“The insulation may be insufficient because a protective fiberglass sleeve may not fully cover the cord, creating a potential risk of electric shock or fire.”
Health Canada also issued a recall on the product on July 16, stating that consumers should “immediately stop using the recalled product and return it to Panasonic Canada Inc. for a refund.”
Costco customers can return the product to any Costco warehouse customer service counter for a full refund.
No injuries or deaths have been reported.
Health Canada announced a national recall of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Oreo candy bars on July 24, citing it may contain “pistachio which is not declared on the label.”
Costco Canada issued a recall of the product on July 29 for shoppers who purchased it between February and July 2026, which is only sold as a 12 x 38 gram pack at Costco.
Cadbury says its 38 gram, 12 pack candy bars may contain pistachios.
Canadian Food Inspection Agency
“People who have an allergy or severe sensitivity to pistachio may risk serious allergic reactions by consuming this product,” Costco’s recall states.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) is conducting a food safety investigation and has removed recalled products from the marketplace.
Costco shoppers can return the product to a Costco warehouse for a full refund.
The Alfa croissants recall affects those with cocoa cream filling in 24-count packages, with lot codes 10726 and 08626, sold between June and July 2026, citing “the potential presence of mold on the product.”
“Please do not consume, serve, use, sell or distribute the Alfa Croissants that are being recalled,” the recall states.
Customers with questions can contact Distribution M.F.G Inc. for more information.
The children’s go-kart recall involves units sold at Costco warehouses and the company’s website between November 2025 and June 2026.
Aston Martin Formula One 36V Go-Kart.
Costco Canada
The manufacturer of the product, Hunter Products USA, says a faulty accelerator pedal “could lead to immediate acceleration upon connection of the battery and may pose a risk of serious injury.”
As of July 21, 2026, six incidents have been reported, including at least one injury.
Those who have purchased the product should “immediately stop using” the go-kart and contact Hunter Products USA for a free repair kit that includes updated replacement parts. Customers can also return the item to Costco for a full refund.
As festival-goers get ready to take on Montreal this weekend, Osheaga is reminding attendees of a new and stricter bag policy.
The festival announced on social media earlier this month that large bags, including backpacks and other bags up to a maximum size of 30 x 30 x 23 cm, must be transparent. Smaller bags, including fanny packs, may be opaque.
“To speed up traffic flow at entrances and to promote the safety of employees, artists and festivalgoers, the size and type of bag that can be brought onto the site is limited,” the festival said on the FAQ page of its website.
Any bag larger than 30 x 30 x 23 cm is not permitted.
The new policy puts Osheaga in line with other festivals like Veld in Toronto and Ultra Music Festival in Miami, Fla., which also require bags to be transparent.
In an effort to make the festival more sustainable, Osheaga said it will have water filling stations available throughout the festival grounds. Reusable and plastic water bottles, as well as hydration packs, can be brought on to the grounds provided they are empty while passing through security.
Attendees are also permitted to bring baby strollers, binoculars, cameras, sunscreen in non-aerosol containers and naloxone or Narcan. Aerosol containers, coolers, recording equipment, speakers, drones, and outside food are forbidden.
Artists to see
Osheaga said this year “reflects the festival’s continued evolution” with pop at the forefront, inspired by roots of rock and hip-hop.
Festival headliners include Twenty One Pilots (July 31), Tate McRae (Aug. 1) and Lorde (Aug. 2).
Other performers include Zara Larsson, Empire of the Sun, Wolf Parade, The xx and breakout act Sombr.
Osheaga said it is “committed to showcasing and supporting incredible Canadian talent.”
This year the festival features 26 Canadian artists, including 14 from Quebec.
Safety first
Osheaga says it is a safe space for women, members of the LGBTQ+ community, as well as other people in vulnerable positions.
The festival said it trains staff in vigilance and procedures for security, reception and operations staff.
A truck from Grip, a Montreal-based organization, will also be available on site to “help people make informed decisions about drug use.”
According to the organization’s website, it works in harm reduction and prevention with “the aim of informing and intervening in festive environments.”
Illegal substances are forbidden on Osheaga grounds, according to the festival’s website. All cannabis products must be sealed in SQDC packaging.
“No sale or consumption of cannabis is allowed on the site,” the festival said.
Possession of cannabis is only legal for people age 21 and over.
A Toronto Police Service logo patch is shown in Toronto, Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby
GAC
Toronto police say they are searching for a fortune teller who allegedly used elaborate rituals and frightening claims to convince his victims to hand over money in exchange for his so-called spiritual protection.
