GAZA: Hamas agreed to release 13 Israelis and four foreigners late Saturday in exchange for 39 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, Qatari and Egyptian mediators said, after the militant group delayed the second round of swaps for several hours and claimed that Israel had violated the terms of a truce deal.
The last-minute snag had created a tense standoff on the second day of what was meant to be a four-day cease-fire. By nightfall, as the hostages should have emerged from Gaza, Hamas alleged that the aid deliveries permitted by Israel fell short of what was promised and that not enough of the aid was reaching northern Gaza — the focus of Israel’s ground offensive and main combat zone. Hamas also said not enough veteran prisoners were freed in the first swap on Friday.
“This is putting the deal in danger and we have spoken to mediators about that,” Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas official, said in Beirut. But Egypt, Qatar and Hamas itself later said obstacles had been overcome, and Hamas issued a statement listing six women and 33 boys and teenagers it said were expected to be released by the Israelis.
While uncertainty around the details of the exchange remained, there was some optimism, too, amid earlier scenes of joyous families reuniting on both sides.
On the first day of the four-day cease-fire, Hamas released 24 of the roughly 240 hostages taken during its Oct. 7 attack on Israel that triggered the war, and Israel freed 39 Palestinians from prison. Those freed in Gaza were 13 Israelis, 10 Thais and a Filipino.
Overall, Hamas is to release at least 50 Israeli hostages, and Israel 150 Palestinian prisoners, during the four-day truce — all woman and minors.
Israel has said the truce can be extended an extra day for every additional 10 hostages freed — something US President Joe Biden said he hoped would occur.
Separately, a Qatari delegation arrived in Israel on Saturday to coordinate with parties on the ground and “ensure the deal continues to move smoothly,” according to a diplomat briefed on the visit. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss details with the media.
The start of the pause brought quiet for 2.3 million Palestinians reeling from relentless Israeli bombardment that has killed thousands, driven three-quarters of the population from their homes and leveled residential areas. Rocket fire from Gaza militants into Israel went silent.
War-weary Palestinians in northern Gaza, the focus of Israel’s ground offensive, returned to the streets, crunching over rubble between shattered buildings and at times digging through it with bare hands. At the Indonesian hospital in Jabaliya, besieged by the Israeli military earlier this month, bodies lay in the courtyard and outside the main gate.
For Emad Abu Hajjer, a resident of the Jabaliya refugee camp in the Gaza City area, the pause meant he could again search through the remains of his home, which was flattened in an Israeli attack last week.
He found the bodies of a cousin and nephew, bring the death toll in the attack to 19. With his sister and two other relatives still missing, he resumed his digging Saturday.
“We want to find them and bury them in dignity,” he said.
The United Nations said the pause enabled it to scale up the delivery of food, water, and medicine to the largest volume since the resumption of aid convoys on Oct. 21. It was also able to deliver 129,000 liters (34,078 gallons) of fuel — just over 10 percent of the daily pre-war volume — as well as cooking gas, a first since the war began.
In the southern city of Khan Younis on Saturday, a long line of people with containers waited outside a filling station. Hossam Fayad lamented that the pause in fighting was only for four days.
“I wish it could be extended until people’s conditions improved,” he said.
For the first time in over a month, aid reached northern Gaza. The Palestinian Red Crescent said 61 trucks carrying food, water and medical supplies headed there on Saturday, the largest aid convoy to reach the area yet.
The UN said it and the Palestinian Red Crescent were also able to evacuate 40 patients and family members from a hospital in Gaza City, where much of the fighting has taken place, to a hospital in Khan Younis.
The relief brought by the cease-fire has been tempered, however. For Israelis, by the fact that not all hostages will be freed. For Palestinians, by the brevity of the pause.
At least two Palestinians were injured Saturday at a tense West Bank checkpoint where Israel was to free prisoners. Israeli security forces fired tear gas and rubber bullets at Palestinians gathered at Beitunia checkpoint. It was not clear how the two were injured.
FIRST HOSTAGES FREED
In Tel Aviv, several thousand people packed a central square called “the square of the hostages,” awaiting news of the second release.
“Don’t forget the others because it’s getting harder, harder and harder. It’s heartbreaking,” said Neri Gershon, a Tel Aviv resident. Some families have accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of not doing enough to bring hostages home.
The freed Israelis included nine women and four children ages 9 and under. They were taken to Israeli hospitals for observation and were declared to be in good condition.
Hours later, 24 Palestinian women and 15 teenage boys held in Israeli prisons in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem were freed. The teenagers had been jailed for minor offenses like throwing stones. The women included several convicted of trying to stab Israeli soldiers.
“It’s a happiness tainted with sorrow because our release from prison came at the cost of the lives of martyrs and the innocence of children,” said one released prisoner, Aseel Munir Al-Titi.
According to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, an advocacy group, Israel is holding 7,200 Palestinians, including about 2,000 arrested since the start of the war.
A LONGER PEACE?
