Putin attends Easter service led by head of Russia’s Orthodox Church
(Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin and scores of other Moscow worshippers attended an Easter service on Sunday, led by the head of Russia’s Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, a staunch supporter of the Russian leader and his war in Ukraine.
Putin, in a dark suit, white shirt and a dark red tie, stood in the capital’s main church, the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, together with Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, each holding a lit red candle, video of the service showed.
The Russian leader crossed himself several times during the traditionally sung service that begun late on Saturday and lasted into the early Sunday hours. When Kirill announced “Christ is risen”, Putin joined the other believers with the reply “He is risen indeed”. He otherwise did not speak.
Kirill has strongly backed the war in Ukraine, now in its third year. Tens of thousands have been killed and millions driven from their homes since Putin ordered the invasion of Russia’s smaller neighbour in February 2022.
At the service the patriarch prayed for the protection of the “sacred borders” of Russia, expressing hope that God would stop the “internecine strife” between Russia and Ukraine, the TASS state news agency reported.
Orthodox Christians, including the Russian Orthodox Church, follow the Julian rather than the Gregorian calendar and celebrate Easter this weekend, while most Western churches observed the major holiday on March 31.
Putin, for whom the Orthodox faith is central to his worldview, always attends services during major church holidays. At Christmas, he usually attends more intimate services in churches outside Moscow.
On Easter, he traditionally goes to the gold-domed Christ the Saviour Cathedral, which was rebuilt in post-Soviet times and has become a symbol of the state’s symbiotic relationship with the Orthodox Church.
The church under Kirill has been clamping down on internal dissent, with one priest facing expulsion for refusing to pray to God to guide Russia to victory over Ukraine and another suspended for presiding over memorial services at the grave of Alexei Navalny, the opposition leader who died in an Arctic prison in February.
France’s Macron set to press visiting Xi on trade, Ukraine
By John Irish and Ingrid Melander
PARIS (Reuters) – China’s President Xi Jinping heads to Paris on Sunday for a rare visit, with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron set to press him to reduce trade imbalances and try to convince him to use his influence on Russia over the war in Ukraine.
Neither aim will be easily fulfilled during Xi’s two-day stay in France, where he arrives at a time of growing trade tensions between Europe and China.
France is backing a European Union probe into Chinese electric vehicle exports and in January Beijing opened an investigation into imports of brandy – which is mostly made in France – a move widely seen as tit-for-tat retaliation amid a growing set of EU probes.
“We must continue to push Chinese authorities to give us more guarantees on trade issues,” an Elysee advisor said ahead of Xi’s visit, his first trip to Europe in five years.
Xi was due to arrive at around 4 p.m. (1400 GMT). His official meetings will include joint talks with Macron and European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen.
Divisions within European Union’s 27 members – and in particular between France and Germany – undermine their ability to influence China. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will not join Macron and Xi in Paris due to prior commitments, sources said.
“Leverage flies out the window if European leaders are sending different messages to Xi,” said Noah Barkin, a senior adviser at the Rhodium Group and close follower of EU-China relations.
France will also seek to make progress on opening the Chinese market to its agricultural exports and resolve issues around the French cosmetic industry’s concerns about intellectual property rights, officials said.
UKRAINE TALKS
France has been keen to nudge China into pressuring Moscow to halt operations in Ukraine, with little progress so far, apart from Xi’s decision to call Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for the first time shortly after Macron visited Beijing last year.
“China being one of Russia’s main partners, our objective is to use the leverages it has on Moscow to change Russia’s calculations and help contribute to solving the conflict,” the same Elysee adviser said.
A French diplomatic source said: “If the Chinese seek to deepen the relationship with European partners, it is really important that they hear our point of view and start taking it seriously.”
On Tuesday, Macron will take Xi to the Pyrenees, mountains he holds especially dear as his maternal grandmother’s birthplace.
The gesture is meant as an echo of Xi’s decision to take Macron to share a tea ceremony in the former residence of Xi’s father in the city of Guangzhou.
“Macron is always in charm mode, he is trying to get foreign leaders on side by establishing a personal rapport with them,” Barkin said.
“But I hope that he isn’t under any illusions that bringing Xi to a place that is important to him from his childhood is going to bring Xi to tears and lead to compromises from Beijing.”
Xi will leave France on Tuesday afternoon to head to Russia-friendly Serbia and Hungary.
