Gaza mediators cautiously optimistic of a truce deal of a ‘final formula’ for Israel, Hamas ceasefire
Details of the response were not disclosed. In a statement Hamas said on Tuesday it responded “in a positive spirit, ensuring a comprehensive and complete ceasefire, ending the aggression against our people, ensuring relief, shelter and reconstruction, lifting the siege on the Gaza Strip and achieving a prisoner swap.”
Emerging market debt sales hit January record despite elusive flows, will rise to $165b this year
According to JPMorgan calculations, adding coupons to maturities and comparing to gross issuance should have left dedicated emerging markets hard currency funds with a $78 billion cash pile to invest over the past two years. But taking into account outflows, that would have shrunk to just $8 billion, the bank said in a recent note to clients.
US intends further strikes on Iran-backed groups in Middle East, national security adviser says
Iran has so far avoided any direct role in the conflict, even as it backs those groups. The Pentagon has said it does not want war with Iran and does not believe Tehran wants war either. Sullivan declined to be drawn on whether the United States might attack sites inside Iran, something the US military has been very careful to avoid.
Iran-made Shahed-136 is the ‘loitering munition’ of choice Houthis use to attack merchant ships
The Shahed-136 , which has been extensively used by Russian forces in Ukraine, can be fired from truck-mounted containers at a slightly upward angle. A small rocket booster helps propel the drone into the air before being jettisoned. Its main piston engine then takes over to power the flight.
How Houthi militants in Yemen attack ships in one of world’s busiest maritime trade routes
Houthi attacks have targeted ships in the southern Red Sea and the neighbouring Gulf of Aden, which are joined by the Bab al-Mandab strait, a chokepoint between the Horn of Africa and the Middle East.
US hits 85 military targets in Iraq and Syria as America starts retaliation against Iran proxies
Syrian state media said on Friday that an “American aggression” on sites in its desert areas and at the Syrian-Iraqi border resulted in a number of casualties and injuries. The Iraqi military said the strikes were in the Iraqi border area and warned they could ignite instability in the region.
Trudeau condemns mosque attack, says Islamophobia ‘has no place’ in Canada
In November, authorities in Toronto said the number of antisemitic and anti-Muslim hate crimes, opens new tab in Canada’s largest city had spiked significantly since the start of the Gaza conflict.
Hamas considering ceasefire as Israel turns focus of Gaza attack to Rafah as death toll tops 27,000
There was brief elation in Gaza on Thursday after remarks by a Qatari spokesman at Johns Hopkins University in Washington sparked ceasefire hopes – and a drop in the price of crude oil. But Qatari officials in the capital Doha and Taher Al-Nono, media adviser to Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh, said the group had not responded yet.
Israel accuses 190 UN workers, among them teachers and doctors, of being ‘hardened’ militants
The agency employs 13,000 people in Gaza. More than 10 countries, including major donors the United States and Germany, have halted their funding to the agency.
Gaza war gives Iran’s Axis of Resistance reason to hit US interests in widened Middle East conflict
Some Iranian attacks were in retaliation for attacks on its interests. Last month an Israeli air strike in Syria killed a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander. Its attack on Pakistan might have been more of a message from Tehran to all separatists not to take advantage of the wider war to attack Iran.
