- India's one-horned rhino numbers charging ahead, govt says
- Rescuers comb muddy riverbanks after Japan floods kill seven
- Asian stocks boosted by US rate cut, China stimulus hope
- Sri Lanka's new leader says no magic solution to crisis
- Israel warns Lebanese as wave of strikes hits Hezbollah
- New Socceroos coach Popovic confident he can rescue World Cup campaign
- 'Put Austrians first': On a pub crawl with far-right voters
- Trial begins in Italy student murder case that opened eyes to femicide
- Family of murdered Sri Lanka editor seek justice from new president
- Austria's far right woos anti-vaxxers with fund for vaccine 'victims'
- Long wait for justice in India's backlogged courts
- Rohingya refugees detail worsening violence in Myanmar
- Rescuers comb muddy riverbanks after Japan floods kill six
- Sri Lankan leftist leader sworn in after landslide election win
- Indonesia, NZ deny Papua rebel claim 'bribe' paid for pilot release
- Swearing, shoeys and swift legs: Singapore GP talking points
- South Korea warns of 'decisive' action against trash balloons
- Football Australia names Tony Popovic as Socceroos coach
- Japan quake, flood victim attempts fresh start with wife's memory
- Japan quake, flood victim attemps fresh start with wife's memory
- Asian markets extend gains as focus turns to US inflation
- Six dead after floods in central Japan: media
- Australian golf prodigy suffers career-threatening eye injury
- Gaza hospital a symbol of the ruin of war
- October 7: how Israel's deadliest day unfolded
- Bibles, sneakers, silver coins: Trump's merch for sale
- Met Opera opens season with tech-heavy 'Grounded'
- Colombia's Inirida flower: from 'weed' to emblem for UN meeting
- Colombia rebel group imposes control in restive coca zone
- Rams fight back to upset 49ers, Cowboys lose again
- Sri Lankan leftist leader to take office after landslide election win
- 300-kilo WWI bomb removed in Belgrade
- Zelensky in US to explain war plan to Biden, Harris, Trump
- 'Atrocious' Sudan war pushing refugees further afield: UNHCR chief
- 'Convergence' growing on global plastics treaty: UN environment chief
- MLB White Sox fall to Padres to match one-season loss mark
- All-Australian Ripper squad captures LIV Golf team crown
- Barnier promises compromise from France's embattled new govt
- Zelensky arrives in US to explain war plan to Biden
- Barca rout Villarreal but Ter Stegen hurt, Atletico draw at Rayo
- Darnold shines for Vikings, Steelers and Eagles win
- Atletico held to draw at Rayo Vallecano
- Marseille stun Lyon with 95th-minute winner after early red card
- Gabbia ends AC Milan's derby pain with late winner against Inter
- Surging Ko claims LPGA Queen City crown in spectacular style
- 'Impossible': Alcaraz shoots down Federer comparisons after Laver Cup win
- Scholz's party beats far-right AfD in east German state vote
- Verstappen says 'silly' swearing row could hasten F1 exit
- Calls for Israel and Hezbollah to step back from the abyss
- Israel and Hezbollah urged to avoid 'catastrophe'
Six months into war, Israel pulls troops out of south Gaza
Israel pulled its forces out of the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday in a partial withdrawal that came half a year into the war sparked by the attack by Hamas militants on October 7.
After the troops left areas in and around the largely destroyed city of Khan Yunis, a stream of displaced Palestinians walked there, hoping to return to their homes from temporary shelters in far-southern Rafah.
An Israeli security expert said the withdrawal in no way means the war is over.
The Israeli army said a "significant force" would stay on elsewhere in the besieged territory as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was "one step away from victory".
Muhammad Yunis, 51, a Palestinian in northern Gaza, sees nothing but loss.
"Isn't the bombing, death and destruction enough?" he asked. "There are bodies still under the rubble. We can smell the stench."
On a day when talks toward a truce deal were set to resume in Cairo, Netanyahu also stressed that "there will be no ceasefire without the return of hostages".
