PARIS (AP) — Students in Paris inspired by Gaza solidarity encampments at campuses in the United States peacefully evacuated a campus building at a prestigious French university late on Friday after days of tensions.

The head of the Paris Institute of Political Studies, known as Sciences Po, said an agreement was found Friday with students. Sciences Po counts President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Gabriel Attal among its many famous alumni.

Tensions had break out on the campus as pro-Palestinian students sought to occupy an amphitheater earlier this week.

On Friday, pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli demonstrators faced each other in a tense standoff in the street outside the school. Riot police stepped in to separate the opposing groups.

Students later agreed to leave the site.

Pro-Palestinian protester and Sciences Po student Wajih, who declined to give his last name for fear of disciplinary sanctions by the university, said “the occupation has paused for now. But we’ll still support the Palestinian movement at large, we’ll support other universities, we’ll support all over the globe until Palestine is free.”

In an email to students, Sciences Po administrator Jean Bassères pledged Friday to hold a townhall meeting in the coming week and to suspend some disciplinary proceedings against students. In return, students “committed to no longer disrupting courses, examinations and all other activities of the institution,” the email said.

The university administration closed all university buildings and moved classes online Friday.

The Gaza war is sharply divisive in France, which has the largest populations of Muslims and Jews in western Europe. France initially sought to ban pro-Palestinian demonstrations after Hamas’ surprise Oct. 7 attack on Israel that sparked the war. Antisemitism has surged.

CAIRO (AP) — Hamas said Saturday it was reviewing a new Israeli proposal for a cease-fire in Gaza, as Egypt intensified efforts to broker a deal to end the months-long war and stave off a possible Israeli ground offensive into the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

Senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya said the Palestinian militant group was evaluating Israel’s proposal, and “upon completion of its study, it will submit its response.”

He gave no details of Israel’s offer but said it was in response to a proposal from Hamas two weeks ago. Negotiations earlier this month centered on a six-week cease-fire proposal and the release of 40 civilian and sick hostages in exchange for freeing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

Hamas’ statement came hours after a high-level Egyptian delegation wrapped up a visit to Israel where it discussed a “new vision” for a prolonged cease-fire in Gaza, according to an Egyptian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to freely discuss the developments.

It was not immediately clear whether Israel’s latest response to Hamas on a cease-fire was directly related to Friday’s visit to Tel Aviv by Egyptian mediators.

The discussions between Egyptian and Israeli officials focused on the first stage of a multi-phase plan that would include a limited exchange of hostages held by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners, and the return of a significant number of displaced Palestinians to their homes in northern Gaza “with minimum restrictions,” the Egyptian official said.

The mediators are working on a compromise that will answer most of both parties’ main demands, which could pave the way to continued negotiations with the goal of a larger deal to end the war, the official said.

As the war drags on and casualties mount, there has been growing international pressure for Hamas and Israel to reach an agreement on a cease-fire and avert a possible Israeli attack on Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have sought refuge after fleeing fighting elsewhere in the territory.

Israel has been insisting for months it plans a ground offensive into Rafah, on the border with Egypt, where it says many remaining Hamas militants are holed up, despite calls for restraint from the international community including Israel’s staunchest ally, the United States.

Egypt has cautioned an offensive into Rafah could have “catastrophic consequences” on the humanitarian situation in Gaza, as well as on regional peace and security.

The Israeli military has massed dozens of tanks and armored vehicles in southern Israel close to Rafah and hit targets in the city in near-daily airstrikes.

Early Saturday, an Israeli airstrike hit a house in Rafah’s Tel Sultan neighborhood, killing six people, including four children, according to officials at a local hospital.

The strike killed a man, his wife and their three sons, aged 12, 10 and 8, according to records of the Abu Yousef al-Najjar hospital’s morgue. A neighbor’s four-month-old girl was also killed, the records showed.

Elsewhere, Israeli forces shot and killed two Palestinian men in an exchange of fire at a checkpoint in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the military said.

Violence in the West Bank has flared since the war started. Since then, 491 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the territory according to the Ramallah-based Health Ministry,

The Israeli army said the two men were killed after they opened fire from a vehicle at Israeli troops stationed at Salem checkpoint near the Palestinian city of Jenin.

The U.S. has been critical of Israeli policies in the West Bank and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is expected in Israel on Tuesday, has recently determined an army unit committed human rights abuses there before the Gaza war.

Hamas said Friday it is open to any “ideas or suggestions” that take into consideration the needs of the Palestinian people such as an end to Israel’s attacks on Gaza, the return of displaced people to their homes and an Israeli withdrawal.

