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Tel Aviv: A summit of international leaders in Cairo to discuss the Gaza war ended on Saturday night without any consensus towards averting an Israeli ground invasion. No joint statement was issued as Arab and Western leaders failed to even agree on language condemning Hamas's attack on Israeli communities.

An Egyptian commentator explained that a number of countries including the United States, Great Britain and Germany refused to accept a clause calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

Instead, the Egyptian government issued its own statement criticizing the international community for preferring to “manage the conflict and not end it permanently.”

A “temporary solutions and palliatives... do not live up to even the lowest aspirations” of the Palestinians, the statement added.

In response, Lior Haiat, a spokesperson for Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on X—formerly called Twitter—that the Hamas attack of Oct 7 was “a wakeup call to the world to fight terrorism together.”

Wrote Haiat, “The Islamist terror threat does not only endanger Israel, it endangers the states of the region and the whole world. It is unfortunate that even when faced with those horrific atrocities, there were some who had difficulty condemning terrorism or acknowledging the danger. Israel will do what it has to do and expects the international community to recognize the righteous battle.”

Earlier in the day, the first trucks delivering humanitarian aid arrived in Gaza through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.

Israeli officials denied a New York Times report that quoted a UN official saying that trucks entering the Strip had not been checked beforehand.

“All of the equipment was checked before going into Gaza,” said Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT). COGAT, a unit of Israel’s Defence Ministry, said that only water, food and medical equipment had been allowed in.

Rafah is the only border crossing out of Gaza controlled by Egypt, not Israel. The crossing is not equipped to handle large numbers of commercial deliveries. Commercial deliveries to the Strip from Egypt are routed through Israel's Kerem Shalom crossing, which is adjacent to the Egypt-Gaza border.

The Kerem Shalom crossing is closed for security reasons.

Israel has been striking Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip since an Oct 7 assault by Hamas that caught Israelis off-guard. Fighting raged for days as the Israel Defence Forces initially struggled to clear out the terrorists. More than 1,400 Israelis were killed, and over 4,800 more were injured. Over 200 hostages were taken to Gaza. 

ANI/TPS

Canberra: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he will visit China in early November, making the announcement Sunday hours before he was to fly to the United States to meet with President Joe Biden.

Albanese also said China agreed late Saturday to review the crippling tariffs it levied on Australian wine that have effectively blocked trade with the winemakers’ biggest export market since 2020.

Albanese will become the first Australian prime minister to visit China in seven years when he travels to Beijing and Shanghai on Nov 4-7.

“It’s in Australia’s interest to have good relations with China, and certainly my focus in the coming days will be very much on the visit to the United States,” Albanese told reporters at Australian Parliament House.

“With Australia’s closest partner, talking about the future of our alliance, the future which has been upgraded by the AUKUS arrangements, a future based upon our common values, our commitment to democracy, and our commitment to the international rule of law and stable order throughout the globe,” Albanese added, using the acronym for Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Under the trilateral pact, the US and Britain will cooperate to provide Australia with a fleet of submarines powered by US nuclear technology to counter a more assertive China.

Albanese said he will meet with President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang in Beijing and then attend the China International Import Expo in Shanghai.

The visit to China and a potential breakthrough in the wine dispute mark a further repair in relations since Albanese’s center-left Labor Party won elections last year after nine years of conservative government in Australia.

China has agreed to review its tariffs on Australian wine over five months, Albanese's office said. In return, Australia has suspended its complaint against its free trade partner to the World Trade Organization.

A similar dispute resolution plan led to China removing tariffs from Australian barley.

Albanese said reopening the Chinese wine market would be worth more than $631m to exporters.

“We’re very confident that this will result in once again Australian wine, a great product, being able to go to China free of the tariffs which have been imposed by China,” Albanese said.

“It is important that we stabilize our relationship with China. That is in the interests of Australia and China, and it is indeed in the interests of the world that we have stable relations and that is what this visit will represent,” he added.

The visit will come near the 50th anniversary of Labor Party leader Gough Whitlam becoming the first Australian prime minister to visit the People's Republic of China in 1973.

Albanese accepted an invitation weeks ago to visit China this year, but finding suitable dates had been challenging.

Albanese is visiting Washington to meet with Biden this week and will return to the United States after his China trip to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ forum in San Francisco on Nov 15-17.

It will be the ninth time Biden has met with Albanese as prime minister. The first meeting was in Tokyo hours after Albanese was sworn in as government leader in May last year for a leaders' summit of the Quad strategic partnership that also includes Japan and India.

As well as the AUKUS deal, the leaders will also seek more cooperation on clean energy, critical minerals and climate change.

Albanese’s department announced Friday that it decided after an investigation not to cancel a Chinese company’s 99-year lease on the strategically important Darwin Port despite US concerns that foreign control could be used to spy on its military forces.

