21/07/2025

MONDAY | JULY 21, 2025

9

‘No life without water’

Ukraine proposes fresh peace talks

KYIV: Kyiv has proposed to Moscow a new round of peace talks next week, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday, after negotiations stalled in early June. Two rounds of talks in Istanbul between Moscow and Kyiv have failed to result in any progress towards a ceasefire, instead yielding large-scale prisoner exchanges and deals to return the bodies of killed soldiers. “Security Council Secretary Umerov also reported that he had proposed the next meeting with the Russian side for next week,” Zelensky said in his evening address. “The momentum of the negotiations must be stepped up.” Zelensky reiterated his readiness to have a face-to-face sitdown with Putin. “A meeting at the leadership level is needed to truly ensure peace, lasting peace,” he said. At talks last month, Russia outlined a list of hardline demands, including calls for Ukraine to cede more territory and to reject all forms of Western military support. Kyiv dismissed them as unacceptable and at the time questioned the point of further negotiations if Moscow was not willing to make concessions. The Kremlin said earlier this month it was ready to continue talks with Ukraine after US President Donald Trump gave Russia 50 days to strike a peace deal or face sanctions. Trump also pledged to supply Kyiv with new military aid, sponsored by Nato allies, as its cities suffer ever-increasing Russian aerial attacks. Russian strikes on Ukraine claimed another three lives Saturday. – Reuters GENERAL VILLAMI PLAYAS: At least nine people were shot dead on Saturday while playing pool in a tourist city in southwestern Ecuador. A group of armed men opened fire on several people at a bar in a working-class neighbourhood of General Villamil Playas, a coastal city in the southern Guayas province and destination for local tourists. The Ecuadorian prosecutor’s office said on X that “armed individuals entered the establishment and shot at those present”. Images on social media showed at least nine bloodied bodies lying on the floor around several pool tables. Local media reports said the attackers were armed with automatic rifles. At the bar where the massacre occurred, relatives held two coffins on Saturday night. Police colonel Jhanon Varela told media that two people were injured in the attack. Authorities have only been able to identify one body at the scene. “Unfortunately, when the police arrived, many of the bodies had been removed from the scene by residents and NINE SHOT DEAD AT POOL BAR IN ECUADOR family members,”Varela said. – AFP RUSSIA QUAKE TRIGGERS TSUNAMI WARNING MOSCOW: A magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck near the coast of the Kamchatka region in the far east of Russia yesterday, earthquake monitoring agencies said, with Russian emergency services watching for possible tsunami waves in the region. The earthquake struck off the east coast of Kamchatka at a depth of 10km, shortly after a previous quake, according to the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) data. The European Mediterranean Seismological Centre showed the earthquake to be of 7.4 magnitude. GFZ also updated the quake to a 7.4 magnitude after first reporting it at 6.7 magnitude. TASS news agency reported that waves of up to 60cm could reach the sparsely populated Aleutsky District on the Commander Islands. – Reuters

supporting settler attacks such as the one on Ein Samiyah. The damage to Ein Samiyah’s water facilities was not an isolated incident. In recent months, settlers in the nearby Jordan Valley took control of the Al-Auja spring by diverting its water from upstream, said Farhan Ghawanmeh, a representative of the Ras Ein Al Auja community. He said two other springs in the area had also recently been taken over. In Dura al-Qaraa, another West Bank village that uses the Ein Samiyah spring as a back-up water source, residents are also concerned about increasingly long droughts and the way Israel regulates their water rights. “For years now, no one has been planting because the water levels have decreased,” said Rafeaa Qasim, a member of the village council, citing lower rainfall causing the land to be “basically abandoned”. Qasim said although water shortage in the village have existed for 30 years, residents’ hands are tied in the face of this challenge. “We have no options, digging a well is not allowed,” despite the presence of local water springs, he said, pointing to a well project that the UN and World Bank rejected due to Israeli law prohibiting drilling in the area. The lands chosen for drilling sit in the West Bank’s Area C, which covers more than 60% of the territory and is under full Israeli control. – AFP

