 Here’s what you need to know to get the day started: | | | Israel-Hamas ceasefire holding as first hostages to be released from Gaza | | |  | An aid truck heading to Gaza arrives on Friday at the Rafah border crossing with Egypt during a temporary truce between Hamas and Israel. (Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters) | | | A temporary ceasefire between Israeli and Hamas forces took hold in the Gaza Strip on Friday, the first respite in 48 days of conflict that has devastated the Palestinian enclave, but both sides warned that the war was far from over.
No big bombings, artillery strikes or rocket attacks were reported, although Hamas and Israel both accused each other of sporadic violations.
The ceasefire, which began at 7 a.m. local time (12 a.m. ET), involves the release later on Friday of 13 Israeli women and children held hostage by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. Additional aid is to flow into Gaza, which has been gripped by a humanitarian crisis under weeks of Israeli bombardment that has killed thousands of Palestinians.
The first hostages, including elderly women, would be freed at 4 p.m. local time (9 a.m. ET), with the total number rising to 50 over the four days, Qatar's foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari said in Doha. All were seized in the initial Hamas assault on southern Israel.
The hostages were expected to be released to the Red Cross and an Egyptian security delegation that travelled to Gaza on Thursday, then brought out through Egypt for transfer to Israel, Egyptian security sources said.
Israel will release 39 Palestinians held in prisons, among them 24 women and 15 teenagers, in the occupied West Bank in exchange for the 13 hostages due to be freed from the Gaza Strip by Hamas, a Palestinian official said.
According to Israeli tallies, about 240 people were taken hostage when Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by several Western countries, launched an attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7. Prior to Friday, four of the hostages had been released.
Egypt said it was maintaining contact with Israel and Hamas to consolidate the truce and prevent violations.
Reuters journalists saw Israeli tanks moving away from the Gaza Strip at the northern end, and aid trucks rolling in from Egypt at the southern end. There was no sound of Israeli air force activity above northern Gaza, nor any of the contrails typically left by Palestinian rocketfire. | | | | | Wheel to wheel | | |  | (Canadian Paralympic Committee/The Canadian Press) | | | | Canada's Zak Madell, right, battles United States' Eric Newby during gold medal game wheelchair rugby action at the 2023 Parapan American Games in Santiago, Chile, on Thursday. It was a close contest, but the United States came out on top, forcing Canada to settle for silver. Read more on this story here. | | | | | | | | | In brief | | | In early 2020, the Canada Revenue Agency came to believe it had made a $63-million mistake. The sum, the agency concluded, had been paid out in "illegitimate" tax refunds as part of what it now alleges was a "sham designed to deceive." Iris Technologies, a Markham, Ont.-based company, had increased its sales from $27 million to $800 million in two years, according to CRA records. Buying and then exporting bulk internet telephone minutes had put the firm in a position to claim more than $120 million in tax refunds. The CRA said in court filings that Iris "knew or was wilfully blind" to the fact that it was involved in what is known among tax experts as a carousel scheme. Samer Bishay, Iris's CEO, has denied the allegations and launched multiple appeals in the Federal Court of Appeal, Federal Court and the Tax Court of Canada. Iris is also suing the agency for $275 million, alleging abuse of process, misrepresentation and misfeasance in public office. An investigation by The Fifth Estate and Radio-Canada's Enquête into carousel schemes in Canada has revealed international networks of sophisticated criminals claiming hundreds of millions of dollars from Canadian government coffers while facing few to no consequences. Read the full story here.
Canada not only trained suspected Iraqi war criminals in 2018, it distributed Western-made weapons and protective equipment to them — likely coming from U.S. stockpiles — says a former soldier who was among the first to blow the whistle on videos that implicate the trainees in atrocities. The Canadian soldiers who were conducting the training in northern Iraq complained at the time to their superiors on the ground. They warned that their Iraqi students — many of them veterans of combat against Islamic State militants — had videos on their cellphones of torture and extra-judicial killings. Those warnings took three full years to make their way to senior military leaders in Ottawa. Despite that, a Canadian military police investigation concluded this fall that no one involved in the training mission did anything wrong and confirmed that no one has been held accountable for the glaring lapse in reporting, which has implications under international law. It all amounted to a startling effort to downplay or cover up an incident that placed Canadian troops in a moral quandary — and possibly a legal one as well — said retired sergeant Mike MacInnis, who took part in the training mission and spoke publicly about the matter for the first time to CBC News. Read the full story here.
