World
World Court orders Israel to halt Gaza famine; Hamas says ceasefire needed

The World Court on Thursday unanimously ordered Israel, accused by South Africa of genocide in Gaza, to take all necessary and effective action to ensure basic food supplies to the enclave’s Palestinian population and halt spreading famine, Reuters reported.
But Gaza’s Hamas rulers said a ceasefire was needed to halt the humanitarian crisis.
The order from the International Court of Justice came as Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters battled in close combat around Gaza’s Al Shifa Hospital, where the armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad said they attacked Israeli soldiers and tanks with rockets and mortar fire.
Judges at the court said the people in the coastal enclave face worsening conditions.
“The court observes that Palestinians in Gaza are no longer facing only a risk of famine (…) but that famine is setting in,” the judges said in their order.
The new measures were requested by South Africa as part of its case that accuses Israel of state-led genocide in Gaza, read the report.
Senior Hamas official Basem Naim said the ruling did not go far enough and Israel must be ordered to end its military offensive to halt the suffering.
“We welcome any new demands to end this humanitarian tragedy in Gaza and especially in the northern Gaza Strip, but we hoped the court ordered a ceasefire as an absolute solution to all the miseries our people in Gaza are living through,” Naim told Reuters.
The U.N. Security Council voted on Tuesday to demand an immediate ceasefire and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages. The United States abstained from, but did not veto, the vote.
There was no immediate comment from Israel’s Foreign Ministry on the World Court ruling. Israel has said it is making efforts to expand access for humanitarian groups to Gaza overland, through air drops and by ship.
Israeli leaders have said Hamas can end the war by surrendering, freeing all hostages it holds in Gaza and handing over for trial those involved in the Oct. 7 attack, Reuters reported.
The Israeli army said it continued to operate around the Al Shifa Hospital complex in Gaza City after storming it more than a week ago. Its forces had killed around 200 gunmen since the start of the operation “while preventing harm to civilians, patients, medical teams, and medical equipment”, it said.
In a televised statement, chief Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said troops operating at the hospital killed Raed Thabet, a Hamas quartermaster whom he described as one of the group’s 10 most senior members.
Gaza’s health ministry said wounded people and patients were being held inside an administration building in Al Shifa that was not equipped to provide them with healthcare. Five patients had died since the Israeli raid began due to shortages of food, water and medical care, the Hamas-run ministry said.
Ismail Al-Thawabta, the director of the Gaza Hamas-run government media office, said the Israeli army was carrying out “field killings and executions against hundreds of civilians”, when asked about the army statement.
“Everyone inside the Shifa complex are civilians, and there are no military personnel inside the compound,” he told Reuters.
Al Shifa, the Gaza Strip’s biggest hospital before the war, had been one of the few healthcare facilities even partially operational in north Gaza before the latest fighting. It had also been housing displaced civilians.
Unverified footage on social media showed its surgery unit blackened by flames and nearby apartments on fire or destroyed.
The armed wings of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad militant groups said in a statement they “bombed, with a barrage of mortar shells, gatherings of Israeli soldiers in the vicinity of the Al-Shifa Complex” in a joint operation.
Israel says it is targeting Hamas militants who use civilian buildings, including apartment blocks and hospitals, for cover. Hamas denies doing so.
At least 32,552 Palestinians have been killed and 74,980 wounded in Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7, the territory’s health ministry said on Thursday, Reuters reported.
Thousands more dead are believed to be buried under rubble and more than 80% of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is displaced, many at risk of famine.
The war erupted after Hamas militants broke through the border and rampaged through communities in southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and abducting 253 hostages according to Israeli tallies.
In Rafah, where more than a million people have been sheltering, health officials said an Israeli airstrike on a house killed at least 12 people.
Israel says it plans a ground offensive into Rafah, in the far south of the enclave, where it believes most Hamas fighters are now sheltering. Its closest ally and main arms supplier the United States opposes such an assault, arguing it would cause too much harm to civilians who have sought refuge there.
Israeli forces also continued to blockade Al-Amal and Nasser hospitals in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, while several other areas came under Israeli fire, residents said.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said seven people working for the organisation arrested in a raid on Al-Amal hospital on Feb. 9 had been released after 47 days in Israeli prisons.
