TUBAS, West Bank: At least 85 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank this year as Israeli forces have carried out nightly raids in cities, towns and villages, making it the deadliest in the occupied territory since 2016.
The military says the vast majority were militants or stone-throwers who endangered the soldiers. The tally, from the Palestinian Health Ministry, includes Palestinians who carried out deadly attacks inside Israel.
But it also includes several civilians, including a veteran journalist and a lawyer who apparently drove unwittingly into a battle zone, as well as local youths who took to the streets in response to the invasion of their neighborhoods.
The length and frequency of the raids has pulled into focus Israel’s tactics in the West Bank, where nearly 3 million Palestinians live under a decades-long occupation and Palestinians view the military’s presence as a humiliation and a threat.
Israeli troops have regularly operated across the West Bank since Israel captured the territory in 1967.
Israel says it is dismantling militant networks that threaten its citizens, and that it makes every effort to avoid harming civilians. Palestinians say the raids are aimed at maintaining Israel’s 55-year military rule over territories they want for a future state — a dream that appears as remote as ever, with no serious peace negotiations held in over a decade..
Israel stepped up the operations this past spring after a string of deadly attacks by Palestinians against Israelis killed 17 people, some carried out by militants from the West Bank. There have been no deadly attacks since May, but the relentless military operations have continued.
The Palestinian Health Ministry has reported 85 Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces in the occupied West Bank and annexed east Jerusalem since the start of the year.
With four months to go this year, that already is the highest number since 2016, the tail-end of a previous wave of violence, when 91 Palestinians were killed, according to yearly data compiled by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.
The ministry’s tally includes attackers and known militants, but also the veteran Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, and a 58-year-old man who was shot in the head outside a bakery earlier this month. The Israeli military says both might have been hit by Palestinian gunfire but has not provided evidence to substantiate its claims.
The dead include 17 teens under the age of 18, as well as six women, according to the ministry. Israel says that teenagers and women are often involved in violence, while critics accuse the army of using excessive force in many cases.
Israel is also holding more than 600 Palestinians without charge or trial in what’s known as administrative detention — the highest in six years.
Amir Avivi, a retired Israeli general who now heads the Israel Defense and Security Forum, said the heightened pace of operations is the result of the recent wave of attacks and the Palestinian Authority’s refusal to crack down on militants in the areas it administers.
The Palestinian Authority is mired in a crisis of legitimacy largely stemming from its cooperation with Israel on security matters. Palestinian officials say they will not help police the occupation, especially if there is no hope that doing so will lead to independence.
Rights groups say that while some Israeli missions are aimed at combatting specific threats, others are intended as a show of force, or to protect the growing population of Jewish settlers.
Ori Givati is the head of Breaking the Silence, an Israeli group opposed to the occupation that gathers testimonies of former Israeli soldiers. Some soldiers recall carrying out mock arrests, in which fully armed soldiers raid a home in the middle of the night — for training purposes.
Even more common, Givati says, are so-called “stimulus and response” operations, which he said he took part in himself when he served in the West Bank. In those, Israeli troops roll through Palestinian areas, sometimes with lights and speakers on, hoping to lure stone-throwers or gunmen into the streets so they can arrest or confront them.
“The way we occupy the Palestinians is by creating more and more friction, making our presence felt,” Givati said. “We invade their towns, their cities, their homes.”
In a statement, the army denied the allegations, saying it acts “solely against threats and terrorist operatives who pose a security threat” in Israel and the West Bank.
Israel says it investigates all cases in which Israeli troops are suspected of killing civilians, but rights groups say most of those investigations are quietly closed with soldiers rarely facing serious repercussions.
There were two notable exceptions this year.
The killing of Abu Akleh, a veteran on-air correspondent, prompted numerous independent investigations that concluded she was likely killed by Israeli fire. Israel denies targeting her and says it is still investigating.
There was also the death in January of Omar Assad, a 78-year-old who died shortly after Israeli soldiers bound and blindfolded him and left him in the cold. In that case, senior officers were reprimanded and stripped of leadership roles.
Both were American citizens, and the US raised both cases with Israel. Last week, Israel discharged four soldiers after they were caught on camera beating and kicking two detained Palestinians.
