TEL AVIV: An Israeli military offensive in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah could be “delayed somewhat” if a deal is reached for a weekslong cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday, and claimed that total victory in the territory would come within weeks once the offensive begins.

Netanyahu confirmed to CBS that a deal is in the works, with no details. Talks resumed Sunday in Qatar at the specialist level, Egypt’s state-run Al Qahera TV reported, citing an Egyptian official as saying discussions would follow in Cairo with the aim of achieving the cease-fire and release of dozens of hostages held in Gaza as well as Palestinians imprisoned by Israel

Meanwhile, Israel is nearing the approval of plans to expand its offensive against the Hamas militant group to Rafah on the Gaza-Egypt border, where more than half the besieged territory’s population of 2.3 million have sought refuge. Humanitarian groups warn of a catastrophe. Rafah is Gaza’s main entry point for aid. The U.S. and other allies say Israel must avoid harming civilians.

Netanyahu has said he will convene the Cabinet this week to approve operational plans that include the evacuation of civilians to elsewhere in Gaza.

“Once we begin the Rafah operation, the intense phase of the fighting is weeks away from completion. Not months,” Netanyahu told CBS. ““If we don’t have a deal, we’ll do it anyway.” He said four of the six remaining Hamas battalions are concentrated in Rafah.

U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan told NBC that President Joe Biden hadn’t been briefed on the Rafah plan. “We believe that this operation should not go forward until or unless we see (a plan to protect civilians),” Sullivan said.

Early Monday, Netanyahu’s office said the army had presented to the War Cabinet its “operational plan” for Rafah as well as plans to evacuate civilians from the battle zones. It gave no further details.

United Nations agencies and aid groups say the hostilities, the Israeli military’s refusal to facilitate deliveries and the breakdown of order inside Gaza make it increasingly difficult to get vital aid to much of the coastal enclave. In some chaotic scenes, crowds of desperate Palestinians have surrounded delivery trucks and stolen the supplies off them.

Heavy fighting continued in parts of northern Gaza, the first target of the offensive, where the destruction is staggering.

“We’re trapped, unable to move because of the heavy bombardment,” said Gaza City resident Ayman Abu Awad.

Palestinians wait for humanitarian aid on a beachfront in Gaza City, Gaza Strip.(Photo | AP)

He said that starving residents have been forced to eat animal fodder and search for food in demolished buildings. In nearby Jabaliya, market vendor Um Ayad showed off a leafy weed that people pick from the harsh, dry soil and eat.

“We have to feed the children. They keep screaming they want food. We cannot find food. We don’t know what to do,” she said.

Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner general of the U.N. agency for Palestinians, said it has not been able to deliver food to northern Gaza since Jan. 23, adding on X, formerly Twitter, that “our calls to send food aid have been denied

Israel said that 245 trucks of aid entered Gaza on Sunday — less than half the amount that entered daily before the war.

A senior official from Egypt, which along with Qatar is a mediator between Israel and Hamas, has said the draft cease-fire deal includes the release of up to 40 women and older hostages in return for up to 300 Palestinian prisoners, mostly women, minors and older people.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the negotiations, said the proposed six-week pause in fighting would include allowing hundreds of trucks to bring desperately needed aid into Gaza every day, including the north. He said both sides agreed to continue negotiations during the pause for further releases and a permanent cease-fire.

Negotiators face an unofficial deadline of the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan around March 10, a period that often sees heightened Israeli-Palestinian tensions.

Hamas says it has not been involved in the latest proposal developed by the United States, Egypt and Qatar, but the reported outline largely matches its earlier proposal for the first phase of a truce.

Hamas has said it won’t release all of the remaining hostages until Israel ends its offensive and withdraws its forces from the territory, and is demanding the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, including senior militants. Netanyahu has rejected those conditions.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Sunday made clear that a cease-fire deal for Gaza wouldn’t affect the military’s daily low-level clashes with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, a Hamas ally.

“We will continue the fire, and we will do so independently from the south,” he said while visiting the Northern Command.

Israel declared war after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel in which militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took around 250 hostages. More than 100 hostages were released in a cease-fire deal in November. More than 130 remain in captivity, a fourth of them believed to be dead.

Families have followed the negotiations with hope and anguish.