Investigators say the 29-year-old is wanted on charges including fraud and money laundering.
Police say between April 2024 and September 2025, the accused adopted the persona of a psychic, fortune teller and spiritual healer and operated a business known as Indian Psychic and Spiritual Healer.
Police allege he convinced his victims that their loved ones would die or be seriously harmed unless they paid for spiritual protection.
Officers are also accusing the man of exploiting the victims’ belief in the supernatural to gain their trust.
Investigators say they believe there are more victims of the scam.
The union representing 4,400 flight attendants at WestJet says it is “focused on reaching a deal” with the airline as a strike and lockout loom going into the long weekend, a spokesperson for the union said Friday.
The WestJet component of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) issued a 72-hour strike notice to the airline Thursday, to which WestJet responded with a lockout notice.
“As of early this morning the bargaining committee was still focussed on reaching a deal and avoiding a strike,” a CUPE spokesperson told Global News in an emailed statement Friday.
In an update on Friday, WestJet said they “remain in active bargaining sessions” with the union.
However, CUPE clarified Thursday that a “strike notice does not mean flight attendants want to go on strike.”
WestJet said it doesn’t anticipate any immediate impact to air travel, but that could change if an agreement isn’t reached by the deadline.
The airline said it “continues to operate normally” while negotiations continue; however, it said guests travelling between Thursday, July 30, and Tuesday, Aug. 4, can make a one-time change or cancellation at no additional cost.
This is being done to offer “added flexibility” to passengers, the airline said.
“Should flight delays or cancellations occur, impacted guests will be refunded or reaccommodated, as applicable,” WestJet said in a statement Thursday.
The airline will reach out via email to customers who booked directly on the WestJet website, while those who booked through a third-party platform or travel agent are being asked to contact them in the event of a work stoppage, WestJet said.
On Thursday, the union said “The parties remain too far apart on several key issues,” however it said some progress was made during the bargaining process.
The WestJet cabin crew involved in the collective action are “seeking an end to the unfair practice of unpaid work,” CUPE said.
“Essential duties before boarding, during delays, emergency evacuations, and after arrival are not fully compensated. Flight attendants are responsible for safety from the moment they report to work, and not just when the aircraft moves,” a CUPE spokesperson told Global News Thursday.
“Some flight attendants are making below minimum wage when you factor in their unpaid hours — in some cases up to 35 unpaid hours every month.”
The flight attendants’ union has said that because of the “archaic flight credit system” under which members are paid, flight attendants “end up working roughly 35 hours free per month.”
WestJet says the credit hour system is “the standard pay model for cabin crew across North America” and that “block hours start when the aircraft leaves the gate and end when it arrives at the gate.” One credit hour equals one flight time hour.
A Toronto Police Service logo in Ottawa on Sept. 28, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby
Toronto police are investigating a pair of shootings that happened in the early hours of Friday morning in Scarborough.
Officers were called to the Morningside Avenue and Sheppard Avenue East area just after 3 a.m. for reports of a shooting in a parking lot.
An adult woman was located at the scene suffering from a gunshot wound. She was taken to hospital in non life-threatening condition.
Roughly an hour later, police were called to Danforth Road and Gordonridge Place, just north of Danforth and Midland Avenue, for reports of a shooting at an apartment building.
On scene officers confirmed that a firearm had been discharged. Police say multiple units showed signs of being shot at from the outside.
No injuries were reported in that incident.
Police have not released any suspect information in either case. They also have not said if the two shootings are connected.
FILE - Pages from the Anthropic website and the company's logo are displayed on a computer screen in New York, Feb. 26, 2026. A group of economists are warning that action must be taken on AI before there are severe economic impacts.
AP Photo/Patrick Sison, File
Anthropic said its artificial intelligence models hacked into three other organizations during testing, just days after ChatGPT maker OpenAI raised concerns over AI controls after it disclosed its rogue models hacked another company.
Anthropic, the San Francisco-based AI company behind Claude, posted on its website Thursday that it discovered the three incidents after reviewing more than 141,000 evaluation runs.
It launched a “large-scale” cybersecurity review that specifically looked for evidence of whether its AI models were able to access the internet from within testing environments that should have been sealed off, in response to the OpenAI incident, Anthropic said.
Anthropic said the models involved in the incidents were Claude Opus 4.7, Claude Mythos 5 and an internal research test model. The earliest incidents date to April, the AI company said.
