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Burhan, Hilu Sign Declaration of Principles

Sudan's Sovereign Council Chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, South Sudan's President Salva Kiir, and Sudan's Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok after signing a peace agreement in Juba, South Sudan (File Photo: Reuters)
Sudan's Sovereign Council Chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, South Sudan's President Salva Kiir, and Sudan's Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok after signing a peace agreement in Juba, South Sudan (File Photo: Reuters)
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Burhan, Hilu Sign Declaration of Principles

Sudan's Sovereign Council Chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, South Sudan's President Salva Kiir, and Sudan's Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok after signing a peace agreement in Juba, South Sudan (File Photo: Reuters)
Sudan's Sovereign Council Chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, South Sudan's President Salva Kiir, and Sudan's Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok after signing a peace agreement in Juba, South Sudan (File Photo: Reuters)

Sudan's Sovereign Council chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan arrived in Juba Saturday for a meeting with South Sudan President Salva Kiir to discuss bilateral relations and the resumption of peace negotiations with Abdelaziz al-Hilu’s Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM-N al-Hilu).

Burhan and Hilu discussed in a closed session the declaration of principles which will help launch their formal peace negotiations.

Burhan was accompanied by the Justice Minister, Nasreldin Abdelbari, who participated in the closed session with Hilu and his accompanying delegation.

Kiir's security advisor Tut Gatluak said that the closed session was positive, and the dialogue advanced within the framework of the common understandings on the declaration of principles.

Gatluak announced that the government and the movement will sign the declaration of principles on Sunday, witnessed by Kiir who also sponsors the Sudanese peace talks.

He said that after signing the declaration, the mediation committee will set a schedule for the negotiations.

Official sources revealed that the talks between Burhan and Hilu failed to overcome the differences over the secular issues and security arrangements, which prevented SPLM-N from engaging in previous peace talks.

In March, Burhan and Hilu met in Juba and agreed on the need to resume negotiation to reach solutions accepted by all parties.

SPLM-N rejects the Sudanese government's proposal to separate religion from the state and adheres to its demand of a secular state and the right to self-determination for the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile regions.

The sources indicate that the SPLM-N refuses to integrate its forces into the Sudanese army unless the issue of secularism is resolved.

Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdok and Hilu signed a joint agreement in September last year that included the separation of religion from the state in the constitution of Sudan.

The workshop between the government and the SPLM-N in October 2020 failed to yield positive results on controversial issues.

The SPLM accused the head of the government delegation, Shams El-Din Kabbashi of failing the workshop for rejecting the recommendations.

The Juba agreement was signed last October between the Sudanese government and representatives of armed movements within the Revolutionary Front, while the SPLM-N and the Sudan Liberation Movement led by Abdul Wahid Nouri (SLA-AW) in Darfur did not participate.

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Arab World

Sudan Risks Deeper Hunger Crisis Due to War, Aid Cuts and Hormuz Disruption, Says WFP

A Sudanese woman peels beans inside a shelter in the al-Rahmaniya camp for displaced people near the city of al-Obeid in the southern Kordofan region on July 9, 2026. (AFP)
A Sudanese woman peels beans inside a shelter in the al-Rahmaniya camp for displaced people near the city of al-Obeid in the southern Kordofan region on July 9, 2026. (AFP)
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Sudan Risks Deeper Hunger Crisis Due to War, Aid Cuts and Hormuz Disruption, Says WFP

A Sudanese woman peels beans inside a shelter in the al-Rahmaniya camp for displaced people near the city of al-Obeid in the southern Kordofan region on July 9, 2026. (AFP)
A Sudanese woman peels beans inside a shelter in the al-Rahmaniya camp for displaced people near the city of al-Obeid in the southern Kordofan region on July 9, 2026. (AFP)

Sudan risks sliding backwards into deeper hunger as conflict, aid funding cuts and rising agricultural costs driven by disruption linked to the Iran war threaten to reverse gains made after famine took hold in parts of the country, a senior World Food Program official said on Tuesday.

The war between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, now in its fourth year, has displaced millions and devastated much of the country.

Aid ‌agencies have ‌repeatedly warned of worsening food insecurity and limited humanitarian access.

