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Abdul Mahdi Snubs Local Officials during Basra Visit

Iraq's Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi arrives to Basra, Iraq January 20, 2019. Iraqi Prime Minister Media Office/Handout via REUTERS
Iraq's Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi arrives to Basra, Iraq January 20, 2019. Iraqi Prime Minister Media Office/Handout via REUTERS
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Abdul Mahdi Snubs Local Officials during Basra Visit

Iraq's Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi arrives to Basra, Iraq January 20, 2019. Iraqi Prime Minister Media Office/Handout via REUTERS
Iraq's Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi arrives to Basra, Iraq January 20, 2019. Iraqi Prime Minister Media Office/Handout via REUTERS

Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi visited on Sunday the southern province of Basra that has been rocked since last summer by popular protests over corruption, water pollution, unemployment and lagging services.

Basra is considered the country’s main hub for oil, producing around 90 percent of Iraq's total revenue. However, the city represents one of the biggest challenges to the newly appointed prime minister, given the high levels of complaint among residents, and the threat of renewed demonstrations during summer’s sweltering heat as temperatures rise to more than 50 degrees Celsius, coupled with shortages of water and electricity that can be life-threatening.

In the summer of 2018, a water crisis in the city left more than 120,000 people hospitalized and sparked a massive protest movement. Since, Basra is still rocked by demonstrations every Friday demanding more access to drinking water, steady electricity and jobs for unemployed youth.

In his first trip since he was named prime minister last October, Abdul Mahdi toured Sunday infrastructure and service projects, including water provision services in the Shatt Al-Arab area.

“The prime minister called for redoubled efforts so these projects can be accomplished as quickly as possible,” his office said in a statement.

Observers noticed that the premier did not inform local officials in Basra about his visit and did not meet with the governor or members of the provincial council.

“Basra’s governor and head of the provincial council were not present in the city on Sunday. However, Abdul Mahdi could have met any official representing them … there are disputes between the two sides,” an informed source told Asharq Al-Awsat.

Provincial council member Ghanem Hamid Al-Miyahi said: “We ignore why Abdul Mahdi visited Basra without informing local officials, despite being on a mission that represents the Iraqi economy.”

A local journalist, Shahab Ahmad, told Asharq Al-Awsat that the prime minister likely kept his visit unannounced for security reasons, or to avoid hearing anti-government slogans.

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Arab World

Not Enough Tents, Food Reaching Gaza as Winter Comes, Aid Agencies Say

A displaced Palestinian woman cooks on a fire at her tent, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City, November 4, 2025. (Reuters)
A displaced Palestinian woman cooks on a fire at her tent, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City, November 4, 2025. (Reuters)
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Not Enough Tents, Food Reaching Gaza as Winter Comes, Aid Agencies Say

A displaced Palestinian woman cooks on a fire at her tent, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City, November 4, 2025. (Reuters)
A displaced Palestinian woman cooks on a fire at her tent, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City, November 4, 2025. (Reuters)

Far too little aid is reaching Gaza nearly four weeks after a ceasefire, humanitarian agencies said on Tuesday, as hunger persists with winter approaching and old tents start to fray following Israel's devastating two-year offensive.

The truce was meant to unleash a torrent of aid across the tiny, crowded enclave where famine was confirmed in August and where almost all the 2.3 million inhabitants have lost their homes to Israeli bombardment.

However, only half the needed amount of food is coming in, according to the World Food Program, while an umbrella group of Palestinian agencies said overall aid volumes were between a quarter and a third of the expected amount.

Israel says it is fulfilling its obligations under the ceasefire agreement, which calls for an average of 600 trucks of supplies into Gaza per day. It blames Hamas fighters for any food shortages, accusing them of stealing food aid before it can be distributed, which the group denies.

Gaza's local administration, long controlled by Hamas, says most trucks are still not reaching their destinations due to Israeli restrictions, and only about 145 per day are delivering supplies.

The United Nations, which earlier in the war published daily figures on aid trucks crossing into Gaza, is no longer giving those figures routinely.