It added that it had already reached out to the affected organizations, which it did not name. Two of them said they had not previously detected the activity. Anthropic said it was “continuing to reach out to the third.”
Anthropic said it conducted its review with Irregular, which describes itself as the “first frontier security lab.”
“Addressing these risks will require closer cooperation across the AI ecosystem,” Irregular said in a post on X.
Last week, OpenAI said its AI models went rogue during an evaluation of its models, breaking into the servers of AI startup Hugging Face. OpenAI described it as a “significant security incident.”
These incidents have highlighted the vulnerabilities in AI security and controls and raised questions over how AI can be safely kept under human control as the technology’s usage becomes more widespread globally.
Researchers have warned for years about risks from technology and the need for stronger AI defensive engineering.
“Safety testing happens before a model is released precisely because we don’t yet know what it is capable of,” Anthropic said on Thursday on its website.
Kok Tin Gan, co-founder & CEO of cybersecurity firm NyxLab, which specializes in cybersecurity and threat detection, believes there will be more such incidents in the future.
“It is increasingly about governing what agents are available to the AI, what authorities they possess, which actions require approval, and how we ensure they remain within scope,” Gan said.
But the future of AI safety extends beyond just the safety of AI models, he said.
“If we simply give the AI a goal and allow it to decide how to achieve it, we should not be surprised when it takes actions that technically satisfy the objective, but fall outside our intended scope or expectations,” Gan said.
Therefore, stepping up the governance of the organizations and authorities behind these AI models is going to be increasingly important, he said.
WATCH: What is the DNA process for solving cold case crimes?
Partial human remains found in swamp land near North Bay five decades ago belong to an Uxbridge, Ont., First World War veteran, police say.
North Bay police said the remains are those of Claude Hamilton Brownscombe, who was born on Oct. 24, 1896. Police said Thursday it used genetic genealogy to bring closure to the investigation, which began after the remains were discovered in June 1975.
At that time, summer students employed by the Ministry of the Environment found a partial human skull in a swamp land off Highway 11 North, behind a former missile base.
Investigators tried for years to identify the remains, but it wasn’t until 2023, when they used genetic genealogy, that the pieces started to fall into place.
“Advances in this area of forensic sciences have created new opportunities to revisit historic investigations and examine evidence in ways that were not possible many years ago,” Chief Daryl Longworth told reporters at a news conference.
”While technology played an important role in this identification, this outcome was made possible through the continued efforts of our general investigation section and their commitment to revisiting a case that remained unsolved for more than five decades.”
Partial human remains discovered more than five decades ago north of North Bay belong to an Uxbridge, Ont., First World War veteran, North Bay police have revealed.
North Bay police/photo
Investigators were able to identify family connections and developed a family tree based on Brownscombe’s DNA. That ultimately led to the discovery of a married couple whose family history revealed the death and burial locations of their children – except for one son – Det. Const. Shawn Hofmann said.
Police interviewed two of Brownscombe’s surviving family members – a great-nephew and a great-niece. Both provided DNA samples, which confirmed the match.
Military records showed Brownscombe was living in Toronto in 1917 when at 22, he enlisted with the Canadian Over-Seas Expeditionary Force. He went on to serve overseas and was discharged in 1919.
The records described him as standing five feet two inches tall, and as having blue eyes and brown hair.
Newspaper articles showed Brownscombe was living in Timmins, Ont., as early as 1928.
“He worked at the McIntyre Mine and participated in community activities, including local bowling leagues,” Hofmann said.
The great-nephew recalled seeing him in 1953 and said Brownscombe was living a quiet life in a northern Ontario cabin.
He was on voting lists in 1949 and 1957, but police did not find any records confirming his death, Hofmann said.
Investigators are not sure how he ended up in North Bay from Timmins. Examiners in 1975 determined Brownscombe had been dead for one or two years before his partial remains were found.
With the limited information police have, investigators are unable to determine a cause of death, but foul play is not suspected, Insp. Scott McFarlane said.
“We recognize that today’s announcement may bring renewed emotions for some who are still missed their loved one. Please know that you are not forgotten,” he said.
“Every investigation deserves our continued attention and we will continue to work to bring answers and closures to the families whenever possible.”
WATCH: Thousands of migrants crossed from Morocco into Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta on Thursday, with many swimming for hours to reach the territory.
Some 60,000 migrants have entered Spain’s Ceuta from Morocco in the past 24 hours, Ceuta’s president says. That is equivalent to 70 per cent of the city’s regular population.
