Politics
UN aid chief says rebuilding Gaza will be a ‘massive challenge’ after tour of devastation
The United Nations’ humanitarian chief on Saturday assessed the enormous challenge of restoring essential services across the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, as Israel received the remains of another hostage from the October 7 attack, marking the second week of the ceasefire.
In a small convoy of white UN vehicles, relief coordinator Tom Fletcher and his team navigated through the wreckage of demolished buildings to inspect a wastewater treatment facility in Sheikh Radwan, north of Gaza City.
“I drove through here seven or eight months ago when most of these buildings were still standing. To see this level of destruction vast stretches of the city turned into wasteland it’s absolutely heartbreaking,” Fletcher told AFP.
Once densely populated with over two million Palestinians, Gaza’s cities now lie in ruins after two years of relentless bombardment and fierce clashes between Hamas and the Israeli army.
A little over a week after U.S. President Donald Trump helped broker the truce, the main border crossing with Egypt remains closed, though hundreds of aid trucks continue to enter daily through Israeli checkpoints to distribute relief supplies.
Hamas has returned the last 20 living hostages in its custody and has begun transferring the remains of 28 others who died during captivity.
On Friday night, it handed over the body of Eliyahu Margalit, 75, who was killed in the October 2023 attack that triggered the Gaza war.
Digging latrines
Surveying the damaged pumping equipment and a grim lake of sewage at the Sheikh Radwan wastewater plant, Fletcher said the task ahead for the UN and aid agencies was a “massive, massive job”.
The British diplomat said he had met residents returning to destroyed homes trying to dig latrines in the ruins.
“They’re telling me most of all they want dignity,” he said. “We’ve got to get the power back on so we can start to get the sanitation system back in place.
“We have a massive 60 day plan now to surge in food, get a million meals out there a day, start to rebuild the health sector, bring in tents for the winter, get hundreds of thousands of kids back into school.”
According to figures supplied to mediators by the Israeli military’s civil affairs agency and released by the UN humanitarian office, on Thursday some 950 trucks carrying aid and commercial supplies crossed into Gaza from Israel.
Relief agencies have called for the Rafah border crossing from Egypt to be reopened to speed the flow of food, fuel and medicines, and Turkey has a team of rescue specialists waiting at the border to help find bodies in the rubble.
– Hostage remains –
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved the ceasefire but is under pressure at home to restrict access to Gaza until the remaining bodies of the hostages taken during Hamas’s brutal attacks have been returned.
On Saturday, his office confirmed that the latest body, returned by Hamas via the Red Cross on Friday night, had been identified as Margalit, the elderly farmer who was known to his friends at the Nir Oz kibbutz as “Churchill”.
“He was a cowboy at heart, and for many years managed the cattle branch and the horse stables of Nir Oz,” said the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a support group founded by relatives of the hostages.
“He was connected to the ‘Riders of the South’ group whose members shared a love of horseback riding for over 50 years. On October 7, he went out to feed his beloved horses and was kidnapped from the stable.”
Margalit had been married with three children and three grandchildren. His daughter Nili Margalit, also taken hostage, was freed during the war’s first brief truce in November 2023.
In a statement confirming he had been identified and his remains returned to his family, Netanyahu’s office said “we will not compromise … and will spare no effort until we return all of the fallen abductees, down to the last one”.
Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said on Friday that the group “continues to uphold its commitment to the ceasefire agreement… and it will continue working to complete the full prisoner exchange process”.
Under the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, negotiated by Trump and regional mediators, the Palestinian militant group has returned all 20 surviving hostages and the remains of 10 out of 28 deceased ones.
Huge crowds took to the streets Saturday in all 50 US states to vent their anger over President Donald Trump’s hardline policies at “No Kings” protests that Republicans ridiculed as “Hate America” rallies.
From New York and Washington to smaller cities in Michigan and Trump’s second home in Florida, demonstrations in the eastern half of the United States revved up ahead of similar events due out west.
More than 2,700 protests are planned coast to coast, and organisers say they are expecting millions to attend.
“This is what democracy looks like!” chanted thousands at a protest in Washington near the National Mall, home to the city’s iconic landmarks.
“Hey hey ho ho, Donald Trump has got to go!” said protesters, many of them carrying American flags.
Demonstrators are up in arms over what they see as strongarm tactics since the Republican billionaire returned to the White House in January, including attacks on the media, prosecuting political opponents and a vast immigration crackdown.
A US government shutdown is now in its third week, with the Trump administration firing thousands of federal workers and lawmakers showing little sign they are ready to break the impasse.
Thousands flooded New York’s Times Square, Boston Common and Chicago’s Grant Park.
