaged in military conflicts. The company has operated in several African and Middle Eastern countries, guarding strategic sites like oil fields, airports, army bases and sensitive border crossings. It employs veterans of elite U.S. Army units.

One of the largest communities expelled in the months since the war began was from the village of Wadi al-Siq, which is separated from Maghayyir A-Dir only by a beautiful green wadi. Next to the ruins of the village, which are still visible, cows from the nearby outpost that was established only about a year ago are grazing today. The road that used to lead to the village is now blocked with stones.

According to Ibrahim, on the day the residents of Wadi al-Siq were expelled, a group of settlers he knew – and with whom he previously had a good relationship – entered his village. He says they recommended that the villagers evacuate for 10 days because the settlers were "angry" following October 7.

"On October 11, we took the children and women to relatives in another village, to sleep there. We thought it would be for two or three days and then we'd bring them back," relates Abd el-Rahman Mustafa Ka'abneh, from his new temporary residence on agricultural land near the village of Taybeh. The next day, while some of the villagers were busy packing their belongings, settlers and soldiers came and attacked them at the site. Several residents and activists who had come to help them were arrested and detained for hours inside the village. Some were beaten and subjected to abuse, including, as previously reported in Haaretz, severe beatings, burns and attempted sexual assault.

"They stole [the contents of] my whole house. They destroyed and took everything: stove, kitchen utensils, cabinets," Ka'abneh says. "We found almost nothing." In his estimation, the value of the property stolen from the house was about 200,000 shekels ($53,000).

President Biden paused an arms shipment to Israel last week to prevent the U.S.-made weapons from being used in a long-threatened assault on the city Rafah, administration officials said on Tuesday night, a sign of the growing rift between Washington and Jerusalem over the conduct of the war.

The president withheld 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs that he feared could be dropped on Rafah, where more than one million Gazans have taken refuge, the officials said. The administration is reviewing whether to hold back future transfers, including guidance kits that convert so-called dumb bombs into precision-guided munitions.

The decision to delay the delivery of the 3,500 bombs was the first time that Mr. Biden has used his power to curtail arms as an instrument to influence Israel’s approach to the war since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led terrorist attack. A number of Mr. Biden’s Democratic allies in Congress have for weeks urged him to limit or halt arms shipments to Israel, something he had refused to do until now because of his strong support for the war against Hamas.

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The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that as Israeli leaders seemed to approach a decision on a Rafah incursion, “we began to carefully review proposed transfers of particular weapons to Israel that might be used in Rafah” beginning in April.

“As a result of that review, we have paused one shipment of weapons last week. It consists of 1,800 2,000lb bombs and 1,700 500lb bombs,” the official said, according to Reuters. The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse reported similar comments from a senior US official.

Russian forces launched a large-scale attack against Ukrainian cities overnight on May 8. Russia launched cruise and ballistic missiles, rockets, and Shahed-type drones throughout the night, Ukraine's Air Force reported.

Multiple explosions were heard in Zaporizhzhia, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Poltava oblasts around 5 a.m. local time, Suspilne reported.

In Poltava Oblast, a Russian drone struck a critical infrastructure facility, causing a fire to break out, regional governor Filip Pronin said on Telegram.

Residents also reported hearing explosions in Kyiv around 5:30 a.m. local time. The Kyiv Oblast Military Administration also reported explosions around Kyiv Oblast, near the capital.

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Israel has launched a major military offensive against Hamas forces in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, seizing control of a key border crossing and cutting off most aid into the territory a day before indirect talks on a ceasefire deal are due to restart.

Images released by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) showed tanks flying large Israeli flags driving through the post and crushing a concrete sign reading “I Love Gaza”.

Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said the offensive would continue until Hamas forces in Rafah “and the entire Gaza Strip” were “eliminated” or the militant Islamist organisation begins to release hostages. A government spokesperson described the first stage of a wider effort targeting Hamas.

