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LA GUAIRA, Venezuela (AP) — Local and international rescue teams raced against the clock to pull survivors from the rubble in Venezuela on Sunday, four days after two powerful earthquakes shook the northern state of La Guaira.

The government reported 1,450 dead from the quakes Sunday afternoon as it faced growing criticism from Venezuelans that its response was inadequate and overshadowed by civilian-led efforts to rescue people buried under collapsed buildings. Thousands more have been reported missing.

Even as the likelihood of finding people alive diminished with each passing hour, rescuers continued to free some survivors from mountains of debris, offering anguished families a sliver of hope. The first 48 to 72 hours after a natural disaster are crucial to rescue efforts, though survival can be extended if people have access to food and water.

Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez said Sunday night that even as the threshold passed, the search for survivors would continue. More than 2,600 rescue workers from around the world had arrived with trained search dogs and machinery, the government said.

“It’s been incredibly hard work, but we’re going strong,” said Jason Mercano, a civilian who was able to communicate with family buried under the rubble and was working with rescue teams to pull them out.

“We’ve never given up hope,” he added.

Still, many Venezuelans are struggling to hold onto hope in an increasingly desperate situation. The one-two punch of 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes that hit last Wednesday have left a trail of devastation. The U.N. said up to 6.8 million of Venezuela’s nearly 30 million residents may be affected by the earthquakes.

A layer of dust coated coastal communities, and as the stench of decomposing bodies spread, more people began to wear masks.

Authorities said Sunday that more than 770 buildings had totally or partially collapsed from the earthquakes, twice as many as were reported destroyed or damaged on Friday. The risk of further damage remains as aftershocks continued to shake Venezuela; quakes measuring 4.2 and 4.5 hit Sunday morning.

But rescue efforts in La Guaira — the hardest-hit area — appeared significantly more organized on Sunday as international rescue missions arrived en masse. In previous days, residents there had expressed frustration and anger about the level of response.

The government reported on state television that more than 14,000 members of the military and police are now patrolling La Guaira state, where access is blocked and special permits are required to enter.

Because of the chaos and shoddy cellphone service since the earthquakes, many Venezuelans have turned to non-governmental digital databases to report their loved ones as missing. More than 50,000 people were reported missing on one such database, though it is unclear how many have been found.

Moments of optimism contrasted sharply with grief on Sunday.

Masses of people gathered around a mountain of debris watching as rescue crews from the U.S., France and Venezuela pulled a man and his son from a crack in the concrete, covered in dust and almost unresponsive. Helmet-clad teams pulled them on a black tarp and passed the two carefully through the crowd to an ambulance to hydrate them through an IV.

Rescue teams and onlookers burst into applause in a moment of relief, then continued working.

In another part of La Guaira, Helen Guedez and her mother were reeling. They had spent days trying to save her father Jesús from their apartment.

She felt a swell of hope when rescue teams from the U.S. had come to inspect the building and confirmed to them that her dad was still alive under the rubble. But they told the family that the building was too unstable to enter and rescue him, she said.

They left the scene, but Guedez said would continue to try and rescue their father without their assistance. She said they were now working with civilian volunteers and local miners to get him out.

“We’re not going to give up,” said Guedez. “The rest of the team is willing to continue. They know there’s another way to get him out and they said they’re going to keep working until the very end.”

Despite the overwhelming demand for medical services and the shortage of supplies in Venezuela’s public health system, Domingo Luciani Hospital in the capital of Caracas coped with an influx of patients thanks to a flood of donations.

“We have tons of patients, but thank god, people have responded by bringing us a great deal of supplies,” said Leomery Pérez, an anesthesiologist at the hospital.

Authorities said they had treated more than 3,100 wounded people, including many with crush injuries.

The disaster poses a significant challenge for acting President Rodríguez, the former vice president who took office in January after the U.S. capture and removal of then-President Nicolás Maduro.

