Hamas response to US-proposed Gaza deal expected soon
On Friday, Trump told reporters he would know over the next 24 hours whether Hamas has agreed to accept the ceasefire proposal.
Multiple media outlets report that the agreement calls for a 60-day ceasefire in exchange for the release of 10 living hostages and the return of 18 bodies by Hamas to Israel in stages.
They say the deal also seeks to arrange talks to end the conflict during the ceasefire.
Trump earlier said that Israel had agreed to the proposal. An Israeli delegation reportedly would join indirect talks to cement the deal if Hamas gives a positive response.
A Saudi media outlet reported on Friday that Hamas is moving toward accepting the US proposal. It says that is because the group saw new developments regarding the flow of aid into Gaza and Israel's withdrawal.
Observers are waiting to see how the Islamic group will respond to this ceasefire proposal, as Hamas seeks guarantees that the truce will lead to a permanent end to hostilities with Israel, which has declared it aims to destroy the group.
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Japan Times
23 minutes ago
- Japan Times
At least 24 dead in Texas flash flooding, with two dozen young campers missing
Torrential rains unleashed flash floods along the Guadalupe River in Texas on Friday, killing at least 24 people as rescue teams scrambled to save dozens of victims trapped by high water or reported missing in the disaster, local officials said. Among the missing were 23 to 25 people listed as unaccounted for at an all-girls Christian summer camp located on the banks of the rain-engorged Guadalupe, authorities said. At a news conference late Friday, almost 18 hours after the crisis began, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said search-and-rescue operations would press on through the night and into Saturday. Abbott said resources devoted to the effort would be "limitless." Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One at the end of a day of public events, U.S. President Donald Trump said "we'll take care of them," when asked about federal aid for the disaster. The U.S. National Weather Service declared a flash flood emergency for parts of Kerr County in south-central Texas Hill Country, about 105 kilometers northwest of San Antonio, following thunderstorms that dumped as much as a 30 centimeters of rain. Dalton Rice, city manager for Kerrville, the county seat, told reporters the extreme flooding struck before dawn with little or no warning, precluding authorities from issuing advance evacuation orders as the Guadalupe swiftly rose above major flood stage. "This happened very quickly, over a very short period of time that could not be predicted, even with radar," Rice said. "This happened within less than a two-hour span." State emergency management officials had warned as early as Thursday that west and central Texas faced heavy rains and flash flood threats "over the next couple days," citing National Weather Service forecasts ahead of the holiday weekend. But the weather forecasts in question "did not predict the amount of rain that we saw," W. Nim Kidd, director of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, told a news conference on Friday night. Fireworks displays for U.S. Independence Day ended up being canceled in flood-stricken communities throughout the region, including Kerrville, where the waterfront site for Friday night's planned celebration was submerged by the rain-swollen river. At Friday night's briefing, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said 24 flood-related fatalities had been confirmed, up from 13 tallied earlier in the day. One more person found dead in neighboring Kendall County was not confirmed to be a flood-related casualty, Leitha said. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said on Friday afternoon that authorities were searching for 23 girls listed as missing from among more than 750 children at summer camp sites along the banks of the Guadalupe River when the area was inundated by floodwaters at around 4 a.m. local time. The missing campers had all been attending Camp Mystic, a private Christian summer camp for girls. "We're praying for all those missing to be found alive," Patrick said. It was not clear whether anyone unaccounted for might have ended up among the deceased victims tallied countywide by the sheriff. Otherwise, all other campers were safe, authorities said, with campers being evacuated throughout the day. "Everybody is doing everything in their power to get these kids out," Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, the top local elected official, had said at a news briefing on the disaster hours earlier. Kelly said a number of scattered residential subdivisions, recreational vehicle parks and campgrounds were hit hard. Pressed by reporters why more precautions were not taken with stormy weather in the forecast, Kelly insisted a disaster of such magnitude was unforeseen. "We have floods all the time. This is the most dangerous river valley in the United States," Kelly said. "We had no reason to believe this was going to be anything like what's happened here. None whatsoever." In an alert on Thursday, the Texas Division of Emergency Management said it had increased its readiness level and "activated additional state emergency response resources" as parts of west and central Texas braced "for continued heavy rainfall and flash flooding threats heading into the holiday weekend." Patrick said the Guadalupe River had risen 8 meters in 45 minutes as heavy showers soaked the region. As of Friday night, emergency personnel had rescued or evacuated 237 people, including 167 by helicopter. With additional rain forecast in the region, Patrick warned that an ongoing threat for possible flash flooding extended from San Antonio to Waco for the next 24 to 48 hours. On Friday night, Abbott signed a disaster declaration to hasten emergency assistance to Kerr and a cluster of additional counties hardest hit by the floods. Personnel from the U.S. Coast Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency also were activated to assist local authorities in confronting the crisis, officials said.