At least 34 migrants have died in the process.
“The situation that Ceuta is going through is absolutely unsustainable,” said Juan Jesús Vivas on Friday.
The border crisis boiled over Thursday and continued on Friday with security forces clashing with migrants on the Moroccan side of the border.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez condemned the breach of the border on Friday speaking in Ceuta, describing the events as “a violation of Spain’s territorial integrity.”
The Spanish leader cast blame on human smugglers, saying they “deceive so many young people, and ultimately lead many of them to their deaths — whether in the ocean or, as in this case, at Spain’s border in the autonomous city of Ceuta.”
Live footage of the border showed hundreds of migrants gathered on a hill overlooking Ceuta being dispersed with tear gas by Moroccan forces, while others continued to swim to the Spanish territory.
At the same time, large groups of migrants walked back from Ceuta toward Morocco to return home.
Rachid Sbihi, who leads a local workers association representing Civil Guard officers, called the situation a “serious humanitarian crisis,” saying thousands of migrants, including unaccompanied children, were left sleeping in parks and on sidewalks, while others roamed the streets aimlessly.
“People are still entering. The reinforcements, including Spanish military troops, that have arrived are only helping the injured and other humanitarian efforts,” he said. “It’s chaotic.”
Among the 18 who died, many drowned, Sbihi said, but some were also killed in a stampede to cross the breakwater fence at Tarajal beach, an urban beach near a border checkpoint with Morocco.
Ahmed Karim, a 33-year old Moroccan, said he had crossed into Ceuta because of the lack of jobs in his country.
“Many people want to go to Europe, America, but they don’t have the opportunity,” Karim said.
On Friday morning, the waters near the border fence were littered with buoys, shoes and other belongings left behind.
Moroccan police deployed additional personnel, used water cannons and fired warning shots into the air to prevent migrants from crossing into Ceuta, according to rights groups in Morocco.
“Despite the heavy police presence, people crossed through the waterway, while the land border remained closed,” said Achraf Maimouni, a human rights activist in Fnideq, the Moroccan city bordering Ceuta.
FILE- Migrants return to Morocco from the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, Friday, July 31, 2026.
(AP Photo/Antonio Sempere)
Migrants arrested at the border were taken farther into Morocco, away from Ceuta, “but people are still coming,” he said.
Morocco’s ambassador to Spain expressed hope that those who crossed from Morocco into the Spanish exclave would return. Karima Benyaich described the situation in Ceuta as difficult, saying it had unfolded against Morocco’s wishes.
“We have always prioritized legal, orderly and safe migration for all,” she said. Benyaich did not comment on what prompted the migrants to cross into Ceuta.
But authorities in both Ceuta and Madrid, linked it to a recent decision by Spain’s Supreme Court that ruled migrants arriving by sea could not be summarily deported, unlike those who cross by land or climb the border fence.
Sánchez said migrant smugglers misinterpreted the ruling, but acknowledged that it may have played a role in sowing chaos.
“It appears that this interpretation of the Supreme Court’s ruling spread like wildfire over the past few hours through the networks of human trafficking organizations, triggering the kind of mass surge we witnessed yesterday,” Sánchez said.
Spain is a main point of arrival into Europe for migrants seeking better economic opportunities or an escape from violence in their home countries.
To reach Ceuta, located on the northern African coast, migrants often swim from the Moroccan town of Fnideq, covering about 3 miles (5 kilometers) to reach Spanish territory. Others attempt the crossing from the nearby town of Belyounech, where the distance is shorter.
Sánchez has bucked the anti-migration trend that has gained ground across Europe and in the U.S.. While the Trump administration and other European countries have tightened their borders and stepped up deportations, Spain earlier this year moved to give residency and work permits to hundreds of thousands of migrants already living in the country without permission.
Sánchez, a Socialist, argued that it would be good for the economy and the demographics of an aging Spain. Migrants who entered irregularly after January 1, 2026, were not included.
But his critics have jumped the opportunity granted them by the endless reels of young Moroccans streaming into Ceuta to attack his policy, saying it encouraged more migrants to come to Spain.
“Sánchez allows Spain to be invaded through Ceuta,” Spanish conservative politician Isabel Díaz Ayuso wrote on X.
Sánchez on Friday distanced the migrant legalization push from the events unfolding in Ceuta.
The chaos had ripple effects abroad as well. Premier Giorgia Meloni threatened to suspend Italy’s open-border Schengen agreement with Spain “to defend our borders and ensure the safety of our citizens,” even though Italy doesn’t share a border with Spain and is also a main entry point for tens of thousands of migrants crossing the Mediterranean from North Africa each year.
