Israel orders evacuations in northern Gaza as Trump calls for war to end

By Nidal Al-Mughrabi Reuters  The Israeli military ordered Palestinians to evacuate areas in northern Gaza on Sunday before intensified fighting against  Hamas , as U.S. President Donald Trump called for an end to the  war  amid renewed efforts to broker a ceasefire. “Make the deal in Gaza, get the hostages back,”  Trump  posted on his Truth Social platform early on Sunday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was due to hold talks later in the day on the progress of Israel’s offensive. A senior security official said the military will tell him the campaign is close to reaching its objectives, and warn that expanding fighting to new areas in Gaza may endanger the remaining Israeli hostages. But in a statement posted on X and text messages sent to many residents, the military urged people in northern parts of the enclave to head south towards the Al-Mawasi area in Khan Younis, which Israel designated as a humanitarian area. Palestinian and U.N. offi...

One Salvadoran goes missing each day under security crackdown, NGOs say

El Salvador, a small Central American nation whose government has spearheaded a brutal crackdown on criminal gangs, is seeing one person go missing each day, according to a group of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) citing prosecutors’ data.

The attorney general’s office counted 366 people who went missing in the 12 months to May 31 this year, the Working Group for Missing Persons in El Salvador, an association of nine NGOs, reported on Wednesday.

El Salvador’s government, meanwhile, reports more than 650 days without any homicides since President Nayib Bukele came to power in June of 2019.

Bukele launched a so-called state-of-exception in March 2022, under which certain civil rights are suspended, suspects have been sent to mass trials and a “mega-prison” has been built.

He has won widespread popularity for improving security, securing re-election with a landslide 85% of the vote this February, but human rights groups have reported dozens of deaths in custody and said children have been arbitrarily detained, tortured and beaten.

Bukele has affirmed that El Salvador is the “safest country in the Western Hemisphere.”

Idalia Zepeda, a member of the NGO association, said the 366 missing people reported in the last year would mark an almost 10% increase compared to United Nations and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) estimates for the previous year.

The NGOs launched a portal for citizens to register missing people online, in order to better measure the figures and support victims’ families.

Representatives for the NGOs said this registry should not replace the work of government in providing accurate information to the public.

They also criticized government human rights commissioner Andres Guzman for lack of transparency on El Salvador’s missing people.

Neither Guzman’s office nor the attorney general’s office immediately responded to a request for comment.

SOURCE: REUTERS AND AGENCIES



from The Times Of Earth https://ift.tt/qbH3O0z

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Israel-Hezbollah attacks continue despite international pressure for ceasefire

Bolivia wildfires burn record area, scorching homes and farms