Shortly after a ceasefire took effect in Gaza, clashes erupted between armed groups, some backed by Israel and others loyal to Hamas, as the Islamist movement sought to reassert control over the devastated territory.
Some of these groups are criminal gangs, others consist of members of historically influential Gaza families, and some combine both elements, experts told AFP.
US President Donald Trump on Saturday thanked Qatar's emir and prime minister for being a "big factor" in helping secure a Gaza ceasefire deal, during a refueling stop on his way to Asia.
The Qatari leaders boarded Air Force One when it landed at Al Udeid Air Base, which hosts the regional headquarters for the US military and thousands of American troops.
Trump said the duo had played a crucial role in the Middle East peace process, adding that Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani had been his "friend to the world."
KARACHI (Reuters) -Pakistan's defence minister said on Saturday that he believes Afghanistan wants peace, but warned that failure to reach an agreement during talks in Istanbul would mean “open war.”
(Reporting by Ariba Shahid in Karachi; Editing by Aidan Lewis)
By Trevor Hunnicutt
AIR FORCE ONE (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump will test his deal-making capabilities on a trip to Asia, a region battered by his trade policies, while doubts hang over his highly anticipated meeting with China's Xi Jinping.
Trump, who left Washington on Friday night, is set for a five-day trip to Malaysia, Japan and South Korea, his first to the region and longest journey abroad since taking office in January.
The scene shocked many and highlighted the violence of this year's olive harvest in the Israeli-occupied West Bank: a young masked man clubs an older Palestinian woman picking olives, who then collapses on the ground.
The incident during an attack by Israeli settlers, filmed by an American journalist, took place in the town of Turmus Ayya near Ramallah, a hotspot of violence this year.
"Everybody was fleeing because the settlers attacked suddenly, maybe 100 of them," witness Yasser Alkam told AFP, adding that one Swedish activist also had his arm and leg broken by settlers.
The appeal trial of a French sports journalist jailed in Algeria on accusations of "glorifying terrorism" has been scheduled for December 3, his lawyer said Friday.
A contributor to the magazines So Foot and Society, Christophe Gleizes, 36, was sentenced in late June to seven years in prison.
"The case of French journalist Christophe Gleizes is scheduled for December 3, 2025, at the criminal appeal court in Tizi Ouzou," 110 kilometres (70 miles) east of Algiers, his lawyer, Amirouche Bakouri, said on Facebook.
With Gaza's education system shattered by two years of gruelling war, UNICEF's regional director says he fears for a "lost generation" of children wandering ruined streets with nothing to do.
"This is the third year that there has been no school," Edouard Beigbeder, the UN agency's regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, told AFP in Jerusalem on Thursday after returning from the Palestinian territory.
"If we don't start a real transition for all children in February, we will enter a fourth year. And then we can talk about a lost generation."
The UN's health agency pleaded Friday for thousands of people in desperate need of medical care to be allowed to leave Gaza, in what it said would be a "game-changer".
The World Health Organization has supported the medical evacuation of nearly 7,800 patients out of the Gaza Strip since the war with Israel began two years ago -- and estimates there are 15,000 people currently needing treatment outside the Palestinian territory.
Spain's top criminal court said Friday it had opened an investigation into executives at steelmaker Sidenor for alleged complicity in crimes against humanity or genocide for trading with an Israeli arms company.
Spain, one of the fiercest critics of the Israeli offensive in Gaza, said it had stopped exchanging weapons with the country after the conflict started with the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.
Top US diplomat Marco Rubio voiced hope Friday of soon putting together an international force to police the ceasefire in Gaza, as Palestinian factions agreed that a committee of independent technocrats would run the post-war territory.
The secretary of state visited Israel on the heels of Vice President JD Vance as part of an all-out effort by the United States to persuade both Hamas and Israel to respect the truce.
Rubio said it was critical for the deal to create "the conditions for the stabilisation force to come in as soon as it possibly can be put together".
