TAIPEI/BEIJING, Jan. 21 — A 6.2-magnitude earthquake jolted Tainan City of China’s Taiwan, at 12:17 a.m. Tuesday (Beijing Time), according to China Earthquake Networks Center (CENC).
The epicenter, with a depth of 14 km, was monitored at 23.24 degrees north latitude and 120.51 degrees east longitude, the CENC said.
Tremors were felt in Taipei, lasting for over 10 seconds, and several aftershocks occurred after the quake.
According to local media reports, two people are being rescued after a house collapsed in Tainan.
JERUSALEM — An Israeli reservist soldier was killed, and a battalion commander seriously injured when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli military said on Monday.
The Israeli troops were patrolling the Palestinian town of Tammun, south of Jenin, when their jeep hit the explosive device around midnight between Sunday and Monday.
The reservist, identified as 31-year-old Eviatar Ben Yehuda, was killed in the explosion. The officer seated next to him sustained serious injuries and was evacuated to a hospital for treatment, the military said.
The incident occurred amid escalating tensions in the West Bank, as Israel continues daily raids in Palestinian cities and towns, often resulting in Palestinian casualties. It came a day after a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas went into effect, halting more than 15 months of an Israeli onslaught in Gaza.
BELGRADE — Eight people lost their lives in a devastating fire early Monday morning at a nursing home in Belgrade’s suburb settlement of Barajevo, with police suspecting the tragedy was caused by criminal activity.
“Emergency services reacted quickly and efficiently, but the fire had already spread extensively. Unfortunately, eight lives were lost,” Nemanja Starovic, minister for Labor, Employment, Veterans, and Social Affairs, told Serbia’s Tanjug News Agency.
Rescuers safely evacuated 13 people from the burning building, while seven sustained injuries and received medical care.
Starovic stated that initial findings point to the possibility of a criminal act. “The investigation is ongoing, and I expect the prosecution to provide official information later today,” he added.
The fire erupted at approximately 3:30 a.m. (0230 GMT), with media outlets reporting that around 30 residents were in the building at the time.
Firefighters extinguished the blaze after deploying many personnel and vehicles, while emergency medical teams provided on-site assistance.
BEIJING – The Myanmar military and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) signed a formal agreement for a ceasefire that began on Saturday, China’s foreign ministry said, halting fighting near the border of both countries.
The two sides held talks in China’s southwestern city of Kunming where they thanked Beijing for its efforts to promote peace, ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said during a regular news briefing on Monday.
“Cooling down the situation in the north of Myanmar is in the common interest of all parties in Myanmar and all countries in the region, and contributes to the security, stability and development of the border areas between China and Myanmar,” she said.
China will continue to actively promote peace and dialogue and provide support and assistance to the peace process in northern Myanmar, Mao said.
The MNDAA is one of several ethnic minority armed groups fighting to repel the military from what they consider their territories.
It is part of the so-called Three Brotherhood Alliance, with the Ta’ang National Liberation Army and the Arakan Army, that launched an offensive against the military junta in late October 2023 seizing swathes of territory near the border with China.
The MNDAA, made up of ethnic Chinese, said last July it had taken control of a major military base near the Chinese border.
Analysts say China is worried about the advance of anti-junta forces which have pushed the military out of vital borderlands and started making inroads towards the central city of Mandalay.
The military seized power from Myanmar’s civilian government in February 2021, plunging the country into crisis.
China fears chaos along its more than 2,000 kilometre long border with Myanmar would jeopardise investment and trade.
Beijing previously brokered a ceasefire deal in the northern borderlands in January 2024, but the deal broke down a few months later.
KABUL – The Taliban’s acting deputy foreign minister called on his senior leadership to open schools for Afghan girls, among the strongest public rebukes of a policy that has contributed to the international isolation of its rulers.
Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, who previously led a team of negotiators at the Taliban’s political office in Doha before U.S. forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021, said in a speech at the weekend that restrictions on girls and women’s education was not in line with Islamic Sharia law.
“We request the leaders of the Islamic Emirate to open the doors of education,” he said, according to local broadcaster Tolo, referring to the Taliban’s name for its administration.
“In the time of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him), the doors of knowledge were open to both men and women,” he said.
