QARARAT Al-QATF, Libya: On a windswept desert plain, displaced families from a town which sided with Libya’s leader Muammar Qaddafi before his ouster in a 2011 revolt have been left in a makeshift camp to rue their bad fortune.
A last-minute breakdown in a deal to allow their return has left them stranded, within sight of the palm trees of their home town of Tawergha east of the Libyan capital Tripoli and 40 km (25 miles) from the rival town of Misrata.
Armed groups from Misrata expelled Tawergha’s residents after accusing them of fighting alongside Qaddafi’s forces when their town came under a relentless siege during the uprising, as well as accusing them of taking part in torture, rapes and murders.
Gunmen from Misrata have been blocking the roads into Tawergha since Feb. 1 when hundreds of Tawergha families rolled up in cars to return home under a deal struck by Libya’s unity government and Misrata.
They have also fired warning shots, without causing casualties.
“I can’t tell you how overjoyed I was when I heard we were going home. We were just at the entrance to town when they blocked the road,” Najat Al-Fitouri said, standing outside her tent.
She had come back from Tobruk, more than 1,000 km (600 miles) to the east, where she had taken refuge with her seven children in 2011.
“I’m not moving. I will stay here even for a year, until I go back,” said Fitouri.
Like dozens of other families, she has been camped in Qararat Al-Qatf, just 20 km from Tawergha, waiting for results from talks between their mayor and the unity government which has been acting as mediator.
With its 40,000 residents driven out, Tawergha has been reduced to a ghost town in ruins.
Its would-be returnees in Qararat Al-Qatf are using their cars as shelter or the hundreds of tents distributed by UN aid agencies.
Two blue tents serve as dispensaries and four portable bathroom units have been set up.
“The situation is miserable,” said Daud Al-Tuleiha, a former Tawergha town official.
“Since 2011, we’ve become experts of exodus,” he said with a wry smile.
“We move around with our gas cylinders and even wood” used to keep warm and for cooking in the absence of electricity and running water.
“Sometimes we climb up a dune to catch a glimpse of our palm trees,” he added.
A neighbor in the camp, Mabruk Al-Suwissi, aimed his anger at the government.
“They’ve left us here without shelter or food for the past week. We need medicine... This desert is crawling with grass snakes and scorpions!” he said.
Tawergha’s Mayor Abdelrahman Chakchak said the return was being held up by elements in Misrata “who don’t understand that this is not a reconciliation... This is a return deal that could later lead to a reconciliation.”
The mayor was giving a tour to the UN-backed unity administration’s local government minister, Badad Qansou, the first official to visit the camp.
“I thought the situation was better than this in the camp. We can clearly see families who’ve been left without shelter,” he said, vowing to supply more aid.
“We’re determined to guarantee a return to Tawergha free of bloodshed. I see your suffering... A bit of patience and everything will be sorted out,” the minister said.
“Haven’t we been patient long enough?” a frustrated onlooker shot back.
Displaced from Libya ‘ghost town’ stranded on a desert plain
Displaced from Libya ‘ghost town’ stranded on a desert plain
Israeli military says four soldiers killed in north Gaza
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said on Saturday that four soldiers had died in combat in the north of the Gaza Strip, more than 15 months into its war with Hamas militants.
The deaths brought to 403 the total number of soldiers killed in the Palestinian territory since Israel launched its ground offensive in retaliation for Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack.
Displaced Gazan digs shelter against winter weather and war
- Nearly all of Gaza’s 2.4 million inhabitants have been displaced by the war that has ravaged the Palestinian territory for over 14 months
- For civilians fleeing the fighting, the lack of safe buildings means many have had to gather in makeshift camps
GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Faced with plunging temperatures and heavy rain in war-battered central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah, displaced Palestinian father Tayseer Obaid resorted to digging for a modicum of domestic comfort.
In the clay soil of the encampment area that his family has been displaced to by the war, Obaid dug a square hole nearly two meters deep and capped it with a tarpaulin stretched over an improvised wooden A-frame to keep out the rain.
“I had an idea to dig into the ground to expand the space as it was very limited,” Obaid said.
“So I dug 90 centimeters, it was okay and I felt the space get a little bigger,” he said from the shelter while his children played in a small swing he attached to the plank that serves as a beam for the tarpaulin.
In time, Obaid managed to dig 180 centimeters deep (about six feet) and then lined the bottom with mattresses, at which point, he said, “it felt comfortable, sort of.”
With old flour sacks that he filled with sand, he paved the entry to the shelter to keep it from getting muddy, while he carved steps into the side of the pit.
The clay soil is both soft enough to be dug without power tools and strong enough to stand on its own.
The pit provides some protection from Israeli air strikes, but Obaid said he feared the clay soil could collapse should a strike land close enough.
“If an explosion happened around us and the soil collapsed, this shelter would become our grave.”
Nearly all of Gaza’s 2.4 million inhabitants have been displaced by the war that has ravaged the Palestinian territory for over 14 months.