Among them was the director of ambulance and emergency services in the Gaza Strip, Mohammed Abu Musabeh. Eight members of the association were still being detained, it said in a statement.
Israel said soldiers from its Commando Brigade had arrested dozens of Palestinian militants in the Al-Amal area and discovered explosives and dozens of Kalashnikov-type weapons.
The World Health Organization said Al-Amal Hospital had ceased to function due to fighting, leaving just 10 of 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip partially operational, read the report.
World
Ukraine ready to hold talks with Russia once ceasefire in place, Zelenskiy says
Zelenskiy said he would be happy to meet U.S. President Donald Trump later this week when they attend the funeral of Pope Francis along with other world leaders.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday that Ukraine would be ready to hold talks with Russia in any format once a ceasefire deal is in place and the fighting has stopped, Reuters reported.
The Ukrainian leader also told reporters at a briefing that a Ukrainian delegation meeting officials from Western countries in London on Wednesday would have a mandate to discuss a full or partial ceasefire.
“We are ready to record that after a ceasefire, we are ready to sit down in any format so that there are no dead ends,” Zelenskiy said in the presidential office in Kyiv.
“It will not be possible to agree on everything quickly,” he warned, noting numerous highly complex issues such as territory, security guarantees and Ukraine’s membership in the NATO military alliance.
He said that Ukraine would not recognise Moscow’s de jure control of the peninsula of Crimea as part of any deal as such a move would go against the Ukrainian constitution. Russia seized Crimea in 2014 and later annexed it.
Ukraine, he said, would be ready to partner with the United States to restore the work of the vast, Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. There had been no such formal proposal from Washington about that, however, he added.
The talks in London, which are set to bring together officials from the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Ukraine, come amid a flurry of U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to find a way to end Russia’s war with Ukraine, read the report.
In an apparent change of plan, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will not be attending the talks in London, a State Department spokesperson said on Tuesday, adding that Washington’s Ukraine envoy General Keith Kellogg would attend.
Zelenskiy said he would be happy to meet U.S. President Donald Trump later this week when they attend the funeral of Pope Francis along with other world leaders.
Ukraine, Zelenskiy said, would also step up its diplomatic outreach this week and that he would meet South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, as well as the leaders of Spain, Poland and the Czech Republic.
World
Putin says he is open to direct peace talks with Ukraine
Zelenskiy, in his nightly video address, said Ukraine stood by its proposal for an end to attacks on civilian targets and was ready for any form of discussion to achieve it.

Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed on Monday bilateral talks with Ukraine for the first time since the early days of the war, and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Kyiv was eager to discuss a halt to attacks on civilian targets, Reuters reported.
While Zelenskiy did not respond directly to Putin’s proposal, he emphasized in his nightly video address that Ukraine “was ready for any conversation” about a ceasefire that would stop strikes on civilians.
The two leaders face pressure from the United States, which has threatened to walk away from its peace efforts unless some progress is achieved.
Russia and Ukraine have said they are open to further ceasefires after a 30-hour Easter truce declared by Moscow at the weekend. Each side accused the other of violating it.
Ukraine will take part in talks with the U.S. and European countries on Wednesday in London, Zelenskiy said. The discussions are a follow-up to a Paris meeting last week where the U.S. and European states discussed ways to end the more than three-year-old war, read the report.
Putin, speaking to a Russian state TV reporter, said fighting had resumed after the Easter ceasefire, which he announced unilaterally on Saturday. And Moscow, he said, was open to any peace initiatives and expected the same from Kyiv.
“We have always talked about this, that we have a positive attitude towards any peace initiatives. We hope that representatives of the Kyiv regime will feel the same way,” Putin told state TV reporter Pavel Zarubin.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, quoted later by Interfax news agency, told reporters: “When the president said that it was possible to discuss the issue of not striking civilian targets, including bilaterally, the president had in mind negotiations and discussions with the Ukrainian side.”
There have been no direct talks between the two sides since the early weeks after Russia’s February 2022 invasion, Reuters reported.
Zelenskiy, in his nightly video address, said Ukraine stood by its proposal for an end to attacks on civilian targets and was ready for any form of discussion to achieve it. Previously, the U.S. and Ukraine had framed this as a 30-day ceasefire.
“Ukraine maintains its proposal not to strike at the very least civilian targets. And we are expecting a clear response from Moscow,” he said. “We are ready for any conversation about how to achieve this.”
