JERUSALEM: Palestinian prime minister Rami Hamdallah will travel to Gaza on October 2 as part of a fresh push to end a decade-long split between Fatah and Hamas, which runs the enclave, his government said Monday.
The visit follows concessions by Islamist group Hamas after discussions with Egypt, which has urged it to take steps toward reconciliation with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah, based in the occupied West Bank.
Fatah and Hamas have been divided for a decade, with separate administrations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
“Prime minister Rami Hamdallah has decided after consulting with president Mahmud Abbas that the government will hold its weekly meeting in Gaza next week,” government spokesman Yusuf Al Mahmoud said in a statement published by official Palestinian news agency WAFA.
“Hamdallah and members of the government will arrive in Gaza next Monday to start taking over government responsibilities after Hamas announced its agreement to dissolve the administrative committee and enable the government to assume its full responsibilities.”
Hamdallah, who is not believed to have traveled to the Gaza Strip since 2015, also wrote about the visit on his Facebook page.
“I am heading to the beloved Gaza Strip next Monday with the government and all bodies, authorities and security services,” he wrote.
“We hope all parties and all Palestinians will focus on the national interest to enable the government to continue carrying out all of its functions in a way which serves the Palestinian citizens first.”
Hamas said a week ago that it had agreed to steps toward resolving the split with Abbas’s Fatah, announcing it would dissolve a body seen as a rival government — known as the administrative committee — and was ready to hold elections.
The statement came after Hamas leaders held talks with Egyptian officials and with the Gaza Strip facing a mounting humanitarian crisis.
It remains unclear whether the steps will result in further concrete action toward ending the deep division with Fatah.
Hamas for now continues to run a de facto separate administration in the Gaza Strip and is in charge of security forces there.
Previous attempts to resolve the split have repeatedly failed. The last attempt at a unity government fell apart in 2015, with the two sides exchanging blame.
Hamas has run Gaza since 2007, having seized it in a near civil war from Fatah following a dispute over parliamentary elections won by the Islamist movement the previous year.
It formed the administrative committee in March, and since then Abbas has sought to put further pressure on the Islamist movement, reducing electricity payments for the Gaza Strip and cutting salaries for public employees.
The West Bank and Gaza have not participated in an election together since 2006.
Abbas, whose term was meant to end in 2009, has remained in office with no election held.
The Gaza Strip has meanwhile faced deteriorating humanitarian conditions, including a severe electricity crisis and a lack of clean water.
The coastal enclave of some two million people also has one of the world’s highest unemployment rates and has seen three wars with Israel since 2008.
It has been under an Israeli blockade for around a decade, while its border with Egypt has also remained largely closed in recent years.
Facing those conditions, Hamas has turned to Egypt for assistance, particularly for fuel to produce power and with hopes of opening the border — and has faced pressure to take steps toward Palestinian reconciliation in return.
Palestinian PM to visit Gaza next week for reconciliation efforts
Palestinian PM to visit Gaza next week for reconciliation efforts
Israel’s former defense chief Gallant quits politics
Gallant was fired from the government in November by Netanyahu, after months of disagreements over the conduct of the war against Hamas in Gaza, but kept his seat as an elected member of the Knesset.
“Just as it is on the battlefield, so it is in public service. There are moments in which one must stop, assess and choose a direction in order to achieve the goals,” Gallant said in a televised statement.
Gallant had often broken ranks with Netanyahu and his coalition allies of far-right and religious parties, including over exemptions granted to ultra-Orthodox Jewish men from serving in the conscript military — a hot button issue.
In March 2023, Netanyahu fired Gallant after he urged a halt to a highly contested government plan to cut the Supreme Court’s powers. His dismissal triggered mass protests and Netanyahu backtracked.
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Gallant and Netanyahu, along with a Hamas leader, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict, which Israel has contested.
Israeli strikes kill 12 in Gaza as war grinds into the new year with no end in sight
- One strike hits home in Jabaliya area of northern Gaza, killing seven people
- Israel’s air and ground offensives have killed over 45,000 Palestinians since 2023
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza: Israeli strikes killed at least 12 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, mostly women and children, officials said Wednesday, as the nearly 15-month war ground on into the new year with no end in sight.
One strike hit a home in the Jabaliya area of northern Gaza, the most isolated and heavily destroyed part of the territory, where Israel has been waging a major operation since early October. Gaza’s Health Ministry said seven people were killed, including a woman and four children, and at least a dozen other people were wounded.
Another strike overnight in the built-up Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza killed a woman and a child, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, which received the bodies.
The military said militants fired rockets at Israel from the Bureij area overnight and that its forces responded with a strike targeting a militant. The military also issued evacuation orders for the area that were posted online.
A third strike early Wednesday in the southern city of Khan Younis killed three people, according to the nearby Nasser Hospital and the European Hospital, which received the bodies.
The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and abducting around 250. About 100 hostages are still held in Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s air and ground offensive has killed over 45,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. It says women and children make up more than half the fatalities but does not say how many of those killed were militants.
The Israeli military says it only targets militants and blames Hamas for civilian deaths because its fighters operate in dense residential areas. The army says it has killed 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
The war has caused widespread destruction and displaced some 90 percent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, many of them multiple times.
Hundreds of thousands are living in tents on the coast as winter brings frequent rainstorms and temperatures drop below 10 degrees Celsius (50 F) at night. At least six infants and another person have died of hypothermia, according to the Health Ministry.
American and Arab mediators have spent nearly a year trying to broker a ceasefire and hostage release, but those efforts have repeatedly stalled. Hamas has demanded a lasting truce, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanayhu has vowed to keep fighting until “total victory” over the militants.
