Ukrainians await Gaza evacuation – ‘I don’t want to go from one war to another’
Dozens of Ukrainians have been evacuated from the Gaza Strip, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as Israel remains vague over reports of pauses in fighting.
The US claimed yesterday that Israel has agreed to pause fighting in Gaza for four hours each day to allow civilians safe escape, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu only described “a few hours here, a few hours there”.
Among those trying to flee the bombarded Palestinian enclave are Ukrainians, including Tatyana Tapalova, who fears returning to Ukraine with her young child.
Follow live: Netanyahu says Israel is not seeking to govern Gaza
“I don’t want to go from one war to another,” she said, as she waited at the Rafah border crossing in southern Gaza with her Ukrainian passport in hand.
A total of 89 Ukrainians have been evacuated, Mr Zelenskyy said, since the evacuation process began on Wednesday for his compatriots.
They are now in Egypt, he said, adding efforts to evacuate any remaining Ukrainian nationals from the strip are ongoing.
“It is very important that as many civilians as possible are protected and that the war that is going on in the Middle East does not lead to a full-scale collapse of international stability,” he said.
“Everyone needs security and peace. We continue this work. A very painstaking and delicate process.”
Tatyana Tapalova at the Rafah border crossing
Russia is continuing its onslaught of Ukraine, with particular focus currently on the key eastern town of Avdiivka, where shelling is “round the clock”.
Drone attacks have been reported across the country, including over Kyiv, which gives Ukrainians in Gaza a potentially deadly dilemma.
Follow live: Russia attacking key town ’round the clock’
A senior US official said on Thursday the number of Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip is “very possibly” higher than the 10,000 reported by the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
Despite near-constant shelling, Israel says it is encouraging civilians to flee to the south, where bombing has also been reported.
But it isn’t clear what arrangement – if any – has actually been agreed by Israel for temporary pauses in fighting.
When questioned by Fox News on the matter, Mr Netanyahu said “the fighting continues against the Hamas enemy”.
“But in specific locations for a given period – a few hours here, a few hours there – we want to facilitate a safe passage of civilians away from the zone of fighting,” he added.
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Israel has already opened the Salah al Din road as a “humanitarian corridor” on several days this week, to allow Gazan citizens to flee south, but it is unclear whether the pauses would take place on a wider scale across a bigger area.
The White House and President Biden indicated the daily four-hour pauses would take place in areas of northern Gaza, but Mr Netanyahu did not confirm this.
The Israeli PM also said there was no timetable for the war, only that it would end after Hamas is defeated.
He added that though Israel had no intention of occupying or governing Gaza, it did envision a radically reshaped territory and wider region.
“We don’t want to seek to govern Gaza, we don’t seek to occupy, but we seek to give it and us a better future in the entire Middle East,” he said.
Donald Trump has agreed to send “top of the line weapons” to NATO to support Ukraine – and threatened Russia with “severe” tariffs if it doesn’t agree to end the war.
Speaking with NATO secretary general Mark Rutte during a meeting at the White House, the US president said: “We’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons, and they’re going to be paying for them.
“This is billions of dollars worth of military equipment which is going to be purchased from the United States,” he added, “going to NATO, and that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.”
Weapons being sent include surface-to-air Patriot missile systems and batteries, which Ukraine has asked for to defend itself from Russian air strikes.
Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump also said he was “very unhappy” with Russia, and threatened “severe tariffs” of “about 100%” if there isn’t a deal to end the war in Ukraine within 50 days.
The White House added that the US would put “secondary sanctions” on countries that buy oil from Russia if an agreement was not reached.
It comes after weeks of frustration from Mr Trump against Vladimir Putin’s refusal to agree to an end to the conflict, with the Russian leader telling the US president he would “not back down” from Moscow’s goals in Ukraine at the start of the month.
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Trump says Putin ‘talks nice and then bombs everybody’
During the briefing on Monday, Mr Trump said he had held calls with Mr Putin where he would think “that was a nice phone call,” but then “missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city, and that happens three or four times”.
“I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy,” he added.
Earlier this year, Mr Trump told Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy “you’re gambling with World War Three” in a fiery White House meeting, and suggested Ukraine started the war against Russia as he sought to negotiate an end to the conflict.
After Mr Trump’s briefing, Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev said on Telegram: “If this is all that Trump had in mind to say about Ukraine today, then all the steam has gone out.”
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Meanwhile, Mr Zelenskyy met with US special envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv, where they “discussed the path to peace” by “strengthening Ukraine’s air defence, joint production, and procurement of defence weapons in collaboration with Europe”.
He thanked both the envoy for the visit and Mr Trump “for the important signals of support and the positive decisions for both our countries”.
At least 30 people have been killed in the Syrian city of Sweida in clashes between local military groups and tribes, according to Syria’s interior ministry.
Officials say initial figures suggest around 100 people have also been injured in the city, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups.
The interior ministry said its forces will directly intervene to resolve the conflict, which the Reuters news agency said involved fighting between Druze gunmen and Bedouin Sunni tribes.
It marks the latest episode of sectarian violence in Syria, where fears among minority groups have increased since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar al Assad in December, installing their own government and security forces.
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In March, Sky’s Stuart Ramsay described escalating violence within Syria
The violence reportedly erupted after a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of a Druze merchant on Friday on the highway linking Damascus to Sweida.
Last April, Sunni militia clashed with armed Druze residents of Jaramana, southeast of Damascus, and fighting later spread to another district near the capital.
But this is the first time the fighting has been reported inside the city of Sweida itself, the provincial capital of the mostly Druze province.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports the fighting was centred in the Maqwas neighbourhood east of Sweida and villages on the western and northern outskirts of the city.
It adds that Syria’s Ministry of Defence has deployed military convoys to the area.
Western nations, including the US and UK, have been increasingly moving towards normalising relations with Syria.
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UK aims to build relationship with Syria
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Read more from Sky News:
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Concerns among minority groups have intensified following the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack carried out by Assad loyalists.
That was the deadliest sectarian flare-up in years in Syria, where a 14-year civil war ended with Assad fleeing to Russia after his government was overthrown by rebel forces.
The city of Sweida is in southern Syria, about 24 miles (38km) north of the border with Jordan.
The man convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has been charged with sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend.
Rudy Guede, 38, was the only person who was definitively convicted of the murder of 21-year-old Ms Kercher in Perugia, Italy, back in 2007.
He will be standing trial again in November after an ex-girlfriend filed a police report in the summer of 2023 accusing Guede of mistreatment, personal injury and sexual violence.
Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was released from prison for the murder of Leeds University student Ms Kercher in 2021, after having served about 13 years of a 16-year sentence.
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Since last year – when this investigation was still ongoing – Guede has been under a “special surveillance” regime, Sky News understands, meaning he was banned from having any contact with the woman behind the sexual assault allegations, including via social media, and had to inform police any time he left his city of residence, Viterbo, as ruled by a Rome court.
Guede has been serving a restraining order and fitted with an electronic ankle tag.
The Kercher murder case, in the university city of Perugia, was the subject of international attention.
Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found murdered in the flat she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Knox.
The Briton’s throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.
(L-R) Raffaele Sollecito, Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox. File pic: AP
Ms Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were placed under suspicion.
Both were initially convicted of murder, but Italy’s highest court overturned their convictions, acquitting them in 2015.
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