SVE NEWS & FRANCE24.COM Sharing Series — Turkey’s Israel trade freeze aimed at forcing Gaza truce, Erdogan says

US President Joe Biden will host Jordan’s King Abdullah II next week, the White House said Friday, as negotiations continue in the Middle East for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The meeting will be “private” and will be followed by a readout, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters, without giving a date for the encounter.

The meeting comes against the backdrop of talks for a deal to release hostages and secure a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza after nearly seven months of war.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday said Turkey’s move to halt trade with Israel aimed at forcing the country to a ceasefire over Gaza.

“We have taken some measures to force Israel to agree to a ceasefire and increase the amount of humanitarian aid to enter” Gaza, Erdogan told a group of businessmen in Istanbul.

“We will oversee the consequences of this step we have taken in coordination and consultation with our business world.”

US forces have moved construction of a temporary pier for Gaza aid deliveries from an offshore area to the Israeli port of Ashdod due to high seas and winds, the military said Friday.

The Pentagon announced the start of construction of the pier – which will cost at least $320 million – on April 25, and said earlier this week that it was more than 50 percent complete.

“Yesterday, US Central Command (CENTCOM) temporarily paused offshore assembly of the floating pier in the vicinity of Gaza due to sea state considerations,” the military command said in a statement.

“Forecasted high winds and high sea swells caused unsafe conditions for Soldiers working on the surface of the partially constructed pier,” it said.

“The partially built pier and military vessels involved in its construction have moved to the Port of Ashdod, where assembly will continue, and will be completed prior to the emplacement of the pier in its intended location when sea states subside.”

CIA Director William Burns arrived in the Egyptian capital Cairo on Friday for meetings about the conflict in Gaza, an Egyptian security source and three sources at Cairo airport said.

Egypt, along with Qatar and the United States, has been leading efforts to mediate between Israel and Hamas to broker a deal for a ceasefire and hostage release in Gaza.

The United States expects to have on-the-ground arrangements in Gaza ready for humanitarian workers to start delivering food, treatment for starving children and other urgent assistance by early to mid-month when the American military expects to complete a floating pier for the effort, an official with the US Agency for International Development said.

But aid coming through the new US-led maritime route still will serve only a fraction – half a million people – of those who need help in Gaza, the USAID official stressed to the Associated Press. They are some of the agency’s first comments on the status of preparations for the Biden administration’s $320 million Gaza pier project, for which USAID is helping coordinate on-the-ground security and distribution.

With the Israel-Hamas war stretching close to seven months and Israel restricting humanitarian aid, half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are at imminent risk of famine, international health officials say.

A top Hamas official accused Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu Friday of issuing statements intended to torpedo prospects for a truce in the nearly seven-month war in Gaza.

Hossam Badran told AFP that Hamas was in the process of conducting internal dialogues within its leadership and with allied militant groups before negotiators return to Cairo to continue negotiations towards a truce.

But he warned that Netanyahu’s repeated statements insisting he will send troops into the territory’s far southern city of Rafah were calculated to “thwart any possibility of concluding an agreement”.

“Netanyahu was the obstructionist in all previous rounds of dialogue and previous negotiations, and it is clear that he still is,” he said in a telephone interview.

“He is not interested in reaching an agreement, and therefore he says words in the media to thwart these current efforts.”

Mediators from Egypt, Qatar and the United States have proposed a deal that would halt fighting for 40 days and exchange Israeli hostages for potentially thousands of Palestinian prisoners, according to details released earlier by Britain.

The brother of an Israeli man held hostage in Gaza who was confirmed dead on Friday has blamed the Israeli government for his death.

Elad, the brother of 49-year-old Dror Or, said the family had been told the tragic news by Israeli security forces.

“The Israeli government evades responsibility, fails to bring back the hostages, and its brazen ministers even confront and insult us,” he said in a statement.

“We need an immediate agreement! Enough with the foot-dragging and political games!”

Or had been taken hostage by Hamas during the October 7 attack. Israel estimates that 129 captives seized by militants during their attack remain in Gaza. The military says 35 of them are dead including Or.