Since then, the U.S. government has played in increasingly powerful role in dictating the future of the South American nation. Venezuela has faced economic disarray for more than a decade, and many people reject the legitimacy of the political movement Rodríguez represents.

The country now faces an even more difficult circumstances, said Ronal Rodríguez, researcher for the Bogotá-based Venezuelan Observatory at the University of Rosario.

“There is political interference by the United States, the operational incompetence of a government that has driven the country into a complex humanitarian crisis and, all of the sudden, an earthquake in a place that lacks human capital and short-term resources to address the situation,” he said.

Amy Pope, director general from International Organization for Migration, warned that displacement from Venezuela – where crisis has forced 8 million people to migrate over the past decade – was likely to increase as people seek safety.

Rodríguez on Sunday said she was setting up a special commission to assess the damage to homes to confirm whether it’s safe for people sleeping on the streets to return, adding that her government would also examine infrastructure damage. The search for life in the destruction, she said, would also continue.

“Today we recovered people who are still alive,” she said. “We always maintain hope.”

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Janetsky reported from Mexico City. Associated Press journalists Juan Pablo Arraez, Matías Delacroix in La Guaira, Venezuela; Jorge Rueda in Caracas, Venezuela; Clara Preve and Mayra Pertossi in Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Elliot Spagat in San Diego, contributed to this report.

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By Jihed Abidellaoui, Khalil Ashawi and Emilie Madi

TYRE/BEIRUT, Lebanon, June 28 (Reuters) – A crown was blown off an ancient column in a UNESCO-listed site in Lebanon’s port city of Tyre. A pilgrimage site for Muslims and Christians alike was destroyed in another southern town. Israeli strikes pummelled the Mamluk-era market in the city of Nabatieh and troops razed centuries-old Lebanese border towns.

Israel’s nearly four-month air and ground campaign that it says was targeting Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah has damaged or destroyed revered heritage sites across southern Lebanon, Lebanese Culture Minister Ghassan Salame told Reuters.

Despite a ceasefire that took hold a week ago, authorities have yet to build a full picture of the damage as Israeli troops still occupy a zone about 10 km (6.2 miles) deep into Lebanon that is off-limits to Lebanese, Salame said.

“We cannot work under the shadow of occupation,” he said.

That occupation zone includes the medieval Beaufort Castle as well as centuries-old villages that were home to Christians, Shi’ite Muslims and Sunni Muslims and their places of worship.

“There are villages that have been completely bulldozed,” Salame said.

Even ancient towns outside the zone were pummeled with air strikes, including Tyre and Nabatieh. Heavy bombing hit the town of Tebnin, prompting fears that its Crusader fortress was also damaged, Salame said.

“Heritage is not only Roman and Phoenician antiquities,” he added. “Heritage is also historic buildings, archaeological sites, and buildings with a cultural function.”

In response to questions from Reuters, Israel’s military said it does not aim to “cause excessive damage to civilian infrastructure and strikes only out of military necessity, with consideration for the safety of its citizens,” a reference to residents of northern Israel, which Hezbollah has targeted.

It said it took into account the existence of “sensitive sites” and applied “a rigorous approval process as required”. Israel has accused Hezbollah of placing weapons in Beaufort Castle, a claim that Lebanese authorities deny.

ANCIENT RUINS DAMAGED

Modern-day Lebanon sits at the intersection of civilizations including the Phoenicians, Byzantines, Mamluks and Crusaders, each leaving their mark with temples, castles and mausoleums.

Nearly 5,000 years old, Tyre and its Roman ruins are the products of that heritage. Established as an island fortress, Tyre was permanently connected to the mainland by the invading forces of Alexander the Great.

It has survived repeated rounds of conflict. After the recent war, much of the city has been turned to rubble, and dust-caked cars with blown-out windows are parked around the collection of columns erected in honor of long-forgotten gods.

Barriers set up to shield ancient ruins from Israeli strikes or flying debris were blown into the middle of the site they were meant to protect.