“Today, out of a population of forty million, we are committing injustice against twenty million people,” he added, referring to the female population of Afghanistan.
The comments were among the strongest public criticism in recent years by a Taliban official of the school closures, which Taliban sources and diplomats have previously told Reuters were put in place by the supreme spiritual leader Haibatullah Akhundzada despite some internal disagreement.
The Taliban have said they respect women’s rights in accordance with their interpretation of Islamic law and Afghan culture.
They made a sharp u-turn on promises to open high schools for girls in 2022, and have since said they were working on a plan for the schools to re-open but have not given any timeline.
They closed universities to female students at the end of 2022.
The policies have been widely criticised internationally, including by Islamic scholars, and Western diplomats have said any path towards formal recognition of the Taliban is blocked until there is a change on their policies towards women.
A Taliban administration spokesman in the southern city of Kandahar where Haibatullah is based did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Stanekzai’s remarks.
KOLKATA – An Indian court awarded the life sentence on Monday to a police volunteer convicted of the rape and murder of a junior doctor at the hospital where she worked in the eastern city of Kolkata.
The woman’s body was found in a classroom at the state-run R G Kar Medical College and Hospital on Aug. 9. Other doctors stayed off work for weeks to demand justice for her and better security at public hospitals, as the crime sparked national outrage over a lack of safety for women.
Sanjay Roy, the police volunteer, was convicted by judge Anirban Das on Saturday who said circumstantial evidence had proved the charges against Roy.
Roy said he was innocent and that he had been framed, and sought clemency.
The federal police, who investigated the case, said the crime belonged to the “rarest-of-rare” category and Roy, therefore, deserved the death penalty.
Judge Das said it was not a “rarest-of-rare” crime, adding that Roy could go in appeal to a higher court.
The sentence was announced in a packed courtroom as the judge allowed the public to witness proceedings on Monday. The speedy trial in the court was not open to the public.
The parents of the junior doctor were among those in court on Monday. Security was stepped up with dozens of police personnel deployed at the court complex.
GUANGZHOU — Fan Weiqiu, the criminal convicted of causing heavy casualties after ramming his car into the crowd at a sports center in November last year in the city of Zhuhai, south China’s Guangdong Province, was executed on Monday, according to a court statement.
The execution was conducted by the Zhuhai Intermediate People’s Court after the death sentence was approved by the Supreme People’s Court. The procedure was supervised by prosecutors from the local procuratorate in Zhuhai.
Fan was convicted of the crime of endangering public safety by dangerous means in December 2024. He was also deprived of his political rights for life.
NANJING — Xu Jiajin, the criminal convicted of killing eight people and injuring 17 in a knife attack at a vocational school in east China’s Jiangsu Province, was executed on Monday, according to a court statement.
The penalty was executed by the Intermediate People’s Court in the city of Wuxi, Jiangsu, after the Supreme People’s Court approved the death sentence. Prosecutors from the local procuratorate in Wuxi supervised the procedure.
The death sentence was handed down by the Wuxi court in December 2024.
The attack took place at around 6:30 p.m., Nov. 16, 2024, at the Wuxi Vocational Institute of Arts and Technology. Xu was caught at the scene and confessed to his crime, according to a police statement at the time.
RAMALLAH — Israel released 90 Palestinian prisoners from Ofer prison, located west of Ramallah in the West Bank, early on Monday, just hours after three Israeli hostages returned to Israel following their release from Hamas captivity in Gaza.
Eyewitnesses and local Palestinian sources said that several buses left Ofer prison at 1:00 a.m. local time (2300 GMT on Sunday) after issues related to verifying the list of names were resolved.
The Hamas-affiliated Prisoners’ Media Office confirmed that the release process had started after an agreement was reached on the lists.
A statement mentioned that buses from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) transported the prisoners, including both men and women, from Ofer prison to Palestinian Authority-controlled areas.
Hundreds of Palestinians, including families of the prisoners, gathered near the prison to welcome the released prisoners.
The area around the prison witnessed heightened tension after several journalists and Palestinian citizens were assaulted by Israeli forces, who used tear gas to disperse the crowd.
Among the 90 released prisoners are women from East Jerusalem and minors under 18.
This prisoner release is part of a Gaza ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas that took effect on Sunday.