“Only an agreement can bring back the living hostages crying to come home, and afterward, also return Dror’s body for burial in Israel,” Elad said.

Yemen’s Houthis will target ships heading to Israeli ports in any reachable area, the military spokesman Yahya Sarea said in a televised speech on Friday.

“We will target any ships heading to Israeli ports in the Mediterranean Sea in any area we are able to reach,” he said.

The Iran-aligned Houthi militants have launched repeated drone and missile strikes on ships in the crucial shipping channels of the Red Sea, the Bab al-Mandab strait and the Gulf of Aden since November to show their support for the Palestinians in the Gaza war.

This has forced shippers to re-route cargo to longer and more expensive journeys around southern Africa and has stoked fears that the Israel-Hamas war could spread and destabilise the Middle East.

At least 34,622 Palestinians have been killed and 77,867 injured during Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since October 7, the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said in a statement on Friday.

An Israeli assault on Rafah would put the lives of hundreds of thousands of Gazans at risk and be an incredible blow to the humanitarian operations in the entire enclave, a spokesperson for the UN humanitarian office said on Friday.

Israel has warned of an operation against Hamas in Rafah, the southern Gaza city where around 1 million displaced people are crowded together in shelters and makeshift accommodation.

“It could be a slaughter of civilians and an incredible blow to the humanitarian operation in the entire (Gaza) strip because it is run primarily out of Rafah,” said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN humanitarian office, at a press briefing in Geneva.

Aid operations out of Rafah include medical clinics and food distribution points, including centres for malnourished children, he said.

A World Health Organization official said on Friday that the agency had a contingency plan prepared in case of an Israeli military operation in Gaza’s Rafah but said it would not be sufficient to prevent a substantial rise in the death toll.

“I want to really say that this contingency plan is a band-aid,” said Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative for the occupied Palestinian territory, at a Geneva press briefing via video link.

“It will absolutely not prevent the expected substantial additional mortality and morbidity posed by a military operation.”

Pro-Palestinian protesters were camped on university campuses across Australia on Friday, with some scuffling with pro-Israel protesters in Sydney, mirroring similar events in the United States.

Students have set up encampments at universities in major Australian cities over the last two weeks to protest Israel’s offensive in Gaza. The students are demanding that universities sever all academic ties with Israel and cut off research partnerships with arms manufacturers.

No arrests were made, as the violence seen on some American campuses has not occurred in Australia.

Paris’s prestigious Sciences Po school was closed for the day on Friday after a debate between the institute’s leadership and students on the war in Gaza failed to ease tensions, prompting protesters to occupy it overnight.

The elite political science school this week is part of a wave of protests at several schools in France over the war and academic ties with Israel, although not on the same scale as seen in the United States.

Protest actions began at Sciences Po Paris on April 24, when more than 100 pro-Palestinian protesters occupied an amphitheater, and continued on April 26, when protesters occupied a central campus building and blocked its entrance.

Iran has released the crew of a seized Portuguese-flagged ship linked to Israel, but remains in control of the vessel itself, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards seized the container ship MSC Aries, with a crew of 25, in the Strait of Hormuz on April 13, days after Tehran vowed to retaliate for a suspected Israeli strike on its consulate in Damascus. Iran had said it could close the crucial shipping route.

“The seized ship, which turned off its radar in Iran’s territorial waters and jeopardized the security of navigation, is under judicial detention,” Amirabdollahian said, according to a foreign ministry post on X late Thursday night.

He said the release of the crew was a humanitarian act and they could return to their countries along with the ship’s captain.

Police have arrested nearly 2,200 people during pro-Palestinian protests at college campuses across the United States in recent weeks, sometimes using riot gear, tactical vehicles and flash-bang devices to clear tent encampments and occupied buildings.

One officer accidentally discharged his gun inside a Columbia University administration building while clearing out protesters camped inside, authorities said.

A tally by The Associated Press recorded at least 56 incidents of arrests at 43 different US colleges or universities since April 18. The figures are based on AP reporting and statements from universities and law enforcement agencies.