IOC board puts boxing back on the Olympic program for LA in 2028

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IOC board puts boxing back on the Olympic program for LA in 2028

2025-03-17 22:04 Last Updated At：22:10

COSTA NAVARINO, Greece (AP) — Boxing is set to be on the program for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles after years of disputes over how the sport is run.

International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach said Monday the executive board he chairs approved including boxing on the 2028 program.

It still needs a full IOC Session of about 100 members to sign off on the decision later this week, but that is usually a formality.

The IOC organized the boxing tournaments at the Tokyo Olympics held in 2021 and the Paris Summer Games last year after relations with the Russian-led International Boxing Association broke down, but said it needed a new partner in time for 2028.

Last month, the IOC recognized a new governing body, World Boxing.

“I am very confident that the session will approve it so that all the boxers of the world then have certainty that they can participate in the Olympic Games L.A. 2028 if their national federation is recognized by World Boxing," Bach said.

The IOC suspended the IBA in 2019 following long-running disputes over governance, its finances and the integrity of bouts and judging, and took the rare step of banishing it from the Olympic movement entirely in 2023, shortly after some IBA members broke away to form World Boxing.

Since it was suspended, the IBA and its Russian president Umar Kremlev have continued to feud with the IOC, particularly over the rules on eligibility for women’s boxing at the Paris Olympics.

The IBA said last month it planned to file criminal complaints against the IOC in the United States, France and Switzerland.

World Boxing is expected to work on reviewing and updating rules on female eligibility that need to be in place before Olympic qualifying events start, likely next year.

“This is a very significant and important decision for Olympic boxing and takes the sport one step closer to being restored to the Olympic program," World Boxing president Boris van der Vorst said in a statement Monday.

“I have no doubt it will be very positively received by everyone connected with boxing, at every level throughout the world, who understands the critical importance to the future of the sport of boxing continuing to remain a part of the Olympic movement."

American and British boxing officials were among World Boxing's founders in 2023, and the breakaway body has since added countries with key influence in Olympic circles, including India and, last week, China.

The new boxing body now has a membership of more than 80 national federations though Russia, Spain and many African countries are among those which did not yet sign up.

The IOC indicated Monday that national boxing bodies would be given time to switch allegiance to World Boxing before qualification begins.

Like boxing's IBA, the Russian Olympic Committee has been exiled by Bach and the IOC.

There seems to be no immediate way back right now from the suspension imposed in October 2023 for what was effectively a land grab of regional sports councils in eastern Ukraine.

“The ball is in the court of the Russian Olympic Committee,” Bach said Monday, though he added “on the working level the contacts have always been maintained."

The Russian Olympic body was cut off nearly 18 months ago from receiving a share of revenue from Olympic Games for acts that “violates the territorial integrity of the NOC of Ukraine,” the IOC said in 2023.

“They have to follow the rules," Bach said Monday. “Everybody in the Olympic Movement who is following the rules of the Olympic Charter is welcome, and everybody who is not following the Olympic Charter is not welcome.”

Some Russian athletes did compete at the 2024 Paris Summer Games as vetted neutrals in individual sports, and a similar system is currently likely to operate next February at the Milan-Cortina d'Ampezzo Winter Games.

James Ellingworth in Duesseldorf, Germany, contributed to this report.

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Israeli strikes across Gaza kill at least 326 Palestinians and shatter ceasefire with Hamas

2025-03-18 17:46 Last Updated At：17:51

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel launched airstrikes across the Gaza Strip early Tuesday, killing at least 326 Palestinians, including women and children, according to hospital officials. The surprise bombardment shattered a ceasefire in place since January and threatened to fully reignite the 17-month-old war.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the strikes after Hamas refused Israeli demands to change the ceasefire agreement. Officials said the operation was open-ended and was expected to expand. The White House said it had been consulted and voiced support for Israel's actions.

The Israeli military ordered people to evacuate eastern Gaza, including much of the northern town of Beit Hanoun and other communities further south, and head toward the center of the territory, indicating that Israel could soon launch renewed ground operations.

“Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength,” Netanyahu’s office said.

The attack during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan could resume a war that has already killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and caused widespread destruction across Gaza. It also raised questions about the fate of the roughly two dozen Israeli hostages held by Hamas who are believed to still be alive.

A senior Hamas official said Netanyahu’s decision to return to war amounts to a “death sentence” for the remaining hostages. Izzat al-Risheq accused Netanyahu of launching the strikes to try and save his far-right governing coalition and called on mediators to “reveal facts” on who broke the truce.

There were no reports of any attacks by Hamas several hours after the bombardment, indicating it still hoped to restore the truce.