ACCRA — Seven illegal miners were killed and one seriously injured during a gun battle with the troops in western Ghana, the military said Sunday.
The gun battle took place in Obusai, a town in the western African country’s Ashanti Region, on Saturday when some 60 illegal miners breached AngloGold Ashanti mine’s security fence to enter the Deep Decline care of the mine and opened fire on the military stationed there, the military said in a statement.
The illegal miners were wielding locally manufactured rifles, pump-action guns, gas cylinders, knives, heavy-duty industrial bolt cutters, axes and machetes, said the statement.
“The troops returned fire in self-defense. The shootout led to the death of seven illegal miners and one seriously injured. The remaining illegal miners bolted,” it said.
“A soldier who was also hit by pellets from a pump-action gun and got injured has been treated,” it added.
Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama has ordered an immediate investigation to determine the circumstances surrounding the clashes and ensure that any individuals found to have acted unlawfully are brought to justice.
Over the past few years, the Ghanaian government has ramped up its efforts to tackle illegal mining, not least by dispatching security agencies to protect the mining concessions for their owners.
LOS ANGELES — TikTok resumed its service in the United States on Sunday, hours after it was suspended, blocking access to millions of users across the country.
“We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans and allowing over 7 million small businesses to thrive,” TikTok said in a statement.
“It’s a strong stand for the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship,” said the company.
TikTok said it would work with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who will assume the presidency on Monday, for a long-term solution that would keep TikTok in the United States.
TikTok went dark late Saturday in the United States, one day after the U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision to uphold a law forcing TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, to sell the app to an American company, or face a nationwide ban starting on Sunday.
Trump said earlier Sunday on Truth Social that he will issue an executive order on Monday that will allow TikTok to continue operating.
He said on Saturday that he will “most likely” give TikTok a 90-day extension.
BOGOTA — At least 80 people were killed and 20 others injured over the weekend in attacks by guerrilla groups in Colombia, said local authorities on Sunday.
According to local media, the victims were killed in attacks by the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas and clashes with dissidents of the disbanded Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in the Catatumbo region.
Among the victims are seven signatories of peace agreements nearly 10 years ago and community leader Carmelo Guerrero, said the Ombudsman’s Office.
Thousands were forced to flee and families were confined to their homes, it added.
“Many people, including peace signatories, social leaders and their families, and even children, face a special risk of being kidnapped or killed … many of them have yet to be rescued and are fleeing, seeking refuge in the mountains,” the agency said.
The clashes have led to the suspension of classes and disruption of daily activities, with food shortages being reported.
The Ombudsman’s Office urged the ELN and other armed groups fighting in the area to open humanitarian corridors to allow aid to reach the civilian population in the conflict zone.
JERUSALEM/CAIRO – Fighting in the Gaza Strip halted on Sunday as a ceasefire deal between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas took effect after a brief delay, pausing a 15-month-old war that has brought devastation and seismic political change to the Middle East.
Residents and a medical worker in Gaza said they had heard no new fighting or military strikes since about half an hour before it was finally implemented.
Israeli airstrikes, artillery and tank attacks continued in northern Gaza after the initial deadline of 0630 GMT, Gaza-based paramedics said, killing at least 13 Palestinians and wounding dozens more before the ceasefire actually took effect at 0915 GMT.
Israel’s military said it had carried out air and artillery strikes against “terror targets”.
Israel blamed Hamas for the delay after the Palestinian militant group failed to provide a list naming the first three hostages it would release later on Sunday as part of the agreement.
“Hamas was obliged to provide the names of the first female hostages to be released at 4:00 p.m. yesterday (1400 GMT on Sunday),” Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar told journalists shortly after the ceasefire started. “We received the list over 18 hours after it was due.”
Hamas said “technical” reasons had caused the delay, without elaborating.
A Palestinian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, blamed ongoing Israeli air and ground bombardments, saying this made it physically difficult to send the list to mediators.
In a statement issued two hours after the ceasefire deadline, Hamas said it had sent the list of names, and Israeli officials confirmed receipt. Hamas named the hostages it was to release on Sunday as Romi Gonen, Doron Steinbrecher and Emily Damari.
Israel did not immediately confirm the names.
