Representatives of Israel and Hamas, along with Egyptian, US and Qatari mediators, held talks in Cairo on Saturday on the finer details of the Gaza ceasefire agreement to ensure its smooth implementation, sources close to discussions told The National.
The deal announced in Doha on Wednesday will take effect at 06.30 GMT on Sunday morning, or 8.30am local time, a Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman said after the Israeli government approved the deal in a meeting that ran into the early hours of Saturday.
The six-week ceasefire is seen as the first of a three-stage truce leading to a permanent end to the war. It will be overseen by a main operations room in Cairo, another monitoring centre in the Egyptian port city of Al Arish in the Sinai Peninsula, and one in southern Gaza, the sources said.
A mural in Jerusalem of hostages held in Gaza. The deal includes the exchange of hostages held by Hamas for Palestinian detainees. AP
Key points of the agreement to halt 15 months of fighting include the exchange of hostages held by Hamas for Palestinian detainees in Israel, the withdrawal of Israeli forces to the edges of Gaza, allowing displaced Gazans to return to their homes in the north of the territory and a significant increase in the amount of humanitarian aid flowing into the war-battered enclave.
The sources said repair teams will start repaving the damaged road between Egypt and Gaza at the Rafah crossing, one of the main aid entry points, as soon as the ceasefire goes into effect. However, humanitarian assistance and seriously wounded Palestinians seeking to leave Gaza for treatment abroad are not expected to be able to pass through for several days.
In the meantime, some essential relief items and some of the injured will be able to pass through the nearby Israeli-run Karam Abu Salem crossing between southern Gaza and Israel.
A team of UN and EU officials will deploy on the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing, along with Palestinian representatives of a recently established committee whose members are approved by Israel and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, the sources said.
Armed Palestinian operatives as well as a UN contingent of security guards will accompany the relief convoys into Gaza to protect them against looters, they added.
Arab observers will also join Palestinians at 13 locations across Gaza to ensure that displaced Palestinians returning to the north of the territory are not armed. Israeli forces will remotely monitor their movement, most likely through security cameras and sensors, said the sources.
Makeshift tents in Bureij, central Gaza. Most of the enclave's 2.3 million population has been displaced. AFP
The war has so far seen a single brief truce at the end of November 2023, the month after Hamas led an attack on southern Israeli in which nearly 1,200 people were killed and about 250 taken back to Gaza as hostages. About 100 hostages were exchanged for nearly 300 Palestinian prisoners over the space of a week, before fighting resumed.
Israel retaliated against the Hamas attack with a military offensive that has killed nearly 47,000 people in Gaza, according to local health authorities, including more than 100 killed since the new ceasefire deal was announced. Thousands more are believed to buried under the rubble of buildings destroyed in Israeli bombardment and shelling, while most of the enclave's 2.3 million population has been displaced.
Infrastructure and medical facilities have been badly damaged, while Israeli restrictions on the entry of aid have left Gazans struggling with shortages of food, water and medicines, and without adequate shelter.
Under the provisions of the deal announced on Wednesday, Gaza will receive about 60,000 caravans and 200,000 tents to house Palestinians who lost their homes.
Groom and Two Brides
Director: Elie Semaan
Starring: Abdullah Boushehri, Laila Abdallah, Lulwa Almulla
Rating: 3/5
Terror attacks in Paris, November 13, 2015
- At 9.16pm, three suicide attackers killed one person outside the Atade de France during a foootball match between France and Germany - At 9.25pm, three attackers opened fire on restaurants and cafes over 20 minutes, killing 39 people - Shortly after 9.40pm, three other attackers launched a three-hour raid on the Bataclan, in which 1,500 people had gathered to watch a rock concert. In total, 90 people were killed - Salah Abdeslam, the only survivor of the terrorists, did not directly participate in the attacks, thought to be due to a technical glitch in his suicide vest - He fled to Belgium and was involved in attacks on Brussels in March 2016. He is serving a life sentence in France
• Scientists estimate there could be as many as 3 million fungal species globally • Only about 160,000 have been officially described leaving around 90% undiscovered • Fungi account for roughly 90% of Earth's unknown biodiversity • Forest fungi help tackle climate change, absorbing up to 36% of global fossil fuel emissions annually and storing around 5 billion tonnes of carbon in the planet's topsoil
A widely accepted definition was made by the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims in 2019: “Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.” It further defines it as “inciting hatred or violence against Muslims”.
if you go
The flights
Fly to Rome with Etihad (www.etihad.ae) or Emirates (www.emirates.com) from Dh2,480 return including taxes. The flight takes six hours. Fly from Rome to Trapani with Ryanair (www.ryanair.com) from Dh420 return including taxes. The flight takes one hour 10 minutes.
The hotels
The author recommends the following hotels for this itinerary. In Trapani, Ai Lumi (www.ailumi.it); in Marsala, Viacolvento (www.viacolventomarsala.it); and in Marsala Del Vallo, the Meliaresort Dimore Storiche (www.meliaresort.it).
The more serious side of specialty coffee
While the taste of beans and freshness of roast is paramount to the specialty coffee scene, so is sustainability and workers’ rights.
The bulk of genuine specialty coffee companies aim to improve on these elements in every stage of production via direct relationships with farmers. For instance, Mokha 1450 on Al Wasl Road strives to work predominantly with women-owned and -operated coffee organisations, including female farmers in the Sabree mountains of Yemen.
Because, as the boutique’s owner, Garfield Kerr, points out: “women represent over 90 per cent of the coffee value chain, but are woefully underrepresented in less than 10 per cent of ownership and management throughout the global coffee industry.”
One of the UAE’s largest suppliers of green (meaning not-yet-roasted) beans, Raw Coffee, is a founding member of the Partnership of Gender Equity, which aims to empower female coffee farmers and harvesters.
Also, globally, many companies have found the perfect way to recycle old coffee grounds: they create the perfect fertile soil in which to grow mushrooms.
Start-up hopes to end Japan's love affair with cash
Across most of Asia, people pay for taxi rides, restaurant meals and merchandise with smartphone-readable barcodes — except in Japan, where cash still rules. Now, as the country’s biggest web companies race to dominate the payments market, one Tokyo-based startup says it has a fighting chance to win with its QR app.
Origami had a head start when it introduced a QR-code payment service in late 2015 and has since signed up fast-food chain KFC, Tokyo’s largest cab company Nihon Kotsu and convenience store operator Lawson. The company raised $66 million in September to expand nationwide and plans to more than double its staff of about 100 employees, says founder Yoshiki Yasui.
Origami is betting that stores, which until now relied on direct mail and email newsletters, will pay for the ability to reach customers on their smartphones. For example, a hair salon using Origami’s payment app would be able to send a message to past customers with a coupon for their next haircut.
Quick Response codes, the dotted squares that can be read by smartphone cameras, were invented in the 1990s by a unit of Toyota Motor to track automotive parts. But when the Japanese pioneered digital payments almost two decades ago with contactless cards for train fares, they chose the so-called near-field communications technology. The high cost of rolling out NFC payments, convenient ATMs and a culture where lost wallets are often returned have all been cited as reasons why cash remains king in the archipelago. In China, however, QR codes dominate.
Cashless payments, which includes credit cards, accounted for just 20 per cent of total consumer spending in Japan during 2016, compared with 60 per cent in China and 89 per cent in South Korea, according to a report by the Bank of Japan.