There was no such uproar over Salah Sawafta, who was shot outside the bakery as he returned from dawn prayers in the West Bank town of Tubas earlier this month. Israeli troops, who had gone to arrest suspected militants, were engaged in a firefight with Palestinian gunmen.
His family believes he was killed by an Israeli sniper in a building across the street. Zakreya Abu Dollah, the bakery owner who witnessed the shooting, said he saw Israeli soldiers fanned out on the street but no Palestinian gunmen or stone-throwers in the immediate area.
The military says it is investigating and that Sawafta might have been hit by a stray bullet fired by Palestinian militants.
Jehad Sawafta said his late brother, who made a living trading animal feed, had no connection to any political faction or militant group.
Salah had a son and four daughters, one of whom was engaged to be married this past Friday. The father of the bride was killed a week before the wedding.
“His second daughter was supposed to be married on Aug. 26, but then everything got turned upside down,” Jehad said. “Those girls adored their father because he provided a good and dignified life for them.”
Palestinian toll mounts as Israel steps up West Bank raids
https://arab.news/md5km
Palestinian toll mounts as Israel steps up West Bank raids
- The military says the vast majority were militants or stone-throwers who endangered the soldiers
- The dead include 17 teens under the age of 18, as well as six women
Israel’s Netanyahu sends Mossad director to Gaza ceasefire talks in Qatar
- 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 Israel's war on Gaza which has killed over 44,000
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.
Syria de facto leader Al-Sharaa phones congratulations to Lebanon’s newly elected President Aoun
- Call followed talks between Al-Sharaa and Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati in Damascus
- Al-Sharaa said he hoped Joseph Aoun’s presidency would usher in an era of stability in Lebanon
DAMASCUS: Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa called newly elected Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on the phone and congratulated him for assuming the presidency, Syria’s ruling general command reported on Sunday.
The phone call followed talks between Al-Sharaa and Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who was in the Syrian capital on Saturday with a mission to restore ties between the two neighbors.
Mikati’s visit was the first by a Lebanese head of government to Damascus since the Syrian civil war started in 2011.
Previous Lebanese governments refrained from visits to Syria amid tensions at home over militant group Hezbollah’s support for then ruler Bashar Assad during the conflict.
Syria’s new leader Al-Sharaa said he hoped to turn over a new leaf in relations, days after crisis-hit Lebanon finally elected a president this week following two years of deadlock.
“There will be long-term strategic relations between us and Lebanon. We and Lebanon have great shared interests,” Sharaa said in a joint press conference with Mikati.
It was time to “give the Syrian and Lebanese people a chance to build a positive relationship,” he said, adding he hoped Joseph Aoun’s presidency would usher in an era of stability in Lebanon.
Sharaa said the new Syria would “stay at equal distance from all” in Lebanon, and “try to solve problems through negotiations and dialogue.”
Mikati said ties should be based on “mutual respect, equality and national sovereignty.”
Syria was the dominant power in Lebanon for three decades under the Assad family, with president Hafez Assad intervening in its 1975-1990 civil war and his son Bashar Assad only withdrawing Syria’s troops in 2005 following mass protests triggered by the assassination of Lebanese ex-prime minister Rafic Hariri.
After mending ties with Damascus, his son Saad Hariri was the last Lebanese premier to visit the Syrian capital in 2010 before the civil war.
Taking office on Thursday, Aoun swore he would seize the “historic opportunity to start serious... dialogue with the Syrian state.”
With Hezbollah weakened after two months of full-scale war with Israel late last year and Assad now gone, Syrian and Lebanese leaders seem eager to work to solve long-pending issues.
Among them is the presence of some two million Syrian refugees Lebanon says have sought shelter there since Syria’s war started.
Their return to Syria had become “an urgent matter in the interest of both countries,” Mikati said.
Lebanese authorities have long complained that hosting so many Syrians has become a burden for the tiny Mediterranean country which since 2019 has been wracked by its worst-ever economic crisis.
Mikati also said it was a priority “to draw up the land and sea borders between Lebanon and Syria,” calling for creation of a joint committee to discuss the matter.
Under Assad, Syria repeatedly refused to delimit its borders with its neighbor.
Lebanon has hoped to draw the maritime border so it can begin offshore gas extraction after reaching a similar agreement with Israel in 2022.
