While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, Feb 11, 2025
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Hamas fighters escort Israeli hostages to be exchanged in Deir al-Balah, in the Gaza Strip on Feb 8.
PHOTO: SAHER ALGHORRA/NYTIMES
Hamas says it will stop releasing hostages ‘until further notice’
Hamas on Feb 10 announced it would stop releasing Israeli hostages until further notice over what the Palestinian militant group said were Israeli violations of the ceasefire agreement.
The unexpected announcement comes amid growing doubts over an already fragile ceasefire even as families of the Israeli hostages urge the government to stick to the deal and Gazans try to start rebuilding their lives in the shattered enclave.
Hamas was to release some Israeli hostages on Feb 15 in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and other Palestinians held in Israeli detention as had happened over the past three weeks.
Hamas military wing spokesperson Abu Ubaida said Israeli violations had included Israel delaying Palestinians from returning to northern Gaza, targeting Palestinians with Israeli shelling and gunfire and stopping aid from entering the strip.
Trump says Palestinians will have no right to return under Gaza plan
US President Donald Trump said Palestinians would have no right of return to Gaza under his US takeover plan, describing his proposal in excerpts of an interview released on Feb 10 as a “real estate development for the future”.
Mr Trump told Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier that “I would own it” and that there could be as many as six different sites for Palestinians to live outside Gaza – under the plan which the Arab world has rejected.
“No, they wouldn’t, because they’re going to have much better housing,” Mr Trump said when Mr Baier asked if the Palestinians would have the right to return to the war-battered enclave.
Elon Musk-led group makes $131 billion bid for control of OpenAI
A consortium of investors led by billionaire Elon Musk is offering US$97.4 billion (S$131.8 billion) to buy the non-profit that controls artificial intelligence startup OpenAI, financial newspaper the Wall Street Journal reported on Feb 10.
The offer intensifies a longstanding battle between OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Mr Musk over the future of the startup at the heart of a boom in generative AI technology.
Mr Musk’s attorney, Marc Toberoff, said he submitted the bid to OpenAI’s board on Feb 10, according to the report.
UN agency says ‘deeply alarmed’ by Libya migrant mass graves
The United Nations’ International Organisation for Migration (IOM) on Feb 10 said it was “deeply alarmed” by the dozens of migrant bodies found in mass graves in south-eastern Libya.
On Feb 9, Libyan authorities said they found the bodies of 28 sub-Saharan migrants in the south-eastern district of Kufra, near a site where they were allegedly detained and tortured.
The UN agency expressed “shock and concern at the discovery of two mass graves in Libya containing the bodies of dozens of migrants, some with gunshot wounds”.
At least 55 dead after bus plunges off bridge in Guatemala
At least 55 people were killed in Guatemala on Feb 10 when a bus crashed through a guard rail and plunged into a ravine, authorities said, one of the worst road accidents in Latin America in years.
The bus was carrying around 70 people when it fell into a river contaminated with sewage in Guatemala City, creating difficult conditions for rescuers trying to retrieve bodies.
“So far, 53 people have died at the scene,” a spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office, Moises Ortiz, told reporters.
