Former US president Jimmy Carter criticized Israel’s blockade during a trip to Gaza, while encouraging the territory’s Hamas rulers to accept international conditions for ending its boycott of the militant Islamic group.
During Carter’s visit on Tuesday, Hamas security found what appeared to be explosives buried in a sand dune next to his route. No one was hurt, and it was unclear if the former US president was being targeted.
Speaking at a graduation for students from UN-run schools in Gaza City, Carter criticized the Gaza blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt after Hamas took control, saying Gazans “are treated more like animals than human beings.”
PHOTO: AP
Carter’s one-day Gaza visit came at the end of a swing though Lebanon, Syria and Israel, during which he encouraged officials in all countries to move toward a negotiated end to the Middle East conflict.
Carter — who helped broker the historic peace treaty between Israel and Egypt — serves a unique, though unofficial, role in peacemaking efforts in the region.
Although traveling as a “private citizen” and not a representative of the US government, Carter said he would report to the administration of US President Barack Obama after returning to the US.
Carter has advocated talking to all parties in the conflict, even Hamas, which the US, the EU and Israel consider a terrorist organization.
Carter said one of his trip’s main goals was to persuade Hamas to accept the West’s three conditions for engaging the group: renouncing violence, recognizing Israel and accepting previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements — all of which Hamas has refused to do.
At a news conference in Tel Aviv after leaving Gaza, Carter said he was waiting for Hamas to determine what it could agree to.
“When they make their decision on the exact language, they’ll be back in touch with me, and I’ll relay that commitment to the government officials in my country,” he said.
While in Gaza, Carter met with civil leaders and toured areas damaged in Israel’s three-week offensive against Hamas, which ended on Jan. 18.
In other news, Israeli Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch apologized yesterday after being caught by TV cameras on Tuesday using a racial slur in addressing an Arab police officer.
Aharonovitch was seen and heard telling the officer, who had apologized for his uniform not being clean: “What do you mean dirty? You look like a real Araboosh,” a derogatory term for an Arab in Hebrew slang.
“This remark does not reflect my positions or world view and I apologize to anyone who was insulted,” he said in a statement.
Women’s accessories sold by some of the world’s most popular online shopping firms contained toxic substances sometimes hundreds of times above acceptable levels, authorities in Seoul said yesterday. Chinese giants including Shein, Temu and AliExpress have skyrocketed in popularity around the world in the past few years, offering a vast selection of trendy clothes and accessories at low prices. The explosive growth has led to increased scrutiny of their business practices and safety standards, including in the EU and South Korea, where Seoul officials have been conducting weekly inspections of items sold by online platforms. In the most recent inspection, 144 products from
The US on Monday confirmed that it would resume sales of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia, as concerns over human rights in the kingdom’s Yemen war give way to US hopes for it to play a role in resolving the conflict in Gaza. More than three years after imposing limits on human rights grounds over Saudi Arabian strikes in Yemen, the US Department of State said that it would return to weapons sales “in regular order, with appropriate congressional notification and consultation.” “Saudi Arabia has remained a close strategic partner of the United States, and we look forward to enhancing that partnership,”
Russia yesterday ordered more evacuations in a region bordering Ukraine as it battled to contain an unprecedented push onto its territory by Kyiv’s forces. Ukraine last week sent troops into Russia’s border region of Kursk, in the largest cross-border operation by Kyiv since Moscow launched its offensive more than two years ago. The assault, which has sent tens of thousands of people fleeing, marked the most significant attack by a foreign army on Russian territory since World War II. A top Ukrainian official said that the operation was aimed at stretching Moscow troops and destabilizing the nation after months of slow Russian advances
DEMOCRACY: The Brazilian president’s shifting attitude toward leftist authoritarians is because he does not want to be seen as supporting dictatorships, analysts said Brazil and Nicaragua have expelled each other’s ambassadors in a tit-for-tat diplomatic row, as Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva appears to recalibrate his approach to authoritarian leftist rulers who were once seen as allies. The dual expulsions this week came amid growing tensions between Lula and another supposedly progressive leader, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whose claim of re-election the Brazilian president has yet to acknowledge. Lula and his counterparts in Colombia and Mexico have called on Maduro to release voting tallies from all polling stations to support his win. On Thursday, Brazil announced the expulsion of the Nicaraguan ambassador as