TENTS 'COMPLETELY WORN OUT'

"It is dire. No proper tents, or proper water, or proper food, or proper money," said Manal Salem, 52, who lives in a tent in Khan Younis in southern Gaza that she says is "completely worn out" and she fears will not last the winter.

The ceasefire and greater flow of aid since mid-October has brought some improvements, said the United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA.

Last week OCHA said a tenth of children screened in Gaza were still acutely malnourished, down from 14% in September, with over 1,000 showing the most severe form of malnutrition.

Half of families in Gaza have reported increased access to food, especially in the south, as more aid and commercial supplies entered after the truce, and households were eating on average two meals a day, up from one in July, OCHA said.

There is still a sharp divide between the south and the north where conditions remain far worse, it said.

FOOD, SHELTER, FUEL NEEDED

Abeer Etefa, senior spokesperson for WFP, described the situation as a "race against time".

"We need full access. We need everything to be moving fast," she said. "The winter months are coming. People are still suffering from hunger, and the needs are overwhelming."

Since the ceasefire the agency has brought in 20,000 metric tons of food assistance, roughly half the amount needed to meet people's needs, and has opened 44 out of a targeted 145 distribution sites, she said.

The variety of food needed to ward off malnutrition is also lacking, she added.

"The majority of households that we've spoken to are only consuming cereals, pulses, dry food rations, which people cannot survive on for a long time. Meat, eggs, vegetables, fruits are being consumed extremely rarely," she said.

A continuing lack of fuel, including cooking gas, is also hampering nutrition efforts, and over 60% of Gazans are cooking using burning waste, said OCHA, adding to health risks.

With winter approaching, Gazans need shelter. Tents are wearing thin. Buildings that survived the military onslaught are often open to the weather or unstable and dangerous.

"We're coming into winter soon - rainwater and possible floods, as well as potential diseases because of the hundreds of tons of garbage near populated areas," said Amjad al-Shawa, head of the Palestinian agencies that liaise with the UN.

He said only 25-30% of the amount of aid expected into Gaza had entered so far.

"The living conditions are unimaginable," said Shaina Low, spokesperson for the Norwegian Refugee Council, which leads a group of agencies working on a lack of shelter in Gaza.

The NRC estimates that 1.5 million people need shelter in Gaza but large volumes of tents, tarpaulins and related aid is still waiting to come in, awaiting Israeli approvals, Low said.

Arab World

Hamas Says Body of Israeli Soldier Hostage Found in Gaza, Will Be Handed Over

Red Cross vehicles drive, after Hamas said that it found the body of an Israeli hostage soldier on Tuesday and prepares to return it to Israel through the Red Cross, in Gaza City, November 4, 2025. (Reuters)
Red Cross vehicles drive, after Hamas said that it found the body of an Israeli hostage soldier on Tuesday and prepares to return it to Israel through the Red Cross, in Gaza City, November 4, 2025. (Reuters)
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Hamas Says Body of Israeli Soldier Hostage Found in Gaza, Will Be Handed Over

Red Cross vehicles drive, after Hamas said that it found the body of an Israeli hostage soldier on Tuesday and prepares to return it to Israel through the Red Cross, in Gaza City, November 4, 2025. (Reuters)
Red Cross vehicles drive, after Hamas said that it found the body of an Israeli hostage soldier on Tuesday and prepares to return it to Israel through the Red Cross, in Gaza City, November 4, 2025. (Reuters)

The armed wing of Hamas said on Tuesday it had found the body of an Israeli soldier who had been held hostage by Palestinian militants in Gaza, and that it would hand over the body at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT).

Hamas said the body was found in Shejaia, an eastern suburb of Gaza City in an area still occupied by Israeli forces, after Israel granted access to the location for teams from Hamas and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Under a ceasefire deal that took effect on October 10, Hamas turned over all 20 living hostages held in Gaza in return for nearly 2,000 Palestinian convicts and wartime detainees held in Israel. Hamas also promised to turn over the remains of deceased hostages but says Gaza's war devastation has made locating bodies difficult. Israel accuses Hamas of stalling.