“Look at the damage that happened to it, it’s as if it all exploded from underneath, as if an earthquake hit it,” said Adnan Istanbouli, an official from Lebanon’s antiquities department, as he stood near a Roman mosaic.

Alwan Charafeddine, deputy mayor of Tyre, said “it is supposed to be one of the cities that is internationally protected, or that should never be targeted in any way, in any conflict.”

REQUEST FOR INCREASED PROTECTION

In a statement last month, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said it was concerned about the state of conservation of Tyre, a World Heritage Site that is under the body’s enhanced protection status.

It also said it was “deeply alarmed” by reports of damage to a citadel in the southern town of Chama and fighting by Beaufort Castle, while condemning what it described as “unlawful attacks against cultural property.”

The agency had voiced similar concerns over the fate of historical sites in Iran in March.

When Israeli bombing spread to the ruins of Tyre, Salame asked UNESCO to reclassify it as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Danger, which would trigger more protection responsibilities on UNESCO and the international community. It has not yet been listed as one.

Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said earlier in the war, which ran in parallel to the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, that Israel would destroy all houses along Lebanon’s border with Israel.

Salame said he feared Israel’s campaign would permanently erase centuries of Lebanese history.

“There is something systematic: a systematic destruction of villages, hamlets, and entire towns,” Salame said.

(Reporting by Jihed Abidellaoui, Emilie Madi in Tyre and Khalil Ashawi and Ahmad Al Kerdi in Beirut; Writing by Nazih Osseiran; Editing by Maya Gebeily and Aidan Lewis)

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By Napat Wesshasartar

BANGKOK, June 28 (Reuters) – The family of a 17-year-old Thai girl whose body was found in a suitcase in Pattaya said they were devastated by her death, for which an Australian man has been arrested and charged with murder.

Thai police said they arrested an Australian man in his 40s at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport early on Saturday in connection with the killing in Pattaya, about 150 km (93 miles) east of Bangkok.

The suspect, identified as Simon Peter Carman, faces charges of murder, concealment of a body, moving or destroying a body, and taking a minor for sexual purposes.

Thai police said they reviewed CCTV footage that showed Carman entering a condominium with the girl, then leaving alone hours later carrying a suitcase.

In a post on its official Facebook page, police said he loaded the suitcase onto a motorcycle and rode to a grassy area near a railway line. Police later issued an arrest warrant and arrested Carman at the airport as he prepared to board a flight back to Australia.

In an investigation room at the police station, Carman issued a message to the victim’s family before being transferred to the Pattaya Provincial Court.

“I feel bad for what happened to your daughter. It was out of my control,” he said.

The victim’s father, Thongchai Donhomla, 46, said he was struggling to come to terms with the loss.

“I am deeply saddened. My daughter had no mother, so whenever she wanted anything, she would find a way herself, and she always helped me too,” he said.

Her stepmother, Oradee Bussarakum, said she wanted the suspect to face the harshest punishment.

“I told the police I want him executed. As a (step)mother, I don’t know what else to say … I just want him to face the full consequences,” she said.

Police have not said when Carman will first face the court.

(Reporting by Napat Wesshasartar; Writing by Orathai Sriring; Editing by Sonali Paul)

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BAGHDAD, June 28 (Reuters) – Iraqi security forces arrested politicians, lawmakers and senior government officials early on Sunday in what security and legal sources described as the start of a broader anti-corruption campaign ordered by Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi. 

Elite Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) units raided the homes of politicians and senior officials inside Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone in the early hours of Sunday and made several arrests, the sources said, declining to be named because they are not authorised to speak to media on sensitive issues.

No official statement has been made about the arrests.

Zaidi, who took office in May, has pledged to tackle entrenched corruption, one of Iraq’s most persistent governance challenges despite repeated promises by successive governments to hold officials accountable.

Sunday’s operation was launched on direct orders from Zaidi after Iraqi judicial authorities issued arrest warrants as part of a crackdown on what the sources described as suspected corruption networks.