The Lebanese premier said both sides had stressed the need for “complete control of (land) borders, especially over illicit border points, to stem smuggling.”
Syria shares a 330-kilometer (205-mile) border with Syria with no official demarcation at several points, making it porous and prone to smuggling.
Syria imposed new restrictions on the entry of Lebanese citizens last week, following what Lebanon’s army said was a border skirmish with unnamed armed Syrians.
Lebanese nationals had previously been allowed into Syria without a visa.
Several foreign dignitaries have headed to Damascus in recent weeks to meet the new leaders, with a delegation from Oman also in town earlier Saturday.
Unlike other Arab Gulf states, Oman never severed diplomatic ties with Assad during the war.
Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani visited Damascus on Friday, while France’s Jean-Noel Barrot and his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock did last week.
Shaibani has visited Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Jordan this month, and said Friday he would head to Europe soon.
Syria’s war has killed more than half a million people and ravaged the country’s economy since starting in 2011 with the brutal crackdown of anti-Assad protests.
Eight killed, 50 injured in explosion of gas station, gas storage tank in Yemen’s Al-Bayda, sources say
CAIRO: Eight people were killed and 50 others injured in an explosion of a gas station and a gas storage tank in Yemen’s Al-Bayda province, a medical source and a local official said.
Russia eyes Libya to replace Syria as Africa launchpad
- On December 18 the Wall Street Journal, citing Libyan and American officials, said there had been a transfer of Russian radars and defense systems from Syria to Libya, including S-300 and S-400 anti-aircraft batteries
PARIS: The fall of Russian ally Bashar Assad in Syria has disrupted the Kremlin’s strategy not only for the Mediterranean but also for Africa, pushing it to focus on Libya as a potential foothold, experts say.
Russia runs a military port and an air base on the Syrian coast, designed to facilitate its operations in the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and sub-Saharan Africa, especially the Sahel, Sudan, and the Central African Republic.
However, this model is in jeopardy with the abrupt departure of the Syrian ruler.
Although Syria’s new leader, Ahmed Al-Sharaa, has called Russia an “important country,” saying “we do not want Russia to leave Syria in the way that some wish,” the reshuffling of cards in Syria is pushing Russia to seek a strategic retreat toward Libya.
In Libya, Russian mercenaries already support Khalifa Haftar, a field marshal controlling the east of the country, against the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity (GNU) which has UN recognition and is supported by Turkiye.
“The goal is notably to preserve the ongoing Russian missions in Africa,” said Jalel Harchaoui at the RUSI think tank in the UK.
“It’s a self-preservation reflex” for Russia which is anxious “to mitigate the deterioration of its position in Syria,” he told AFP.
In May 2024, Swiss investigative consortium “All Eyes On Wagner” identified Russian activities at around 10 Libyan sites, including the port of Tobruk, where military equipment was delivered in February and April of last year.
There were around 800 Russian troops present in February 2024, and 1,800 in May.
On December 18 the Wall Street Journal, citing Libyan and American officials, said there had been a transfer of Russian radars and defense systems from Syria to Libya, including S-300 and S-400 anti-aircraft batteries.
Since Assad’s fall on December 8, “a notable volume of Russian military resources has been shipped to Libya from Belarus and Russia,” said Harchaoui, adding there had been troop transfers as well.
Ukrainian intelligence claimed on January 3 that Moscow planned “to use Sparta and Sparta II cargo ships to transport military equipment and weapons” to Libya.
Beyond simply representing a necessary replacement of “one proxy with another,” the shift is a quest for “continuity,” said expert Emadeddin Badi on the Atlantic Council’s website, underscoring Libya’s role as “a component of a long-standing strategy to expand Moscow’s strategic foothold in the region.”
According to Badi, “Assad offered Moscow a foothold against NATO’s eastern flank and a stage to test military capabilities.”
Haftar, he said, presents a similar opportunity, “a means to disrupt western interests, exploit Libya’s fractured politics, and extend Moscow’s influence into Africa.”
The Tripoli government and Italy, Libya’s former colonial master, have expressed concern over Russian movements, closely observed by the European Union and NATO.
Several sources say the United States has tried to persuade Haftar to deny the Russians a permanent installation at the port of Tobruk that they have coveted since 2023.