French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said France would also strengthen border checks with Spain, writing on X that he had activated the Rapid Intervention Border Force.
“This crisis in Ceuta has nothing to do with the regularization of migrants adopted by the Government of Spain, as is being falsely claimed by some,” the Spanish government said in a statement late Thursday after Meloni’s announcement. It also summoned Italy’s ambassador in Madrid.
“This crisis stems from an interpretation of a Supreme Court’s decision, according to which people who swim illegally across the border cannot be returned,” the Spanish government said. The decision has been exploited by smugglers who take advantage of vulnerable migrants, it added.
Some activists in Morocco expressed doubt that the ruling was behind the surge, arguing most migrants would have been unaware of such legal decisions.
Migrants from Morocco also attempted to cross into Melilla, Spain’s other territory at the tip of North Africa.
There was widespread chaos in Bni Nsar, the Moroccan town bordering the Spanish territory, where migrants clashed with police, throwing rocks and setting police vehicles ablaze, according to local media and rights groups. They reported injuries among security forces and the arrest of dozens of people attempting to cross.
FILE- A boy swims as he attempts to cross from the Moroccan northern town of Fnideq to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, Friday, July 31, 2026.
(AP Photo)
Omar Naji of the local branch of the Moroccan Association of Human Rights told the AP that the crossing attempts into Melilla appeared to be linked to the situation in Ceuta.
Like Ceuta, Melilla is a Spanish autonomous city on the North African coast. Many Moroccans consider both cities to be occupied territory.
Juan Jesús Vivas, the head of Ceuta’s regional government, had warned earlier this week that migrant reception centers were overwhelmed as arrivals by sea had steadily been increasing before the chaos erupted Thursday.
Spain’s Interior Ministry would not confirm the number of migrants who had made it to Ceuta but said it would publish its next migration report on Monday.
Spanish media, citing unnamed government and security sources, estimated between 30,000 and 49,000 migrants had crossed in the past 24 hours. A member of Spain’s civil guard who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release figures to the media said that 49,000 people were estimated to crossed. That’s more than half of Ceuta’s nearly 84,000 population.
Sbihi, of the civil guard workers association, said it was difficult to know exact numbers but believed tens of thousands of migrants had made it through.
Ceuta has been a Spanish possession since 1580. Its mixed population of Christians and Muslims, Spanish and Moroccan residents and day workers, lives in relative harmony.
Business owners in Canada are growing increasingly wary amid U.S. President Donald Trump's vow to put a 50 per cent tariff on a wide range of Canadian goods. As Jillian Piper reports, there are signs his threats are stalling Canada's economy.
The economy was growing steadily in May and appeared on track for a solid rebound in the second quarter as a whole, Statistics Canada said Friday.
The agency said real gross domestic product rose 0.3 per cent in May amid growth in both the goods and services sides of the economy. That topped StatCan’s own initial estimate for 0.1 per cent growth in the month.
The agency said output from the mining, quarrying, oil and gas extraction sector rose one per cent in May, leading economic growth for a second straight month.
Oilsands extraction was higher as some usual spring maintenance activities were either completed early or deferred. Strength in pipeline shipments helped fuel growth in the wider transportation and warehousing sector in the month, the agency said.
Offices of real estate agents and brokers, meanwhile, saw activity increase 5.1 per cent in May — the subsector’s biggest monthly jump since October 2024. The spring housing market was warming up in May following an extended cold snap, particularly in Ontario and British Columbia, StatCan said.
Construction, manufacturing and the finance and insurance sectors all grew for a second consecutive month and the public sector also expanded in May.
April’s GDP figures, meanwhile, were revised a tenth of a point higher to 0.6 per cent. StatCan’s flash estimate calls for a gain of 0.2 per cent in June amid expected gains in wholesale, retail trade and finance and insurance.
Taken together, StatCan’s advance estimate has real GDP rising 3.4 per cent on an annualized basis in the second quarter, marking a sharp rebound from a mild contraction in the first three months of the year.
If that estimate holds, it would top the Bank of Canada’s forecasts for growth of 2.5 per cent in the second quarter.
StatCan will release its official estimates for the second quarter when it reports June GDP figures at the end of August.
WATCH ABOVE: Trump says ‘historic agreement’ reached to disarm Hamas, withdraw Israeli forces from Gaza
Hamas said Friday that it reached an agreement to disarm, a significant move that could help end the conflict in Gaza — but one that will face many hurdles and could take a long time to achieve, if at all.
