25/07/2025

FRIDAY | JULY 25, 2025

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Ukraine, Russia launch drone strikes after peace talks

TURKISH FIREFIGHTERS DIE IN FOREST BLAZE ANKARA: Ten firefighters died and 14 were injured while trying to extinguish a forest fire in Turkiye’s central province of Eskisehir on Wednesday, reported Xinhua. Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya added that the 14 injured are in hospital for treatment. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed sorrow over the loss and promised compensation for their families. Firefighting teams were attempting to extinguish flames in the western and central provinces of Sakarya, Antalya, Eskisehir, Bilecik and Denizli, the semi-official Anadolu Agency reported. Agriculture and Forestry Minister Ibrahim Yumakli warned of the growing threat of these fires as temperatures soar across the country. – Bernama-Xinhua CALL TO RESUME UN-LED AID IN GAZA OTTAWA: The Canadian government said on Wednesday Israeli military operations against civilians and aid workers in Gaza are unacceptable, and called for the immediate resumption of United Nations (UN)-led aid distribution in the war-torn enclave. “Israeli military operations against WHO staff and facilities, World Food Programme aid convoys and the ongoing killing of Palestinians seeking urgently needed food and water are unacceptable,“ its Foreign Ministry said. “Hunger in Gaza has reached catastrophic levels. Canada calls for the immediate resumption at scale of UN-led aid.” – Reuters Iran accused of firing cluster munitions PARIS: Amnesty International said yesterday Iran fired widely banned cluster munitions at Israel in June during a war between the countries, in attacks that endangered civilians. “Last month, the Iranian forces fired ballistic missiles whose warheads contained submunitions into populated residential areas of Israel,“ the human rights group said, citing new research. The organisation said it analysed photos and videos showing cluster munitions that, according to media reports, struck inside the Gush Dan metropolitan area around Tel Aviv on June 19. The southern city of Beersheba on June 20 and Rishon LeZion to the south of Tel Aviv on June 22 were also “struck with ordnance that left multiple impact craters consistent with the submunitions seen in Gush Dan”, it said. “By using such weapons in or near populated residential areas, Iranian forces endangered civilian lives,“ said its senior director Erika Guevara Rosas. “Iranian forces’ deliberate use of such inherently indiscriminate weapons is a blatant violation of international humanitarian law.” Cluster munitions explode in mid-air and scatter bomblets. Some of them do not explode on impact and could cause casualties over time. Amnesty said: “Launching indiscriminate attacks that kill or injure civilians constitutes a war crime”. – AFP

reached in Istanbul, Russia and Ukraine had held another round of prisoner-of-war exchanges, Anadolu Ajansi reported. “A group of Russian servicemen” was returned from Ukraine, said its Defence Ministry, without specifying the number. “On July 23, in accordance with Russian-Ukrainian agreements reached on June 2 in Istanbul, a group of Russian servicemen was returned from a territory controlled by the Kyiv regime. In exchange, a group of Ukrainian Armed Forces prisoners was transferred.” It added that the returned Russian military personnel are in the territory of neighbouring Belarus, where they are receiving necessary psychological and medical assistance. “All Russian servicemen will be transported to Russia for treatment and rehabilitation at medical facilities of the ministry.” In exchange, a group of Ukrainian prisoners of war was