The latest raids followed the recent arrest of several senior officials, including a deputy oil minister, on corruption-related charges. Those arrests led to the issuance of additional arrest warrants that were executed on Sunday, the three sources said.

Most senior Iraqi government officials, lawmakers and political leaders maintain residences or offices inside Baghdad’s Green Zone, where parliament, foreign embassies and the prime minister’s office are situated.

A senior source quoted by state news agency INA said that some of the latest arrests were based on testimony provided by Adnan al-Jumaili, deputy oil minister for refining affairs, after his detention on corruption charges. The source told INA that al-Jumaili’s statements implicated a wider network of officials in alleged corruption schemes.

Some suspects managed to flee before security forces reached them, prompting authorities to close entrances to the Green Zone and launch a wider search operation, the three security and legal sources said, adding that the campaign is expected to continue over the coming days.

(Reported by Ahmed Rasheed and Muayad HameedEditing by David Goodman)

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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine kept up its heavy drone assault on Russia, setting fire to a major oil refinery in the south and killing at least two people, Russian authorities said Sunday.

Kyiv’s campaign of massive long-range strikes has choked Russian fuel supplies and military deliveries, in what authorities call an attempt to bring the Kremlin to the negotiating table.

Debris from downed Ukrainian drones sparked a blaze at the refinery in Slavyansk-na-Kubani, a town in Russia’s Krasnodar region, east of occupied Crimea, according to Gov. Veniamin Kondratyev. The falling debris killed one person in Slavyansk and injured another in a nearby village, according to regional authorities.

Photos and videos circulating on Russian social media showed a thick cloud of smoke over what users said was the Slavyansk refinery. The Associated Press was not immediately able to verify the images.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed that Ukraine was behind the strike on Slavyansk. He also claimed that a second Russian refinery, in the Yaroslavl region around 700 kilometers (435 miles) from the Ukrainian border, was hit during the nighttime strikes.

“Tonight, our ‘long-range sanctions’ reached two oil refineries in Russia,” Zelenskyy wrote on the Telegram messaging app. “Each (strike) means a reduction in the resources that fuel the Russian war machine, and another step toward peace.”

Ukraine has markedly stepped up its long-range attacks on Russian military industries and energy facilities in recent months, aiming to cut Moscow’s revenue for its invasion — now in its fifth year — and make Russians feel the consequences. The campaign has helped stall Moscow’s efforts on the battlefield and heap pressure on the Kremlin, according to Western officials.

The Slavyansk site is one of southern Russia’s major refineries, processing close to 4 million tons of crude per year, according to its operator’s website. It is also a key source of petroleum products intended for export through Russia’s Black Sea ports, including fuel oil, naphtha and marine fuel.

There were no immediate reports from Russian authorities about the Ukrainian strike on the refinery in the Yaroslavl region. Local Gov. Mikhail Evraev reported on Sunday morning that some roads between Moscow and the region’s capital, Yaroslavl, were temporarily closed due to “an enemy attack by Ukrainian drones”.

Yaroslavl’s airport also briefly closed overnight, along with others in southern and western Russia, according to the country’s civil aviation agency.

Elsewhere, Ukrainian drone strikes killed one person and injured another in Russia’s border region of Belgorod, its acting Gov. Alexander Shuvayev reported on Sunday.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces shot down 213 Ukrainian drones during the night, including over Russia, occupied Crimea and the Black and Azov seas.

Meanwhile, Russia attacked Ukraine with 142 long-range strike drones and eight missiles overnight, according to the Ukrainian air force. Of those, 125 drones and seven missiles were struck down, the air force said.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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TIRANA, Albania (AP) — Albania’s rallies against a coastal development project have garnered global attention, both for their connection to Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and because of their curious mascot.

The luxury project has two components: a small resort on the uninhabited island of Sazan and a coastal development in the nearby Narta Lagoon area, which is a wildlife reserve frequented by wetland species including flamingos.

