Last-ditch search for survivors as Indonesia disaster toll tops 1,500
Palu, Oct 5 : Search teams made desperate last-ditch efforts Friday to find survivors, a week on from Indonesia's devastating quake-tsunami, as the death toll from the disaster rose above 1,500.
The city of Palu on Sulawesi island has been left in ruins after being hit by a 7.5 magnitude quake and a wall of water, which flattened homes, ripped up trees and overturned cars.
After days of delays, international aid has finally started to arrive in the disaster zone, where the UN says almost 200,000 people are in need of humanitarian assistance.
Survivors have ransacked shops and supply trucks in the hunt for basic necessities, prompting security forces to round up dozens of suspected looters and warn that they will fire on thieves.
Authorities previously set a tentative deadline of Friday for finding anyone trapped under ruined buildings, although chances of pulling survivors alive from the rubble at such a late stage are almost zero.
Local military spokesman Muhammad Thohir said that the death toll had risen to 1,558, up about 100 from the previous official figure.
Over 100 people are still unaccounted for, while hundreds of bodies have been buried in mass graves in a bid to avert a disease outbreak from corpses rotting in the tropical sun.
Search efforts focused on eight key locations Friday, including a beach and the Balaroa area where the sheer force of the quake turned the earth temporarily to mush.
"We have to use heavy equipment now because it is very difficult to sift through the rubble by hand," Yusuf Latif, a spokesman for Indonesia's search and rescue agency, told AFP.
At the badly damaged Mercure hotel on Palu's waterfront, there was growing frustration among a French and Indonesian search team.
The rescuers, using sniffer dogs and scanners, had detected what they believed was a person under mounds of rubble the previous evening but when they resumed the hunt early Friday, any signs of life had disappeared.
"Yesterday we had a heart beat and sign of breathing, there were no other movements so it means it was someone who was motionless, confined," said Philippe Besson, president of the International Emergency Firefighters.
A week on from the disaster, some roads in the area remain impassable, detritus from the tsunami is scattered everywhere while terrified people are sleeping outside for fear of further quakes.
Improvised white flags -- a pillow case or duvet cover -- fly outside many homes, signifying a death in the family.
Nevertheless there were signs of life returning to normal, with children playing in the streets, radios blaring out music, and electricity back up and running in most places.
"Things are improving," Azhari Samad, a 56-year-old insurance salesman, told AFP at a mosque in Palu.
But for the area to recover fully from the disaster "will take years", he added.
"The first six months will be traumatic, maybe in one year we have some progress. The government will help, people will help from all over the country. Indonesians have a big heart." Samad spoke to AFP ahead of Friday prayers in the world's biggest Muslim majority country.
Sulawesi is also home to a large Christian minority.
About 20 planes carrying vital supplies such as tarpaulins, medical equipment and generators are now heading from all over the world to the disaster zone after a long delay.
Indonesia was initially reluctant to accept outside help, insisting its own military could handle the response, but as the scale of the devastation became clear President Joko Widodo agreed to allow in foreign aid.
Governments from Australia to Britain are flying in supplies, the United Nations has pledged 15 million to the relief effort, and aid groups including Save the Children and the Red Cross are also on the ground.
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Netanyahu recommends his Cabinet approve Hezbollah cease-fire proposal
Beirut, Nov 26: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that he would recommend his cabinet adopt a United States-brokered ceasefire agreement with Lebanon's Hezbollah, as Israeli warplanes struck across Lebanon, killing at least 23 people.
The Israeli military also issued a flurry of evacuation warnings — a sign it was aiming to inflict punishment on Hezbollah down to the final moments before any ceasefire takes hold. For the first time in the conflict, Israeli ground troops reached parts of Lebanon's Litani River, a focal point of the emerging deal.
In a televised statement, Netanyahu said he would present the ceasefire to Cabinet ministers later on Tuesday, setting the stage for an end to nearly 14 months of fighting.
Netanyahu said the vote was expected later Tuesday. It was not immediately clear when the ceasefire would go into effect, and the exact terms of the deal were not released. The deal does not affect Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza, which shows no signs of ending.
The evacuation warnings covered many areas, including parts of Beirut that previously have not been targeted. The warnings, coupled with fear that Israel was ratcheting up attacks before a ceasefire, sent residents fleeing. Traffic was gridlocked, and some cars had mattresses tied to them. Dozens of people, some wearing their pajamas, gathered in a central square, huddling under blankets or standing around fires as Israeli drones buzzed loudly overhead.
