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Israel kills scores in Gaza

Israeli military strikes kill scores in Gaza, as Trump visits the region

By Nidal Al-Mughrabi May 15, 2025

 A Palestinian GIRL stands in a building damaged in an Israeli strike, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, May 15, 2025. REUTERS/Hatem Khaled 

Summary

• Israel carries out airstrikes in Gaza
• Palestinians commemorate 1948 'Nakba', or catastrophe
• U.S. and Arab mediators are seeking a ceasefire
• Trump is on a tour of three Gulf States

CAIRO, May 14 (Reuters) - Israeli military strikes killed at least 60 people in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, Palestinian medics said, as the United States and Arab mediators pushed for a ceasefire deal and U.S. President Donald Trump visited the Middle East.

Most of the victims, including women and children, were killed in Khan Younis in southern Gaza in airstrikes that hit homes and tents, they said.

Palestinian women react during the funeral of Palestinians who were killed in Israeli strikes, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, May 15, 2025. REUTERS/Hatem Khaled

The dead included local journalist Hassan Samour, who worked for the Hamas-run Aqsa radio station and was killed along with 11 family members when their home was struck, the medics said.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which has intensified its offensive in Gaza as it tries to eradicate Hamas in retaliation for the deadly attacks the Palestinian militant group carried out on Israel in 2023.

Hamas said in a statement that Israel was making a "desperate attempt to negotiate under cover of fire" as indirect ceasefire talks take place between Israel and Hamas, involving Trump envoys and Qatar and Egyptian mediators in Doha.

Injured Palestinian child, Yousef Al-Bayouk, weeps over his brothers, Moath and Moataz, who were killed in Israeli strikes, as mourners attend their funeral, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, May 15, 2025. REUTERS/Hatem Khaled 

Israel carried out the latest strikes on the day Palestinians commemorate the "Nakba", or catastrophe, when hundreds of thousands of people fled or were forced to flee their hometowns and villages during the 1948 Middle East war that gave birth to the state of Israel.

With most of the 2.3 million people in Gaza internally displaced, some residents of the tiny enclave say suffering is greater now than at the time of the Nakba.

"What we are experiencing now is even worse than the Nakba of 1948," said Ahmed Hamad, a Palestinian in Gaza City who has been displaced multiple times.

"The truth is, we live in a constant state of violence and displacement. Wherever we go, we face attacks. Death surrounds us everywhere."

Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on a house, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, May 15, 2025. REUTERS/Hatem Khaled

ESCALATING VIOLENCE

Palestinian health officials say the Israeli attacks have escalated since Trump started a visit on Tuesday to the Gulf states of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates that many Palestinians had hoped he would use to push for a truce.

The latest strikes follow attacks on Gaza on Wednesday that killed at least 80 people, local health officials said.

Little has come of new indirect ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas led by Trump's envoys and Qatar and Egyptian mediators in Doha.

Hamas says it is ready to free all the remaining hostages it is holding in Gaza in return for an end to the war, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prefers interim truces, saying the war can only end once Hamas is eradicated.

"At a time when mediators are exerting intensive efforts to put the negotiation back on the right track, the Zionist occupation (Israel) responds to those efforts by military pressure on innocent civilians," the group said in a statement.

"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants an open-ended war and he doesn't care about the fate of his hostages," it said.

A Palestinian official close to the talks said "no breakthrough has been reached in the Doha talks so far because of Israel's insistence to pursue the war."

A man stands at the site of an Israeli strike on a house, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, May 15, 2025. REUTERS/Hatem Khaled

Israel invaded Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas-led attack on southern Israeli communities on October 7, 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken as hostages to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's military campaign has killed more than 52,900 Palestinians, according to local health officials. It has left Gaza on the brink of famine, aid groups and international agencies say.

A U.S.-backed humanitarian organisation will start work in Gaza by the end of May under an aid distribution plan, but has asked Israel to let the United Nations and others resume deliveries to Palestinians now until it is set up.

No humanitarian assistance has been delivered to Gaza since March 2, and a global hunger monitor has warned that half a million people face starvation in Gaza.

Reporting and writing by Nidal al-Mughrabi, Editing by Timothy Heritage, William Maclean 

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PKK ends 40-year Turkey insurgency

Kurdish PKK ends 40-year Turkey insurgency, bringing hope of regional stability

By Daren Butler and Ece Toksabay

May 12, 2025 Reuters

Summary

• Jailed PKK leader had called for group to dissolve
• More than 40,000 have been killed in 40-year conflict
• Erdogan welcomes move as important threshold
• Security consequences for region including Syria, Iraq
• Group was pressed back deep into Iraqi territory

Kurdish fighters of the Women’s Protection Unit take part in a military parade as they
celebrate victory over Isis in Qamishli, Syria in 2019 © Rodi Said/Reuters

ISTANBUL/ANKARA, May 12 (Reuters) - The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group, which has been locked in bloody conflict with Turkey for more than four decades, has decided to disband and end its armed struggle, group members and Turkish leaders said on Monday.

Since the PKK launched its insurgency in 1984 - originally with the aim of creating an independent Kurdish state - the conflict has killed more than 40,000 people, exerted a huge economic burden and fuelled social tensions.