Buffett says Berkshire in good hands, lauds Apple despite lowering stake
By Jonathan Stempel and Koh Gui Qing
OMAHA, Nebraska (Reuters) -Warren Buffett assured Berkshire Hathaway shareholders on Saturday that the executives expected to succeed him were ready for the job, and he heaped praise on Apple although Berkshire trimmed its position in the iPhone maker.
Speaking at Berkshire’s annual meeting, the legendary investor paid tribute to his late business partner Charlie Munger and said he expected the conglomerate’s cash pile, now a record $189 billion, to keep growing.
The meeting was the 60th for Buffett, who since 1965 transformed Berkshire from a failing textile company into an $862 billion colossus owning the BNSF railroad, Geico car insurance, Dairy Queen and dozens of other businesses.
Buffett, 93, told shareholders that Vice Chairmen Greg Abel and Ajit Jain have proven themselves the right people to lead Berkshire after he departs.
Abel, who was designated Buffett’s successor as chief executive in 2021, and Jain have directly overseen Berkshire’s operating subsidiaries since 2018.
“When you’ve got somebody like Greg and Ajit, why settle for me?” Buffett said. “It has worked out extremely well.”
“I don’t know quite how (Abel) does it, but we’ve got the right person, I can tell you that,” he added.
Buffett said he would want Abel, 61, upon becoming chief executive, to have final say on capital allocation decisions regarding Berkshire’s portfolio of public stocks.
Investors had long considered Todd Combs and Ted Weschler, who manage part of Berkshire’s $335.9 billion equity portfolio, leading candidates to manage more or all of it.
The meeting, part of a weekend Buffett calls “Woodstock for Capitalists,” was the first since Munger died in November at age 99. Buffett described Munger, his longtime his friend and foil, as the “architect of today’s Berkshire.”
Buffett gave no sign he plans to step aside, telling shareholders, “I feel fine,” while joking he shouldn’t take on four-year employment contracts.
DECREASING APPLE STAKE, GROWING CASH
Before the meeting, Berkshire announced first-quarter results, including a 39% jump in operating profit to a record $11.2 billion.
In a surprise, Berkshire reported it had sold about 13% of its Apple shares, reducing the value of its stake to $135.4 billion from $174.3 billion. Apple’s stock price fell 11% in the quarter.
The sale was the main reason Berkshire’s cash hoard soared. Buffett said cash might grow to $200 billion this quarter, reflecting the risks he sees from high stock market valuations and geopolitical conflicts.
Despite reducing the Apple stake, Buffett praised the company, saying it was “an even better business” than two of Berkshire’s oldest and largest investments, American Express and Coca-Cola.
The iPhone was “one of the greatest products, and it may be the greatest product, of all time,” Buffett said with Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook in the audience.
Berkshire invested in Apple in 2016, and the normally tech-phobic Buffett came to view it as a consumer goods company with strong pricing power and devoted customers.
While some investors have expressed concern that Apple comprised too much of Berkshire’s equity portfolio, Buffett said Apple would remain his company’s biggest stock investment, barring unforeseen events.
Abel, meanwhile, pledged to fight lawsuits seeking tens of billions of dollars from Berkshire’s PacifiCorp utility unit over Oregon wildfires in 2020. He described it as a substantial challenge, and said many claims were unfounded.
Shareholders reelected all 14 Berkshire directors, and rejected six shareholder proposals, all of which Buffett opposed.
At the start of the meeting, shareholders watched a video tribute to Munger, including scenes of Omaha from 1924 when he was born and clips of Buffett and Munger through the years.
Munger had been a fixture on stage with Buffett at the meetings, known for laconic and acerbic comebacks to Buffett’s musings about Berkshire, the economy, Wall Street and life.
Berkshire’s stock is up 23% over the last year. While that lags the Standard & Poor’s 500’s 25% gain, Berkshire has risen 218% over the last decade versus the S&P’s 172% gain.
LINES FORMED HOURS BEFORE MEETING
Before the meeting, thousands lined up in raw, rainy weather to enter the arena, sometimes several hours in advance. When the doors opened at 7 a.m., many ran for the best seats.
The weekend also featured an exhibit hall for shareholders to buy goodies such as Berkshire T-shirts and Squishmallows toys at exhibits by Berkshire-owned companies.
Serena Lam, 32, an investment manager who traveled with 40 others from Hong Kong, said she arrived at 2:30 a.m.
“I want to see Warren Buffett,” she said. “I want to get his perspective about Japanese stocks. I flew over 25 hours for this.”