He said the London talks “have a primary task: to push for an unconditional ceasefire. This must be the starting point.”
Zelenskiy had earlier on Monday said an unconditional ceasefire would be “followed by the establishment of a real and lasting peace”.
Washington has said it would welcome an extension of the weekend truce. Zelenskiy said continued Russian attacks during the Easter ceasefire showed Moscow was intent on prolonging the war, read the report.
Zelenskiy also said that Ukraine’s forces were instructed to continue to mirror the Russian army’s actions.
“The nature of Ukraine’s actions will remain symmetrical: ceasefire will be met with ceasefire, and Russian strikes will be met with our own in defence. Actions always speak louder than words,” he said on X.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio both said on Friday that Washington could abandon the peace talks without progress within days. Trump struck a more optimistic note Sunday, saying that “hopefully” the two sides would make a deal “this week”.
Russia’s demands include Ukraine ceding all the land Putin claims to have annexed and accepting permanent neutrality. Ukraine says that would amount to surrender and leave it undefended if Moscow attacks again.
“President Putin and the Russian side remain open to seeking a peaceful settlement. We are continuing to work with the American side and, of course, we hope that this work will yield results,” Peskov told reporters.
World
Pentagon chief Hegseth shared sensitive Yemen war plans in second Signal chat, source says
The revelations of a second Signal chat raise more questions about Hegseth’s use of an unclassified messaging system to share highly sensitive security details

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared details of a March attack on Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis in a message group that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Sunday.
The revelations of a second Signal chat raise more questions about Hegseth’s use of an unclassified messaging system to share highly sensitive security details and come at a particularly delicate moment for him, with senior officials ousted from the Pentagon last week as part of an internal leak investigation.
In the second chat, Hegseth shared details of the attack similar to those revealed last month by The Atlantic magazine after its editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was included in a separate chat on the Signal app by mistake, in an embarrassing incident involving all of President Donald Trump’s most senior national security officials.
The person familiar with the matter, who was speaking on condition of anonymity, said the second chat included about a dozen people and was created during his confirmation process to discuss administrative issues rather than detailed military planning.
The chat included details of the schedule of the air strikes, the person said.
Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer, a former Fox News producer, has attended sensitive meetings with foreign military counterparts, according to images the Pentagon has publicly posted.
During a meeting Hegseth had with his British counterpart at the Pentagon in March, his wife could be seen sitting behind him.
Hegseth’s brother is a Department of Homeland Security liaison to the Pentagon.
The Trump administration has aggressively pursued leaks, an effort that has been enthusiastically embraced by Hegseth at the Pentagon.
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell, without evidence, said that the media was “enthusiastically taking the grievances of disgruntled former employees as the sole sources for their article.”
“The Trump-hating media continues to be obsessed with destroying anyone committed to President Trump’s agenda. … We’ve already achieved so much for the American warfighter, and will never back down,” Parnell said in a statement on X.
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said that “recently fired ‘leakers’ are continuing to misrepresent the truth to soothe their shattered egos and undermine the President’s agenda.
Democratic lawmakers said Hegseth could no longer stay in his job.
“We keep learning how Pete Hegseth put lives at risk,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a post to X. “But Trump is still too weak to fire him. Pete Hegseth must be fired.”
Senator Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq War veteran who suffered grave injuries in combat in 2004, said that Hegseth “must resign in disgrace.”
A U.S. official at the Pentagon questioned how Hegseth could keep his job after the latest news.
The latest revelation comes days after Dan Caldwell, one of Hegseth’s leading advisers, was escorted from the Pentagon after being identified during an investigation into leaks at the Department of Defense.
Although Caldwell is not as well known as other senior Pentagon officials, he has played a critical role for Hegseth and was named as the Pentagon’s point person by the Secretary in the first Signal chat.
“We are incredibly disappointed by the manner in which our service at the Department of Defense ended,” Caldwell posted on X on Saturday. “Unnamed Pentagon officials have slandered our character with baseless attacks on our way out the door.”
Following Caldwell’s departure, less-senior officials Darin Selnick, who recently became Hegseth’s deputy chief of staff, and Colin Carroll, who was chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg, were put on administrative leave and fired on Friday. – REUTERS
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