Some security analysts interpreted the decision to let Shandong Landbridge Group keep the lease signed in 2015 and long criticized Albanese as a concession to China ahead of his visit.

China’s release of Australian journalist Cheng Lei this month after she spent three years in detention in Beijing on espionage allegations was widely seen as a concession to Australia.

Albanese said the breakthrough on wine “has not been transactional,” meaning Australia did not make any corresponding concessions to Chinese demands.

“We’ll continue to put our case on matters that are in Australia’s national interest,” he said.

“I’ve said very consistently: We’ll cooperate with China where we can, we’ll disagree where we must, and we’ll engage in our national interest, and that’s precisely what we’re doing,” he added.

AP

Islamabad: Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif arrived home Saturday on a chartered plane from Dubai, ending four years of self-imposed exile in London as he seeks to win the support of voters in parliamentary elections due in January.

Sharif, who was elected prime minister three times, is expected to face tough competition from the party of the former premier and his main rival, Imran Khan. He was ousted in a no-confidence vote in April 2022 and is currently imprisoned after a court convicted and sentenced him to three years in a graft case.

Sharif has been a fugitive since he failed to appear before a Pakistani court in 2019 following his conviction and a 10-year prison sentence on corruption charges.

Khan, at the time, had allowed him to travel abroad to receive medical treatment after complaining of chest pains. Sharif later prolonged his stay in London, saying his doctors were not allowing him to return to Pakistan.

A Pakistani federal court on Thursday granted him several days of protection in graft cases, clearing the way for his return.

At Islamabad’s airport Saturday, legal advisers and senior members of Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League party gave him a warm welcome. He then flew to Lahore, where tens of thousands of supporters gathered at a public park for Sharif’s speech expected later on Saturday.

His return comes as Pakistan struggles with a deepening political turmoil and one of its worst economic crises. In Lahore, Sharif’s supporters decorated the city with his photos and party flags.

“Today I am going to Pakistan after four years and I am feeling very happy with the grace of Allah,” Sharif told reporters before leaving for Islamabad from Dubai. He had arrived in the United Arab Emirates on Friday from Saudi Arabia after traveling there last week from London.

He said Pakistan’s economy and political situation both declined in recent years, according to multiple videos shared by his party on X, formerly Twitter.

But he added: “As I have said earlier, I leave everything to God.” He said he made more than 150 court appearances after his ouster in 2017.

Thursday’s decision by the Islamabad High Court to allow for his return was a major boost for Sharif and his party, which is struggling to counter the popularity of Khan, who remains the leading opposition figure.

Sharif is also facing multiple legal challenges. In 2020, an anti-graft court in Islamabad issued a warrant for his arrest after he failed to return home. The same court on Thursday suspended that arrest warrant until Oct 24. Another federal court has granted Sharif bail until Oct 24, giving him protection from arrest until then.

Last month, Sharif claimed that the country’s former powerful army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa and spy chief Faiz Hameed orchestrated his ouster in 2017. He had troubled relations with the military.

His party became hugely unpopular after Khan’s removal, when Nawaz Sharif’s brother, Shehbaz Sharif, replaced Khan, a former cricketer turned politician.

Shehbaz, whose tenure ended in August, failed to improve the economy, though he saved Pakistan from default.

A caretaker government is currently in power and it will hold the vote in January.

AP

Rafah: The border crossing between Egypt and Gaza opened Saturday to let a trickle of desperately needed aid into the besieged Palestinian territory for the first time since Israel sealed it off following Hamas’ bloody rampage two weeks ago.

Just 20 trucks were allowed in, an amount that aid workers said was insufficient to address the unprecedented humanitarian crisis in Gaza. More than 200 trucks carrying roughly 3,000 tons of aid have been positioned near the crossing for days.

Gaza’s 2.3m Palestinians, half of whom have fled their homes, are rationing food and drinking dirty water. Hospitals say they are running low on medical supplies and fuel for emergency generators amid a territory-wide power blackout. Israel is still launching waves of airstrikes across Gaza that have destroyed entire neighborhoods, as Palestinian militants fire rocket barrages into Israel.

The opening came after more than a week of high-level diplomacy by various mediators, including visits to the region by US President Joe Biden and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Israel had insisted that nothing would enter Gaza until Hamas released all of the captives from its Oct 7 attack on towns in southern Israel.

Late Friday, Hamas released an American woman and her teenage daughter, the first captives to be freed. It was not immediately clear if there was a connection between the release and the aid deliveries. Israel says Hamas is still holding at least 210 captives.

On Saturday morning, an Associated Press reporter on the Palestinian side of Rafah saw the 20 trucks heading north to Deir al-Balah, a quiet farming town where many evacuees from the north have sought shelter. Hundreds of foreign passport holders at Rafah hoping to escape the conflict were not allowed to leave.