As usual, Buffett interspersed comments on Berkshire’s portfolio with musings about wealth and life, including his own.
“I enjoy managing money for the people who trust me. I like the feeling of being trusted,” he said. “If I’m lucky, I can go on for six or seven years, or it might end tomorrow.”
(Reporting by Gui Qing Koh and Jonathan Stempel in Omaha; additional reporting by Scott Morgan in Omaha and Davide Barbuscia in New York; editing by Ira Iosebashvili, Megan Davies, Cynthia Osterman, Jason Neely and Diane Craft)
Heavy rains in southern Brazil kill nearly 60, over 70 still missing
SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Heavy rains in Brazil’s southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul this week killed at least 55 people, local authorities said on Saturday evening, while dozens remain unaccounted for.
Rio Grande do Sul’s civil defense authority said 74 people were still missing and more than 69,000 had been displaced as storms in the last few days have affected nearly two thirds of the 497 cities in the state, which borders Uruguay and Argentina.
The local authority said it is now investigating whether another seven deaths were related to the storms, after earlier in the day it had reported a total of more than 55 deaths.
Floods destroyed roads and bridges in several regions of the state. The storm also triggered landslides and the partial collapse of a dam at a small hydroelectric power plant. A second dam in the city of Bento Goncalves is also at risk of collapsing, authorities said.
In Porto Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul, the Guaiba lake broke its banks, flooding streets.
Porto Alegre’s international airport has suspended all flights for an indefinite period.
State Governor Eduardo Leite told reporters on Saturday evening that Rio Grande do Sul would need a “Marshall Plan” to recover from the storms and its consequences, referring to a plan for Europe’s economic recovery after World War Two.
Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who had visited Rio Grande do Sul on Thursday, will travel back to the state on Sunday to follow the rescue efforts, his chief of communication Paulo Pimenta said on Saturday.
Lula said on X that his government is in constant contact with state and cities’ authorities to support the region with whatever they need.
Rains are expected in the northern and northeastern regions of the state until Sunday, but the volume of precipitation has been declining, and should be well below the peak seen earlier in the week, according to the state meteorology authority.
Still, “rivers water levels should stay high for some days”, Leite said earlier on Saturday.
Rio Grande do Sul is at a geographical meeting point between tropical and polar atmospheres, which has created a weather pattern with periods of intense rains and others of drought.
Local scientists believe the pattern has been intensifying due to climate change.
(Reporting by Andre Romani and Eduardo Simoes; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
Israeli forces kill Hamas gunmen in overnight raid near West Bank’s Tulkarm
By Ali Sawafta
TULKARM, West Bank (Reuters) -Israeli forces killed five Palestinians, including four fighters from the militant group Hamas, in an overnight raid near the city of Tulkarm in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian and Israeli officials said on Saturday.
Hamas confirmed that four of the men killed during the raid in Deir al-Ghusun village were from its al-Qassam armed wing. The Palestinian health ministry said their bodies had been taken by the Israeli military.
There was no information about the fifth man, whose body was too disfigured for immediate identification, the Palestinian health ministry in the West Bank said.
The Israeli military confirmed the deaths and said an Israeli officer from a special police unit was wounded in the operation it said targeted a Hamas cell responsible for numerous shooting and car bombing attacks.
It said the group was responsible for killing a reservist soldier and wounding a police officer in an attack last November and also carried out a car bombing attack in April which wounded two Israelis including a soldier.
Saturday’s operation near the flashpoint city of Tulkarm was the latest in a series of clashes in the West Bank between Israeli forces and Palestinians which had escalated for more than two years but has picked up in intensity since the Hamas-led attack on Israel last October.
Hamas, the Islamist group which Israel has been fighting in Gaza, had also been building its fighting network in the West Bank before the start of the war.
During the raid, the Israeli army levelled a two-storey house with a bulldozer in an operation that lasted more than 12 hours.
According to Palestinian Health Ministry records, nearly 500 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or Jewish settlers in the West Bank or East Jerusalem since Oct. 7. Many have been armed fighters but stone-throwing youths and uninvolved civilians have also been killed.
Palestinians want the West Bank and Gaza, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war, as the core of an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
U.S.-backed talks to reach an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians have been stalled for the past decade but the Gaza war has raised pressure for a revival of efforts to reach a two-state solution.
