US mulls giving $500mn to new Gaza Humanitarian Foundation

The US State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to sources, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos. They said money for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department. The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF.

Tel Aviv: Israel says it has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage kidnapped into Gaza on Oct 7, 2023, as it continues its military offensive across the strip, killing at least 95 people in the past 24 hours, as per to Gaza’s health ministry. 

The prime minister’s office said on Saturday the body of Thai citizen Nattapong Pinta was returned to Israel in a special military operation.

Pinta was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz and killed in captivity near the start of the war, said the government. 

This comes two days after the bodies of two Israeli-American hostages were retr­ieved. Fifty-five hostages re­main in Gaza, of whom Israel says over half are dead. The defence minister said on Saturday Pinta’s body was ret­rieved from the Rafah area. He had come to Israel from Thai­land to work in agriculture. 

It’s the same group that took the two Israeli-American hostages, Judih Weinstein and Gad Haggai, whose bodies were retrieved by the army on Thursday. 

Yemen Qaeda leader warns Trump, Musk

The leader of Qaeda’s Yemen branch has threatened US President Trump, tech titan  Musk, V-P JD Vance, Secre­tary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth over the Israel-Hamas war in his first video message since taking over the group last year. The half-hour message by Saad bin Atef al-Awlaki included calls for lone-wolf militants to assassinate leaders in Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf Arab states. —AP