“It feels like Schindler’s list. Will he be on the list or not?” Shelly Shem Tov, the mother of Omer, 21, told Israeli Army Radio of his chances of being freed.

Israel’s air and ground offensive has driven around 80% of Gaza’s population from their homes, putting hundreds of thousands at risk of starvation and the spread of disease. The Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza says 29,692 Palestinians have been killed in the war, two-thirds of them women and children.

The ministry’s death toll doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants. Israel says its troops have killed more than 10,000 militants, without providing evidence

The war has devastated Gaza’s health sector. Less than half of hospitals even partially function.

At the Emirates Hospital in Rafah, three to four newborns are placed in each of its 20 incubators, which are designed for just one.

Dr. Amal Ismail said two to three newborns die in a single shift, in part because many families live in tents in rainy, cold weather. Before the war, one or two newborns in incubators there died per month.

“No matter how much we work with them, it is all wasted,” she said. “Health conditions in tents are very bad.”

Beijing: At least 15 people were killed and 44 others injured when a building caught fire in China, a month after 39 people died in a similar accident.

The building fire broke out in Nanjing, the capital city of east China’s Jiangsu Province, the municipal government said on Saturday.

Forty-four injured in the fire that broke out on Friday morning are receiving treatment at a local hospital.

A preliminary investigation found that the fire erupted on the building’s first floor, where electrical bicycles were placed, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

This is the second major fire accident in China in about a month.

Thirty-nine people were killed and nine others injured in a building fire that broke out in Xinyu City in east China’s Jiangxi Province on January 24.

The fire broke out in a street shop in the Yushui District of Xinyu.

Following the mishap, Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered steps to curb repeated occurrences of such accidents and to protect people’s lives, and property and ensure social stability.

Fatal fires in China are not uncommon due to lax enforcement of building and safety standards.

On January 20, at least 13 students were killed when a fire broke out in a school dormitory in central China’s Henan province. All the victims were third-grade students.

In November last year, 26 people died after a large fire ripped through an office building in Luliang city in Shanxi province.

A hospital fire in Beijing last April claimed the lives of at least 29 people – mostly patients – and triggered an investigation.

United Nation: The UN Security Council on Tuesday failed to adopt a resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war after a veto by the US.

The 15-nation Council met Tuesday to vote on the latest resolution in the Israel-Hamas conflict that was put forward by Algeria on behalf of Arab States. The resolution demanded “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire that must be respected by all parties”.

The resolution got 13 votes in favour and an abstention by the UK but could not be adopted since the US voted against the draft by casting its veto.

Commenting on the Algerian-proposed draft resolution on the situation in the Middle East ahead of the vote, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that Washington is “working on a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas, which would bring an immediate and sustained period of calm to Gaza for at least six weeks, and from which we could then take the time and the steps to build a more enduring peace.”

She had said that the deal represented the “best opportunity” to reunite all hostages with their families and enable a prolonged pause in fighting, that would allow for more lifesaving food, water, fuel, medicine, and other essentials to get into the hands of Palestinian civilians who desperately need it.

“The resolution put forward in the Security Council, in contrast, would not achieve these outcomes, and indeed, may run counter to them. We have communicated this concern repeatedly to our colleagues on the Council. For that reason, the United States does not support action on this draft resolution. Should it come up for a vote as drafted, it will not be adopted,” Thomas-Greenfield said.

Algeria’s draft resolution would have the Council reject the forced displacement of the Palestinian civilian population in violation of international law and would demand an immediate end to any such violations and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages. It would, among other things, call for unfettered humanitarian access into and throughout Gaza.

This is the third time since the October 7 Hamas attacks that the US has vetoed a resolution on Gaza in the Security Council.

RAFAH: More than 29,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, the territory’s Health Ministry said Monday, marking another grim milestone in the deadliest round of violence in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to continue the offensive until “total victory” against Hamas, raising fears that troops will soon move into the southernmost town of Rafah on the Egyptian border, where over half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have sought refuge from fighting elsewhere.

On Sunday, Benny Gantz, a retired general and a member of Netanyahu’s three-man War Cabinet, warned. If the hostages were not freed by the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which is expected to begin around March 10.