returned to Kyiv, it said. Speaking at a news conference in Istanbul following the third round of the countries’ peace talks, Russian delegation head Vladimir Medinsky said some 250 people from each side were exchanged. “On the Ukrainian-Belarusian border, the final batches of prisoners of war, amounting to about 250 persons per side, are being exchanged. The second unprecedented large-scale exchange of roughly 1,200 individuals has been completed.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed the exchange, noting that more than 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been returned home as a result of the humanitarian moves. According to him, some of the soldiers were in Russian captivity for three years. He said the soldiers would receive medical care as well as psychological rehabilitation. – Reuters Hamas confirms response to truce deal GAZA: Hamas confirmed yesterday that it has responded to an Israeli proposal for a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza, after more than two weeks of indirect talks in Qatar have failed to yield a truce. “Hamas has just submitted its response and that of the Palestinian factions to the ceasefire proposal to the mediators.“ The response included proposed amendments to clauses on the entry of aid, maps of areas from which the Israeli army should withdraw, and guarantees on securing a permanent end to the war, according to a Palestinian source familiar with ongoing talks in Doha. Negotiators from both sides have been holding indirect talks in Doha with mediators to reach an agreement on a truce deal that would see the release of Israeli hostages. But the talks have dragged on for more than two weeks without a breakthrough, with each side blaming the other for refusing to budge on their key demands. For Israel, dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities is non-negotiable. Hamas demands firm guarantees on a lasting truce, a full withdrawal of Israeli troops and the free flow of aid into Gaza. Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer on Wednesday accused Hamas of obstructing talks. “Israel has agreed to the Qatari proposal and the updated (US special envoy Steve) Witkoff proposal. It is Hamas that is refusing,“ Mencer told reporters, adding that Israel’s negotiating team is still in Doha and talks are ongoing. The United States said Witkoff would head to Europe this week for talks on a possible ceasefire and an aid corridor. – AFP

o Both sides suffer one casualty and injuries

MOSCOW: Ukraine and Russia launched drone strikes against each other yesterday, officials from both sides said, within hours of the conclusion of the latest round of direct talks aimed at finding a solution after nearly three and half years of war. Ukrainian drones hit southern Russian Black Sea areas, killing one person, injuring another and hitting an oil storage depot. Russian forces staged the latest in a series of mass attacks on Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa, triggering several fires in residential and other buildings. Emergency officials in Russia’s Krasnodar region on the Black Sea said debris from a falling drone struck and killed a woman in Adler district near the resort city of Sochi. A second woman was treated in hospital for serious injuries.

The administrative head of the Sirius federal district, south of Sochi, said a drone hit an oil base but gave no further details. Russia’s aviation authority Rosaviatsia said operations were suspended at Sochi airport for about four hours. In Odesa, Regional Governor Oleh Kiper said two floors of a multi-storey apartment building was set ablaze while other fires broke out on the roof of a two-storey residence, in kiosks and at a petrol station. He said the city’s historic centre, a Unesco World Heritage Site, was also hit and details on casualties were being compiled. Reuters could not independently confirm accounts from either side. These latest strikes come after Russia announced on Wednesday that, under agreements

BR I E F S

Palestinians clearing the site of an Israeli strike on the Bureij refugee camp in Gaza. – AFPPIC

Brazil to join genocide case against Israel

BRASILIA: Brazil on Wednesday announced its intention to join a South African-led case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in which Israel stands accused of committing genocide in Gaza. The Foreign Ministry in Brasilia said the country is “in the final phase of presenting a formal intervention” in the case already formally joined by states such as Colombia, Libya and Mexico, and supported by many others. In December 2023, South Africa brought a case to the United Nations’s highest court in The Hague, alleging that Israel’s Gaza offensive breaches the UN

Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide 1948. Israel denies the accusation. In rulings in January, March and May 2024, the ICJ told Israel to do everything possible to “prevent” acts of genocide during its military operations in Gaza, including by providing urgently needed humanitarian aid to prevent famine. A statement from Brazil’s Foreign Ministry denounced what it described as “indiscriminate violence” against civilians and the “blatant use of hunger as a weapon of war”. “The international community

cannot remain inert in the face of ongoing atrocities.“ Israel hit back on Wednesday at accusations that it was behind chronic food shortages in Gaza. More than 100 aid and human rights groups have warned that “mass starvation” was spreading in the war-ravaged territory. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has repeatedly denounced an Israeli “genocide” in Gaza. The UN Genocide Convention defines the term as any of five “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”. – AFP