The highly anticipated 42-day ceasefire deal could pave the way for an end to the Gaza war, which has sparked a wave of fighting across the Middle East that largely pits Israel and its Western and U.S. allies against Iran and the paramilitary groups Tehran supports, including Hamas, Lebanese Hezbollah, the Houthis of Yemen and Iraqi militias.
Hamas, which controls the besieged coastal enclave of Gaza, sparked the war by attacking towns in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages. Most of those have since been released or killed.
A further 400 Israeli soldiers have been killed in combat in Gaza.
Israel’s bombardment of Gaza in retaliation against Hamas has killed nearly 47,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza-based health officials. Those include thousands of Hamas fighters and the group’s top military leaders, but the U.N. human rights office says the majority of deaths it has verified are women and children.
The assault has destroyed the territory’s infrastructure and made almost all its 2.3 million residents homeless.
DOHA — Qatar’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Majed Al Ansari confirmed on Sunday that the Gaza ceasefire has officially begun as a list of three hostages to be released that day has been handed over to Israel.
“Regarding reports when the ceasefire will begin in Gaza, we confirm that the names of the 3 hostages to be released today have been handed over to the Israeli side. They are three Israeli citizens, one of whom is of Romanian nationality and the other of British nationality, and thus the ceasefire has begun,” Al-Ansari said in a post on X.
A day earlier, Al-Ansari announced that the Gaza ceasefire would commence on Sunday, Jan. 19, at 8:30 a.m. local time (0630 GMT) in Gaza.
Israel and Hamas on Wednesday agreed on a Gaza ceasefire-for-hostages deal after intensive mediation by Qatar, Egypt and the United States.
JERUSALEM — Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and his party submitted their resignation to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government on Sunday, citing opposition to the Gaza ceasefire deal.
The move leaves Netanyahu with a razor-thin majority in parliament.
In his resignation letter, Ben-Gvir described the ceasefire as “dangerous” and “a surrender deal to terrorism.”
Ben-Gvir said that he opposes halting the war, withdrawing forces, and releasing Palestinian prisoners convicted of attacks against Israelis. He also opposes another term of the deal, under which Israel agrees to allow displaced Palestinians to return to their homes in northern Gaza.
However, he said that his party might return to the government if the war is resumed.
The move leaves Netanyahu’s coalition with a thin majority of 62 members in the 120-member parliament. If far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich leaves, Netanyahu will lose his majority, potentially triggering new elections.
Smoke rises after an explosion in northern Gaza, before a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas goes into effect, as seen from Israel, January 19, 2025. REUTERS
JERUSALEM/CAIRO – Israeli warplanes and artillery attacked the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday and Palestinian medics said eight people were killed shortly after Israel and Hamas missed a deadline for a ceasefire that could pave the way for halting the Middle East’s most devastating conflict in years.
The delay in implementing the ceasefire and the latest violence came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked, an hour before the 0630 GMT deadline, that Hamas provide the names of three hostages it was to release on Sunday as part of the agreement.
Hamas said it was committed to the ceasefire but that it had been unable so far to provide the hostage list for “technical field reasons”, without elaborating.
The ceasefire deal could help usher in an end to the Gaza war, which began after Palestinian militant group Hamas, which controls the tiny coastal territory, attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities.
Israel’s response decimated the Gaza Strip, killing nearly 47,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza-based health authorities. The war also set off a confrontation throughout the Middle East between Israel and its arch-foe Iran, which backs Hamas and other anti-Israeli and anti-American paramilitary forces across the region.
Israeli military spokespeople said in separate statements on Sunday that their aircraft and artillery had attacked “terror targets” in northern and central Gaza, and that the military would continue to attack the strip as long as Hamas did not meet its obligations under the ceasefire.
The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said that at least eight people were killed in the Israeli attacks and dozens wounded.
Medics reported tanks firing at the Zeitoun area of Gaza City, and said that an airstrike and tank fire also hit the northern town of Beit Hanoun, sending residents who had returned there in anticipation of the ceasefire fleeing.
In the southern city of Khan Younis, some celebratory gunshots and cheers were heard at 8:30 a.m. (0630 GMT) when the ceasefire was meant to take effect.
Israeli forces had started withdrawing from areas in Gaza’s Rafah to the Philadelphi corridor along the border between Egypt and Gaza, pro-Hamas media reported early on Sunday.