The holy month of dawn-to-dusk fasting is often a time of heightened tensions in the region.

The Health Ministry said 107 bodies were brought to hospitals in the last 24 hours. That brings the total number of fatalities to 29,092 since the start of the war. It says over 69,000 Palestinians have been wounded.

The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its records but says around two-thirds of those killed were women and children. The Health Ministry is part of the Hamas-run government in Gaza but maintains detailed records of casualties.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel from Gaza on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 hostages.

More than 100 captives were released during a weeklong cease-fire in November in exchange for 240 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Militants still hold around 130, with a fourth of them believed to be dead.

Israel responded to the attack by launching one of the deadliest and most destructive military campaigns in recent history on the besieged enclave, which has been ruled by Hamas since 2007.

Israel says it has killed over 10,000 Palestinian militants, without providing evidence. The military claims it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames the high death toll on Hamas because the militant group fights in dense residential neighbourhoods.

The war, which shows no sign of ending, has driven around 80% of the Palestinians in Gaza from their homes and has left a quarter of the population starving, according to UN officials.

Israel has said it is developing plans to evacuate civilians from Rafah, but it’s not clear where they would go in the devastated territory, large areas of which have been flattened. Egypt has sealed the border and warned that any mass influx of Palestinians could threaten its decades-old peace treaty with Israel.

The United States, Israel’s top ally, says it is still working with mediators in Egypt and Qatar to try to broker another cease-fire and hostage release agreement. But those efforts appear to have stalled in recent days.

Netanyahu has rejected what he says are “delusional” demands by Hamas. The militant group has said it won’t release all of the remaining hostages until Israel ends the war and withdraws from Gaza. It is also demanding the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, including top militants.

Moscow: Alexei Navalny, the fiercest foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin who crusaded against official corruption and staged massive anti-Kremlin protests, died in prison Friday, Russia’s prison agency said. He was 47.

The Federal Penitentiary Service said in a statement that Navalny felt unwell after a walk on Friday and lost consciousness. An ambulance arrived to try to rehabilitate him, but he died.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says Putin was informed of Navalny’s death and the prison service was looking into the death in line with standard procedures.

Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that the politician’s team had no confirmation of his death so far and that his lawyer was travelling to the town where he was held.

Navalny, who was serving a 19-year sentence on charges of extremism, was moved in December from his former prison in the Vladimir region of central Russia to to a “special regime” penal colony the highest security level of prisons in Russia above the Artic Circle.

His allies decried the transfer to a colony in the town of Kharp, in the Yamalo-Nenets region about 1,900 kilometers (1,200 miles) northeast of Moscow, as yet another attempt to force Navalny into silence.

The remote region is notorious for long and severe winters. Kharp is about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Vorkuta, whose coal mines were part of the Soviet gulag prison-camp system.

Navalny had been behind bars since January 2021, when he returned to Moscow after recuperating in Germany from nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin. Before his arrest, he campaigned against official corruption, organized major anti-Kremlin protests and ran for public office.

He had since received three prison sentences, all of which he rejected as politically motivated.

In Putin’s Russia, political opponents often faded amid factional disputes or went into exile after imprisonment, suspected poisonings or other heavy repression. But Navalny grew consistently stronger and reached the apex of the opposition through grit, bravado and an acute understanding of how social media could circumvent the Kremlin’s suffocation of independent news outlets.

He faced each setback whether it was a physical assault or imprisonment with an intense devotion, confronting dangers with a sardonic wit. That drove him to the bold and fateful move of returning from Germany to Russia and certain arrest.

Navalny was born in Butyn, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) outside Moscow. He received a law degree from People’s Friendship University in 1998 and did a fellowship at Yale in 2010.

He gained attention by focusing on corruption in Russia’s murky mix of politicians and businesses; one of his early moves was to buy a stake in Russian oil and gas companies to become an activist shareholder and push for transparency. By concentrating on corruption, Navalny’s work had a pocketbook appeal to Russians’ widespread sense of being cheated, and he carried stronger resonance than more abstract and philosophical concerns about democratic ideals and human rights.

He was convicted in 2013 of embezzlement on what he called a politically motivated prosecution and was sentenced to five years in prison, but the prosecutor’s office later surprisingly demanded his release pending appeal. A higher court later gave him a suspended sentence.