More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s seven-month-old assault on the Gaza Strip, say health officials in the Hamas-ruled enclave. The war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and abducting 252 others, of whom more than 130 are believed to remain in captivity in Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
(Additional reporting by Maytaal AngelEditing by Gareth Jones, Ros Russell and Nick Zieminski)
Soccer-Real Madrid secure LaLiga title after Girona thrash Barcelona 4-2
(Reuters) -Real Madrid claimed a record-extending 36th LaLiga title on Saturday after Girona fought-back to beat Barcelona 4-2, a result that left Carlo Ancelotti’s side with an unassailable lead in the standings.
Real Madrid, who have lost only once in the league this season, beat lowly Cadiz earlier on Saturday. They hold a 13-point advantage over second-placed Girona while Barcelona dropped to third with four matches remaining.
Real now can turn their attention to a LaLiga-Champions League double as they get ready to host Bayern Munich in the semi-final return leg on Wednesday after snatching a 2-2 draw in Germany last week.
It was an afternoon of celebration for Girona too as the win secured them a spot in Europe for the first time after they qualified for next season’s Champions League.
A brace from substitute Portu helped surprise package Girona to humble their Catalan rivals for the second time this season. Girona had also beaten Barca away in December by the same score.
On Saturday Andreas Christiansen gave Barca the lead in the third minute before Girona hit back a minute later with LaLiga top-scorer Artem Dovbyk heading in the equaliser.
Robert Lewandowski put the visitors back in front from the penalty spot after Lamine Yamal was fouled inside the box just before the break and a wasteful Barca missed several chances to extend their lead early in the second half.
However, in the 65th minute, in his first action after coming off the bench, Portu netted the equaliser and Miguel Gutierrez scored from a rebound two minutes later to give Girona the lead. A stunning volley from Portu in the 74th minute secured the win.
“It’s incredible to look at your shirt and experience this. There is nothing more beautiful than living this,” an emotional Portu told DAZN with tears rolling down his face.
“I had a thorn in my side with this club. A few years ago, I experienced the other side, which was relegation and I felt very responsible because I played a lot. Today I made amends with the fans and I can smile again.”
If Barcelona end up finishing outside the top two, it will be a further blow to the club which is facing mounting financial problems related to their massive wage bill, a 1.2 billion euro debt and a 1.6 billion euro Camp Nou stadium renovation project.
The champions and runners-up of the Copa del Rey and LaLiga contest the lucrative Spanish Super Cup in Saudi Arabia, with the winner bagging a potential 6.6 million euros.
With four matches remaining, Barca now rely on Girona slipping up if they are to have any chance of contesting the Super Cup.
“I am sad, disappointed. We have experienced both sides of the coin. Ineffectiveness have killed us once and again,” Barca manager Xavi Hernandez, who last week announced he will stay in charge for another season, told a press conference.
“I’m the first to be angry with this situation, I understand the fans. Before being a coach, I was a fan. I understand our people’s frustration.”
(Reporting by Fernando Kallas, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
Labour victories in key UK mayoral polls deal fresh blow to Sunak
By Sachin Ravikumar
LONDON (Reuters) -Britain’s Labour Party won mayoral polls in London and central England on Saturday, in crushing defeats for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s unpopular Conservatives ahead of a national election due later this year.
While Labour politician Sadiq Khan’s re-election as London mayor was widely expected, Labour also snatched a surprise, narrow victory in the central West Midlands region that is home to Britain’s second-largest city of Birmingham.
The wins are Labour’s latest in local elections to councils and mayoralties on Thursday and could fuel fresh calls for Sunak to step down.
Opinion polls predicted that Labour will win the next national election, propelling Keir Starmer to power and ending 14 years of Conservative government in Britain. Sunak has said he intends to call a vote in the second half of the year.
Conservative West Midlands Mayor Andy Street lost to his Labour opponent Richard Parker. Street’s 37.5% of the vote was eclipsed by 37.8% for Parker, a razor-thin margin translating to 1,508 votes.
Street, who has served as mayor since 2017, ran a campaign emphasising his personal record on investment while downplaying his Conservative affiliation. He publicly disputed Sunak’s decision to scrap the high-speed HS2 rail link from Birmingham to Manchester last year.
Parker had sought to link him to the unpopular national government. “I believe a Labour mayor working with a Labour government will help get Britain’s future back,” Parker said in a speech following the result.
Starmer said the result was beyond Labour’s expectations. “People across the country have had enough of Conservative chaos and decline and voted for change with Labour,” he said in a statement.