HOSTAGE LIST
Netanyahu’s demand for a list of the first three hostages, who were to be released in the hours following the ceasefire, came an hour before the deadline.
“The prime minister instructed the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) that the ceasefire, which is supposed to go into effect at 8:30 a.m., will not begin until Israel has the list of released abductees that Hamas has pledged to provide,” his office said on Sunday.
Hamas said the delay was “technical” but that the hostages’ names could be released very soon.
The three-stage ceasefire agreement followed months of on-off negotiations brokered by Egypt, Qatar and the United States, and came just ahead of the Jan. 20 inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.
Its first stage will last six weeks, during which 33 of the remaining 98 hostages – women, children, men over 50, the ill and wounded – will be released in return for almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
They include 737 male, female and teen-aged prisoners, some of whom are members of militant groups convicted of attacks that killed dozens of Israelis, as well as hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza in detention since the start of the war.
The first three are female hostages expected to be released through the Red Cross on Sunday. In return for each, 30 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails are to be released.
Under the terms of the deal, Hamas will inform the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) where the meeting point will be inside Gaza and the ICRC is expected to begin driving to that location to collect the hostages, an official involved in the process told Reuters.
ENDING THE WAR?
After Sunday’s hostage release, lead U.S. negotiator Brett McGurk said, the accord calls for four more female hostages to be freed after seven days, followed by the release of three further hostages every seven days thereafter.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s team worked closely with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff to push the deal over the line.
As his inauguration approached, Trump had repeated his demand that a deal be done swiftly, warning repeatedly that there would be “hell to pay” if the hostages were not released.
But what will come next in Gaza remains unclear in the absence of a comprehensive agreement on the postwar future of the enclave, which will require billions of dollars and years of work to rebuild.
And although the stated aim of the ceasefire is to end the war entirely, it could easily unravel.
Hamas, which has controlled Gaza for almost two decades, has survived despite losing its top leadership and thousands of fighters.
Israel has vowed it will not allow Hamas to return to power and has cleared large stretches of ground inside Gaza, in a step widely seen as a move towards creating a buffer zone that will allow its troops to act freely against threats in the enclave.
In Israel, the return of the hostages may ease some of the public anger against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government over the Oct. 7 security failure that led to the deadliest single day in the country’s history.
MIDEAST SHOCKWAVES
The war sent shockwaves across the region, triggering a conflict with the Tehran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah movement and bringing Israel into direct conflict with its arch-foe Iran for the first time.
It has also transformed the Middle East. Iran, which spent billions building up a network of militant groups around Israel, has seen its “Axis of Resistance” wrecked and was unable to inflict more than minimal damage on Israel in two major missile attacks.
Hezbollah, whose huge missile arsenal was once seen as the biggest threat to Israel, has seen its its top leadership killed and most of its missiles and military infrastructure destroyed.
On the diplomatic front, Israel has faced outrage and isolation over the death and devastation in Gaza.
Netanyahu faces an International Criminal Court arrest warrant on war crimes allegations and separate accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice.
Israel has reacted with fury to both cases, rejecting the charges as politically motivated and accusing South Africa, which brought the original ICJ case as well as the countries that have joined it, of antisemitism.
LA PAZ — At least five people were killed, and several others injured in a five-vehicle collision early Saturday on a key highway connecting Bolivia and Chile, the police said.
Preliminary reports indicate that the vehicles collided violently due to excessive speed.
Local media suggested that the vehicles may be transporting contraband, a claim supported by the presence of anti-smuggling authorities at the scene.
MUMBAI — A man thought to be a citizen of Bangladesh was arrested in India’s financial capital Mumbai on Sunday and is considered the prime suspect in the stabbing of Bollywood star Saif Ali Khan, police said.
Thursday’s attack on Khan, one of India’s most bankable stars, shocked the nation’s film industry and Mumbai residents, with many calling for better policing and security. He was out of danger, doctors said, and has left the hospital.
“Primary evidence suggests that the accused is a Bangladeshi citizen and after entering India illegally he changed his name,” Dixit Gedam, a deputy commissioner of police, told a press conference.