The trucks were carrying 44,000 bottles of drinking water from the UN’s children’s agency—enough for 22,000 people for a single day, it said. “This first, limited water will save lives, but the needs are immediate and immense,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.

The World Health Organization said four of the 20 trucks that crossed through Rafah were carrying medical supplies, including essential supplies for 300,000 people for three months, trauma medicine and supplies for 1,200 people, and 235 portable trauma bags for first responders.

“The situation is catastrophic in Gaza,” the head of the UN’s World Food Program, Cindy McCain, told The Associated Press. “We need many, many, many more trucks and a continual flow of aid," she said, adding that some 400 trucks were entering Gaza daily before the war.

The Hamas-run government in Gaza also said the limited convoy “will not be able to change the humanitarian catastrophe,” calling for a secure corridor operating around the clock.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesman, said “the humanitarian situation in Gaza is under control.” He said the aid would be delivered only to southern Gaza, where the army has ordered people to relocate, adding that no fuel would enter the territory.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken appealed to all sides to keep the crossing open for crucial aid shipments and warned Hamas to not take the aid.

“Palestinian civilians are not responsible for Hamas’s horrific terrorism, and they should not be made to suffer for its depraved acts,” he said in a statement. “As President Biden stated, if Hamas steals or diverts this assistance it will have demonstrated once again that it has no regard for the welfare of the Palestinian people.’’ It will also make it hard to keep the aid flowing, he said.

Guterres, meanwhile, gave voice to growing international concern over civilians in Gaza, telling a summit in Cairo that Hamas’ “reprehensible assault” on Israel two weeks ago “can never justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”

Two Egyptian officials and a European diplomat said extensive negotiations with Israel and the UN to allow fuel deliveries for hospitals had so far yielded little progress. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release information on the sensitive deliberations.

One Egyptian official said they were discussing the release of dual-national hostages in return for the fuel, but that Israel was insisting on the release of all hostages.

Hamas released Judith Raanan and her 17-year-old daughter, Natalie, on Friday for what it said were humanitarian reasons in an agreement with Qatar, a Persian Gulf nation that has often served as a Mideast mediator. A representative for the pair said they were staying with relatives in central Israel.

The two had been on a trip from their home in suburban Chicago to Israel to celebrate Jewish holidays, the family said. They were in the kibbutz of Nahal Oz, near Gaza, when Hamas and other militants stormed into southern Israeli towns, killing hundreds and abducting at least 210 others.

Hamas said it was working with Egypt, Qatar and other mediators “to close the case” of hostages if security circumstances permit.

There are growing expectations of a ground offensive that Israel says would be aimed at rooting out Hamas, an Islamic militant group that has ruled Gaza for 16 years. Israel said Friday it does not plan to take long-term control over the small but densely populated Palestinian territory.

Israel has also traded fire along its northern border with Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group, raising concerns about a second front opening up. The Israeli military said Saturday it struck Hezbollah targets in Lebanon in response to recent rocket launches and attacks with anti-tank missiles.

“Hezbollah has decided to participate in the fighting, and we are exacting a heavy price for this,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said during a visit to the border.

Israel issued a travel warning on Saturday, ordering its citizens to leave Egypt and Jordan—which made peace with it decades ago—and to avoid travel to a number of Arab and Muslim countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Bahrain, which forged diplomatic ties with Israel in 2020. Protests against Israel's actions in Gaza have erupted across the region.

An Israeli ground assault would likely lead to a dramatic escalation in casualties on both sides in urban fighting. More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed in the war—mostly civilians slain during the Hamas incursion.

More than 4,300 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry. That includes the disputed toll from a hospital explosion. The ministry says another 1,400 are believed to have been buried under rubble.

The Hamas-run Housing Ministry said at least 30 percent of all homes in Gaza have been destroyed or heavily damaged in the war.

Hosting a summit Saturday, Egypt President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi called for ensuring aid to Gaza, negotiating a cease-fire and resuming Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which last broke down more than a decade ago. He also said the conflict would never be resolved “at the expense of Egypt,” referring to fears Israel may try to push Gaza’s population into the Sinai Peninsula.

King Abdullah II of Jordan told the summit that Israel’s air campaign and siege of Gaza were “a war crime” and slammed the international community's response.

“Anywhere else, attacking civilian infrastructure and deliberately starving an entire population of food, water, electricity, and basic necessities would be condemned,” he said. Apparently, he added, “human rights have boundaries. They stop at borders, they stop at races, they stop at religions.”

Over a million people have been displaced in Gaza. Many heeded Israel’s orders to evacuate from north to south within the sealed-off coastal enclave. But Israel has continued to bomb areas in southern Gaza where Palestinians had been told to seek safety, and some appear to be going back to the north because of bombings and difficult living conditions in the south.

AP