The strikes came as Netanyahu comes under mounting domestic pressure, with mass protests planned over his handling of the hostage crisis and his decision to fire the head of Israel's internal security agency. His latest testimony in a long-running corruption trial was canceled after the strikes.

The main group representing families of the captives accused the government of backing out of the ceasefire, saying it “chose to give up on the hostages.”

“We are shocked, angry and terrified by the deliberate dismantling of the process to return our loved ones from the terrible captivity of Hamas,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement.

A strike on a home in the southern city of Rafah killed 17 members of one family, including at least 12 women and children, according to the European Hospital, which received the bodies. The dead included five children, their parents, and another father and his three children.

In the southern city of Khan Younis, Associated Press reporters saw explosions and plumes of smoke. Ambulances brought wounded people to Nasser Hospital, where patients lay on the floor, some screaming. A young girl cried as her bloody arm was bandaged.

Many Palestinians said they had expected a return to war when talks over the second phase of the ceasefire did not begin as scheduled in early February. Israel instead embraced an alternative proposal and cut off all shipments of food, fuel and other aid to the territory's 2 million Palestinians to try to pressure Hamas to accept it.

“Nobody wants to fight,” Palestinian resident Nidal Alzaanin told the AP by phone from Gaza City. "Everyone is still suffering from the previous months,” he said.

Gaza's Health Ministry said at least 326 people were killed in the strikes and hundreds more wounded. Rescuers were still searching the rubble for dead and wounded as the strikes continued. It was among the deadliest days of the war.

The White House sought to blame Hamas for the renewed fighting. National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said the militant group "could have released hostages to extend the ceasefire but instead chose refusal and war.”

An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the unfolding operation, said Israel was striking Hamas' military, leaders and infrastructure and planned to expand the operation beyond air attacks. The official accused Hamas of attempting to rebuild and plan new attacks. Hamas militants and security forces quickly returned to the streets in recent weeks after the ceasefire went into effect.

A second Israeli official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a closed-door meeting, said Netanyahu would meet with top security officials to discuss next steps in the war.

The strikes came two months after a ceasefire was reached to pause the war. Over six weeks, Hamas released 25 Israeli hostages and the bodies of eight more in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in a first phase of the ceasefire.

But since that ceasefire ended two weeks ago, the sides have not been able to agree on a way forward with a second phase aimed at releasing the 59 remaining hostages, 35 of whom are believed to be dead, and ending the war altogether.

Hamas has demanded an end to the war and full withdrawal of Israeli troops in exchange for the release of the remaining hostages. Israel says it will not end the war until it destroys Hamas' governing and military capabilities and frees all hostages — two goals that could be incompatible.

Netanyahu's office on Tuesday said Hamas had “repeatedly refused to release our hostages and rejected all offers it received from the U.S. presidential envoy, Steve Witkoff, and from the mediators.”

Israel wants Hamas to release half of the remaining hostages in return for a promise to negotiate a lasting truce. Hamas instead wants to follow the ceasefire deal reached by the two sides, which calls for negotiations to begin on the ceasefire’s more difficult second phase, in which the remaining hostages would be released and Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza.

A return to war would allow Netanyahu to avoid the tough trade-offs called for in the second phase of the agreement and the thorny question of who would govern Gaza. It would also shore up his coalition, which depends on far-right lawmakers who want to depopulate Gaza and re-build Jewish settlements there.

The war erupted when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages. Most have been released in ceasefires or other deals, with israeli forces rescuing only eight and recovering dozens of bodies.

Israel responded with a military offensive that killed over 48,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, and displaced an estimated 90% of Gaza's population. The territory's Health Ministry doesn't differentiate between civilians and militants, but says over half of the dead have been women and children.

The ceasefire had brought some relief to Gaza and allowed hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians to resume to what remained of their homes.

The released hostages, some of whom were emaciated, have repeatedly implored the government to press ahead with the ceasefire to return all remaining captives. Tens of thousands of Israelis have taken part in mass demonstrations calling for a ceasefire and return of all hostages.

Mass demonstrations are planned later Tuesday and Wednesday following Netanyahu's announcement this week that he wants to fire the head of Israel's Shin Bet internal security agency. Critics have lambasted the move as an attempt by Netanyahu to divert blame for his government's failures in the Oct. 7 attack and handling of the war.

Since the ceasefire in Gaza began in mid-January, Israeli forces have killed dozens of Palestinians who the military says approached its troops or entered unauthorized areas.

Still, the deal has tenuously held without an outbreak of wide violence. Egypt, Qatar and the United States have been trying to mediate the next steps in the ceasefire.

Federman reported from Jerusalem and Magdy from Cairo. Associated Press reporters Mohammad Jahjouh in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip; Abdel Kareem Hana in Gaza City, Gaza Strip; Fatma Khaled in Cairo; and Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed.

Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war