“I never thought I would live to see the death of my country as a democracy,” 69-year-old retiree Colleen Hoffman told AFP as she marched down Broadway.
“We are in a crisis— the cruelty of this regime, the authoritarianism. I just feel like I cannot sit home and do nothing.”
In New York’s Queens borough, demonstrators carried colorful signs that read “Queens Say No Kings,” and “We protest because we love America and want it back!” while some chanted, “We love our country, we can’t stand Trump!”
In Los Angeles, organizers plan to float a giant balloon of Trump in a diaper. They said they expect 100,000 people to attend.
So far, Trump’s response to Saturday’s events has been muted.
“They’re saying they’re referring to me as a king. I’m not a king,” he told Fox News show “Sunday Morning Futures.”
But his top surrogates were in more fighting form, with House Speaker Mike Johnson calling the day of protest the “Hate America rally.”
“You’re going to bring together the Marxists, the Socialists, the Antifa advocates, the anarchists and the pro-Hamas wing of the far-left Democrat Party,” he told reporters.
Republican lawmaker Tom Emmer also used the “Hate America” phrase and referred to participants as the “terrorist wing” of the Democratic Party.
‘Country of equals’
Beyond the United States, the “No Kings” movement is even organizing events in Canada, and small protests took place Saturday in Malaga, Spain and Malmo, Sweden.
On Thursday, Deirdre Schifeling, chief political and advocacy officer for the American Civil Liberties Union, said protesters wanted to convey that “we are a country of equals.”
“We are a country of laws that apply to everyone, of due process and of democracy. We will not be silenced,” she told reporters.
Leah Greenberg, co-founder of the Indivisible Project, slammed the Trump administration’s efforts to send the National Guard into US cities and crack down on undocumented migrants.
Trump has ordered National Guard troops into Los Angeles, Washington and Memphis. Planned deployments to Chicago and Portland, Oregon have so far been blocked in the courts.
“It is the classic authoritarian playbook: threaten, smear and lie, scare people into submission,” Greenberg said.
Top Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer encouraged demonstrators to let their voices be heard.
“I say to my fellow Americans this No Kings Day: Do not let Donald Trump and Republicans intimidate you into silence. That’s what they want to do. They’re afraid of the truth,” he wrote Saturday on X.
“Speak out, use your voice, and exercise your right to free speech.”
More than seventy Khwarij belonging to Gul Bahadur group, including key Khwariji leader Farman alias Al-Karamah, have been killed during effective precision strikes on terrorist hideouts of Khwariji Gul Bahadur group in the areas of Paktika.
According to credible intelligence sources, these strikes were carried out in the night of 17th of October.
According to security officials, the Khwariji Gul Bahadur group is involved in major and numerous acts of terrorism in Pakistan while infiltrating from Afghanistan.
On October 17, the same group also carried out a failed VBIED attack in Khadi area of North Waziristan, in which three women, two children and a jawan were martyred.
Moreover, other Khwariji leaders Gulab alis Deewana, Rehmani, Adil,Siddiqullah Dawar, Ghazi Maddah Khel, Muqarrab, Qismat Ullah and Fazal-ur-Rehman were also killed in the attacks.
Khwariji Fazal-ur-Rehman is the close relative of Gul Bahadur. Similarly, Khwariji Ashiq Ullah alias Kausar and Younus were also killed in these strikes.
The security officials termed the killing of important Khwarji leaders as a significant and big success
- “All aircraft are safe,” says airport official Masudul Hasan.
- Blaze disrupts both domestic and international flights.
- No immediate information on what caused blaze.
Flights out of Bangladesh’s main airport were delayed or diverted on Saturday after a major fire broke out in the cargo terminal, officials said.
Thirty-six firefighting units are working to douse the flames, Talha Bin Zasim, an officer at the Fire Service and Civil Defence Media Cell, told Reuters.
Operations at Dhaka’s Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport were suspended, airport official Masudul Hasan told reporters, adding all aircraft are safe.
There was no immediate information as to what may have caused the blaze.
Both domestic and international flights were affected.
An IndiGo flight from Delhi to Dhaka was diverted to Kolkata, and an Air Arabia flight from Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates was sent on to Chittagong.
Meanwhile, a Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong was seen circling in the sky after failing to land at Dhaka airport, officials said.
The army, navy, and air force joined the fire service in efforts to bring the blaze under control.
This is the third major fire reported in Bangladesh this week. A fire on Tuesday at a garment factory in Bangladesh and an adjacent chemical warehouse killed at least 16 people and injured others. On Thursday, another fire burned down a garment factory building in an export processing zone in Chittagong.
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