BEIRUT: Fierce fighting raged Friday around Syria’s Aleppo as a surge in violence forced tens of thousands more to flee their homes, overshadowing the latest round of peace talks in Geneva.
The clashes on several fronts have put a strain on a fragile cease-fire in place since Feb. 27, and left more than 200 fighters on all sides of the civil war dead in recent days.
The delegation representing President Bashar Assad’s regime arrived Friday in Geneva where UN-brokered indirect talks between representatives of the government and opposition were due to be held.
However, the fighting around Syria’s second city Aleppo cast a shadow over international efforts to end the five-year war, which has left more than 270,000 people dead and forced millions to flee their homes.
Troops and militiamen loyal to Assad’s regime have fought Daesh group fighters to the southeast of Aleppo city this week, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
They also battled militants from the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front and allied rebels in the flashpoint area of Handarat north of Aleppo city, it said.
Meanwhile Daesh fought rebels near the Turkish border, the Britain-based group added.
On one Aleppo front alone — pitting rebels against Daesh — fighting has forced about 30,000 civilians to flee, according to Human Rights Watch.
In total, at least 210 fighters on all sides have been killed in the battles around Aleppo since Sunday.
Among them were 82 army troops and pro-regime militiamen, 94 members of Al-Nusra Front and allied rebel groups, and 34 IS jihadists, the Observatory said.
The heaviest losses came near Al-Eis in the south of Aleppo province where 50 regime troops and loyalist militia fighters were killed along with 61 Al-Nusra and allied fighters, it added.
The latest violence came a day after a senior official in Washington told AFP that the United States was “very concerned” about reports of a Russian-backed Syrian government offensive near Aleppo.
European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini also expressed concern about the Aleppo offensive and called for the “respect, consolidation, and expansion” of the truce.
Even though Daesh and Al-Nusra are excluded from the truce, violence around Aleppo has sparked concerns that the cease-fire may collapse, partly because rebels are involved in the battles there too.
“Aleppo is the key to war and peace in Syria,” Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
“Every side in the war has a stake in Aleppo.”
Battles around Syria’s Aleppo cast shadow over peace talks
Battles around Syria’s Aleppo cast shadow over peace talks
France urges ceasefire in Sudan war, pledges aid to Chad
Russia has “abandoned the Sudanese” and “unveiled its relationship with Africa, a relationship based on greed, cynicism and hyprocrisy“
ADRE, Chad: France’s foreign minister on Thursday called on foreign nations to stop helping the warring sides in famine-stricken Sudan’s civil war as he visited refugee camps in neighboring Chad.
Sudan has been mired since April 2023 in conflict between the army, led by General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by his former deputy, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
Both sides face accusations of war crimes, including targeting civilians, shelling residential areas, and blocking or looting aid.
The conflict has killed tens of thousands and forced over 11 million people out of their homes, with 2.1 million fleeing the country. The United Nations estimates that more than 25 million people — over half the population — facing acute hunger.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot denounced the attitude of Russia, which vetoed a UN resolution last week that urged a ceasefire and the protection of civilians in Sudan.
Russia has “abandoned the Sudanese” and “unveiled its relationship with Africa, a relationship based on greed, cynicism and hyprocrisy,” the minister said.
Around 1.5 million Sudanese refugees have fled to Chad, a country of 20 million people.
Barrot urged the Sudanese armed forces to “keep the Adre crossing open and lift all bureaucratic impediments to the delivery of humanitarian aid.”
Adre, leading into Chad, is the only access point to famine-stricken Darfur in western Sudan.
He urged the RSF to “cease looting, racketeering and the diversion of humanitarian convoys to allow them to arrive at their destination.”
Chad’s Foreign Minister Abderaman Koulamallah, who was with Barrot said that Chad “remains strictly neutral in the conflict.”
“We have an interest in bringing peace back to Sudan and remaining as neutral as possible in this war,” he added.
Barrot pledged an additional seven million euros ($7.4 million) in aid to support efforts to fight cholera and help women and children in Chad.
Paris had already vowed to donate $110 million in April.
Several nations have promised more than $2 billion for Sudan, but voiced concern about getting the aid to the population.