The suspect, arrested on the outskirts of Mumbai, was using the name Vijay Das but is believed to be Mohammad Shariful Islam Shehzad and was working with a housekeeping agency after having come to the city five or six months ago, Gedam said.
The police will seek custody of the suspect for further investigation, he added.
Khan, 54, was stabbed six times by an intruder during a burglary attempt at his home. He had surgery after sustaining stab wounds to his spine, neck and hands, doctors said.
Police in Mumbai detained a first key suspect in the attack on Friday, while police in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh detained a second person on Saturday.
MADRID — A ski lift collapsed at a resort in the Spanish region of Aragon on Saturday, injuring dozens of people, nine of them very seriously and eight seriously, the regional government said.
Around 80 people remain trapped, hanging in the chairlift at the ski resort of Astun, in the province of Huesca, according to state TV channel TVE.
“It’s like a cable has come off, the chairs have bounced and people have been thrown off,” a witness told TVE.
The cause of the cable failure remains unknown.
The ski resort’s management declined to comment and was not immediately able to say if foreigners were among the injured.
Several helicopters were working in the area to rescue the skiers who were still trapped on the chairlift and transfer the injured to nearby hospitals.
The Astun ski resort, mainly popular among Spanish skiers, is located close to the Spanish border with France, in the Pyrenees mountain range.
KOLKATA, India — An Indian police volunteer was convicted on Saturday of the rape and murder of a junior doctor at a hospital in the eastern city Kolkata, in the speedy trial of a crime that sparked national outrage over a lack of safety for women.
The woman’s body was found in a classroom at the state-run R G Kar Medical College and Hospital on Aug. 9. Other doctors stayed off work for weeks to demand justice for her and better security at public hospitals.
Defendant Sanjay Roy said in November he was “completely innocent” and was being framed.
Roy’s lawyers could not immediately be reached for comment on the verdict. They had argued there were glaring discrepancies in the investigation and forensic examination reports.
Judge Anirban Das said the sentence, to be announced on Monday, would range from life in prison to the death penalty.
The parents of the victim, who cannot be named under Indian law, expressed dissatisfaction with the probe, saying the crime could not have been committed by just one person.
“Our daughter could not have met such a horrific end by a single man,” her father said. “We will remain in pain and agony until all the culprits are punished.”
India’s federal police, who investigated the case, described the crime as “rarest of rare” during the trial and sought the death penalty for Roy.
Several doctors chanted slogans in solidarity with the victim outside the court. Dr. Aniket Mahato, a spokesperson for the junior doctors, said street protests would continue “until justice is done.”
More than 200 armed police personnel were deployed in anticipation of the verdict as Roy was brought to court in a police car.
The investigation cited 128 witnesses, of whom 51 were examined during the trial, which that began on Nov. 11 and was fast-tracked to conclude swiftly, according to court sources.
Police also charged the officer heading the local police station at the time of the crime and the then-head of the hospital with destruction of the crime scene and tampering with evidence.
The police officer is out on bail while the former head of the hospital remains in detention in connection with a separate case of financial irregularities at the hospital.
Israel’s cabinet voted to approve the ceasefire deal early Saturday, ending days of uncertainty about whether the truce would go into effect this weekend. (AFP)
JERUSALEM/DOHA — A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip will take effect at 0630 GMT on Sunday morning, Qatar, which helped mediate the deal, said on Saturday.
“As coordinated by the parties to the agreement and the mediators, the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip will begin at 8:30 am on Sunday, January 19, local time in Gaza,” Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari said on X.
“We advise the inhabitants to take precaution, exercise the utmost caution, and wait for directions from official sources.”
The exact time of the ceasefire’s start had been unclear, though Israel, whose cabinet earlier on Saturday approved the hostage and prisoner exchange deal, had said no prisoners would be freed before 1400 GMT.
During the first phase of the truce deal, Israel’s justice ministry said 737 prisoners and detainees will be freed.
It said in a statement on its website that “the government approves” the “release (of) 737 prisoners and detainees” currently in the custody of the prison service.
Israel’s cabinet voted to approve the ceasefire deal early Saturday, according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, ending days of uncertainty about whether the truce would go into effect this weekend.
Those named by the ministry include men, women and children who it said will not be released before Sunday at 4:00 p.m. local time (1400 GMT).