Sudan remains ‌the ⁠world's largest humanitarian ⁠crisis, with around 5 million people facing emergency or catastrophic levels of hunger, even after an intensive aid response helped reduce the number of people in famine-like conditions, Carl Skau, the WFP's acting executive director, told Reuters.

"It's a massive crisis, both in terms of numbers, but also the gravity," he said, adding that more than 100,000 people were still facing famine-like conditions, placing them in the highest level of the ⁠UN-backed IPC hunger classification.

"With these kinds of numbers in ‌IPC (Phase) 5 starvation it is extremely, extremely serious," ‌he said.

Across Sudan, nearly 19.5 million people face high levels of acute food insecurity, according ‌to the IPC.

Skau said recent fighting around al-Obeid in North Kordofan ‌had raised fears the city could suffer a fate similar to el-Fashir in Darfur, where conflict and siege conditions have trapped civilians and hindered aid deliveries.

In recent days, however, violence has eased somewhat, raising hopes aid deliveries can be expanded from 100,000 to 250,000 people around ‌al-Obeid.

The WFP is also increasingly concerned about renewed fighting over the past week in Darfur, which has forced the ⁠closure of the Tine ⁠border crossing, a route from Chad into Darfur.

Throughout the country WFP has reduced the number of people it assists from 5 million a year ago to about 3.5 million and reduced rations in many areas, including in Tawila in Darfur, as it faces a $646 million funding gap after cuts from major donors, including the United States, European countries and Britain.

"We're not heading in the right direction here," Skau said. "If anything, we are falling backwards."

Skau also warned that soaring diesel prices and fertilizer shortages linked to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz could further undermine Sudan's food security during the current planting season.

Sudan relies heavily on fertilizer imports from Gulf countries, while much of its agriculture depends on irrigation pumps, which may be too expensive for farmers to run.

Arab World

Israel Says Ready to Move on Pilot Zones amid New Lebanon Talks

A motorcade delegation arrives on the first day of talks between the Lebanese and Israeli delegations in Rome © Andreas SOLARO / AFP
A motorcade delegation arrives on the first day of talks between the Lebanese and Israeli delegations in Rome © Andreas SOLARO / AFP
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Israel Says Ready to Move on Pilot Zones amid New Lebanon Talks

A motorcade delegation arrives on the first day of talks between the Lebanese and Israeli delegations in Rome © Andreas SOLARO / AFP
A motorcade delegation arrives on the first day of talks between the Lebanese and Israeli delegations in Rome © Andreas SOLARO / AFP

Israel said it was ready to move forward with plans to withdraw troops from two areas of south Lebanon, as the two countries held a new round of talks in Rome on Tuesday.

US-brokered negotiations were taking place in the Italian capital over a framework agreement sealed last month after five rounds of talks in Washington, with Lebanese negotiators hoping for progress on an Israeli withdrawal.

The framework deal emerged after war broke out between Israel and Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah on March 2 against the backdrop of the wider Middle East war.

It calls for an end to the war in Lebanon, disarmament of the Lebanese movement, the deployment of Lebanese troops in the south and for Israeli forces to steadily withdraw from the country in two "pilot zones".

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Tuesday that his country was "ready to move forward implementing these two pilot zones".

"I hope and tend to believe that this round of discussions in Rome will promote it."

The Lebanese presidency had announced on Monday that its delegation to Rome had been instructed "to demand the immediate start of Israeli forces' withdrawal from the two pilot zones before any further discussion".

AFP journalists saw delegation vehicles entering the US embassy compound in the heart of Rome under tight security on Tuesday morning ahead of the talks, while the embassy declined to comment when asked.

According to a Lebanese diplomatic source familiar with the content of the talks, "the Lebanese army is ready to gradually take control of the localities from which the Israeli army would withdraw".

But Hezbollah rejects the agreement outright despite Lebanese government pressure, lowering expectations of success in the negotiations.

Orna Mizrahi of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv said Israel was "willing to withdraw gradually", but on the condition that "that there will be no presence of Hezbollah in the areas that Israel is withdrawing from".

She added that Israel also seeks to ensure "that the Lebanese army will have the ability... to keep it as a neutralized zone and a neutralized place that Hezbollah cannot come in again."