The diplomatic push that took Lebanon from Armageddon to ceasefire
- Lebanese officials had made it clear to the US that Lebanon had little trust in either Washington or Netanyahu, two European diplomats said
- France had been increasingly critical of Israel’s military campaigns, and Lebanese officials regarded it as a counterweight in talks to the US, the Western diplomat said
PARIS/WASHINGTON/BEIRUT: The ceasefire deal that ended a relentless barrage of Israeli airstrikes and led Lebanon into a shaky peace took shape over weeks of talks and was uncertain until the final hours.
US envoy Amos Hochstein shuttled repeatedly to Beirut and Jerusalem despite the ructions of an election at home to secure a deal that required help from France — and that was nearly derailed by international arrest warrants for Israel’s leaders.
Israel had signalled last month that it had achieved its main war goals in Lebanon by dealing Iran-backed Hezbollah a series of stunning blows, but an agreed truce remained some way off.
A football match, intense shuttle diplomacy and pressure from the United States all helped get it over the line on Tuesday night, officials and diplomats said.
Longstanding enemies, Israel and Hezbollah have been fighting for 14 months since the Lebanese group began firing rockets at Israeli military targets in support of the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Escalations over the summer drew in Hezbollah’s main patron Iran and threatened a regional conflagration, as Israel refocused its military from the urban ruins of Gaza to the rugged border hills of Lebanon.
Israel stepped up its campaign suddenly in September with its pager attack and targeted airstrikes that killed Hezbollah’s leader and many in its command structure. Tanks crossed the border late on Sept. 30.
With swathes of southern Lebanon in ruins, more than a million Lebanese driven from their homes and Hezbollah under pressure, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated in October there was “a window” for a deal, a senior US administration official said.
Although some in Israel sought a more comprehensive victory and an uninhabited buffer zone in Lebanon, the country was strained by a two-front war that had required many people to leave their jobs to fight as reservists.
DIPLOMACY
“You sometimes get a sense when things get into the final lane, where the parties are not only close, but that the will is there and the desire is there and the stars are aligned,” the senior US administration official said in a briefing.
Officials of the governments of Israel, Lebanon, France and the US who described to Reuters how the agreement came together declined to be identified for this story, citing the sensitivity of the matter.
Hezbollah did not immediately respond to a request for comment about how the deal was negotiated.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah was still fighting but under intense pressure, and newly open to a ceasefire that was not dependent on a truce in Gaza — in effect dropping a demand it had made early in the war.
The Shiite group had in early October endorsed Lebanon’s veteran Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, its longtime ally, to lead negotiations.
With Hochstein shuttling between the countries, meeting Israeli negotiators under Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and reporting back daily to US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, France was also in the picture.
Paris had been working with Hochstein on a failed attempt for a truce in September and was still working in parallel to the US
Lebanese officials had made it clear to the US that Lebanon had little trust in either Washington or Netanyahu, two European diplomats said.
France had been increasingly critical of Israel’s military campaigns, and Lebanese officials regarded it as a counterweight in talks to the US, the Western diplomat said.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot visited the region in early November at Israel’s request despite tensions between the countries.
He held long talks with Dermer on the mechanics of a ceasefire with a phased approach to redeployments, with the two delegations poring over maps, two sources aware of the matter said.
As things worsened for Lebanon, there was frustration at the pace of talks. “(Hochstein) told us he needed 10 days to get to a ceasefire but the Israelis dragged it out to a month to finish up military operations,” a Lebanese official said.
VIOLATIONS
The deal was to be based on better implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. Both sides complained of repeated violations of that deal and wanted reassurances.
The main sticking point was Israel’s insistence on a free hand to strike if Hezbollah violated 1701. That was not acceptable to Lebanon.
Eventually Israel and the US agreed a side-deal — verbal assurances according to a Western diplomat — that Israel would be able to respond to threats.
“The two sides keep their right to defend themselves, but we want to do everything to avoid them exercising that right,” a European diplomat said.
Israel was also worried about Hezbollah weapons supplies through Syria. It sent messages to Syrian President Bashar Assad via intermediaries to prevent this, three diplomatic sources said.
