Hamas agrees to Gaza ceasefire proposal, the group's chief says Hamas has agreed to a Gaza ceasefire proposal it received two days ago from mediators Egypt and Qatar, the Palestinian militant group's chief said on Saturday. "Two days ago, we received a proposal from the mediators in Egypt and Qatar. We dealt with it positively and accepted it," Khalil al-Hayya said in a televised speech. "We hope that the (Israeli) occupation will not undermine (it)," said Hayya, who leads the Hamas negotiating team in indirect talks aimed at securing a ceasefire in the Hamas-Israel war in Gaza that erupted in…

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE Russian drone attack kills two in Ukraine's Kharkiv, officials say Russian drones struck a military hospital, shopping centre, apartment blocks and other targets in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, late on Saturday, killing two people and injuring at least 25, local officials and the Ukrainian military said. "According to preliminary information, there were injuries among the servicemen undergoing treatment in the medical centre," the military's General Staff said on the Telegram messaging app. It denounced the "deliberate, targeted shelling" of the facility which it said "added to the long list of vile and cynical crimes committed by the Russians…

Israel conducts first strike on Beirut's southern suburbs since truce Israel on Friday carried out its first major airstrike on Beirut's southern suburbs in months, retaliating for an earlier rocket launch from Lebanon in the most serious test of a shaky ceasefire deal agreed in November. The strike targeted a building in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital, a Hezbollah stronghold known as the Dahiyeh, that Israel said was a drone storage facility belonging to the Iranian-backed Shi'ite Muslim militant group. The ceasefire has looked increasingly flimsy in recent weeks. Israel delayed a promised troop withdrawal in January and…

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE Russia will ‘finish off’ Kiev’s forces – Putin President Vladimir Putin has declared that Russian forces are gaining momentum across the entire line of contact and could soon “finish off” Ukraine’s military, while commenting on attempts by Kiev’s European backers to derail a diplomatic resolution of the conflict. The Russian president made the remarks on Thursday during a meeting with the crew of the Arkhangelsk nuclear submarine, which is equipped with Zircon hypersonic missiles. Putin reiterated that Moscow has always sought to resolve the conflict through diplomatic means but was met with deception and obstruction from the West…