Sunak had been counting on getting an electoral boost from recent announcements on defence spending and the progress of his divisive plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda.
Khan’s victory in London, his third in a row, came despite some public anger over knife crime and the Ultra Low Emission Zone that charges drivers of older, more polluting vehicles a daily fee.
“It’s been a difficult few months, we faced a campaign of non-stop negativity,” Khan said in a speech after the results showed he had won 43.8% of the vote against 33% for the Conservatives’ candidate, Susan Hall.
“For the last eight years, London has been swimming against the tide of a Tory (Conservative) government and now with a Labour Party that’s ready to govern again under Keir Starmer, it’s time for Rishi Sunak to give the public a choice.”
Khan, 53, became the first Muslim mayor of the British capital in 2016.
Hall had made scrapping ULEZ a centrepiece of her campaign but the 69-year-old Donald Trump fan made a series of gaffes and faced accusations of racism after being found to have engaged with far-right content online.
In one bright spot for Conservatives, Ben Houchen won re-election as mayor of Tees Valley in northern England on Friday.
(Reporting by Sachin Ravikumar; Editing by Gareth Jones and Cynthia Osterman)
Thousands of Israelis protest to demand hostage return
TEL AVIV (Reuters) – Thousands of Israelis protested on Saturday, demanding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accept a ceasefire agreement with the Islamist movement Hamas that would see the remaining Israeli hostages brought home from Gaza.
At a rally in Tel Aviv that took place as Hamas officials were meeting Egyptian and Qatari mediators in Cairo, relatives and supporters of the more than 130 hostages still in captivity said anything possible had to be done to bring them home.
“I’m here today to support a deal now, yesterday,” said Natalie Eldor. “We need to bring them back. We need to bring all the hostages back, the live ones, the dead ones. We got to bring them back. We got to switch this government. This has got to end.”
The protests, ahead of the Yom HaShoah Holocaust Remembrance Day, which falls this year on May 6, came as the war in Gaza nears the end of its seventh month amid growing international pressure to stop the fighting.
“The only thing that keeps us going is the hope that Bar is alive and surviving,” said Ora Rubinstein, the aunt of Bar Kupershtein, who was seized along with more than 250 others when Hamas-led gunmen rampaged through Israeli communities near Gaza on Oct. 7.
Many of those taken hostage are believed to be dead but families want all of those taken to be brought back.
“Everyone must be returned. We will not abandon them as the Jews were abandoned during the Holocaust,” said Hanna Cohen, an aunt of 27-year-old Inbar Haiman, who was initially believed to have been taken hostage on Oct. 7 but was subsequently found to have been killed. Her body is still believed to be being held by Hamas in Gaza.
Some 1,200 Israelis and foreigners were killed on Oct. 7, in the deadliest day in Israel’s history, according to Israeli tallies.
In response, Israel launched a devastating assault on the Gaza Strip, destroying large swathes of the enclave and killing more than 34,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities.
Netanyahu’s government has insisted that it will not stop the war until Hamas is destroyed and all the hostages are returned but intensive efforts are underway to secure a halt to the fighting that might lead to a full ceasefire.
However Netanyahu faces pressure from nationalist religious parties in his coalition to refuse a deal with Hamas and go ahead with the long promised offensive against the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
Dead bodies in Mexico most probably are missing U.S., Australian surfers
By Lizbeth Diaz
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -The three dead bodies found in Mexico’s Baja California state are highly likely to be the American and two Australian tourists who went missing last week, a senior official from the region said on Saturday.
Mexican authorities are conducting forensic tests after finding the bodies on Friday in a well following a days long search for Australian brothers Callum, 33, and Jake Robinson, 30, as well as American Carter Rhoad, 30.
The trio were on vacation surfing near the popular tourist town of Ensenada, about 90 minutes south of the U.S.-Mexico border on the Pacific coast.
“All three bodies meet the characteristics to assume with a high degree of probability that they are the American Carter Rhoad as well as the Robinson brothers from Australia,” said Baja California’s state Attorney General Maria Elena Andrade.
Andrade said that while the three bodies were found in an advanced state of decomposition at the bottom of a well more than 15 meters (50 ft) deep, “some physical descriptions give us that high probability”.
Baja California is one of Mexico’s most violent states, although the Ensenada area is considered safer. The U.S. State Department advises Americans to reconsider travel to the state due to crime and kidnapping.