The day before the sentence, Navalny had registered as a candidate for Moscow mayor. The opposition saw his release as the result of large protests in the capital of his sentence, but many observers attributed it to a desire by authorities to add a tinge of legitimacy to the mayoral election.

Navalny finished second, an impressive performance against the incumbent who had the backing of Putin’s political machine and was popular for improving the capital’s infrastructure and aesthetics.

Navalny’s popularity increased after the leading charismatic politician, Boris Nemtsov, was shot and killed in 2015 on a bridge near the Kremlin.

Whenever Putin spoke about Navalny, he made it a point to never mention the activist by name, referring to him as “that person” or similar wording, in an apparent effort to diminish his importance.

KUWAIT: Kuwait dissolved parliament on Thursday after a protracted stalemate between cabinet ministers and lawmakers dragged on despite the accession of a new emir in December.

The official KUNA news agency said a “royal decree was issued to dissolve the national assembly” elected last June following a proposal by the prime minister that was approved by cabinet.

The royal decree carried by KUNA accused parliament of constitutional violations, including using “offensive and inappropriate” language.

The announcement came after ministers boycotted a parliamentary session on Wednesday in objection to a speech delivered by one lawmaker.

The speech by Abdul Karim al-Kandari referred to criticism of the cabinet as well as parliament levelled by the country’s new emir Sheikh Meshal al-Ahmed al-Sabah.

Cabinet ministers interpreted the remarks as an insult to the emir, who demanded improvements from the country’s executive and legislative branches in his inaugural speech in December.

Kuwait suffers from constant standoffs between elected lawmakers and cabinets installed by the ruling Al-Sabah family, which maintains a tight grip on political life, despite a parliamentary system in place since 1962.

The deadlocks have prevented lawmakers from passing reforms to diversify the economy, while repeated budget deficits and low foreign investment have added to the air of gloom.

In his inaugural speech, the emir rebuked parliament and the cabinet for failing to fulfil their “national obligations”, while accusing them of harming the interests of the state and its people.

Islamabad: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) top leader Asif Ali Zardari is likely to be Pakistan’s next president, a second term for him after his party agreed to ally with the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) to form a government at the Centre, according to media reports here.

“If the situation remains unchanged, the country will see the PML-N’s prime minister and the PPP’s president,” The News International reported on Wednesday, quoting sources amid talks of a quid pro quo arrangement between the PML-N and PPP.

After the February 8 polls produced a split mandate, there has been no government in place in the country for almost a week now. With none of the major parties gaining a clear majority, Pakistan was staring at a coalition government.

As part of the PML-N and PPP alliance, Shehbaz Sharif, the younger brother of former premier Nawaz Sharif, is expected to become Pakistan’s next prime minister.

The coming together of these two parties meant that the jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) would not be able to assume power despite the independent candidates it backed won the maximum number of seats in the National Assembly.

PPP president Zardari, 68, served as the President of Pakistan from 2008 to 2013.

The current Pakistan President Dr Arif Alvi is scheduled to relinquish his post later this month.

The PML-N on Tuesday night nominated 72-year-old Shehbaz as the prime ministerial candidate instead of the party supremo and three-time former premier Nawaz Sharif. The 74-year-old veteran politician, who was seeking a record fourth term as prime minister, returned to Pakistan in October last year after ending a self-imposed exile in the UK.

The PML-N and PPP have been joined by the MQM-P, PML-Q, IPP, and BAP to form a coalition government in the Centre on the pattern of the last government of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM).

A press conference was held by all top leaders where they fielded various questions related to the government formation.

To a question on the constitutional posts of National Assembly speaker, Senate chairman and president, the PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said the party would decide its nominees for these posts but he wanted Asif Ali Zardari to become president “because the country is burning and if anyone can help put the fire out, it is Asif Ali Zardari.”

The leadership of PML-N has agreed to support Zardari for the post of president in return for PPP’s support to Shehbaz for the PM’s post, The News International reported quoting sources in the know.

Besides the presidency, according to the sources, PPP is also eyeing the post of Balochistan chief minister and party leader Sarfraz Bugti briefed his party on the province’s political situation, as per sources, The News International reported.