Every evening for weeks, protesters have marched by the thousands in the capital Tirana, holding up cut-outs of flamingos. The result has been a nickname for their fledgling movement: “The Flamingo Revolution.”

Here are some of its members.

Fatma Paja, 28, lives in Tirana and runs a creative studio with her two sisters. She’s part of a group of artists who created the cut-out flamingos that have become a fixture at the nightly rallies.

“I have long used art as a means to express the injustices and dissatisfaction associated with everyday civilian life in Albania,” Paja told The Associated Press on Friday while painting a foam flamingo pink for that evening’s protest.

Paja’s group also organizes drawing and coloring activities for children during the protest, so that willing parents are able to join.

At the demonstrations, she leads chants through a loudspeaker. “Albania is not for sale!” she shouts, and “Don’t touch Narta!”

The project has sparked outrage because of the location’s pristine nature and unique habitat that would be irreversibly devastated, according to environmentalists.

Citizens are demanding the project’s halt, citing a lack of transparency and concerns that in many similar projects environmental standards were not met.

“I am against a pro-elitist project that is blocking a fully protected area and destroying it,” Paja said. “It is a project that has no legal basis and has not been supported by any study on the damage it would cause to the environment and nature.”

She said she is optimistic, believing the protest has already produced results.

“This protest has motivated people to speak up and react,” she said, adding that, because it was not affiliated with political parties, it fostered trust and solidarity.

Although unaffiliated with a specific party, protesters are almost universally calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama.

Arben Kola, one of the first protesters in the “Flamingo Revolution,” has worked as a tour guide for more than a decade. He takes visitors to historic and nature sites around Albania — including the area around the prospective development.

Tourism in Albania has seen a sharp increase in recent years, with people relishing the nation’s vast, undeveloped coastline. Among those who ​have been impressed were Kushner and Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump. She explained on a podcast last month that they discovered the site of the planned development while on a friend’s boat and stopping for a swim.

It was yet another example, for Kola, of the government abusing its power, and he couldn’t stomach it any longer. He joined the nascent protest movement when it was just getting started.

“Albania is facing a high level of corruption, with the privatization and giveaway of land, beaches, valleys and rivers,” the 46-year-old said in an interview while leading a tour group through Tirana.

Albania’s anti-corruption agency has opened an investigation related to the project. The government says the land is privately owned, but rival claims over its privatization have emerged.

In an interview with the AP this month, Rama dismissed environmental objections as the result of misinformation and said the development was turning Albania from a country once ignored by investors into one “where the big capital wants to come and the big investors want to come.”

It is unclear exactly what Kushner’s investment role is in the project’s development, but Rama confirmed his involvement.

The prime minister said a formal environmental impact assessment has not started because the plan for the development has not been finalized. He said international architects and environmental specialists are still shaping the proposal.

Kola says it looks to him like the project is already moving full steam ahead. He is furious that work has already begun to clear land inside a nature reserve with excavators and other heavy machinery.

Today, Kola is one of the people who organizes the crowds by speaking to them on a loudspeaker. He’s still floored by just how much the demonstrations have grown.

“We didn’t believe the protest would reach this size,” Kola said, adding that people repeatedly ask him whether the movement will continue.

“It depends on the people,” he says.

Unlike most of Albania’s protests in over three decades of democracy, the young people on the streets this time are joined by an increasing number of retirees. Bujare Ishmi, 70, is one of them.

The former engineer attends the protest almost every night, wearing a placard that reads: “You have the power of crime, we have the power of truth.”

“Nona! Nona!” protesters chant when she arrives, welcoming her. The word is an Albanian term of endearment for an elderly female family member, and signals that she is the protest’s matriarch.

Ishmi said she has long dreamed of seeing a protest like this, describing Albania’s political system as a “half-hearted democracy.”

Her husband is a former political prisoner under Enver Hoxha’s four-decade rule, and she says neither of them is opposed to foreign investment. Their main concern is the lack of transparency.

