WASHINGTON, May 29 – The White House said on Thursday that Israel has signed off on a 60-day Gaza ceasefire proposal as Israeli army continues its military actions in the war-torn area.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed at a press briefing that U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and U.S. President Donald Trump “submitted a ceasefire proposal to Hamas that Israel backed and supported.”
“Israel signed off on this proposal before it was sent to Hamas. I can also confirm that those discussions are continuing, and we hope that a ceasefire in Gaza will take place so we can return all of the hostages home,” said Leavitt.
“I won’t comment further, as we are in the midst of this right now,” she added.
An Israeli official and a U.S. source familiar with the case confirmed that the proposed deal includes not only the 60-day ceasefire but also plans to release 10 living hostages and the remains of 18 dead hostages, CBS News reported.
Hamas said Thursday that its leadership had received a new Gaza ceasefire proposal from Witkoff through the mediators and was studying it.
“The Hamas leadership has received Witkoff’s new proposal from the mediators and is responsibly studying it in a way that serves the interests of our people, provides relief, and achieves a permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip,” Hamas said in a brief statement.
ISLAMABAD, May 29 – Five terrorists were killed in two separate intelligence-based operations in Pakistan’s southwest Balochistan province, the military said on Thursday.
The operations were conducted in Loralai and Kech districts of the province on Wednesday, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media wing of the Pakistan Army, said in a statement.
During the operation in Loralai, four terrorists were killed in an exchange of fire with security forces, the ISPR said. Weapons, ammunition, and explosives were recovered from the scene.
In a separate operation in Kech district, one more terrorist was neutralized, the statement added.
The ISPR said the terrorists were affiliated with a banned outfit and had been involved in several terrorist activities, including deadly ambushes on passenger vehicles along the N-70 highway in the Rarasham area in August 2024 and February 2025, which claimed the lives of at least 30 civilians.
Sanitization operations are being carried out to eliminate the presence of other terrorists in the area.
The military said the security forces of Pakistan are determined to wipe out the menace of terrorism from the country.
BISHKEK, May 29 – National security authorities in Kyrgyzstan have detained eight current and former employees of independent media outlet Kloop, their lawyers said, accusing them of inciting unrest amid a growing crackdown on media in the Central Asian country.
Five journalists from Kloop – known for its anti-corruption reporting – were arrested on Wednesday after authorities raided their homes and seized their electronic devices, lawyers for the people said. A further three people were arrested on Thursday.
They face charges of calling for mass unrest and disobeying government officials, which can incur up to 10 years in prison.
Daiyrbek Orunbekov, the head of the presidential administration, wrote on social media that the media workers had “spread false information” and had published material “directed against the state”.
A spokesman for the national security body declined comment.
Rinat Tukhvatshin, a co-founder of Kloop, said the government’s claims were fabricated.
Syinat Sultanalieva, a Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, condemned the detentions as “yet another example of the Kyrgyzstani authorities’ continued crackdown on freedom of speech and expression”.
Several of the people were released after hours of interrogation, while some are still in custody with no access to their lawyers.
Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet republic, has historically enjoyed greater media freedom than its Central Asian neighbours.
However, under President Sadyr Japarov, who came to power in 2020, the government enacted a law prohibiting media and individuals from “discrediting” the authorities, providing a tool to suppress dissent.
Kloop, an independent outlet founded in 2007, was forced to shutter last year after state prosecutors filed a lawsuit arguing that its NGO publisher, Kloop Media, was not properly registered as a media organisation.
KAMPALA, May 29 – Six family members, including children, were killed in a fire outbreak in Uganda’s central district of Wakiso on Thursday.
Police said in a statement that the victims killed in the early hours of Thursday included a father, a mother, and their children aged between seven and 16.
According to police, residents heard a loud blast before rushing to offer assistance.
“However, the fire had already engulfed the house, making rescue efforts extremely difficult,” police said.
“Police were alerted, and the Fire Prevention and Rescue Services team responded swiftly, successfully containing the fire and preventing it from spreading to adjacent properties,” the statement added.
The bodies of the deceased have been conveyed to a city mortuary, with an investigation underway into the cause of the fire.
SEOUL, May 29 – A South Korean maritime patrol aircraft crashed soon after takeoff near a military base in the southern city of Pohang on Thursday, killing all four crew members, the navy said.
The P-3 aircraft went down about six minutes after it left the airfield on a training mission at 1:43 p.m. (0443 GMT), the navy said in a statement.