The group agreed to a road map as long as Israel also makes concessions, including ending hostilities and withdrawing its troops from the Palestinian territory, a Hamas official and a regional official told The Associated Press. Senior Hamas official Bassem Naim confirmed in a post on X that the group agreed to the deal.
Israel has not commented on the deal, which U.S. President Donald Trump announced hours earlier. It comes nine months after a U.S.-brokered ceasefire to end the fighting between Israel and the group was signed.
That 20-point ceasefire plan calls on the militant group to surrender its weapons and destroy its vast network of tunnels. It also envisions Israeli forces withdrawing from Gaza, the arrival of a new technocratic Palestinian government, the deployment of a security force known as the International Stabilization Force and the rebuilding of the battered Palestinian enclave.
But negotiations between Israel and Hamas over the implementation of the next phase of the ceasefire deal had largely deadlocked — and disarmament was a major sticking point.
Disarming would represent a sea change for Hamas, whose founding charter calls for armed resistance against Israel, and which sees its arsenal, including rockets, anti-tank missiles and explosives, as lying at the heart of its identity.
“The agreement will be carried out in carefully structured phases,” Trump said on social media. “As disarmament is completed, Israeli forces will withdraw, and the International Stabilization Force will work with a new Palestinian police force to take responsibility for Gaza being safe for its residents and its neighbors.”
A copy of the agreement obtained and verified by The Associated Press said that all police weapons will be transferred to the U.S.-backed Palestinian technocratic committee, known as the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, upon its arrival in the enclave. It’s not clear when that would happen since it is contingent on other steps.
A process to decommission and store heavy weapons, military production sites and tunnels will begin after the arrival of the Palestinian committee and the deployment of the ISF. The process will be linked to an Israeli withdrawal, in phases, from the areas under its control in Gaza, according to the agreement.
In a statement Thursday, an Israeli official said that there will be no Israeli withdrawal from the areas it holds in Gaza — which account for about 60 per cent of the territory — before the militant group is disarmed and the strip demilitarized. The statement was made on condition of anonymity in line with government protocol.
A person with knowledge of the situation said that Israel is fully involved, but it’s not a signatory to the deal, which is between Hamas and several countries helping to negotiate and guarantee the ceasefire. The person spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss the agreement. The deal’s guarantors are the U.S., Turkey, Egypt and Qatar.
On Thursday, U.S. and Board of Peace officials, describing the deal to reporters on condition of anonymity under guidelines set by the White House, gave an extremely optimistic assessment of the agreement that laid out a scenario very similar to the one outlined by Trump and his top aides when the Board of Peace was first formed. The board, which was established by Trump, oversees the ceasefire in Gaza.
While Gaza’s police force is expected to hand over its arms, that doesn’t include the vast majority of Hamas militants, and heavy weaponry is not included in that part of the agreement, according to the officials.
Instead, the surrender of heavy weapons and the decommissioning of Hamas tunnels and other infrastructure are to come later in a process that could take between 200 and 350 days, a Board of Peace official said. That timeline did not appear in the agreement obtained by AP.
The Hamas official and the regional official involved in the process said that Hamas and other groups agreed to “collect and store” arms inside Gaza under the supervision of the Palestinian technocratic committee and that weapons won’t be handed to Israel or non-Palestinian parties. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media, said this would be a gradual process linked to an Israeli withdrawal.
A U.S. official said Israel, which has been deeply skeptical about Hamas’ willingness to give up its guns or relinquish control of Gaza, had been consulted at every step of the negotiation.
However, the official said Israel was not being asked to do anything more than what it had initially committed to when it agreed to Trump’s 20-point plan, which essentially involves withdrawing its forces from Gaza and committing to ending airstrikes on the territory.
A member of the Palestinian technocratic committee told the AP on Friday that it was eager to enter Gaza but was concerned Israel will pose challenges for them. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak to the media. The person said they didn’t expect to enter Gaza for at least two months.
The committee welcomed the progress Friday but said the work to restore public institutions and services and rebuild the territory would be immense.
The most recent conflict in Gaza began after a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killed around 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage. Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, including those killed since the ceasefire, Gaza’s Health Ministry said. The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government and is staffed by medical professionals, does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its toll but says women and children make up around half of all deaths.
With Israel in control of much of Gaza, Palestinians are confined to squalid tent camps and heavily damaged urban neighborhoods.
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