Investment brings progress, “but the location must be known and the proper parameters must be maintained,” she said.

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ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Gunmen attacked a farming community in a part of northwestern Nigeria that has been no stranger to violence killing at least 15 people, an official said Saturday.

The assault took place Friday in the Talata Mafara area of conflict-battered Zamfara state. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack in the region, which has experienced recurring violence.

Abdullaziz Yari, a lawmaker representing the district at the national level, described the assault on the community as a “terrorist attack” in a statement on social media.

Yahaya Yari, no relation to Abdullaziz Yari, is the elected local government chairman overseeing the area. He appeared in a viral video during the victims’ funeral on Friday evening, where he made an emotional appeal to President Bola Tinubu and the junior defense minister, who hails from the area, to intervene and end the widespread killings.

Earlier this month, gunmen killed 17 farmers and wounded at least 13 others as they worked in their fields in Goron Namaye in another part of Zamfara state.

An insurgency in northern Nigeria has killed thousands of people and displaced millions over the years, according to the United Nations. Armed gangs who kidnap for ransom, tax farming communities and engage in illegal mining are active in the north-central and northwest parts of the country.

Despite repeated promises by the Tinubu administration to curb the crisis, it still persists.

Last year, Nigeria entered into a military cooperation agreement with the U.S. following a diplomatic row in which U.S. officials asserted that a “Christian genocide” was taking place in the country. Nigeria’s government rejected the accusation, and analysts said it simplifies a complicated situation in which people are often targeted regardless of their faith. Nigeria is largely divided between Christians in the south and Muslims in the north.

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BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Tens of thousands of people gathered in soaring temperatures in Hungary’s capital on Saturday to celebrate the 31st annual Budapest Pride, the first such LGBTQ+ march since former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who had sought to ban the event, was ousted in an April election.

The march began Saturday afternoon as temperatures reached at least 38 C (100 F) amid a record-breaking heat wave that has gripped most of Europe. Organizers distributed water bottles to marchers, and the city’s public water utility opened fountains along the route.

Participants set off from Budapest’s iconic Opera house and wound through the city center before crossing the Erzsébet Bridge over the Danube River. Members of Hungary’s LGBTQ+ community and masses of supporters danced to music and waved rainbow flags.

Luca Új, who was participating in her third Pride event, said she felt the mood at the march was more relaxed now that Orbán’s government, which implemented numerous anti-LGBTQ+ policies during its 16 years in power, had been defeated.

“There used to be a lot of tension. But now I see people as being somehow happier, and there are more older people, too,” she said.

Saturday’s Pride march came a little more than a year after Orbán’s nationalist-populist government passed legislation and a constitutional amendment to outlaw the event, drawing criticism from human rights groups and politicians across the European Union.

Yet in open defiance of the ban, last year’s Pride went on as planned and was the biggest in Hungary’s history, with organizers estimating attendance at over 350,000. The massive turnout for the march, which the government for months had insisted would no longer be permitted, was seen as a major blow to Orbán’s prestige.

Orbán was handily defeated in the April election by a center-right challenger, Prime Minister Péter Magyar and his Tisza party. Hungary’s new government has not repealed the Orbán-era legislation that outlawed Pride, but police this year authorized the event and were providing security along the route.

Kristóf Györgyi, a first-time Pride participant who traveled to Budapest from the southern city of Szeged, said he has high hopes that Hungary’s new government will take steps to extend rights to sexual minorities that are available in many other European countries.

“The fact that there’s already a debate in Parliament about whether an orphaned child is better off with a same-sex couple or in an orphanage is a positive sign,” he said, referring to the Orbán-era ban on same-sex adoption, as well as same-sex marriage.

“Obviously, the laws haven’t changed yet, but there are already many signs of hope for our community,” he said.

Hungary’s previous government long insisted that Pride, a celebration of LGBTQ+ visibility and struggle for equal rights, was a violation of children’s rights to moral and spiritual development — something rights groups and many experts have rejected.