RAFAH: The Israeli military said it rescued two hostages from captivity in the Gaza Strip early Monday, marking a small but symbolically significant success in its quest to bring home over 100 captives believed to be held by the Hamas militant group.

The two men were rescued from a residential building in the southern border town of Rafah in a raid that also killed at least seven people, according to Palestinian officials. Witnesses reported at least 17 airstrikes, flares and Apache helicopter fire.

The army identified the two rescued hostages as Fernando Simon Marman, 60, and Louis Har, 70, and said both were in good medical condition. It said both men were kidnapped by Hamas militants from Kibbutz Nir Yizhak in the Oct. 7 cross-border attack that started the Israel-Hamas war, now in its fifth month. They are just the second and third hostages to be rescued safely.

Lt. Col. Richard Hecht said the operation was based on “precise intelligence,” and that the site, located on the second floor of a building, had been watched for “some time.” He said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joined Israel’s military chief and other top officials as the raid unfolded

Hamas militants killed an estimated 1,200 people and kidnapped 250 others in the Oct. 7 raid that triggered the war. An Israeli air and ground offensive has killed over 28,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials.

Over 100 hostages were freed during a weeklong cease-fire in November. Israel says about 100 hostages remain in Hamas captivity, while Hamas is holding the remains of roughly 30 others who were either killed on Oct. 7 or died in captivity.

Israel has made the rescue of all hostages one of the main goals of the war.

PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES: The threat of an Israeli incursion into Gaza’s southernmost town of Rafah persisted Sunday, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised “safe passage” to civilians displaced there.

In an interview airing Sunday, Netanyahu reiterated his intention to extend Israel’s military operation against Hamas into Rafah.

Despite international alarm over the potential for carnage in a place crammed with more than half of the Gaza Strip’s 2.4 million people, Netanyahu told ABC News: “We’re going to do it”.

“We’re going to do it while providing safe passage for the civilian population so they can leave,” he said, according to published extracts of the interview.

It remains unclear however, where the large number of people pressed up against the border with Egypt and sheltering in makeshift tents can go.

When asked, Netanyahu would only say they are working out a detailed plan

As Israeli forces have pushed steadily southwards, Rafah has become the last major population centre in Gaza that troops have yet to enter, even as it is bombarded by air strikes almost daily.

“They said Rafah is safe, but it is not. All places are being targeted,” Palestinian Mohammed Saydam said after an Israeli strike destroyed a police vehicle in the  on Saturday.

The Israeli premier, who contends victory over Hamas cannot be achieved without clearing battalions in Rafah, directed his military on Friday to prepare for the operation. His announcement set off a chorus of concern from world leaders and aid groups.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry warned Saturday of “very serious repercussions of storming and targeting” Rafah and called for an urgent UN Security Council meeting, while UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron said he is “deeply concerned” about the prospective offensive.

“The priority must be an immediate pause in the fighting to get aid in and hostages out,” he wrote.

The war in Gaza was sparked by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Vowing to eliminate Hamas, Israel launched a massive military offensive in Gaza that the territory’s health ministry says has killed at least 28,064 people, mostly women and children.

Militants also seized 250 hostages, 132 of whom are still in Gaza, although 29 are presumed dead, Israel has said.

Netanyahu announced the plan for a ground operation in Rafah only days after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Israel seeking a ceasefire and hostage-prisoner exchange.

Netanyahu has rejected the proposed truce after what he called “bizarre demands” from Hamas.

But Israel’s plans for Rafah have drawn sharp rebuke from main ally and military backer Washington, with the State Department warning that if not properly planned, such an operation risks disaster

In unusually sharp criticism, US President Joe Biden on Thursday called Israel’s retaliatory campaign “over the top”.

Gaza’s Hamas rulers warned on Saturday that a full-scale Israeli invasion of Rafah could cause “tens of thousands” of casualties.

The office of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said the move “threatens security and peace in the region and the world” and is “a blatant violation of all red lines”.

The Hamas-run territory’s health ministry said on Sunday that 94 people were killed in overnight bombardments across Gaza, including in Rafah.

The Israeli military said it killed two “senior Hamas operatives” in a strike on Rafah Saturday.