The PKK's decision, at a congress last week, could boost NATO member Turkey's political and economic stability and encourage moves to ease tensions in neighbouring Iraq and Syria, where Kurdish forces are allied with U.S. forces.

Speaking after a cabinet meeting in Ankara, President Tayyip Erdogan said the decision was an important step, and labeled the move an "important threshold" towards Ankara's goal of a terrorism-free country.

"With terror and violence being completely disengaged, the doors of a new era in every area, namely strengthening politics and democratic capacity, will be opened," he said. "The winners will be our people and country, and actually all our siblings in our region," he added.

"Our intelligence agency and other authorities will follow the upcoming process closely to avoid any road accidents and to ensure the promises made are kept."

The group's dramatic announcement comes as Erdogan seeks to capitalise on what he sees as the vulnerabilities of affiliated Kurdish forces in Syria after the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad to Turkey-backed rebels in December.

It also comes amid the group's increasingly weakened position in northern Iraq, where it is based, after having been pushed out of Turkey and well beyond its borders.

While Ankara welcomed the decision to dissolve, it does not guarantee peace. Rather it paves the way for agreeing a tricky legal framework for securely disarming the PKK, which is designated a terrorist group by Turkey and its Western allies.

"The PKK 12th Congress decided to dissolve the PKK's organizational structure... and end the armed struggle," Firat news agency reported it saying as it closed a congress.

A PKK official confirmed the decision and said all military operations would cease "immediately", adding weapon handovers were contingent on Ankara's response and approach to Kurdish rights, and the fate of PKK fighters and leaders.

Kurds make up some 20% of Turkey's 86 million population.

The PKK held the congress in response to a February call to disband from its jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan, who has been imprisoned on an island south of Istanbul since 1999. It said on Monday that he would manage the process.

However, it was not clear whether Ankara agreed to Ocalan's continued role, which polls suggest could be unpopular among Turks. Nor were details available on how the disarmament and breakup of the PKK would happen in practice.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said the PKK decision was of "historic importance" and could bring "lasting peace and stability" for all peoples of the region.

"There are practical steps that will be taken and we will follow those closely," he told a press conference alongside the Syrian and Jordanian foreign ministers in Ankara on Monday.

REGIONAL FALLOUT

It was also unclear how the process would affect the Kurdish YPG militia in Syria, if at all. YPG leads a U.S.-allied force against Islamic State there and is regarded by Turkey as a PKK affiliate.

YPG has previously said Ocalan's call did not apply to it, contradicting Ankara's view. It did not immediately comment on the PKK's announcement.

Erdogan said on Monday that Ankara viewed the decision as one that encompassed Kurdish militants in northern Iraq, Syria, and Europe as well.

The disbanding will give Erdogan a chance to boost development in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast, where the insurgency has impaired the regional economy for decades.

In its statement, the PKK said it "has completed its historic mission," which over the years shifted to seeking greater Kurdish rights and limited autonomy in southeast Turkey, rather than an independent state.

"The PKK struggle has broken the policy of denial and annihilation of our people and brought the Kurdish issue to a point of solving it through democratic politics," it said on the Firat news website, which is close to the group and showed images of PKK members at the congress in fighter fatigues.

Turkey has hit PKK fighters and bases with regular drone and other military strikes deep inside Iraq in recent years, squeezing the group that in 2015-2017 had carried out a series of deadly bombings in Ankara, Istanbul and other Turkish cities.

DOMESTIC POLITICS

The pro-Kurdish DEM Party, Turkey's third largest, played a key role facilitating Ocalan's peace call. Tayip Temel, a deputy party leader, told Reuters the PKK decision was significant for Kurdish people and the Middle East as a whole.

"It will also necessitate a major shift in the official state mentality of Turkey," he said.

Analysts have said Erdogan, who has made repeated efforts in the past to end the conflict, is focused on the domestic political dividends that peace could bring as he looks to extend his two-decade rule beyond 2028 when his term expires.

The PKK decision comes amid tumult in Turkish politics: Istanbul's opposition mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, Erdogan's main challenger, was jailed in March pending corruption charges in a move that sparked the country's largest protests in a decade.

The lira was flat at 38.764 to the dollar after the PKK announcement while Istanbul-listed shares rose more than 3%.

Some welcomed the news in the southeast's largest city Diyarbakir, where distrust of the government among many Kurds had eroded hopes that the peace process would be successful.

"It is really important that people do not die anymore, that the Kurdish problem is solved in a more democratic structure," said Hasan Huseyin Ceylan, 45.

There have been intermittent peace efforts over the years, most notably a ceasefire between 2013 and 2015 that ultimately collapsed.

Ending the insurgency would remove a constant flashpoint in Kurdish-run, oil-rich northern Iraq, while facilitating efforts by Syria's new administration to assert greater sway over areas in northern Syria controlled by Kurdish forces.

Ocalan's call was prompted by a surprise proposal in October by Devlet Bahceli, Erdogan's ultra-nationalist ally. It had been welcomed by the United States, the European Union and also by Iraq and Iran, which have significant Kurdish populations.🔺

Additional reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu and Huseyin Hayatsever in Ankara, and Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad; Editing by Jonathan Spicer and Alexandra Hudson