The three surfers were last seen on April 27 and reported missing a couple of days later, when authorities launched a multi-day search with the help from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Three people have so far been arrested, officials say. A burnt-out vehicle believed to have been used by the three surfers was also found in the area.
Mexican authorities’ preliminary hypothesis is that the arrested individuals attempted to carjack the foreigners and when the surfers resisted they were shot and their bodies dumped in a well, Andrade said.
A fourth male body was discovered in the well, though that corpse had been there for longer and is not believed to be linked to this case, Andrade added.
(Reporting by Lizbeth Diaz; Writing by Drazen Jorgic; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Diane Craft)
Hamas negotiators begin Gaza truce talks; CIA chief also present in Cairo
By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Ahmed Mohamed Hassan
CAIRO (Reuters) – Hamas negotiators began intensified talks on Saturday on a possible Gaza truce that would see the return to Israel of some hostages, a Hamas official told Reuters, with the CIA director present in Cairo.
The Hamas delegation arrived from the Palestinian Islamist movement’s political office in Qatar, which, along with Egypt, has tried to mediate a follow-up to a brief November ceasefire amid international dismay over the soaring death toll in Gaza and the plight of its 2.3 million inhabitants.
Taher Al-Nono, a Hamas official and advisor to Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh, said meetings with Egyptian and Qatari mediators had begun and Hamas was addressing their proposals “with full seriousness and responsibility”.
However, he reiterated a demand that any deal should include an Israeli pullout from Gaza and an end to the war, conditions that Israel has previously rejected.
“Any agreement to be reached must include our national demands; the complete and permanent ending of the aggression, the full and complete withdrawal of the occupation from Gaza Strip, the return of the displaced to their homes without restriction and a real prisoner swap deal, in addition to the reconstruction and ending the blockade,” Nono told Reuters.
An Israeli official signalled Israel’s core position was unchanged, saying it would “under no circumstances” agree to end the war in a deal to free hostages.
The war began after Hamas stunned Israel with a cross-border raid on Oct. 7 in which 1,200 people were killed and 252 hostages taken, according to Israeli tallies.
More than 34,600 Palestinians have been killed – 32 of them in the most recent 24-hour period – and more than 77,000 have been wounded in Israel’s assault, according to Gaza’s health ministry. The bombardment has devastated much of the enclave.
While the meetings in Cairo were under way, Israeli forces said they had killed Aiman Zaarab, who they said had been a leader of Islamic Jihad forces in southern Gaza and taken part in the Oct. 7 attack.
HOPE GROWS FOR TRUCE DEAL
Before the talks began there had been some optimism.
“Things look better this time but whether an agreement is on hand would depend on whether Israel has offered what it takes for that to happen,” a Palestinian official with knowledge of the mediation efforts, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.
Washington – which, like other Western powers and Israel, brands Hamas a terrorist group – has urged it to enter a deal.
Progress has stumbled, however, over Hamas’ long-standing demand for a commitment to end the offensive. Israel insists that after any truce it would resume operations designed to disarm and dismantle the faction.
Hamas said on Friday it would come to Cairo in a “positive spirit” after studying the latest proposal, little of which has been made public.
Israel has given a preliminary nod to terms that one source said included the return of between 20 and 33 hostages in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and a truce of several weeks.
That would leave around 100 hostages in Gaza, some of whom Israel says have died in captivity. The source, who asked not to be identified by name or nationality, told Reuters their return may require an additional deal.
“That could entail a de facto, if not formal, end to the war – unless Israel somehow recovers them through force or generates enough military pressure to make Hamas relent,” the source said.
Egyptian sources said CIA Director William Burns arrived in Cairo on Friday. He has been involved in previous truce talks and Washington has signalled there may be progress this time.
The CIA declined to comment on Burns’ itinerary.
Cairo made a new push to revive talks late last month, alarmed by the prospect of an Israeli assault against Hamas in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians have taken shelter near the border with Egypt.
Such an Israeli operation could derail fragile humanitarian operations in Gaza and endanger many more lives, according to U.N. officials. Israel says it will not be deterred from taking Rafah eventually, and is working on a plan to evacuate civilians.
Saturday’s Cairo talks come as Qatar reviews its role as mediator, according to an official familiar with Doha’s thinking. Qatar may cease hosting the Hamas political office, said the official, who did not know if, in such a scenario, the Palestinian group’s delegates might also be asked to leave.