It was part of a wider bombardment that killed at least 25 people in the city, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

To the north in Gaza City, Israel’s military claimed that its troops uncovered a Hamas tunnel under the evacuated headquarters of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz called for its head, Philippe Lazzarini, to quit.

Lazzarini said the agency had not operated from the compound since October 12 when staff evacuated it under instruction from Israeli forces.

Already under pressure after Israel claimed 12 UNRWA staff were involved in the October 7 Hamas attack, he called for an independent investigation into the latest Israeli accusations.

An AFP photographer was among a number of journalists taken to the compound and tunnel by the Israeli military on Thursday.

UN premises are considered “inviolable” in international law and immune from “search, requisition, confiscation, expropriation and any other form of interference”.

Hamas has repeatedly denied Israeli accusations that it has dug a network of tunnels under schools, hospitals and other civilian infrastructure as cover for its activities.

On Sunday, Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy called UNRWA “a Hamas front”.

The war, now in its fifth month, has spawned intensifying public fury in Israel.

Protesters took to the streets of Tel Aviv on Saturday night to demand the release of the hostages, Netanyahu step down and fresh elections be called.

“It’s clear Netanyahu is dragging out the war, he has no idea what to do on the day after,” Israeli protester Gil Gordon said.

The war has had far-reaching impact well bedyond Israel and Gaza, with violence involving Iran-backed allies of Hamas surging across the Middle East.

A senior Hamas officer survived an Israeli assassination attempt in Lebanon, Palestinian and Lebanese security sources told AFP, but two other people including a Hezbollah member were killed in the attack.

And in Syria, Israeli strikes near Damascus killed three people, a war monitor said, adding the targeted neighbourhood hosted villas for top military and civilian officials.

BUDAPEST: Hungarian President Katalin Novak, a close ally of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, announced her resignation Saturday following outrage over a pardon granted to a man implicated in a child sexual abuse case.

Soon afterwards another Orban supporter, former justice minister Judit Varga, announced she was withdrawing from public life over the affair.

The announcements followed growing pressure from opposition politicians and protests outside the presidential palace Friday evening.

“I am resigning my post,” said 46-year-old Novak, acknowledging that she had made a mistake.

“I apologise to those who I hurt and all the victims who may have had the impression that I did not support them,” the former minister for family policy added.

“I am, I was and I will remain in favour of protecting children and families.”

Novak became the first woman to hold the essentially ceremonial role of president in March 2022.

The controversy was sparked by the pardon granted to a former deputy director of a children’s home. He had helped to cover up his boss’s sexual abuse of the children in their charge.

The decision was made last April during a visit by Pope Francis to Budapest.

Since the independent news site 444 revealed the decision last week, the country’s opposition has been calling for Novak’s resignation.

On Friday evening demonstrators gathered outside the presidential palace and three presidential advisers quit their posts.

Novak, who had been in Qatar to attend Hungary’s match against Kazakhstan at the World Water Polo Championships on Friday, swiftly returned to Budapest.

As soon as her plane had landed she emerged and announced her resignation.

“The pardon granted and the lack of explanation may have given rise to doubts about zero tolerance of paedophilia,” she said.

“But there can be no doubt on this subject”, she added, before offering her apologies.

Minutes after her announcement, another ally of Orban, Judit Varga, also announced her “withdrawal from public life”.

As justice minister, a post she quit in order to lead a European Parliament election bid, she had approved the pardon.

“I renounce my mandate as an MP and the head of the list for the European Parliament,” she said on Facebook.

“It was quick: first Novak, then Varga,” said Hungarian MEP Anna Donath, reacting to the news.

“But we know that no important decision can be taken in Hungary without Viktor Orban’s approval,” added Donath, a member of the small liberal Momentum party, on Facebook.

“He has to take responsibility and explain what happened… it’s his system”.

In an attempt to calm national anger, Orban had announced on Thursday that he wanted to revise Hungary’s constitution to exclude the possibility of pardoning paedophile criminals.

Novak, who has been temporarily replaced by the Speaker of Parliament Laszlo Kover, was named last year by Forbes magazine as the most influential woman in Hungarian public life.

Her departure leaves Hungary’s political landscape even more male-dominated. Since mid-2023 there have been no women in Viktor Orban’s 16-man cabinet.