Japan Times
24 minutes ago
- Japan Times
In reversal, Japan now wants rice farmers to produce more. Will it work?
For more than half a century, the Japanese government has encouraged rice farmers to grow less of the crop so that prices of the national staple grain remained relatively high and steady. Now, under an ambitious agricultural policy announced this year, Tokyo is preparing for a reversal, envisaging a future of bountiful output that would secure the country's food security without sending prices into freefall and hurting its politically influential farmers. The new direction has taken on an unexpected urgency as Japan grapples with a shortage of the all-important staple, which has prompted a historic spike in prices, a flood of imports, and interest from U.S. President Donald Trump, who has renewed pressure on Japan to buy American rice as part of the allies' elusive trade deal. It is a policy that many farmers like Kazuhachi Hosaka welcome in principle, but with trepidation because questions over how it would work in practice remain unanswered. The government is aiming to complete a roadmap by the middle of next year. Stay updated on Japan's rice crisis. Quality journalism is more crucial than ever. Help us get the story right. For a limited time, we're offering a discounted subscription plan. Unlimited access US$30 US$18 /mo FOREVER subscribe NOW "We'd want the government to make sure there's some kind of a safety net for producers," Hosaka said at his farm in Niigata Prefecture. "It's easy enough to switch rice for feed or processed foods to staple rice. But tilling land for new paddies or switching from wheat or soybeans would require labor, machinery and all kinds of investments." This year, Hosaka allocated all but 10 hectares of his 180-hectare land for staple rice, reducing feed-use rice by 20 hectares given the attractive prices. But he worries that prices could plunge if Japan's overall production goes unchecked under the new policy, set to be implemented from the 2027 crop year. When rice turned into a luxury item this year, consumers fumed and policymakers — facing imminent elections — worried. | Reuters "I do feel conflicted," Hosaka said about the doubling of retail rice prices to above ¥4,000 ($27.80) for a 5 kilogram bag this year in what has turned into a national crisis. "It's important that rice prices settle at levels acceptable to both producers and consumers," he said. Hosaka hopes prices stabilize around ¥3,000 to ¥3,500 — a level Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba also hopes would be palatable for voters. Supermarket prices fell for a fifth straight week, to ¥3,801 in the seven days to June 22, but were still 70% higher than the same period last year. For Japanese people, rice is more than just a staple food. Cultivated in the country for more than 2,000 years, rice is considered sacred in the indigenous Shinto religion and is deeply ingrained in local tradition and culture. People are famously proud of the short-grain japonica variety, protecting the market with trade barriers. So when rice turned into a luxury item this year, consumers fumed and policymakers — facing imminent elections — worried. With an eye on voters ahead of an Upper House election on July 20, the government has been releasing emergency rice from its stockpile to sell for about ¥2,000 per 5 kg. Farmers — also traditionally an important voting bloc for Ishiba's Liberal Democratic Party — were told it was a dire but necessary move to protect Japan's food security and prevent consumers from switching permanently away from homegrown rice. But for most of the past 50 years, Japan has poured its energy into doing the opposite: providing subsidies to farmers to grow crops other than staple rice so as to prevent oversupply and a fall in prices. That system backfired last year when the farm ministry misread supply from the heat-damaged 2023 harvest, resulting in a severe shortage in August. The ensuing surge in prices made Japan an anomaly against a fall in global prices, and exposed the risks of its approach. The new policy, if successful, would prevent a recurrence by allocating 350,000 tons of rice for export in 2030 — an eightfold jump from 45,000 tons last year — that could be redirected to the domestic market in the event of a shortage, the government says. Some agricultural experts say the policy is unrealistic. The idea of selling expensive Japanese rice abroad is counterintuitive, especially when even Japan is importing record amounts of the grain despite the ¥341 per kg levy that had previously priced foreign products out of the market. Kazuhachi Hosaka washes his hands in an irrigation canal at his farm in Joetsu, Niigata Prefecture, on June 19. | Reuters Japanese have also acquired a taste for U.S. calrose rice, while imports from Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam have also been popular with businesses and cost-conscious consumers. "Expensive rice might sell to niche markets, but getting that up to 350,000 tons would require price competitiveness, and there's a long way for that," said Kazunuki Ohizumi, professor emeritus at Miyagi University and an expert on agricultural management. The government aims to provide some form of support but also expects farmers to make their own efforts to consolidate, and make use of artificial intelligence and other technologies to lower production costs. Meanwhile, Hosaka said, prices of fertilizers, pesticides and fuel have shot up, sending production costs through the roof. "It's tough," he said. "The government has released quite a bit of stockpiled rice, so I'm very worried about prices falling even further."