ground,” Olayan said, adding that workers immediately fixed the damage to resume water supply. Just two days after the latest attack, Israeli settlers, some of them armed, splashed in pools just below the spring, while Olayan monitored water pressure and cameras from a distance. His software showed normal pressure in the pipes pulling water from the wells and the large pipe carrying water up the hill to his village of Kafr Malik. But he said maintenance teams dared not venture down to the pumping station out of fear for their safety. Since the start of the war in Gaza, deadly settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank have become commonplace. Last week, settlers beat a 20-year-old dual US citizen to death in the nearby village of Sinjil, prompting US ambassador Mike Huckabee to urge Israel to “aggressively investigate” the killing. Issa Qassis, chairman on the board of the Jerusalem Water Undertaking, which manages the Ein Samiyah spring, said he viewed the attacks as a tool for Israeli land grabs and annexation. “When you restrict water supply in certain areas, people simply move where water is available,” he told a news conference. “So in a plan to move people to other lands, water is the best and fastest way.” Qassis accused Israel’s government of

KAFR MALIK: From his monitoring station on a remote hill in the occupied West Bank, water operator Subhil Olayan keeps watch over a lifeline for Palestinians, the Ein Samiyah spring. So when Israeli settlers recently attacked the system of wells, pumps and pipelines he oversees, he knew the stakes. “There is no life without water, of course,” he said, following the attack which temporarily cut off the water supply to nearby villages. The spring, which feeds the pumping station, is the main or backup water source for some 110,000 people, according to the Palestinian company that manages it – making it one of the most vital in the West Bank, where water is in chronic short supply. The attack is one of several recent incidents in which settlers have been accused of damaging, diverting or seizing control of Palestinian water sources. “The settlers came and the first thing they did was break the pipeline. And when the pipeline is broken, we automatically have to stop pumping” water to nearby villages, some of which exclusively rely on the Ein Samiyah spring. “The water just goes into the dirt, into the o Settler attacks threaten West Bank communities

BR I E F S

Palestinians gather at a food distribution point in the Nuseirat refugee camp on Saturday. – AFPPIC

Enough food for three months, but access blocked GENEVA: The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) on Saturday called for the immediate lifting of restrictions preventing life-saving aid from reaching Gaza, saying it has food stockpiled to support the territory’s entire population for more than three months. medical supplies were scheduled to enter the Gaza Strip yesterday, the Health Ministry in Gaza said, as hospitals in the enclave struggle to cope with overwhelming casualties and dwindling resources. According to WHO, of the 36 hospitals in Gaza, only 18 are partially functioning, and more than 10,000 people in the enclave need medical evacuation.

Israel has killed nearly 59,000 Palestinians so far, most of them women and children. It imposed a full humanitarian blockade of Gaza on March 2, cutting off food, medical supplies and other aid to the more than two million Palestinians in the territory. After growing international pressure, it began allowing a trickle of aid in late May. The UN agencies have been bypassed, and the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is operating distribution sites, leading to hundreds of deaths since then. Israeli fire on Saturday killed 39 people and wounded more than 100 near two aid centres. – Bernama

The trucks, coordinated through the World Health Organisation (WHO), contain “no food items but include urgently needed materials to continue life-saving care for the wounded and sick across Gaza’s battered healthcare system”, the ministry said in a statement. Authorities urged all concerned parties to “ensure the convoy’s protection and enable its safe and uninterrupted arrival at hospitals”. The health sector in Gaza is on the verge of total collapse, with hospitals overwhelmed and operating under extreme shortages due to Israel’s months-long blockade and bombardment.

“UNRWA has enough food for the entire population of Gaza for over three months stockpiled in warehouses, including this one in Al Arish, Egypt, awaiting entry,”the agency said in a post on X. Despite having both supplies and logistical systems in place, the agency said access remains blocked. It concluded with a direct appeal: “Open the gates, lift the siege, allow UNRWA to do its work and help people in need, among them one million children.” Three trucks carrying vital medicines and