Witness video footages aired on YTN television showed the plane banking at low altitude, then a plume of smoke and fire after it crashed.
The remains of the crew members have been recovered and no civilian casualties were reported, the navy said. Operation of the P-3 aircraft has been suspended and an accident investigation has been opened, it said.
MADRID, May 29 – Three people were killed and three others injured on Thursday when a warehouse collapsed in the northern Spanish region of Asturias.
According to local emergency services, the incident occurred around 1 p.m. local time (1100 GMT) near Coana, a town of approximately 3,000 residents in the western part of the province. The roof of the warehouse, which was under construction on a livestock farm, suddenly gave way.
Police have launched an investigation to determine the cause of the collapse.
A total of nine individuals were present at the site when the accident occurred. Three managed to escape uninjured, while one of the injured is reported to be in serious condition.
TUNIS, May 29 – Two people were killed and 27 others injured on Thursday morning in a traffic collision in Tunisia’s northwestern province of El Kef, the private radio station Jawhara FM reported.
A truck transporting female farmworkers collided with a light vehicle on the national highway between El Kef and Tunis in the Dar Essalem area, killing one female farmworker and the driver of the light vehicle, Jawhara FM quoted Moncef El Houani, regional director of public health in El Kef, as saying.
The injured have all been transported to the Kef Regional Hospital for treatment, four of whom require further medical attention, Jawhara FM reported.
LONDON – London police on Wednesday arrested five people for trying to disrupt the filming of a movie starring Israeli actress Gal Gadot, a statement said.
Gadot, star of “Wonder Woman” and in “Fast and Furious” is in London to film a new thriller “The Runner.”
She has been criticized by pro-Palestinian groups for expressing her support of Israel since the Gaza war erupted in 2023.
Police said officers were deployed to a “filming location” in Westminster “to identify suspects wanted in connection with offenses at previous film set protests and to deal with any new offenses.”
The arrests were for blocking an access to a place of work. Police said in a statement posted on social media that two of the arrests were for previous protests and three for action carried out Wednesday.
“While we absolutely acknowledge the importance of peaceful protest, we have a duty to intervene where it crosses the line into serious disruption or criminality,” said Superintendent Neil Holyoak in the statement.
“I hope today’s operation shows we will not tolerate the harassment of or unlawful interference with those trying to go about their legitimate professional work in London,” the officer added.
Pro-Palestinian protesters also disrupted a Hollywood ceremony in March when Gadot’s star on the Walk of Fame was unveiled.
MUWASI, Gaza Strip – Chaos erupted on the second day of aid operations by a new US-backed group in Gaza as desperate Palestinians overwhelmed a center distributing food on Tuesday, breaking through fences. Nearby Israeli troops fired warning shots, sending people fleeing in panic.
An AP journalist heard Israeli tank and gunfire and saw a military helicopter firing flares. The Israeli military said its troops fired the warning shots in the area outside the center and that “control over the situation was established.”
At least three injured Palestinians were seen by The Associated Press being brought from the scene, one of them bleeding from his leg.
The distribution hub outside Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah had been opened the day before by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has been slated by Israel to take over aid operations. The UN and other humanitarian organizations have rejected the new system, saying it won’t be able to meet the needs of Gaza’s 2.3 million people and allows Israel to use food as a weapon to control the population. They have also warned of the risk of friction between Israeli troops and people seeking supplies.
MEXICO: Missing persons investigators found 17 bodies in an abandoned house in a central Mexican region plagued by criminal violence, the state prosecutor’s office said.
Ground-penetrating radar and cadaver dogs were used to locate the bodies last week in Irapuato in Guanajuato state, according to a statement released late Monday.
Knives, machetes, pickaxes, and shovels were also found.
Five of the victims – four men and one woman – have been identified as missing persons, according to prosecutors.
“Their families are being informed,” a Guanajuato state official, Jorge Jimenez, told reporters.
Guanajuato is a thriving industrial hub and home to several popular tourist destinations, but it is also Mexico’s deadliest state due to gang turf wars, according to official homicide statistics.
Criminal violence, most of it linked to drug trafficking, has claimed around 480,000 lives in Mexico since 2006 and left more than 120,000 people missing.
Civil society groups formed by relatives who denounce government inaction risk their own lives searching for remains in unmarked graves, often in areas where cartel gunmen are active.
Much of the violence in Guanajuato is linked to conflict between the Santa Rosa de Lima gang and the Jalisco New Generation cartel, one of the most powerful in the Latin American nation.
Guanajuato recorded more than 3,000 murders last year, the most of any Mexican state, according to official figures.