Japan Times
2 hours ago
- Japan Times
Israel acknowledges Palestinian civilians harmed at Gaza aid sites
The Israeli military acknowledged on Monday that Palestinian civilians were harmed at aid distribution centers in the Gaza Strip, saying that Israeli forces had been issued new instructions following what it called "lessons learned." Since Israel lifted an 11-week aid blockade on Gaza on May 19, allowing limited U.N. deliveries to resume, the United Nations says more than 400 Palestinians have been killed while seeking handouts of aid. "Following incidents in which harm to civilians who arrived at distribution facilities was reported, thorough examinations were conducted in the Southern Command and instructions were issued to forces in the field following lessons learned," the Israeli military spokesperson said in a statement. The statement said incidents in which Gaza civilians were harmed were under review. It followed a Friday report in the newspaper Haaretz that Israel's Military Advocate General had ordered an investigation into possible war crimes over allegations that Israeli forces deliberately fired at Palestinian civilians near the sites. The spokesperson had no immediate comment on a Times of Israel report on Monday, citing the military, that artillery shelling intended to deter Palestinians from approaching certain zones near aid distribution centers had been inaccurate in at least three instances, resulting in 30-40 casualties, including several fatalities. Israel has repeatedly said its forces operate near the centers in order to prevent the aid from falling into the hands of Palestinian Hamas militants. A senior U.N. official said on Sunday that the majority of people killed were trying to reach aid distribution sites of the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of deliveries which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. Many Gazans say they have to walk for hours to reach the sites, meaning they must start traveling well before dawn if they are to stand any chance of receiving food. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Friday that the U.S.-backed aid operation in Gaza is "inherently unsafe,' adding: "It is killing people.' Israel and the United States want the U.N. to work through the GHF, but the U.N. has refused, questioning its neutrality and accusing the distribution model of militarizing aid and forcing displacement. "Any operation that channels desperate civilians into militarized zones is inherently unsafe. It is killing people," Guterres told reporters. Responding to Guterres on Friday, Israel's Foreign Ministry said its military never targets civilians and accused the U.N. of "doing everything it can' to oppose the GHF aid operation. "In doing so, the U.N. is aligning itself with Hamas, which is also trying to sabotage the GHF's humanitarian operations,' it posted on X. A GHF spokesperson said on Friday there had been no deaths at or near any of the GHF aid distribution sites. Israel and the United States have accused Hamas of stealing aid from the U.N.-led operations, which the Palestinian militants deny. The Israeli military said on Monday it had taken actions to safeguard the aid distribution centers with fencing, directional and warning signs, and the addition of more access routes with barriers and checkpoints to regulate vehicle movement. It said it had moved one distribution center to reduce friction with the population and maintain the safety of troops on the ground. The war erupted after Hamas-led militants in Gaza took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in an October 7, 2023 attack, Israel's single deadliest day. Israel's military campaign has since killed more than 56,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to health authorities in Gaza, and flattened much of the coastal enclave.
