News

Different wildfires have spread across Spain and Portugal as a result of a six-fold increase in the death toll since the outbreaks started, with thousands of firefighters working with the military to combat them.

On Sunday, two firefighters died in Portugal and four in Spain, one of them in a road accident and one in each nation.

Wildfires that have ravaged Southern Europe this summer have had a particular impact on the Iberian Peninsula. They are being fueled by climate change-related heatwaves and drought.

More than 3,800 firefighters battled five major fires in Portugal on Monday, according to civil protection authorities.

Sonia Gallego, a reporter for Al Jazeera from Tarouca, Portugal, reported that “we still have firefighters who are monitoring the area here, and the occasional smoke that comes out of the land here.” Of course, these are the charred remains of the flames that have already completely engulfed these hills.

Emergency services are concerned about the possibility of the Portuguese town’s fires rekindling, according to Gallego.

According to her, what appear to be some of the “worst” fires in the area in years is already “enormous strain” for emergency services.

A firefighter died on Sunday in a fatal traffic accident that seriously injured two coworkers, according to President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.

On Friday, a former Guarda mayor lost his life while attempting to contain a fire.

Since the start of the year, Portugal has burned about 2, 160 square kilometers (835 square miles) of land.

Spain’s neighbor battles also blaze.

The European Forest Fire Information System projects that more than 3, 430 square kilometers (1, 325 square miles) of land have burned in Spain this year, breaking a new national record.

Virginia Barcones, the head of Spain’s Civil Protection and Emergencies agency, told TVE on Monday that there were 23 “active fires” that posed a serious and immediate threat to people.

Galicia, Castile, Leon, and Extremadura, in the northwestern region, were the main sites of the fires, which are now in their second week.

Locals in the province of Ourense, Galicia, used water from hoses and buckets to try to stop the spread, while firefighters battled to put out fires.

A firefighter was killed on Sunday night when his water truck flipped over on a steep forest road and down a slope, according to Castile and Leon officials.

According to a statement released by the Egyptian presidency on Monday, “El-Sisi and the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Qatar stressed the importance of efforts to reach a ceasefire agreement in Gaza.”

In light of Israel’s plans to seize Gaza City and force Palestinians to flee its principal urban center, the two leaders “reaffirmed their rejection of the reoccupation of the Gaza Strip and the displacement of Palestinians.” Additionally, they argued that “the path to peace” is the establishment of a Palestinian state.

A source informed Al Jazeera that mediators and a Hamas delegation are currently engaged in “intensive discussions” in Egypt. Netanyahu, the leader of Gaza, has been pressing for a ceasefire, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu turned down the request.

Since the start of the Gaza war, which has resulted in the deaths of 62, 000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, between Israel and Hamas, mediate has been conducted by Egypt, Qatar, and the United States.

The ongoing conflict, which has lasted more than 22 months and has caused a dire humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, has so far failed to achieve a lasting ceasefire.

Israel brokered a truce between Qatari, Egyptian, and US mediators in March that Israel broke. Since then, it has imposed a total blockade, leading to starvation and famine. The Israeli-induced starvation crisis has left over 260 Palestinians dead.

The most recent round of indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas, which were facilitated by mediators in Doha, lasted for several weeks before it ended on July 25 without any success.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty stated that Qatar’s prime minister was traveling on Monday to “consolidate our existing common efforts in order to put the pressure on the two sides to reach a deal as soon as possible.”

Abdelatty cited the dire humanitarian conditions that exist in the Gaza Strip, where UN agencies and aid organizations have issued warnings about a humanitarian crisis.

He claimed that “the state of the world today is beyond imagination.”

In preparation for an imminent Israeli offensive, thousands of Palestinians have been forced to flee Gaza City.

Genocides don’t end with negotiated solutions, claim they do.

Abdullah Al-Arian, an associate professor of history at Georgetown University in Qatar, said it was important to remember that similar discussions have taken place before, but that “a lack of Israeli political will” is what ultimately has stalled them.

Israel has continued to pursue this genocide, he told Al Jazeera, adding that there hasn’t been any international pressure to secure a ceasefire.

Genocides don’t typically end with negotiated solutions; instead, they usually end with the perpetrator being forced to do so, typically through external pressure or some other form of intervention, which has not yet occurred,” the academic argued.

As the UN and international aid organizations continued to issue famine warnings in the Palestinian enclave, Amnesty International claimed on Monday that Israel had carried out a “deliberate policy” of starvation in Gaza.

Amnesty International stated in a report that quoted displaced Palestinians and medical personnel who had treated malnourished children that “Israel is engaged in a deliberate campaign of starvation in the occupied Gaza Strip.”

The latest in a line of people arriving in Europe from North Africa despite the suspension of asylum claims and a concerted push for stricter detention rules, according to Greek authorities. More than 120 refugees and migrants are currently being intercepted off the island of Crete.

On Monday, two boats, reportedly carrying 58 and 68 people, were stopped, and their passengers were taken into custody and taken to temporary shelters. After strong winds ceased, more than 100 other refugees and migrants made their way to Crete over the weekend.

Greece’s conservative government suspended all asylum applications for people crossing the border from North Africa last month, according to the government’s claim that this action helped stop crossings, which soared to more than 2,500 in one week in July.

After negotiations with Libya’s Benghazi-based government to halt the flow of refugees were acrimoniously postponed in July, the ban was approved by the parliament as a result of the rising number of asylum seekers entering Crete.

Under Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ administration, which has increased sea patrols and built a fence at its northern land borders since coming to power in 2019, it also further honed Greece’s stance toward refugees and migrants.

Concerning a proposal to construct a permanent transit facility on the island, the government and regional authorities in Crete continue to disagree. It is working on draft legislation to require ankle monitoring during a 30-day compliance period before deportation and for those whose asylum claims are denied.

At least 26 people were killed earlier this month when two boats floated off Lampedusa, in southern Italy.

The latest tragedy to hit refugees and migrants crossing the dangerous Mediterranean from Africa to Europe was that it also involved people traveling from Libya.

In Libya, rights organizations and UN agencies have also documented systematic abuse of refugees and migrants, including rape, extortion, and torture. In the most recent horror involving people trying to travel to Europe through the North African nation, in February, Libyan authorities discovered nearly 50 bodies in two mass graves in the southeast of the nation.