That was equivalent to just over 10 percent of the nationwide total.
May 28 – Russian air defences destroyed or intercepted 112 Ukrainian drones over a three-hour period, including a swarm of drones repelled while headed for Moscow, officials said early on Wednesday.
Russia’s Defence Ministry, in a post on the Telegram messaging app said the incidents occurred between 9 p.m. and midnight Moscow time. Fifty-nine drones were downed over the Bryansk region on the Ukrainian border, the others were intercepted over five different regions.
The ministry announcement made no mention of drones being downed in the region surrounding Moscow.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, in a series of notices posted in rapid succession on Telegram, listed 12 drones he said had been intercepted while heading for the Russian capital.
“Ministry of Defence air defence units continue to repel the attacks of enemy drones,” Sobyanin wrote.
Recovery crews were examining fragments on the ground, he said.
Russia and Ukraine fired large numbers of missiles at each other over the past week.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday that more than 900 missiles had been fired at Ukrainian targets over a three-day period ending early on Monday. The numbers tapered off on Monday night to Tuesday morning.
HARARE, May 27 – At least 12 people were killed Tuesday morning after a fuel tanker hit a truck and a van on a highway near the city of Kwekwe, Zimbabwe’s Midlands Province, local police confirmed.
Zimbabwean Police spokesperson Paul Nyathi said in a statement that the petrol tanker, with two trailers, hit a 2-ton truck traveling in the opposite direction, and then had a head-on collision with a van carrying 12 occupants, also traveling in the opposite direction.
The tanker, which was traveling from Harare, dragged the van for several meters before it overturned and landed on top of the van, trapping the occupants inside, he said, without disclosing the identity of the deceased.
More details on the accident would be released in due course, he added.
Deadly road accidents are frequently reported in Zimbabwe. Police attribute some road accidents to reckless driving, including speeding and failure to observe traffic regulations, while some are caused by defective vehicles.
YAOUNDE, May 27 – At least seven people died Tuesday in a collision involving several vehicles in Cameroon, according the police.
The tragedy occurred along a major highway in Matomb locality in the Nyong-et-Kelle department in Centre region where the capital of Yaounde is located.
Witnesses said two trucks collided and blocked traffic for hours, and a second collision involving about 10 vehicles ensued.
State broadcaster CRTV reported that five people died on the spot and two others died from injuries as they were being rushed to a local hospital.
Those injured are receiving treatment in the hospital, the prefect of Nyong-et-Kelle, Chaibou, told reporters after visiting the scene of the accident.
Formal inquiries have been launched into the exact cause of the tragedy, the police said.
JINAN, May 27 – Five people were killed and six others were missing as of 7:25 p.m. Tuesday following the explosion at the workshop of a chemical company in the city of Gaomi, east China’s Shandong Province, said the local emergency management bureau.
Nineteen people also sustained minor injuries in the accident that occurred at the Shandong Youdao Chemical Co., Ltd. at noon, the bureau said.
The provincial and local authorities have established a joint rescue command center to coordinate efforts, focusing on searching for the missing, treating the injured, comforting families and monitoring the environment. Search and cleanup work at the scene is still ongoing.
Upon receiving the report of the blast, the Ministry of Emergency Management immediately dispatched a work team and specialized personnel, including firefighters, medical experts and work safety specialists, to aid local rescue efforts.
JINAN, May 27 – An explosion occurred at the workshop of a chemical company in the city of Gaomi, east China’s Shandong Province, at noon on Tuesday, with emergency response efforts currently underway, according to the municipal emergency management bureau.
JERICHO, May 27, 2025 – A young man was killed at dawn on Tuesday during an Israeli occupation forces raid on the city of Jericho.
Medical sources confirmed to WAFA that 20-year-old Mohammed Yahya Asi Jalaytah succumbed to his wounds after being shot by Israeli forces during the raid on the Arab neighborhood in central Jericho.
The Fatah movement in the Jericho organizational area declared a general strike in mourning for Jalaytah.
After midnight, Israeli occupation forces raided Jericho and fired live ammunition and sound bombs at residents of the Arab neighborhood in central Jericho.
They also raided a private home, during which Jalaytah was hit by live ammunition and later pronounced dead.
The slain youth’s body will be taken this afternoon from his family’s home on Qasr Hisham Street in central Jericho to the old Jericho mosque, and then to his final resting place.
GAZA, May 27, 2025 – Israeli bombing on Monday evening killed two Palestinian civilians and injured others across the war-torn Gaza Strip, according to WAFA correspondent.
