Lull in Gaza fighting as Biden urges truce in Eid message

ISTANBUL: Three journalists from the left-leaning BirGun newspaper were detained for several hours under anti-terror legislation over a story linked to Istanbul’s chief prosecutor, the paper said Sunday.
The move was denounced by media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and Turkiye’s main opposition CHP party.
Journalists Ugur Koc and Berkant Gultekin, who work for the online BirGun.net, and its managing editor Yasar Gokdemir were taken from their homes late Saturday for “targeting individuals engaged in counterterrorism efforts,” BirGun editor-in-chief Ibrahim Varli wrote on X.
He said it was over a story about a journalist from the pro-government Sabah newspaper visiting Istanbul’s chief prosecutor Akin Gurlek, which “had already been announced by (Sabah) itself.” Varli accused authorities of “trying to intimidate the press and society with investigations and detentions.”
The trio were released after appearing in court in Istanbul on Sunday. They were not formally arrested.
About 100 protesters gathered outside the court, holding up copies of the paper and signs saying: “BirGun will not be silent” and “Journalism is not a crime,” an AFP correspondent said. Three hundred people demonstrated in Ankara.
Erol Onderoglu of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) called the detentions “unacceptable.”
“This action, over a news story critical of ‘prosecutor impartiality’, is unjustified,” he wrote on X.
Articles or comments about Istanbul’s top prosecutor have triggered several legal probes in recent months, including the latest investigation into Istanbul’s opposition mayor Ekrem Imamoglu as well as another probe last year into CHP opposition leader Ozgur Ozel.
Writing on X, Ozel denounced the arrests as “an unprecedented disgrace.”
“The detention of journalists Ugur Koc, Berkant Gultekin and Yasar Gokdemir for publishing a news item that was already published by Sabah newspaper is an unprecedented disgrace. Trying to fabricate a crime out of this is a sign of guilt,” he wrote.
Ozel was placed under investigation in November for “insulting a public official” and “targeting individuals involved in counter-terror efforts” over remarks about Gurlek, whom he has called a “mobile guillotine” — a phrase he used again on X on Sunday.
On January 6, the MLSA media rights group said there were at least 30 journalists and media workers in prison and four under house arrest in Turkiye. It said in 2024, it monitored 281 freedom of expression trials involving 1,856 defendants, 366 of whom were journalists.
The number of detained journalists has since increased. Three journalists for the opposition Halk TV were detained in late January for broadcasting an interview with an expert witness involved in probes involving opposition CHP mayors, including Imamoglu.
Two were granted conditional release but editor-in-chief Suat Toktas remains behind bars, in a move denounced by the Committee to Project Journalists (CPJ) as “a political move by Turkish authorities to silence critical voices.”
In another investigation ordered by Gurlek, Melisa Sozen, an actor who played a Kurdish militant in a 2017 series of the hit French spy thriller “The Bureau,” was quizzed by police this week on grounds of alleged “terrorist propaganda,” DHA news agency and Halk TV said.
The probe was related to the fatigues she wore for the part, which were allegedly similar to those worn by the Syrian Kurdish YPG militants that Ankara says are linked to the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

TEL AVIV: An Israeli official said Sunday that Israeli forces have begun withdrawing from a key Gaza corridor, part of a ceasefire deal with Hamas that is moving ahead.

Israel agreed as part of the truce to remove its forces from the Netzarim corridor, a strip of land that bisects northern Gaza from the south. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss troop movement with the media.

At the start of the ceasefire, Israel began allowing Palestinians to cross Netzarim to head to their homes in the war-battered north and the withdrawal of forces from the area will fulfill another commitment to the deal.

It was not clear how many troops Israel had withdrawn on Sunday.

The 42-day ceasefire is just past its halfway point and the sides are supposed to negotiate an extension that would lead to more Israeli hostages being freed from Hamas captivity. But the agreement is fragile and the extension isn’t guaranteed.

The sides are meant to begin talks on the truce’s second stage but there appears to have been little progress.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was sending a delegation to Qatar, a key mediator in talks between the sides, but the mission included low-level officials, sparking speculation that it won’t lead to a breakthrough in extending the truce. Netanyahu is expected to convene a meeting of key Cabinet ministers this week on the second phase of the deal, but it was not clear when.

During the first phase of the ceasefire, Hamas is gradually releasing 33 Israeli hostages captured during its Oct.7, 2023, attack in exchange for a pause in fighting, freedom for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and a floor of humanitarian aid to war-battered Gaza. The deal stipulates that Israeli troops will pull back from populated areas of Gaza and that on day 22, which is Sunday, Palestinians will be allowed to head north from a central road that crosses through Netzarim, without being inspected by Israeli forces.

In the second phase, all remaining hostages would be released in return for a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a “sustainable calm.”