A US military delegation began discussions with the Lebanese army in Beirut on Saturday on the process for Israeli withdrawal from one of these "pilot zones".

- Limited prospects -

The framework agreement was concluded after a fragile ceasefire came into effect last month in the war between Hezbollah and Israel.

The Israeli army has nonetheless continued limited strikes in the south and has been carrying out demolitions in villages it occupies, according to official Lebanese media.

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reported a strike on the southern town of Nabatieh al-Fawqa on Tuesday.

Israel's strikes and ground invasion have killed more than 4,300 people since the war started in early March, according to Lebanese authorities.

"The chances of a breakthrough in Rome are quite limited," Karim Bitar, a lecturer at Sciences Po Paris, told AFP.

"What we might see instead is a kind of opportunity to show that the process is still in place... that there are negotiations continuing despite the opposition and the obstacles that are beginning to emerge."

Tehran had demanded the ceasefire in Lebanon in order to conclude a memorandum of understanding with Washington on June 17.

But the region has seen a renewed escalation in recent days, with the US carrying out a third consecutive night of strikes against Iran ahead of the planned reimposition on Tuesday of its naval blockade on Iranian ports with ongoing attacks.

Iran wants to establish a link between negotiations over the regional war and Lebanon, "but we have the wish to disconnect it," said Mizrahi.

Tehran's priorities remain the Strait of Hormuz and the nuclear file, she added.

"The Iranians are using Lebanon as an excuse. They will always use it as an excuse," she said.

Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the regional war on March 2 by launching missiles at Israel in support of Iran.

Bitar, for his part, said that the risk of major fighting returning to Lebanon as a result of the regional escalation "is, of course, not negligible".

"But I think that Iran today will think twice before asking Hezbollah to launch new strikes against Israel," he said.

Tehran "wants to maintain Hezbollah as a long-term deterrent tool and does not want to use it immediately to open a new front," he said.

Arab World

Israeli Strikes Kill Two People in Gaza, Including a 10-Year-Old, Medics Say

A Palestinian inspects a destroyed area following an Israeli airstrike in southern Gaza City, 12 July 2026. (EPA)
A Palestinian inspects a destroyed area following an Israeli airstrike in southern Gaza City, 12 July 2026. (EPA)
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Israeli Strikes Kill Two People in Gaza, Including a 10-Year-Old, Medics Say

A Palestinian inspects a destroyed area following an Israeli airstrike in southern Gaza City, 12 July 2026. (EPA)
A Palestinian inspects a destroyed area following an Israeli airstrike in southern Gaza City, 12 July 2026. (EPA)

An Israeli strike ‌and gunfire killed at least two Palestinians, including a 10-year-old boy, in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, Gazan health officials said.

The deaths add to a toll of more than 1,100 Palestinians killed by Israeli attacks since an October ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect, according to health officials in the enclave.

The truce halted major fighting but has failed to stop sporadic violence. Four Israeli ‌soldiers have been ‌killed by fighters in Gaza over ‌the ⁠same period.

Medics said ⁠Muataz Abu Shaar, 10, was shot earlier on Tuesday by Israeli gunfire in Rafah, south Gaza. He was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Nearby in Khan Younis, an Israeli airstrike killed a 36-year-old man and left three people wounded, medics ⁠added.

The Israeli military did not immediately ‌comment on either incident.

The latest ‌violence comes as Hamas leaders visited Cairo for further ‌talks on implementing the second phase of ‌US President Donald Trump's Gaza peace plan.

The discussions include Hamas disarmament and Israeli army withdrawals, according to sources close to the talks, who added that there had not ‌yet been a breakthrough.

Hamas says Israel's violations of the ceasefire are ⁠a key obstacle ⁠to implementing the second phase of Trump's plan.

Nearly all of Gaza's 2 million people, most of whom have been displaced several times, now live on a tiny strip of land along the coast, mainly in makeshift tents or damaged buildings, under Hamas control.

Hamas-led fighters killed 1,200 people during their cross-border attack into Israel on October 7, 2023, according to Israeli tallies. The Gazan health ministry said more than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory since then.