He said that Israeli fighter jets conducted a strike targeting an area to the east of Az-Zawayda town in the central Strip, claiming the life of a civilian and injuring others.
He added that Israeli bombardment targeted a house in the Zeitoun neighborhood, south of Gaza City, claiming the life of another civilian.
Meanwhile, the occupying forces razed and blew up several houses to the east of Khan Younes and in the northern Strip, causing extensive destruction, and targeted anyone in the surrounding area, with the death toll exceeding 80 on Monday.
Israel unilaterally ended the Gaza ceasefire agreement and resumed its aggression on the Strip on Tuesday, March 18, carrying out a wave of bloody airstrikes across the Strip and killing hundreds of Palestinians.
NEW YORK, May 27 – A motorboat with 13 people on board exploded in Fort Lauderdale, U.S. state of Florida, on Monday afternoon, according to U.S. Coast Guard and media reports.
Up to 11 people, including two children, were injured and transported to hospitals.
The explosion took place when the anchored boat was trying to leave the New River Triangle sandbar.
People on board were tossed into water and the cause of the explosion is unknown yet, according to Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue spokesperson Frank Guzman.
Local fire investigators, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and Fort Lauderdale Police are investigating the cause of the blast.
WASHINGTON, May 27 – A mass shooting occurred in a park in the U.S. city of Philadelphia on Monday night, killing at least two people, local WPVI-TV reported.
At least eight others were wounded in the gunfire in the Fairmount Park, reported the TV channel, which is affiliated with the ABC News.
The report said the shooting happened on Lemon Hill Drive at Poplar Drive in the city.
Among the people shot were at least two juveniles, it said, citing the police.
Crowds greet the Liverpool soccer team during their Premier League winners parade in Liverpool, England, Monday, May 26, 2025. AP
LIVERPOOL, England, May 26 – A car ploughed into a crowd of Liverpool fans during a parade celebrating their side’s Premier League soccer title on Monday, hospitalising 27 people, with two seriously injured, but police said they did not believe the incident was terrorism-related.
Police said they had arrested a “53-year-old white British man from the Liverpool area,” whom they believed to be the driver of the vehicle which struck a large group of supporters who were celebrating in the city in northwest England.
Twenty people were treated at the scene. Ambulance officials said of the 27 taken to hospital, four were children. One child and one adult were in a serious condition. Four people trapped under the vehicle had to be released by fire fighters.
Videos on social media showed people thrown into the air as the car rammed into spectators. When the car stopped, angry fans converged on it and began smashing the windows as police officers intervened to prevent them from reaching the driver.
“We believe this to be an isolated incident, and we are not currently looking for anyone else in relation to it. The incident is not being treated as terrorism,” temporary Deputy Chief Constable Jenny Sims told reporters.
With most people off work for the Spring Bank Holiday, hundreds of thousands of fans gathered to watch the Liverpool team and its staff travel through the city centre on an open-top bus with the Premier League trophy.
The incident “cast a very dark shadow over what had been a joyous day,” Liverpool city council leader Liam Robinson said on social media.
In the aftermath, a Reuters photographer saw emergency services carrying victims on stretchers to ambulances and debris scattered on the road.
Police were unusually quick to give a description of the man they arrested.
Dal Babu, a former chief superintendent in London’s Metropolitan Police, told the BBC this was an effort to cool social media speculation that the episode was an Islamist attack.
The same police force oversaw the response to the murder of three young girls in the nearby town of Southport last year, an incident which sparked days of rioting, sparked by speculation online over the identity of the attacker.
An eyewitness to Monday’s incident who gave her name as Chelsea told BBC Radio that people packed onto the street were only alerted to the danger by screams from the crowd. That enabled some to jump out of the way as the driver showed no sign of slowing.
“With the commotion, that was the only reason we looked up, and thankfully, looked up and managed to jump out (of) the way in time,” the woman said.
A Reuters witness said that before the incident, there was disorder in the city centre where the parade was due to pass, with overcrowding and spectators confused by a lack of signage about street closures or where they should go.
Liverpool last won the trophy during the COVID pandemic when celebrations were not permitted due to lockdowns.
Politicians in Britain and in Ireland, where the club is popular, thanked emergency services.
“My thoughts are with all those injured or affected,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on X, calling the scenes “appalling.” and saying that he was being updated about the events.
The team said on X it was in direct contact with police. “Our thoughts and prayers are with those who have been affected by this serious incident,” Liverpool FC said.