It had previously published a list of 95 Palestinian prisoners, the majority women, to be freed in exchange for Israeli captives in Gaza.
Among those on the expanded list was Zakaria Zubeidi, a chief of the armed wing of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah party.
Zubeidi escaped from Israel’s Gilboa prison with five other Palestinians in 2021, sparking a days-long manhunt, and is lauded by Palestinians as a hero.
Justice ministry spokeswoman Noga Katz has said the final number of prisoners to be released in the first swap would depend on the number of live hostages released by Hamas.
KYIV — A Russian attack has killed four people and injured three in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, the city’s military administration said Saturday.
“We already have four dead in Shevchenkivsky district,” said Tymur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, in a Telegram post, adding that three people were injured.
Hours earlier, Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko warned of a “ballistic missile threat” against the capital and said the city’s air defense was activated.
He later said a building in Shevchenkivsky district had its windows broken, with smoke coming from it, while a water pipeline in the area was damaged.
In addition, a metro station near the city’s center also suffered damage and was temporarily closed, with Kyiv’s trains bypassing that stop, Klitschko said.
The attack – a rare strike on the heart of the Ukrainian capital – came as Kyiv has upped its aerial attacks on Russian energy and military facilities in recent months.
Kyiv’s army has hit several Russian oil depots recently, including two major strikes on a facility near a military airfield in Russia’s Saratov region that triggered days-long blazes.
Also on Saturday, Russian forces “attacked the center” of Zaporizhzhia, injuring two people, according to local governor Ivan Fedorov. An administrative building of an industrial facility was partially damaged, he said.
Ukraine launched an attack on Russia’s Belgorod region with six US-made ATACMS missiles on Thursday, the Russian Defence Ministry said on Friday. (AFP/File)
MOSCOW — Ukraine launched an attack on Russia’s Belgorod region with six US-made ATACMS missiles on Thursday, the Russian Defence Ministry said on Friday.
It said that Russia would retaliate, but that all the missiles had been intercepted, resulting in no casualties or damage.
Moscow has said it will respond every time Ukraine fires ATACMS or British-supplies Storm Shadow cruise missiles into Russia.
Ukraine first used those weapons to strike at Russian territory in November after obtaining permission from Washington and London. Russia replied by firing a new intermediate-range hypersonic missile, the Oreshnik, and has said it may do so again.
The defence ministry said that over the past week, Russia shot down 12 ATACMS, eight Storm Shadows, 48 US HIMARS rockets, seven French-made Hammer guided bombs and 747 drones. Reuters could not verify those figures.
It reported for the first time that Russian forces had captured the village of Slovianka in eastern Ukraine, one of eight Ukrainian settlements it said had been taken in the past week.
The statement said Russia had carried out eight major strikes in the past week on parts of Ukraine’s gas and energy infrastructure that it said were supporting military facilities and the Ukrainian defence industry.
Ukrainian officials said a Russian missile attack killed at least four people and partially destroyed an educational facility in the city of Kryvyi Rih in southern-central Ukraine on Friday.
At least seven others were hurt, some of them seriously, Serhiy Lysak, the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, said on Telegram.
A Ukrainian serviceman reacts after firing a 120mm mortar toward Russian troops at a frontline in the Kharkiv region on Jan. 16, 2025. (Reuters)
KYIV — Ukraine said Friday it had launched a missile strike one day earlier on the western Belgorod region targeting air defense systems and damaging military radars.
Kyiv has stepped up its cross border drone and missile attacks on Russian territory and said this week it had launched its largest barrage of the war on military sites and energy installations over the border.
The Ukrainian General Staff wrote on social media that missile units had carried out “precision strikes” on Russian military targets in Belgorod, which borders Ukraine.
It said it had attacked air defense systems under the 568th anti-aircraft missile regiment and claimed that an S-400 radar had been damaged alongside equipment linked to another brigade.
There was no immediate response from Moscow to the claims, which could not be verified by AFP.
Moscow in turn has been targeting Ukrainian energy facilities and this week launched dozens of missiles and drones at sites mainly in western Ukraine near the border with Poland.
Kyiv said Friday that its air defense systems had shot down 33 Russian drones over 11 Ukrainian region at night.