The UN’s satellite center (UNOSAT) determined in September 2024 that 66 percent of Gaza’s buildings had been damaged or completely destroyed by the war, in which Israel has made extensive use of air strikes as it fights the militant group Hamas.
For Palestinian civilians fleeing the fighting, the lack of safe buildings means many have had to gather in makeshift camps, mostly in central and southern Gaza.
Shortages caused by the complete blockade of the coastal territory mean that construction materials are scarce, and the displaced must make do with what is at hand.
On top of the hygiene problems created by the lack of proper water and sanitation for the thousands of people crammed into the camps, winter weather has brought its own set of hardships.
On Thursday, the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, warned that eight newborns died of hypothermia and 74 children died “amid the brutal conditions of winter” in 2025.
“We enter this New Year carrying the same horrors as the last — there’s been no progress and no solace. Children are now freezing to death,” UNRWA’s spokeswoman Louise Wateridge said.
At least 46,537 Palestinians, a majority of them civilians, have been killed in Israel’s military campaign in Gaza since the war began, according to data provided by the health ministry. The United Nations has acknowledged these figures as reliable.
The October 7 attack that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, which includes hostages killed in captivity.
Obaid’s sunken shelter provides some protection from the cold winter nights, but not enough.
For warmth, he dug a chimney-like structure and fireplace in which he burns discarded paper and cardboard.
Though Obaid improved his lot, his situation remains bleak. “If I had a better option, I wouldn’t be living in a hole that looks like a grave,” he says.
Emirati, Lebanese leaders agree to reopen UAE embassy in Beirut
- Sheikh Mohamed congratulated Aoun on his recent election
ABU DHABI: UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan and Lebanon’s newly elected President Joseph Aoun agreed on Saturday to reopen the UAE embassy in Beirut, the Emirates News Agency reported.
The two leaders said during a phone call they would take required steps to ensure this would happen.
On Thursday, Sheikh Mohamed congratulated Aoun on his recent election, and reaffirmed the UAE’s commitment to supporting all efforts that ensure Lebanon’s security and stability and realise the aspirations of its people.
Sheikh Mohamed shared “his hope to work together for the mutual benefit and prosperity of both nations and their peoples,” a statement added.
In return, Aoun also affirmed his commitment to strengthening bilateral relations.
Israel’s Netanyahu sends Mossad director to Gaza ceasefire talks in Qatar
- Netanyahu’s office announced the decision Saturday
- It was not immediately clear when David Barnea would travel to Doha
JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has approved sending the director of the Mossad foreign intelligence agency to ceasefire negotiations in Qatar in a sign of progress in talks on the war in Gaza.
Netanyahu’s office announced the decision Saturday. It was not immediately clear when David Barnea would travel to Qatar’s capital, Doha, site of the latest round of indirect talks between Israel and the Hamas militant group. His presence means high-level Israeli officials who would need to sign off on any agreement are now involved.
Just one brief ceasefire has been achieved in 15 months of war, and that occurred in the earliest weeks of fighting. The talks mediated by the United States, Egypt and Qatar have repeatedly stalled since then.
Netanyahu has insisted on destroying Hamas’ ability to fight in Gaza. Hamas has insisted on a full Israeli troop withdrawal from the largely devastated territory. On Thursday, Gaza’s Health Ministry said over 46,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war.
Gaza rescuers say eight dead in Israel strike on school building
- Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal confirmed eight people, including two children and two women, were killed by Israeli shelling on the Halwa school
- The Israeli military, in a statement, acknowledged it conducted a strike on the facility
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Gaza’s civil defense agency said an Israeli air strike on a school-turned-shelter on Saturday killed eight people, including two children, while the Israeli military said it targeted Hamas militants.
Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal confirmed eight people, including two children and two women, were killed by Israeli shelling on the Halwa school in the northern Gaza city of Jabalia.
Bassal said the strike wounded 30 people, including 19 children, and that the Halwa school housed “thousands of displaced people.”
The Israeli military, in a statement, acknowledged it conducted a strike on the facility.
It said the air force “conducted a precise strike on terrorists in a command-and-control center” that had previously served as the Halwa school in Jabaliya.
It said it targeted the premises because “the school had been used by Hamas terrorists to plan and execute attacks.”
The attack was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes on school buildings housing displaced people in Gaza, where fighting has raged for more than 14 months.
A strike on the United Nations-run Al-Jawni school in central Gaza on September 11 drew international outcry after the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said six of its staff were among the 18 reported dead.
The Israeli military accuses Hamas of hiding in school buildings where thousands of Gazans have sought shelter — a charge denied by the Palestinian militant group.
At least 46,537 Palestinians, a majority of them civilians, have been killed in Israel’s military campaign in Gaza since the war began, according to data provided by the health ministry. The United Nations has acknowledged these figures as reliable.
The October 7 attack that triggered it resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, which includes hostages killed in captivity.