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The Kurdish fighters are holding more than 56,000 detainees with alleged or perceived links to the Islamic State group.

According to a recent Amnesty International report, some 29,000 children are held in the two largest camps, representing “the highest concentration of children arbitrarily deprived of their liberty anywhere in the world”.

An open letter by Meta employees claims the company censors Palestinian-related content internally and externally.

Israeli military forces have taken control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, Israeli officials have said, in the first stage of what appears to be a wider offensive targeting Hamas in the southernmost parts of Gaza.

“This is the beginning of our mission to take out the last four Hamas brigades in Rafah. You should be in no doubt about that whatsoever,” an Israeli government spokesperson said.

Earlier on Tuesday, a spokesperson for the Gaza border authority confirmed the presence of Israeli tanks at the Rafah crossing and images released by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) showed tanks flying large Israeli flags driving through the post.

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U.N. agencies said on Tuesday the two main crossings into the southern Gaza Strip remained shut, virtually cutting off the Palestinian enclave from outside aid with few stocks positioned inside.

The global agency's humanitarian office spokesperson Jens Laerke told journalists Israel had shut both the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings for aid and people as part of its military operation in Rafah, where around 1 million uprooted people are sheltering.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/20747975

There are over 100 Myanmar nationals who, despite having completed their sentences and paid all their fines for illegally staying in Manipur State, are still being held at Imphal Prison. Their families are allowed to contact them once a week.

Family members of those imprisoned say they are facing difficulties in raising 50,000 rupees because they have been fleeing conflict and lack stable employment.

Ukrainian counterintelligence investigators have foiled a Russian plot to assassinate President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other top military and political figures, Ukraine’s state security service said Tuesday.

Two colonels in the State Guard of Ukraine, which protects top officials, were detained on suspicion of enacting the plan drawn up by Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, a statement said. The colonels were recruited before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, according to the statement.

It quoted the head of the State Security Service, Vasyl Maliuk, as saying the plot foresaw an attack before Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inauguration for a fifth term on Tuesday. Maliuk said that he personally oversaw the top-secret operation to track the plot.

Ukrainian claims of Russian efforts to kill Zelenskyy aren’t new. Zelensky said in 2022 there has been at least 10 attempts to assassinate him, and now the war with Russia has stretched into its third year.

Also, prosecutors in Poland said last month that a Polish man had been arrested on allegations of being ready to spy on behalf of Russia’s military intelligence in an alleged plot to assassinate Zelenskyy.

“We have to stop destroying the planet as we feed ourselves,” a World Bank official said, as red meat and dairy drive CO2 emissions.

Cows and milk are out, chicken and broccoli are in — if the World Bank has its way, that is.

In a new paper, the international financial lender suggests repurposing the billions rich countries spend to boost CO2-rich products like red meat and dairy for more climate-friendly options like poultry, fruits and vegetables. It's one of the most cost-effective ways to save the planet from climate change, the bank argues.

The politically touchy recommendation — sure to make certain conservatives and European countries apoplectic — is one of several suggestions the World Bank offers to cut climate-harming pollution from the agricultural and food sectors, which are responsible for nearly a third of global greenhouse gas emissions.

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The paper comes at a diplomatically strategic moment, as countries signed on to the Paris Agreement — the global pact calling to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius — prepare to update their climate plans by late 2025.

With the world’s humanitarian system in crisis, many NGOs now recognise that local charities can deliver much more at far less cost

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Charities such as Tsega’s, set up by individuals to help their own communities, are the oldest form of humanitarianism. Yet they are also being viewed as the future of an overstretched and underfunded aid system that relies on international organisations and UN agencies to devise and deliver programmes.

In a recent landmark white paper on development, the UK’s Foreign Office (FCDO) said it would deliver aid in poor countries “as far as possible through local institutions and organisations”. Meanwhile, the US Agency for International Development (USAid) plans to channel at least 25% of its funding through “local partners” by 2025. By the end of the decade, USAid wants at least 50% of its programmes to be driven by local agencies.