The Palestinian group has said it will not back down from its demands for a permanent cease-fire and full withdrawal of Israeli troops, both of which Israel has rejected.

Israel says it will continue military operations until Hamas is defeated and that it will retain a security presence in Gaza afterward.

Hamas sparked the war with its attack into southern Israel on Oct. 7, in which militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took some 250 people as hostages. Israel says the militants are still holding around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.

Since then, more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s air and ground offensive, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, around two-thirds of them children and women. The ministry said Saturday that 32 people killed in Israeli strikes had been brought to local hospitals over the past 24 hours.

Israel has reported at least 260 of its soldiers killed since the start of ground operations in Gaza.

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Rising reported from Bangkok. Jack Jeffery in Jerusalem contributed to this story.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia launched a barrage of missiles against Ukraine overnight, in attacks that appeared to target the country’s energy infrastructure. Meanwhile, Russia said its air defense systems had intercepted more than 60 Ukrainian drones over the southern Krasnodar region.

Ukraine’s air force said Saturday that Russia had launched 34 missiles against Ukraine overnight, of which 21 had been shot down by Ukrainian air defenses.

In a post on Telegram, Minister of Energy Herman Halushchenko said energy facilities in Dnipropetrovsk in the south of the country and Ivano-Frankivsk and Lviv in the west had been attacked and that an engineer was injured.

Private energy operator DTEK said four of its thermal power plants were damaged and that there were “casualties,” without going into detail.

Earlier this month Russia destroyed one of Ukraine’s largest power plants and damaged others in a massive missile and drone attack as it renewed its push to target Ukraine’s energy facilities.

Ukraine has appealed to its Western allies for more air defense systems to ward off such attacks. At a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group on Friday, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced the U.S. will provide Ukraine with additional munitions and gear for its air defense launchers.

Further east, a psychiatric hospital was damaged and one person was wounded after Russia launched a missile attack overnight on Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv. Photos from the scene showed a huge crater on the grounds of the facility and patients taking shelter in corridors. Regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said a 53-year-old woman was hurt.

Also in the Kharkiv region, a man was killed in an overnight attack on the city of Vovchansk, according to Ukraine’s State Service for Emegency Situations.

In Russia, the Defense Ministry said Russian air defense systems had intercepted 66 drones over the country’s southern Krasnodar region. Two more drones were shot down over the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.

The governor of the Krasnodar region, Veniamin Kondratyev, said that Ukrainian forces targeted an oil refinery and infrastructure facilities but that there were no casualties or serious damage. The regional department of the Emergency Situations Ministry reported that a fire broke out at the Slavyansk oil refinery in Slavyansk-on-Kuban during the attack.

Ukrainian officials normally decline to comment on attacks on Russian soil, but the Ukrainian Energy Ministry said Saturday that two oil refineries in the Krasnodar region had been hit by drones.

Five people were wounded in a drone attack in a border village in Russia’s Belgorod region, regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Kremlin shrugged off a trip to China by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken during which he raised concerns about Chinese support for Russia’s military, saying Moscow and Beijing would continue to develop their own ties.

Blinken raised concerns on Friday about China’s support for Russia’s military, one of the many issues threatening to sour the recent improvement in relations between the world’s biggest economies.

Despite its “no limits” partnership with Moscow, China has steered clear of providing arms for Russia’s war in Ukraine, but Blinken said its supply of so-called dual-use goods was “having a material effect in Ukraine.”

China has said it has not provided weaponry to any party and is “not a producer of or party involved in the Ukraine crisis”. However, it says that normal trade between China and Russia should not be interrupted or restricted.

“China is an absolutely sovereign state, a powerful state that is able to defend and protect its interests,” Peskov told reporters when asked about Blinken’s trip and the U.S. pressure on China.

“At the same time, it (China) is our close partner. We will further develop our co-operation.”

(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

RIYADH (Reuters) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and several international officials will be in Riyadh this week for talks aimed at pushing for a peace agreement in Gaza to be held on the sidelines of a World Economic Forum meeting, the WEF’s president said on Saturday.

“We do have the key players now in Riyadh and hopefully the discussions can lead into a process towards reconciliation and peace,” Børge Brende said at a news conference in Riyadh, adding that Gaza’s humanitarian crisis would be on the agenda.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will attend the meetings alongside regional leaders including Qatar’s prime minister, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Oman’s crown prince and Bahraini officials, Brende said.