He is facing intense pressure at home, from families and supporters of hostages seized by the militants, and from a resurgent anti-government protest movement.
- Aid workers killed -
"Israel is ready for a deal, Israel is not ready to surrender," he told his cabinet in a speech to mark six months since Hamas's unprecedented attack on southern Israel.
Israel has faced growing global opposition to the war, and a chorus of outrage over the killing of seven aid workers of the US-based food charity World Central Kitchen in a drone strike on April 1.
Vast areas of Gaza have been turned into a rubble-strewn wasteland, and British Foreign Secretary David Cameron on Sunday warned the "prospect of famine is real" in Gaza.
Charities have accused Israel of blocking aid, but Israel has defended its efforts and blamed shortages on groups' inability to distribute assistance once it gets in.
Netanyahu has come under heightened pressure from Israel's top ally the United States to work toward a truce and hostage deal and to allow vastly more aid into the territory.
Trucks entered Sunday via Egypt's Rafah crossing, the main aid entry point, and medical supplies were delivered for the first time through Israel's Erez border point with northern Gaza, AFP TV footage showed.
Months of fighting in Khan Yunis left the city in ruins.
The city is the hometown of Hamas's Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar, whom Israel accuses of being the mastermind of the October 7 attacks.
Israel's "98th commando division" left the city, and Gaza, "in order to recuperate and prepare for future operations," the army told AFP.
An army official told the Haaretz daily that the forces had "dismantled Hamas's Khan Yunis brigades and killed thousands of its members.
"We did everything we could there."
- 'Bombing and starvation' -
Israeli security expert Omer Dostri said the withdrawal was tactical and did not mean the war was anywhere near over.
He predicted that, as more displaced Palestinians leave densely crowded Rafah, "within two months there will be a move in Rafah to destroy the remaining Hamas brigades".
The partial withdrawal came as talks towards a truce and hostage release deal were expected to resume in Cairo, including United States, Qatari and Egyptian mediators.
The US envoy, CIA chief Bill Burns, met Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ahead of the talks.
He and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani will join Egyptian officials for indirect talks between the Israeli and Hamas delegations, Egypt's Al-Qahera News said.
Netanyahu had long threatened a ground offensive in Rafah city on the Egyptian border, sparking global concern for around 1.5 million Palestinians sheltering there.
United States President Joe Biden told Netanyahu on Thursday he wants to see a ceasefire and hostage release deal and ramped-up aid deliveries.
After the deaths of the seven aid workers, Biden -- whose government is Israel's top arms supplier and political backer -- also hinted at making US support for Israel conditional on curtailing the killing of civilians and improving humanitarian conditions.
Hours after Biden's comments, Netanyahu said Israel would allow "temporary" aid flow through Erez and Ashdod.
Yunis, the Palestinian father of six in northern Gaza, told AFP the territory's people desperately need a reprieve.
"It's been half a year and the bombing and starvation continue," said the man from Beit Lahia, now a broken landscape of shattered buildings.
"Watching the thin bodies of our children takes away our souls... I feel helpless and humiliated," he said.
- Mass Israeli protests -
Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants also took more than 250 hostages, 129 of whom remain in Gaza, including 34 the army says are dead.
People gathered Sunday at the site of the Nova desert music festival to pay tribute to the young revellers who were killed or kidnapped there on October 7.
Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 33,175 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
Most of Gaza's hospitals no longer function and the largest, Al-Shifa, is "now an empty shell with human graves", said World Health Organization head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Tens of thousands rallied in Tel Aviv and other cities on Saturday, demanding "elections now". They were joined by families and supporters of the Gaza hostages.
Among the protesters was Israel's centrist opposition leader Yair Lapid, who was later headed to Washington, his Yesh Atid party said.
Fears that the war could spread have intensified after Iran vowed retaliation for the killing of seven Revolutionary Guards in an air strike April 1 on the consular annex of its embassy in Damascus.
Yahya Rahim Safavi, senior adviser to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency that "the embassies of the Zionist regime are no longer safe".
burs-jd/fz/it
B.Finley--AMWN