It seems already clear the Kremlin will struggle to find the same level of ease in Libya that it had during Assad’s reign.
“Syria was convenient,” said Ulf Laessing, the Bamako-based head of the Sahel program at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.
“It was this black box with no Western diplomats, no journalists. They could basically do what they wanted,” he told AFP.
“But in Libya, it will be much more complicated. It’s difficult to keep things secret there and Russian presence will be much more visible,” he said.
Moscow will also have to contend with other powers, including Turkiye, which is allied with the GNU, as well as Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, who are patrons of Haftar.
In Libya, torn into two blocs since the ouster of longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi in February 2011, “everybody’s trying to work with both sides,” said Laessing.
Over the past year, even Turkiye has moved closer to Haftar, seeking potential cooperation on economic projects and diplomatic exchanges.
Russia will also be mindful to have a plan B should things go wrong for its Libyan ally.
“We must not repeat the mistake made in Syria, betting on a local dictator without an alternative,” said Vlad Shlepchenko, military correspondent for the pro-Kremlin media Tsargrad.
Haftar, meanwhile, is unlikely to want to turn his back on western countries whose tacit support he has enjoyed.
“There are probably limits to what the Russians can do in Libya,” said Laessing.
Turkiye’s Kurdish leaders meet jailed politician as the two sides inch toward peace
- The armed conflict between the PKK and the Turkish state, which started in August 1984 and has claimed tens of thousands of lives, has seen several failed attempts at peace
ISTANBUL: A delegation from one of Turkiye’s biggest pro-Kurdish political parties met a leading figure of the Kurdish movement in prison Saturday, the latest step in a tentative process to end the country’s 40-year conflict, the party said.
Three senior figures from the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party, or DEM, met the party’s former co-chairperson, Selahattin Demirtas, at Edirne prison near the Greek border.
The meeting with Demirtas — jailed in 2016 on terrorism charges that most observers, including the European Court of Human Rights, have labelled politically motivated — took place two weeks after DEM members met Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned head of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.
While the PKK has led an armed insurgency against the Turkish state since the 1980s, the DEM is the latest party representing left-leaning Kurdish nationalism. Both DEM and its predecessors have faced state measures largely condemned as repression, including the jailing of elected officials and the banned of parties.
In a statement released on social media after the meeting, Demirtas called on all sides to “focus on a common future where everyone, all of us, will win.”
Demirtas credited Ocalan with raising the chance that the PKK could lay down its arms. Ocalan has been jailed on Imrali island in the Sea of Marmara since 1999 for treason over his leadership of the PKK, considered a terrorist organization by Turkiye and most Western states.
Demirtas led the DEM between 2014 and 2018, when it was known as the Peoples’ Democratic Party, or HDP, and he is still widely admired. He said that despite “good intentions,” it was necessary for “concrete steps that inspire confidence … to be taken quickly.”
One of the DEM delegation, Ahmet Turk, said: “I believe that Turks need Kurds and Kurds need Turks. Our wish is for Turkiye to come to a point where it can build democracy in the Middle East.”
The armed conflict between the PKK and the Turkish state, which started in August 1984 and has claimed tens of thousands of lives, has seen several failed attempts at peace.
Despite being imprisoned for a quarter of a century, Ocalan remains central to any chance of success due to his ongoing popularity among many of Turkiye’s Kurds. In a statement released on Dec. 29, he signaled his willingness to “contribute positively” to renewed efforts.
Meanwhile, in an address Saturday to ruling party supporters in Diyarbakir, the largest city in the Kurdish-majority southeast, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for the disbandment of the PKK and the surrender of its weapons.
This would allow DEM “the opportunity to develop itself, strengthening our internal front against the increasing conflicts in our region, in short, closing the half-century-old separatist terror bracket and consigning it to history ... forever,” he said in televised comments.
The latest drive for peace came when Devlet Bahceli, leader of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party and a close ally of Erdogan, surprised everyone in October when he suggested that Ocalan could be granted parole if he renounced violence and disbanded the PKK.
Erdogan offered tacit support for Bahceli’s suggestion a week later, and Ocalan said he was ready to work for peace, in a message conveyed by his nephew.