It's Black Friday, and Canadian shoppers have joined the born-in-the-U.S. retail frenzy to hunt for deals. But amid the heavy weight of inflation, shoppers are showing signs of being choosier than usual about where to spend their holiday shopping dollars. Data from Statistics Canada shows a clear trend that spending has slowed in recent months, with sales volumes dropping every month since June. September numbers are due out on Friday morning, but an estimate from last month suggested it was on track to be flat yet again. Economists like RBC's Carrie Freestone say they can see the slowdown playing out in real time as consumers adjust their budgets. Data from the bank's consumer spending tracker, which tracks anonymized debit and credit data from RBC's millions of clients, shows people are spending about 10 per cent more on essentials than at this time last year. "That's groceries, gasoline, phone bills and utilities," Freestone said. Meanwhile, consumers are starting to pull back on spending on services, "because these are areas of spending that are more sensitive to higher rates," Freestone said. "We're seeing fewer vacations being booked, and restaurant spending is definitely down," she said. Read the full story here.
In his social media videos, Anas Ayyoub has painted a rags-to-riches story in which he says he went from having to "scavenge" for money to provide food for his family to a lifestyle that now allows him to drive a Lamborghini he says is worth $1.4 million. But offline, a number of Canadians — mostly seniors — accuse Ayyoub of defrauding them, allowing him to enjoy that luxurious way of life. They allege he is part of a scheme involving door-to-door equipment rental contracts, questionable renovations and high-interest mortgages worth hundreds of thousands of dollars that many homeowners didn't know they had and can't afford. CBC's Marketplace reported on the scheme back in March, and since then, the Ontario Provincial Police executed a search warrant at Ayyoub's home in Mississauga, which included seizing that Lamborghini earlier this year. Ayyoub hasn't been charged. Lawyer Greg Weedon represents many of the alleged victims and says that as far he knows, despite the search warrant, Ayyoub is no longer in Canada. In a statement provided to Marketplace through his lawyer, Ayyoub notes that he continues to be a Canadian resident. He says he has "always conducted his business dealings lawfully and in accordance with the advice and guidance of senior counsel and consultants." Read the full story here.
Now here's some good news to start your Friday: Like generations of women in Newfoundland and Labrador, Dorothy Marie Verge Clarke loved knitting Christmas stockings for her children and grandchildren. Now, an exhibition in Clarke’s memory is celebrating that tradition. “They Knit” features a wondrous variety of knitted stockings, contributed by crafters throughout the province. Watch the video here. | | | Your weekly look at what’s happening in the worlds of economics, business and finance. Senior business correspondent Peter Armstrong untangles what it means for you, in your inbox Monday mornings. Click here to subscribe to the newsletter. | | |  | Canada's debt is growing. How bad is it? | Paying off its debt is now one of the most costly line items in the federal government’s budget. How did it get this bad? And what does that mean for you?
Listen to today's episode | | | Today in history: November 24 | | | 1892: Sir John Abbott, Canada’s third prime minister and the first one born here, steps down. He was succeeded by Sir John S. D. Thompson.
1937: The first Governor General's Literary Awards are given out at the University of Toronto’s Convocation Hall. Bertram Brooker’s Think of the Earth won for best novel, while the non-fiction award went to T.B. Robertson for his book T.B.R. Newspaper Pieces.
1963: Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of U.S. President John F. Kennedy two days earlier, is shot to death by nightclub owner Jack Ruby while being transferred between jails in Dallas.
1981: The Metric Commission of Canada announces that conversion to the metric system in food stores would begin in 21 areas across Canada in January 1982, and be extended to the rest of the country within two years. | | | (With files from CBC News, The Canadian Press, The Associated Press and Reuters) | | | | |  | CBC NEWS APP | The most convenient way to get your news
Breaking news alerts
Local, national & world news
In-depth coverage | | | Share this newsletter | | or subscribe if this was
forwarded to you. | | | |
