Pak skipper Babar Azam named ICC Men’s ODI Cricketer of the Year for 2nd straight year

The Supreme Court of Yemen has rejected Kerala nurse Nimisha Priya's appeal against the death sentence. Nimisha Priya, a Malayali nurse, was sentenced to death in Yemen over murder charges in 2017. She was convicted of murdering Yemeni national Talal Abdo Mahdi.

The Centre had on Thursday informed the Delhi High Court about Yemen's Supreme Court's verdict rejecting Nimnisha Priya's appeal.

Priya was convicted of killing Mahdi by injecting him with sedatives in an attempt to recover her passport from his possession. The Centre further submitted that the ultimate authority to make the final decision now rests with the President of Yemen.

On Thursday, the Delhi HC gave the Centre a week's time to decide on a request from Priya's mother to travel to Yemen given the travel ban for Indian nationals due to the ongoing civil war in the country.

Priya's mother sought permission to travel to Yemen to negotiate "blood money," a form of compensation paid by the offender or their kin to the victim's family, as a means to save her daughter from execution. The petitioner emphasized in court the urgency of negotiating with the victim's family to save Priya's life.

The 'Save Nimisha Priya International Action Council' had approached the HC last year, seeking direction to the Centre to "facilitate diplomatic interventions as well as negotiations with the family of the victim on behalf of Nimisha Priya to save her life by paying blood money in accordance with the law of the land in a time-bound manner". The court then declined to direct negotiations but advised pursuing legal remedies against the conviction.

In a previous petition, it was alleged that Mahdi had forged documents to falsely claim marriage to Priya, subjecting her to abuse and torture.

A far-right member of Israel’s legislature has called for burning down the Gaza Strip and blocking humanitarian aid to the besieged area amid the occupying regime’s brutal onslaught on the coastal silver, which has so far claimed more than 12,000 Palestinian lives.

Nissim Vaturi, deputy speaker of the Knesset and a member of the legislature's foreign affairs and security committee, made the call on Friday and said Tel Aviv must hold off on providing Gaza with relief aid until the more than 200 Israelis captured by Palestinian resistance movement Hamas are released.

Vaturi claimed that the Israeli regime has been “too humane” after the extremist cabinet of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu — under the international community’s pressure — approved the entry of two trucks of fuel per day into Gaza.

The fuel delivery was ordered to prevent the collapse of the war-ravaged city’s sewage treatment system, which risked a mass outbreak of viral diseases, as the besieged area is already beset by power outages and telecommunication disruptions.

“All of this preoccupation with whether or not there is internet in Gaza shows that we have learned nothing. We are too humane. Burn Gaza now, nothing less!” Vaturi wrote in a post on his X social media account.

“Don’t allow fuel in, don’t allow water in until the hostages are returned back!” he adds.

The Egyptian Red Crescent said 15 tons of diesel entered Gaza through the Rafah crossing from Egypt on Friday after the United Nations had warned of widespread starvation in the wake of intermittent shutdowns in internet and telephone services across the strip over the lack of fuel.

Israel says there will be no halt to the fighting in the Gaza Strip, as it continues to bombard the besieged enclave despite agreeing to a four-day truce with the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas.

An unnamed Israeli official told AFP early on Thursday that the temporary ceasefire and the planned release of prisoners have been delayed and will not come into effect until Friday at the earliest.

The official’s comments came after Tzachi Hanegbi, an adviser to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said none of the prisoners held by Hamas in Gaza would be freed before Friday.

“The release will begin according to the original agreement between the parties, and not before Friday,” he said in a statement on Wednesday night, adding that talks on the deal were continuing.

Hanegbi gave no reason for the delay, and it was not clear when Israel would begin a four-day pause in its attacks on Gaza, which was expected to take effect at 10 a.m. local time Thursday.

Early on Wednesday, Hamas announced a four-day truce with Israel in the Gaza Strip that will see the cessation of Israeli assaults on the Gaza Strip.

Hamas said in a statement that the deal, mediated by Qatar and Egypt, will allow the entry of hundreds of humanitarian, medical and fuel aid trucks to Gaza.

The deal will also see the release of 50 Israeli war prisoners in exchange for the release of 150 Palestinian women and children from the occupying entity’s jails.

Meanwhile, Israel has continued to attack Gaza in the hours after an agreement was reached between the two sides for a truce, striking various parts across the blockaded territory and leaving many injured.

Local sources reported that Israeli airstrikes targeted a house in Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip, wounding a number of people, according to Palestine’s official WAFA news agency.

Israeli warplanes also bombed the town of al-Fokhari, east of the southern city of Khan Yunis.

The Israeli military also pounded Beit Lahia town in the north of the Gaza Strip, as well as Beit Hanoun and the Jabalia refugee camp, leaving dozens of citizens dead or injured.

Israel waged the war on Gaza on October 7 after Hamas carried out a surprise attack, dubbed Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, into the occupied territories in response to the occupying regime’s intensified crimes against the Palestinian people.

According to the Gaza-based health ministry, at least 14,500 Palestinians have been killed in the strikes, most of them women and children, and injured around 35,000 others.

Tel Aviv has also imposed a “complete siege” on Gaza, cutting off fuel, electricity, food and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.