It reinforced the message by ramping up air strikes in Syria, including near Russian forces in Latakia province where there is a major port, the three sources said.
“Israel can almost dictate the terms. Hezbollah is massively weakened. Hezbollah wants and needs a ceasefire more than Israel does. This is finishing not due to American diplomacy but because Israel feels it has done what it needs to do,” said a senior Western diplomat.
OBSTACLES The talks intensified as the Nov. 5 US presidential election loomed and reached a turning point after Donald Trump won the vote.
US mediators briefed the Trump team, telling them the deal was good for Israel, good for Lebanon and good for US national security, the senior US administration official said.
A potential new flashpoint endangering the critical role of Paris in the negotiations emerged as an Israeli soccer team traveled to France after violence had engulfed Israeli fans in Amsterdam.
However, with French authorities averting trouble, French President Emmanuel Macron sat next to the Israeli ambassador in the stadium. “The match was so boring that the two spent an hour talking about how to calm tensions between the two allies and move forward,” the source aware of the matter said.
At this key moment the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant.
Netanyahu threatened to cut France out of any deal if Paris abided by its Rome Statute obligation to arrest him if he went there, three sources said. That could in turn torpedo Lebanese agreement to the truce.
US President Joe Biden phoned Macron, who in turn phoned Netanyahu before Biden and Macron spoke again, the US official said. The Elysee eventually settled on a statement accepting the ICC’s authority but shying away from threats of an arrest.
Over the weekend US officials then ramped up pressure on Israel, with Hochstein warning that if a deal was not agreed within days, he would pull the plug on mediation, two Israeli officials said.
By Tuesday it all came together and on Wednesday the bombs stopped falling.
Israel building military corridor splitting northern Gaza: BBC
- Satellite photos, video footage show buildings demolished, troop positions established
- Expert: ‘I think they’re going to settle Jewish settlers in the north, probably in the next 18 months’
LONDON: Israel is building military infrastructure separating the north of the Gaza Strip from the rest of the Palestinian enclave, the BBC has reported.
The broadcaster’s Verify team said it has seen satellite images showing that buildings have been demolished along a line from the Israeli border with Gaza to the Mediterranean through a series of controlled explosions.
BBC Verify added that the images show Israeli military vehicles and soldiers stationed along the line, which reaches almost 9 km across the enclave, cutting off Gaza City from the towns of Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia.
Footage has also emerged online of Israeli soldiers destroying buildings in the area since October, and of personnel driving Humvee vehicles through the zone.
Footage has also been released by Hamas fighters still in the area engaging with Israeli ground forces and tanks around the new dividing line.
Dr. H. A. Hellyer, a Middle East expert at the Royal United Services Institute, told the BBC that the images suggest Israel will block thousands of Palestinians from returning to their homes in northern Gaza.
This new partition is not the first to be built in Gaza since the start of the war in October 2023.
The Netzarim Corridor to the south separates Gaza City into two areas, whilst the Philadelphi Corridor separates the south of the enclave from its border with Egypt.
“They’re digging in for the long term,” Hellyer said. “I would absolutely expect the north partition to develop exactly like the Netzarim Corridor.”
He added: “I think they’re going to settle Jewish settlers in the north, probably in the next 18 months. They won’t call them settlements.
“To begin with they’ll call them outposts or whatever, but that’s what they’ll be and they’ll grow from there.”
The developments have raised fears that Israel is implementing a plan devised by former Gen. Giora Elland to force civilians out of northern Gaza by limiting supplies, and informing those who remain that they will be treated as enemy combatants, in a bid to pressure Hamas into releasing Israeli hostages.
The BBC reported that around 90 percent of Gaza has been subject to evacuation orders at various points since the start of the conflict, with millions of people repeatedly displaced.
The UN estimates, with the assistance of aid agencies working in Gaza, that around 65,000 people could still be trapped north of the new line, where they face the prospect of starving.
A UN spokesperson on Tuesday said “virtually no aid” is entering the area, and locals are “facing critical shortages of supplies and services, as well as severe overcrowding and poor hygiene conditions.”