Before Tuesday, Hamas had returned 20 of the 28 bodies of hostages that had been buried in Gaza. In return, Israel handed over 270 bodies of Palestinians it had killed since the war began in October 2023, Gaza health authorities said.

Hamas-led fighters killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages in their cross-border attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, according to Israeli tallies. Israel's retaliatory offensive in the Gaza Strip killed over 68,000 Palestinians, health officials in the enclave say.

The US-brokered ceasefire has broadly held through repeated incidents of violence. Palestinian health authorities say Israeli forces have killed 239 people in strikes since the truce took effect, nearly half of them in a single day last week when Israel retaliated for a militant attack on its troops.

Israel says three of its soldiers have been killed and it has targeted scores of gunmen it says have approached lines behind which Israeli troops have withdrawn under the truce.

Earlier on Tuesday, Gaza health authorities said Israeli fire killed a man in Jabalia in northern Gaza. Israel's military said it killed a "terrorist" who crossed into areas the army continues to occupy and posed an imminent threat.

Arab World

Sudan Army-backed Council to Meet on US Truce Proposal

Makeshift shelters erected by displaced Sudanese who fled El-Fasher after the city fell to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), make up the Um Yanqur camp, located on the southwestern edge of Tawila, in war-torn Sudan's western Darfur region on November 3, 2025. (Photo by AFP)
Makeshift shelters erected by displaced Sudanese who fled El-Fasher after the city fell to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), make up the Um Yanqur camp, located on the southwestern edge of Tawila, in war-torn Sudan's western Darfur region on November 3, 2025. (Photo by AFP)
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Sudan Army-backed Council to Meet on US Truce Proposal

Makeshift shelters erected by displaced Sudanese who fled El-Fasher after the city fell to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), make up the Um Yanqur camp, located on the southwestern edge of Tawila, in war-torn Sudan's western Darfur region on November 3, 2025. (Photo by AFP)
Makeshift shelters erected by displaced Sudanese who fled El-Fasher after the city fell to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), make up the Um Yanqur camp, located on the southwestern edge of Tawila, in war-torn Sudan's western Darfur region on November 3, 2025. (Photo by AFP)

Sudan's army-backed defense council is set to meet Tuesday to consider a US-backed truce proposal, a government source told AFP, just over a week after paramilitaries overran the key city of El-Fasher.

The Rapid Support Forces, at war with the army since April 2023, appears to be preparing an assault on the central Kordofan region after it captured El-Fasher, the last army stronghold in Darfur, just over a week ago.

"The Security and Defense Council will hold a meeting today to discuss the US truce proposal," the source said on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to brief the media.

The so-called Quad group -- comprising the United States, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia -- has been engaged in months of diplomacy aimed at securing a truce in the more than 30-month conflict in Sudan.

In September, the four powers proposed a three-month humanitarian truce, followed by a permanent ceasefire and a nine-month transition to civilian rule, hinting at excluding both the army and the RSF from the transitional process.

The Sudanese army-aligned government immediately rejected the plan at the time.

In the aftermath of the RSF's assault on El-Fasher, reports emerged of mass killings, sexual violence, attacks on aid workers, looting and abductions during the offensive.

The International Criminal Court on Monday voiced "profound alarm and deepest concern" over such reports, warning that such acts "may constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity".

Massad Boulos, the US president's senior advisor for Africa, held talks in Cairo on Sunday with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty.

During the talks, Abdelatty stressed "the importance of concerted efforts to reach a humanitarian truce and a ceasefire throughout Sudan, paving the way for a comprehensive political process in the country", according to a foreign ministry statement.

On Monday, Boulos met Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul-Gheit and briefed him on recent US efforts in Sudan to "halt the war, expedite aid delivery and initiate a political process", according to an Arab League statement.

Despite repeated international appeals, the warring sides -- both of which are accused of committing atrocities -- have so far ignored calls for a ceasefire.

The fall of El-Fasher gave paramilitaries control over all five state capitals in Darfur, raising fears that Sudan would effectively be partitioned along an east-west axis.

The RSF now dominates Darfur and parts of the south while the army holds the north, east and central regions along the Nile and Red Sea.