Israel sees net departure of citizens for a second year
More than 82,000 Israelis moved abroad in 2024 and only 33,000 people immigrated to the country, Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics said. Another 23,000 Israelis returned after long periods abroad.
It was the second year in a row of net departures, a rare occurrence in the history of the country, which was founded by immigrants from Europe and actively encourages Jewish immigration. Many Israelis, looking for a break from the war, have moved abroad, leading to concern about whether it will drive a “brain drain” in sectors like medicine and technology.
Last year, 15,000 fewer people immigrated to Israel than in 2023. The Bureau of Statistics changed its reporting methods in mid-2022 to better track the number of Israelis moving abroad.
Military blames ‘weakening of discipline’ in death of archaeologist who entered Lebanon with troops
In a separate development, the Israeli military blamed “operational burnout” and a “weakening of discipline and safety” in the death of a 70-year-old archaeologist who was killed in southern Lebanon in November along with a soldier while visiting a combat zone.
According to Israeli media reports, Zeev Erlich was not on active duty when he was shot, but was wearing a military uniform and had a weapon. The army said he was a reservist with the rank of major and identified him as a “fallen soldier” when it announced his death.
Erlich was a well-known West Bank settler and researcher of Jewish history. Media reports at the time of his death said he entered Lebanon to explore an archaeological site. The family of the soldier who was killed with him has expressed anger over the circumstances of his death.
The military launched an investigation after the two were killed in a Hezbollah ambush. A separate probe is looking into who allowed Erlich to enter.
The military said the entry of civilians who are not military contractors or journalists into combat zones is not widespread. Still, there have been multiple reports of Israeli civilians who support a permanent Israeli presence in Gaza or Lebanon entering those areas.
Syrian civil war killed more than 528,500: monitor
- Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says 6,777 people, more than half of them civilians, were killed in 2024
- The overall toll includes thousands killed since 2011 that were only confirmed dead recently
DAMASCUS: More than 528,500 people were killed in the Syrian civil war, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said on Wednesday.
The overall toll includes thousands killed since 2011 that were only confirmed dead recently, with access to detention centers and mass graves easier following the rebel overthrow of Bashar Assad.
The Britain-based monitory said 6,777 people, more than half of them civilians, were killed in 2024 in fighting in Syria.
AFP was unable to independently verify these figures.
Syria’s civil war erupted in 2011 after the government brutally repressed pro-democracy protests triggering a devastating conflict that pushed millions to flee abroad and drew in foreign powers.
Last year, 3,598 civilians, including 240 women and 337 children were killed across Syria, according to the Observatory.
In addition, 3,179 combatants were killed, the monitor said, including soldiers from “the old regime,” but also “Islamist armed groups” and jihadists.
In 2023, the Observatory reported 4,360 people killed, including nearly 1,900 civilians.
In December, Islamist-led rebels overthrew Assad, seizing power in a rapid offensive that ended more than 50 years of the family’s iron-fisted rule.
Since 2011, the monitor with a network of sources inside Syria has recorded more than 64,000 deaths in Assad’s prisons “due to torture, medical negligence or poor conditions” in the jails.
Gaza population down by 6 percent since start of war — Palestinian statistics bureau
- Around 45,500 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, have been killed since the war began but another 11,000 are missing
JERUSALEM: The population of Gaza has fallen 6 percent since the war with Israel began nearly 15 months ago as about 100,000 Palestinians left the enclave while more than 55,000 are presumed dead, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS).
Around 45,500 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, have been killed since the war began but another 11,000 are missing, the bureau said, citing numbers from the Palestinian Health Ministry.
As such, the population of Gaza has declined by about 160,000 during the course of the war to 2.1 million, with more than a million or 47 percent of the total children under the age of 18, the PCBS said.
It added that Israel has “raged a brutal aggression against Gaza targeting all kinds of life there; humans, buildings and vital infrastructure... entire families were erased from the civil register. There are catastrophic human and material losses.”
Israel’s foreign ministry said the PCBS data was “fabricated, inflated, and manipulated in order to vilify Israel.”
Israel has faced accusations of genocide in Gaza because of the scale of death and destruction.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations’ highest legal body, ruled last January that Israel must prevent acts of genocide against Palestinians, while Pope Francis has suggested the global community should study whether Israel’s Gaza campaign constitutes genocide.
Israel has repeatedly rejected accusations of genocide, saying it abides by international law and has a right to defend itself after the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023 killed 1,200 Israelis and precipitated the current war.
The PCBS said some 22 percent of Gaza’s population currently faces catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity, according to the criteria of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a global monitor.
Included in that 22 percent are some 3,500 children at risk of death due to malnutrition and lack of food, the bureau said.
Israel warns it will step up Gaza strikes if Hamas keeps up rocket fire
JERUSALEM: Defense Minister Israel Katz warned Wednesday that Israel will step up its strikes in Gaza if Hamas keeps up its rocket fire at Israel.
“I want to send a clear message from here to the heads of the terrorists in Gaza: If Hamas does not soon allow the release of the Israeli hostages from Gaza... and continues firing at Israeli communities, it will face blows of an intensity not seen in Gaza for a long time,” Katz said in a statement after visiting the Israeli town of Netivot, which was recently targeted by rocket fire from nearby Gaza.
At least 12 Palestinians, mostly women and children, were killed in Gaza by airstrikes, officials in the territory said on Wednesday.
More than 45,500 people have been killed during Israel's 15-month military campaign in Gaza.