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said Israel should occupy Gaza and “encourage” Palestinians to leave.
Gaza in anarchy, says UN
- Palestinians are suffering “on a scale that has to be seen to be truly grasped,” Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN Human Rights Office in the Palestinian territories, said
- “This time I was particularly alarmed by the prevalence of hunger,” Sunghay told a media briefing in Geneva
GENEVA: The Gaza Strip has descended into anarchy, with hunger soaring, looting rampant and rising numbers of rapes in shelters as public order falls apart, the United Nations said on Friday.
Palestinians are suffering “on a scale that has to be seen to be truly grasped,” Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN Human Rights Office in the Palestinian territories, said after concluding his latest visit to the devastated Palestinian territory.
“This time I was particularly alarmed by the prevalence of hunger,” Sunghay told a media briefing in Geneva, via video-link from Amman.
“The breakdown of public order and safety is exacerbating the situation with rampant looting and fighting over scarce resources.
“The anarchy in Gaza we warned about months ago is here,” he said, calling the situation entirely predictable, foreseeable and preventable.
Sunghay said young women, many displaced multiple times, had stressed the lack of any safe spaces or privacy in their makeshift tents.
“Others said that cases of gender-based violence and rape, abuse of children and other violence within the community has increased in shelters as a consequence of the war and the breakdown of law enforcement and public order,” he said.
Sunghay described the situation in Gaza City as “horrendous,” with thousands of displaced people sheltering in “inhumane conditions with severe food shortages and terrible sanitary conditions.”
He recounted seeing, for the first time, dozens of women and children in the beseiged enclave now scavenging in giant landfills.
The level of destruction in Gaza “just gets worse and worse,” he added.
“The common plea by everyone I met was for this to stop. To bring this to an end. Enough.”
He said the UN was being blocked from taking any aid to the 70,000 people still thought to be living in northern Gaza, due to “repeated impediments or rejections of humanitarian convoys by the Israeli authorities.”
“It is so obvious that massive humanitarian aid needs to come in — and it is not.”
UN Human Rights Office spokesman Jeremy Laurence called for an immediate ceasefire.
“The killing must end,” he said.
“The hostages must be released immediately and unconditionally. Those arbitrarily detained must be released,” he added.
“And every effort must be made to urgently provide the full quantities of food, medicine and other vital assistance desperately needed in Gaza.”
Fighters from Palestinian group Hamas launched an attack in Israel on October 7, 2023, that resulted in the deaths of 1,207 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed 44,363 people in Gaza, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the UN considers reliable.
Israeli rescuers say eight hurt in bus shooting
- The Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, claimed responsibility for the attack, which left more than a dozen bullet holes in the windshield of the bus
- The attack occurred at an intersection close to the settlement of Ariel, the Israeli military said in a statement.
SALFIT, Palestinian Territories: A shooting at a bus near an Israeli settlement injured at least eight people on Friday in the occupied West Bank, an Israeli rescue service said.
Violence in the West Bank has surged since the start of the Gaza war sparked by Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
The Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, claimed responsibility for the attack, which left more than a dozen bullet holes in the windshield of the bus.
The attack occurred at an intersection close to the settlement of Ariel, the Israeli military said in a statement.
It added that a “terrorist was neutralized on the spot.”
Four people suffered bullet wounds, three of them serious, and four others were lightly injured by shards of glass, according to the Magen David Adom rescue service.
Three of the injured were lying near the bus, conscious, when the rescuers arrived, a spokesman for MDA said, adding that those most seriously hurt were taken to hospital in a “stable condition.”
“In this operation, one of our heroic fighters ambushed a number of Israeli soldiers and settlers inside a bus,” Hamas’s armed wing said in a statement, identifying the attacker as 46-year-old Samer Hussein, from a village near Nablus.
At least 24 Israelis, including soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during military operations in the West Bank since the Gaza war began, Israeli official figures show.
During the same period, at least 778 Palestinians have been killed in the territory by Israeli troops or settlers, according to an AFP count based on Palestinian official figures.
All of Israel’s settlements in the West Bank, occupied since 1967, are considered illegal under international law.