This commitment to “localising” aid is not entirely new. In 2016, a UN conference of 9,000 delegates gathered in Istanbul to make the delivery of humanitarian aid sustainable and effective. One of its key outcomes was a pledge to allocate 25% of funds to “local and national responders” by 2020.

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Kennedy Odede, head of Shining Hope for Communities, a grassroots organisation that works in Kenyan slums, says the humanitarian aid system is “still characterised by a colonial mindset” that largely ignores the cultural knowledge of organisations such as his.

“They believe they can just walk into a community and they’ll solve the problem if they have enough money, but that’s not how you create change,” says Odede, who grew up in Kibera, the biggest urban slum in Africa and one of the places where his NGO works.

Payroll data at risk includes names, bank details and addresses of current and former force members, government sources suggest

An estimated 270,000 payroll records belonging to nearly all members of Britain’s armed forces have been exposed to Chinese hackers in a breach at a third-party contractor that was discovered a few days ago.

The data at risk includes names and bank details and, in a few thousand instances, addresses and national insurance numbers of current and recently departed members of the army, navy and air force and reservists, government sources indicated.

There is no immediate evidence that any data has been stolen or interfered with, but inquiries are continuing. Personnel are expected to be offered credit checks so people can monitor if their bank details have been used without permission.

Grant Shapps, the UK defence secretary, is expected to brief MPs on Tuesday afternoon on the situation and the steps being taken by the MoD to deal with the problem. Hackers are believed to have been present in the system for some time, possibly weeks.

Spy investigation into the AfD’s Maximilian Krah and his assistant ramps up in Brussels.

Belgian and German police on Tuesday conducted searches at the European Parliament offices of a far-right MEP and his aide as part of an investigation into suspected Chinese espionage.

German authorities said the Federal Prosecutor’s office had requested to search the offices of MEP Maximilian Krah, top candidate for next month’s EU election from the far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD), and his aide Jian G., who is suspected of “of secret service agent activity.”

German police arrested the aide in April, rocking the AfD while it polls in second place nationally.

David Knezevich was the prime suspect in the disappearance of the US citizen last February while the couple were involved in a multimillion-dollar divorce

David Knezevich, the ex-partner of Ana María Knezevich Henao, who disappeared in Madrid, Spain, at the beginning of February, has been arrested at Miami International Airport in connection with the case.

Knezevich had been from the outset the prime suspect in the investigation, as the couple were going through a difficult separation involving a dispute over the multimillionaire patrimony they managed. Knezevich is of Serbian origin and Ana María is a U.S. citizen born in Colombia. They both lived in Miami, where their businesses were based, until she decided to move to Madrid at the end of 2023 to get away from her husband.

The Spanish National Police reported the arrest, which took place Saturday in an operation involving the Spanish Interior Ministry’s attaché office in Belgrade, the FBI, and the Colombian police.

The Federal Aviation Administration said Monday, May 6, 2024, that it has opened an investigation into Boeing after the beleaguered company reported that workers at a South Carolina plant falsified inspection records on certain 787 planes. Boeing said its engineers have determined that misconduct did not create “an immediate safety of flight issue.”

Polish security agents have discovered bugging devices in a room where ministers were due to meet on Tuesday, authorities said, without revealing who might have placed them there.

As a hub for Western military supplies to Ukraine during the more than two-year war with Russia, Poland has been on heightened alert for spying.

"The State Protection Service, in cooperation with the Internal Security Agency, detected and dismantled devices that could be used for eavesdropping in the room where the meeting of the Council of Ministers is to be held today in Katowice," security services spokesperson Jacek Dobrzynski wrote on X.

On Monday, the government said it was verifying if a Polish judge, who had access to confidential information and asked for political asylum in Belarus, had been spying.