In April, the EU’s highest court ruled that Orbán-era legislation from 2021 that banned the availability of LGBTQ+ content to minors violates EU law and breaches a foundational treaty guaranteeing respect for human rights and equality.

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DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — An Israeli drone strike on Saturday killed two Palestinian siblings, including a 15-year-old girl, in southern Gaza and wounded at least seven others, according to Nasser hospital, where the casualties were taken.

The strike targeted tents sheltering displaced Palestinians in the sprawling camp of Muwasi, killing 15-year-old Islam Moussa and her 30-year-old brother, Abdullah Moussa.

The Israeli military acknowledged it had struck the area of Muwasi, saying it had targeted a Hamas militant but did not immediately provide more information.

In the hospital’s courtyard, relatives wept over the bodies covered in white burial shrouds.

Also on Saturday, Palestinians reported hearing a loud boom in Gaza City.

The Israeli military struck a tent sheltering displaced Palestinians in western Gaza City, wounding at least 12 people, according to Shifa hospital. The ambulance service of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said two people were critically wounded and the majority of those hurt were women.

The Israeli military said it struck a Hamas militant and that it was not aware of uninvolved civilians being harmed.

Strikes continued Saturday evening in central Gaza, with no immediate word of casualties. Israel’s military said it was checking on the reports.

Despite a fragile ceasefire reached in October that paused the heaviest fighting between Israel and the Hamas militant group, Israel continues to carry out near-daily strikes and shelling across the coastal enclave. Israel and Hamas continue to trade accusations of violating the ceasefire. Israel says it is targeting Hamas and other militants who pose a threat and in response to ceasefire violations.

Since the ceasefire went into effect, Israel has killed more than 1,030 people in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, part of the Hamas-led government. The ministry maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by United Nations agencies and independent experts. But it does not give a breakdown of civilians and militants.

The ministry last week said Israel has killed over 250 children in Gaza since the ceasefire took effect.

A team of independent experts commissioned by the United Nations has accused Israel of deliberately shooting children in Gaza, and repeated an accusation that Israel has committed genocide in the territory. Israel denies the claim that it committed genocide in Gaza during the two-year war.

The Israel-Hamas war broke out on Oct. 7, 2023, with a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage. Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed more than 73,050 Palestinians, including those killed since the ceasefire, Gaza’s Health Ministry said.

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BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Serbia ‘s populist President Aleksandar Vucic said Saturday he will resign his post within weeks, paving the way for early elections following youth-led protests that shook his tight grip on power.

Vucic did not specify exactly when he would resign or when an election, either for Parliament or for a new president, could be held. He has said in the past that he could leave the post amid speculation that he would try to switch to the formally more powerful position of prime minister of the Balkan country.

Vucic, who is currently serving his second term, cannot run again for president, according to Serbia’s election law. Both regular presidential and parliamentary elections are due next year.

“I will be president for several weeks more and then I will submit my resignation,” Vucic told thousands of his supporters in downtown Belgrade. He said he will help his right-wing Serbian Progressive Party at upcoming elections.

“We will win more convincingly than ever before,” he said, telling the crowd that this was probably the last time he addresses them as Serbia’s president.

University students behind more than a year of protests against Vucic’s increasingly autocratic rule in Serbia have been demanding early parliamentary elections for over a year but Vucic so far has refrained from setting the date.

Vucic has gradually tightened his grip on power since his populist party took over the Serbian government 14 years ago. A train station accident in the country’s north in November 2024 triggered monthslong mass protests demanding accountability for the tragedy that killed 16 people.

Vucic has pushed back hard against the protesters, and has also faced European Union criticism over Serbia’s democratic backsliding, including a media clampdown. Hundreds of people have been detained and Serbia’s police was accused of excessive force and arbitrary arrests.

Anti-government protesters have blamed the fall of a concrete canopy at the Novi Sad railway station on alleged corruption-fueled negligence in big state infrastructure projects.

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