Hezbollah, meanwhile, kept up its rocket fire, triggering air raid sirens across northern Israel.
Lebanese officials have said Hezbollah also supports the deal. If approved by all sides, the deal would be a major step toward ending the Israel-Hezbollah war that has inflamed tensions across the region and raised fears of an even wider conflict between Israel and Hezbollah's patron, Iran.
The deal calls for a two-month initial halt in fighting and would require Hezbollah to end its armed presence in a broad swath of southern Lebanon, while Israeli troops would return to their side of the border. Thousands of Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers would deploy in the south, and an international panel headed by the United States would monitor all sides' compliance.
But implementation remains a major question mark. Israel has demanded the right to act should Hezbollah violate its obligations. Lebanese officials have rejected writing that into the proposal. Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz insisted on Tuesday that the military would strike Hezbollah if the U.N. peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, doesn't provide “effective enforcement” of the deal.
“If you don't act, we will act, and with great force,” Katz said, speaking with UN special envoy Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert.
The European Union's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said Tuesday that Israel's security concerns had been addressed in the deal also brokered by France.
“There is not an excuse for not implementing a ceasefire. Otherwise, Lebanon will fall apart,” Borrell told reporters in Italy on the sidelines of a Group of Seven meeting. He said France would participate on the ceasefire implementation committee at Lebanon's request.
Bombardment of Beirut's southern suburbs continues
Even as Israeli, US, Lebanese and international officials have expressed growing optimism over a ceasefire, Israel has continued its campaign in Lebanon, which it says aims to cripple Hezbollah's military capabilities.
An Israeli strike on Tuesday levelled a residential building in the central Beirut district of Basta — the second time in recent days warplanes have hit the crowded area near the city's downtown. At least seven people were killed and 37 wounded, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry.
Three people were killed in a separate strike in Beirut and three in a strike on a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon. Lebanese state media said another 10 people were killed in the eastern Baalbek province. Israel says it targets Hezbollah fighters and their infrastructure.
Earlier, Israeli jets struck at least six buildings in Beirut's southern suburbs. One strike slammed near the country's only airport, sending plumes of smoke into the sky. The airport has continued to function despite its location on the Mediterranean coast next to the densely populated suburbs where many of Hezbollah's operations are based.
Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee issued evacuation warnings for 20 buildings in the suburbs, as well as a warning for the southern town of Naqoura where UNIFIL is headquartered.
UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti told The Associated Press that peacekeepers will not evacuate.
Other strikes hit in the southern city of Tyre, where the Israeli military said it killed a local Hezbollah commander.
The Israeli military also said its ground troops clashed with Hezbollah forces and destroyed rocket launchers in the Slouqi area on the eastern end of the Litani River, a few kilometres from the Israeli border.
Previous ceasefire hopes were dashed
Under the ceasefire deal, Hezbollah would be required to move its forces north of the Litani, which in some places is about 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of the border.
A ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, the strongest Iranian-backed force in the region, would likely significantly calm regional tensions that have led to fears of a direct, all-out war between Israel and Iran. It's not clear how the ceasefire will affect the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Hezbollah had long insisted that it would not agree to a ceasefire until the war in Gaza ends, but it dropped that condition.
Hezbollah began firing into northern Israel, saying it was showing support for the Palestinians, a day after Hamas carried out its Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, triggering the Gaza war. Israel returned fire on Hezbollah, and the two sides have been exchanging barrages ever since.
Israel escalated its campaign of bombardment in mid-September and later sent troops into Lebanon, vowing to put an end to Hezbollah fire so tens of thousands of evacuated Israelis could return to their homes.
More than 3,760 people have been killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon the past 13 months, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The bombardment has driven 1.2 million people from their homes. Israel says it has killed more than 2,000 Hezbollah members.
Hezbollah fire has forced some 50,000 Israelis to evacuate in the country's north, and its rockets have reached as far south in Israel as Tel Aviv. At least 75 people have been killed, more than half of them civilians. More than 50 Israeli soldiers have died in the ground offensive in Lebanon.
After previous hopes for a ceasefire were dashed, U.S. officials cautioned that negotiations were not yet complete and noted there could be last-minute hitches that delay or destroy an agreement.
“Nothing is done until everything is done,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said.
While the ceasefire proposal is expected to be approved if Netanyahu brings it to a vote in his security Cabinet, one hard-line member, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, said he would oppose it. He said on X that a deal with Lebanon would be a “big mistake” and a “missed historic opportunity to eradicate Hezbollah.”