Egypt’s foreign minister, Brende said, would be there to update officials on a round of talks Egyptian negotiators held in Israel on Friday in an effort to restart stalled efforts to end the war in Gaza and return the remaining Israeli hostages.

“There is now a bit of momentum for negotiations on the hostages and also a possible ceasefire,” Brende said.

(Reporting by Pesha Magid in Riyadh; Writing by Andrew Mills; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

ATHENS (Reuters) – The Paris 2024 Olympic flame sailed for France on Saturday on board a three-masted ship to mark the final sprint of preparations ahead of the Olympic Games opening ceremony on July 26.

The “Belem” left the port of Piraeus in the morning for an 11-day voyage and will arrive in the southern city of Marseille, founded by the Greek settlers of Phocaea around 600 BC, on May 8.

Paris Games organisers had received the flame on Friday in a ceremony at Athens’ Panathenaic stadium, site of the first modern Olympics in 1896, following last week’s lighting in ancient Olympia that kicked off an 11-day Greek relay leg.

After a brief ceremony in Piraeus on Saturday the vessel set sail for France.

An estimated 150,000 spectators are expected to attend the ceremony at the Old Port of Marseille, which will host the Olympic sailing competitions and be the start of a 68-day French torch relay across the country.

The last torch bearer in Marseille will climb on the roof of the Velodrome stadium on May 9 and the relay will end in Paris on July 26 with the lighting of the Olympic cauldron during the Games’ opening ceremony along the Seine river.

Organisers hope the opening ceremony, in which 160 boats carrying athletes from around the world will travel a six kilometre route towards the Eiffel Tower, will deliver a jaw-dropping spectacle.

Some 300,000 spectators will watch from the banks as a global audience tunes in on TV, and with security forces in the country on high alert with the Games taking place against a backdrop of wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

The French government has asked around 45 foreign countries to contribute several thousand extra military, police and civilian personnel to help safeguard the Paris Olympics.

(Reporting by Karolos Grohmann; Editing by Christian Radnedge)

KYIV (Reuters) – Ukraine attacked the Ilsky and Slavyansk oil refineries in Russia’s Krasnodar region with drones early on Saturday, causing fires at the facilities, a Ukrainian intelligence source told Reuters.

The attack was conducted by the SBU security service, the source said. Ukrainian drones also targeted the Kushchevsk military airfield in the same region overnight, the source added.

Several social media videos showed the damage, the source said.

Reuters could not verify the videos, which showed massive flames rising into dark skies.

“The SBU continues to target military and infrastructure facilities behind enemy lines effectively,” the source said.

With Russia’s invasion now in its third year, Ukraine has stepped up its attacks on Russian oil and energy facilities using long-range drones.

Kyiv officials have said they consider oil refineries legitimate targets, despite calls from foreign allies to halt strikes in order to avoid Russian retaliation and hikes in global oil prices.

Local authorities in Russia said the oil refinery in Krasnodar region suspended its operations after the drone attack.

Roman Siniagovskyi, head of the Russian Slavyansk administrative district, said on the Telegram messaging app that there were nine attacks on the storage tank farm and the distillation column, a key piece of equipment in the refining process.

(Reporting by Tom Balmforth; writing by Olena Harmashg, Editing by Hugh Lawson)

(Reuters) -An earthquake of magnitude 6.5 struck Japan’s Bonin Islands, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said on Saturday.

The quake was at a depth of 503.2 km (312.7 miles), USGS said.

The U.S. National Tsunami Warning Center said there was no tsunami warning from the quake, based on available data.

(Reporting by Rishabh Jaiswal in Bengaluru; Editing by William Mallard)

LONDON (Reuters) -U.S. intelligence agencies have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin probably didn’t order opposition politician Alexei Navalny killed at an Arctic prison camp in February, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.

Navalny, 47 when he died, was Putin’s fiercest domestic critic. His allies, branded extremists by the authorities, accused Putin of having him murdered and have said they will provide proof to back their allegation.

The Kremlin has denied any state involvement. Last month, Putin called Navalny’s demise “sad” and said he had been ready to hand the jailed politician over to the West in a prisoner exchange provided Navalny never return to Russia. Navalny’s allies said such talks had been under way.

The Journal, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, said on Saturday that U.S. intelligence agencies had concluded that Putin probably didn’t order Navalny to be killed in February.

It said Washington had not absolved the Russian leader of overall responsibility for Navalny’s death however, given the opposition politician had been targeted by Russian authorities for years, jailed on charges the West said were politically motivated, and had been poisoned in 2020 with a nerve agent.

