At least 3 fatally shot on bus transporting Israelis in West Bank
Gunmen opened fire on a bus carrying Israelis in the occupied West Bank on Monday, killing at least three people and wounding seven others.
The attack occurred in the Palestinian village of Al-Funduq, on one of the main east-west roads crossing the territory. Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said two women in their 60s and a man in his 40s were killed, and the military said it was looking for the attackers.
Palestinians have carried out scores of shooting, stabbing and car-ramming attacks against Israelis in recent years, with violence surging in the territory since Hamas led an attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Israel has launched near-nightly military raids across the territory that frequently trigger gun battles with militants. There has also been a sharp rise in attacks on Palestinians by Israeli settlers, leading the United States to impose sanctions.
The Palestinian Health Ministry says at least 838 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza. Most appear to have been militants killed in battles with Israeli troops, but the dead also include participants in violent protests and civilian bystanders.
Netanyahu vows to catch attackers
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to “reach the despicable murderers” behind Monday’s attack and “settle accounts with them and with everyone who assisted them. No one will be spared.”
Hamas praised the attack in a statement but did not claim responsibility for it.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, and the Palestinians want all three territories for their future state.
Palestinians living in the Occupied West Bank say Israeli settler tactics have become more extreme in the past year. Margaret Evans and a CBC News team went to the South Hebron Hills to better understand what it’s like to live in the shadow of these illegal settlements. “
Some three million Palestinians live in the West Bank under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority administering population centres.
Over 500,000 settlers with Israeli citizenship live in well over 100 settlements across the territory, ranging from small hilltop outposts to sprawling communities that resemble suburbs or small towns. Most of the international community considers the settlements illegal.
Meanwhile, the war in Gaza is raging with no end in sight, though there has reportedly been recent progress in long-running talks aimed at a ceasefire and hostage release.
Israel’s air and ground offensive has killed over 45,800 Palestinians in Gaza, according to local health authorities, who say women and children make up more than half of those killed. They do not say how many of the dead were militants. The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.
The initial surprise attack in Israel nearly 15 months ago killed some 1,200 people, including several Canadian citizens. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third of whom the Israeli government believes to be dead.
Hamas has suffered major losses but has repeatedly regrouped after Israeli operations. Militants fired three projectiles into Israel from Gaza on Monday, one of which was intercepted, the military said. There were no reports of casualties.
The war has destroyed vast areas of Gaza and displaced 90 per cent of the territory’s population of 2.3 million, often multiple times. Hundreds of thousands are enduring a cold, rainy winter in tent camps along the windy coast.
Aid groups say Israeli restrictions, ongoing fighting and the breakdown of law and order in many areas make it difficult to provide desperately needed food and other assistance.
Published at Mon, 06 Jan 2025 11:33:14 +0000
Amazon is ending remote work. Its employees hope the company reconsiders
It’s back to the office full time for the majority of Amazon employees across the globe, but for some who work for the tech giant and online retailer it’s not a welcome change.
“The people on my team are very upset about this,” said CJ Felli, a system development engineer at Amazon Web Services based in Seattle.
Amazon’s corporate employees worked mostly remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since 2023, they were allowed to work a hybrid schedule — two days remotely and three days in the office.
As of Jan. 2, that in-office requirement has changed to five days per week.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy wrote in a letter to employees in September that the company is “going to return to being in the office the way we were before the onset of COVID.”
Employees concerned about lack of data
“What we’ve been told is that it leads to increased collaboration between teams and innovation,” said Felli in an interview with CBC News. “But whenever we ask for data, which is famously Amazon’s bread and butter, they never are willing to provide it.”
Felli has been speaking out against this latest return-to-office mandate, along with 523 other Amazon employees who penned a letter to the CEO of Amazon Web Services, Matt Garman, saying they are “appalled” by the “non-data-driven explanation” for a five-day in-office mandate and expressed the benefits of remote work in the letter.
Felli believes employees are happier and productive working from home and would like to maintain that flexibility.
“I do most of my focused work at home, and I find that breaking up of the monotony personally really helps me out,” he said.
What workers want
About 18.7 per cent of employed Canadians worked mostly from home as of May 2024, according to Statistics Canada. That’s about six per cent lower than May 2021, but remains more than twice as high as it was before the pandemic.
A flexible workplace is a big draw for workers, according to a workplace trends report from global staffing agency Robert Half.
About 40 per cent of the employees surveyed said they preferred hybrid work, spending two to three days per week at the office. Employers who were surveyed said they would prefer their teams to be in-office four days per week.
“That dance between the employee and employer is suggesting that we’re still on a journey to perfect that mix,” said David King, senior managing director at Robert Half in Toronto.
The online survey conducted in June 2024, included responses from 1,800 hiring managers and more than 1,750 workers across the finance and accounting, technology, marketing, legal, administrative and customer support and human resources professions in Canada.
Hybrid work is still a priority for some companies — 37 per cent of the managers surveyed are offering hybrid jobs specifically to attract skilled talent.
According to job listing website Indeed, the percentage of job postings in Canada mentioning remote/hybrid work has remained steady over the past two years.
“There’s an advantage to whatever allows your workforce to be fully engaged. And today that appears to be a form of hybrid,” said King.
Workplace tug-of-war
Amazon is one of the largest companies returning to entirely in-person work, but there are others making similar moves.
In September, Dell asked its global sales team to come into the office five days a week in order to deliver “the best innovation, value and service” to their customers, according to a statement emailed to CBC News.
AT&T rang in the new year by eliminating hybrid work, requiring staff to work onsite.
Staff at Calgary fintech Gigadat have been back in the office five-days per week for several years.
“We were probably one of the first companies to bring people back,” said Cliff Nywening, Gigadat’s chief operating officer, explaining the main motivators were improving employee mental health and increasing productivity.
“Being able to have a spontaneous meeting just adds a lot of value,” he said.
During the start of the pandemic, Gigadat’s staff of over 100 people were allowed to work remotely and then hybrid, but the company quickly transitioned back to fully in-person.
“Even when you have somebody that is maybe working from home, they’re disconnected from that conversation when you’re all around that boardroom,” said Nywening, “that face-to-face is so important.”
Though he admits it wasn’t an easy decision to have everyone come back and wonders if they lost some employees as a result.
Challenges ahead for Amazon
But he’s glad his company made the move early on and can see the challenge ahead for Amazon.
“The longer that you’ve had this hybrid remote experience, the tougher it will be to pivot back to, you know, somewhat of a normal in-office work experience,” said Nywening.
Felli, the Amazon employee, still believes the future is hybrid and he’s hoping his employer will reverse course.
“Our whole bread and butter is selling products to people remotely and selling products to people who want to work remotely. So if we can’t make remote work, then what are we selling?” questioned Felli.
“It is kind of a catalyst to encourage me to leave.”
Published at Mon, 06 Jan 2025 09:00:00 +0000