The Kremlin denies state involvement in the 2020 poisoning.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Saturday he had seen the Journal’s report, which he said contained “empty speculation”.

“I’ve seen the material, I wouldn’t say it’s high quality material that deserves attention,” Peskov told reporters when asked about the matter.

Reuters could not independently verify the Journal report, which cited sources as saying the finding had been “broadly accepted within the intelligence community and shared by several agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the State Department’s intelligence unit.”

The U.S. assessment was based on a range of information, including some classified intelligence, and an analysis of public facts, including the timing of Navalny’s death and how it overshadowed Putin’s re-election in March, the paper cited some of its sources as saying.

It cited Leonid Volkov, a senior Navalny aide, as calling the U.S. findings naive and ridiculous.

(Reporting by Andrew OsbornEditing by Frances Kerry)

BEIJING (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrapped up his just-concluded latest visit to China with a stop at a Beijing record store where he bought albums by Taylor Swift and Chinese rocker Dou Wei in a symbolic nod to cross-cultural exchanges and understanding he had been promoting for three days.

Music, he said at the Li-Pi shop on his way to the airport late Friday, “is the best connector, regardless of geography.”

Yet Swift’s “Midnights” and Dou Wei’s “Black Dream” could just as easily represent the seemingly intractable divisions in the deeply troubled relationship between the world’s two largest economies that both sides publicly and privately blame on the other.

Blinken and his Chinese interlocutors, including Chinese President Xi Jinping and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, all referred to these rifts even as they extolled the virtues of keeping communication channels open to manage these differences and avoid misunderstandings and miscalculations.

Blinken went out of his way to champion the importance of U.S.-China exchanges at all levels. In Shanghai, he ate at a famous soup dumpling restaurant, attended a Chinese basketball playoff game and visited with American and Chinese students at the New York University branch. In his official meetings with Chinese leaders in Beijing, he spoke repeatedly of improvements in ties over the past year.

But he also stressed that the U.S. has serious and growing concerns with China’s policies and practices on the local, regional and global stages. And, he said, the U.S. would not back down. “America will always defend our core interests and values,” he said.

On several occasions, he slammed Chinese overproduction of electric vehicles that threatened to have detrimental effects on U.S. and European automakers and complained that China was not doing enough to stop the production and export of synthetic opioid precursors.

At one point he warned bluntly that if China does not end support for Russia ’s defense industrial sector, something the Biden administration says has allowed Russia to step up its attacks on Ukraine and threaten European security, the U.S. would act to stop it. “I made clear that if China does not address this problem, we will,” Blinken told reporters after meeting with Xi.

Chinese officials were similarly direct, saying that while relations have generally improved since a low point last year over the shootdown of a Chinese surveillance balloon, they remained fraught.

“The two countries should help each other succeed rather than hurt each other, seek common ground and reserve differences rather than engage in vicious competition, and honor words with actions rather than say one thing but do the opposite,” Xi told Blinken in a not-so-veiled accusation of U.S. hypocrisy.

Wang, the foreign minister, said China is fed up with what it considers to be U.S. meddling in human rights, Taiwan and the South China Sea and efforts to restrict its trade and relations with other countries. “Negative factors in the relationship are still increasing and building and the relationship is facing all kinds of disruptions,” he said. He urged the U.S. “not to step on China’s red lines on China’s sovereignty, security, and development interests.”

Or, as Yang Tao, the director general of North American and Oceania affairs at the Foreign Ministry, put it, according to the official Xinhua News Agency: “If the United States always regards China as its main rival, China-US relations will continuously face troubles and many problems.”

Still, Blinken pressed engagement on all levels. He announced a new agreement to hold talks with China on the threats posed by artificial intelligence but lamented a dearth of American students studying in China – fewer than 900 now, compared to more than 290,000 Chinese in the U.S. He said both sides wanted to increase that number.

“We have an interest in this, because if our future leaders – whether it’s in government, whether it’s in business, civil society, climate, tech, and other fields – if they’re going to be able to collaborate, if they want to be able to solve big problems, if they’re going to be able to work through our differences, they’ll need to know and understand each other’s language, culture, history,” he said. But he added a caveat the Chinese were likely to see as a barb.

“What I told my PRC counterparts on this visit is if they want to attract more Americans here to China, particularly students, the best way to do that is to create the conditions that allow learning to flourish anywhere – a free and open discussion of ideas, access to a wide range of information, ease of travel, confidence in the safety, security, and privacy of the participants,” Blinken said.

Those are issues that neither Taylor Swift nor Dou Wei can overcome.