The war erupted when several thousand Hamas militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking scores of hostages, including babies, women and older adults, as well as soldiers.
“We will return immediately at the end of the cease-fire to attacking in Gaza, operating in Gaza,” Herzi Halevi, Israeli chief of staff, told soldiers.
Israeli leaders have said they won’t stop until Hamas, which has controlled Gaza for the past 16 years, is crushed. Israeli officials have argued that only military pressure can bring the hostages home. But the government is under pressure from hostages’ families to prioritize the release of the remaining captives.
The Israeli offensive has killed more than 13,300 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza government. Women and minors have consistently made up around two-thirds of the dead. The figure does not include updated numbers from hospitals in the north, where communications have broken down.
Hamas releases 13 Israelis, 4 foreigners for 39 Palestinians after delay, mediators say
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Hamas releases 13 Israelis, 4 foreigners for 39 Palestinians after delay, mediators say
- Hamas thanks Egypt, Qatar for helping maintain temporary truce with Israel
- Hamas official earlier said Israel had not delivered agreed upon number of trucks to northern Gaza
Turkiye to reopen its embassy in Syria for the first time since 2012 in wake of Assad’s fall
- “It will be operational as of tomorrow,” said Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan
ANKARA: Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan says that Türkiye’s Embassy in Syria’s capital of Damascus will reopen on Saturday, for the first time since 2012.
In an interview with Türkiye’s NTV television Fidan said a newly appointed interim charge d’affaires had left for Damascus on Friday together with his delegation.
“It will be operational as of tomorrow,” he said.
The Embassy in Damascus had suspended operations in 2012 due to the escalating security conditions during the Syrian civil war. All embassy staff and their families were recalled to Türkiye.
The horror of Saydnaya jail, symbol of Assad excesses
- The prison complex was the site of extrajudicial executions, torture and forced disappearances
- When Syrian militants entered Damascus on Sunday after their lightning advance that toppled the Assad government, they announced they had seized Saydnaya and freed its inmates
BEIRUT: Saydnaya prison north of the Syrian capital Damascus has become a notorious symbol of the inhumane abuses of the Assad clan, especially since the country’s civil war erupted in 2011.
The prison complex was the site of extrajudicial executions, torture and forced disappearances, epitomising the atrocities committed against his opponents by ousted president Bashar Assad.
When Syrian militants entered Damascus on Sunday after their lightning advance that toppled the Assad government, they announced they had seized Saydnaya and freed its inmates.
Some had been incarcerated there since the 19080s.
According to the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Saydnaya Prison (ADMSP), the militants liberated more than 4,000 people.
Photographs of haggard and emaciated inmates, some helped by colleagues because they were too weak to leave their cells, were circulated worldwide.
Suddenly the workings of this infamous jail that rights group Amnesty International had dubbed a “human abattoir” were revealed for all to see.
The prison was built in the 1980s during the rule of Hafez Assad, father of the deposed president, and was initially meant for political prisoners including members of Islamist groups and Kurdish militants.
But down the years, Saydnaya became a symbol of pitiless state control over the Syrian people.
In 2016, a United Nations commission found that “the Syrian Government has also committed the crimes against humanity of murder, rape or other forms of sexual violence, torture, imprisonment, enforced disappearance and other inhuman acts,” notably at Saydnaya.
The following year, Amnesty International in a report entitled “Human Slaughterhouse” documented thousands of executions there, calling it a policy of extermination.
Shortly afterwards, the United States revealed the existence inside Saydnaya of a crematorium in which the remains of thousands of murdered prisoners were burnt.
War monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights in 2022 reported that around 30,000 people had been imprisoned in Saydnaya where many were tortured, and that just 6,000 were released.
The ADMSP believes that more than 30,000 prisoners were executed or died under torture, or from the lack of medical care or food between 2011 and 2018.
The group says the former authorities in Syria had set up salt chambers — rooms lined with salt for use as makeshift morgues to make up for the lack of cold storage.
In 2022, the ADMSP published a report describing for the first time these makeshift morgues of salt.
It said the first such chamber dated back to 2013, one of the bloodiest years in the Syrian civil conflict.
Many inmates are officially considered to be missing, with their families never receiving death certificates unless they handed over exorbitant bribes.
After the fall of Damascus last week, thousands of relatives of the missing rushed to Saydnaya hoping they might find loved ones hidden away in underground cells.
Saydnaya is now empty, and Syria’s White Helmets emergency workers group announced the end of search operations there on Tuesday, with no more prisoners found.
Several foreigners also ended up in Syrian jails, including Jordanian Osama Bashir Hassan Al-Bataynah, who spent 38 years behind bars and was found “unconscious and suffering from memory loss,” the foreign ministry in Amman said on Tuesday.
According to the Arab Organization for Human Rights in Jordan, 236 Jordanian citizens were held in Syrian prisons, most of them in Saydnaya.
Other freed foreigners included Suheil Hamawi from Lebanon who returned home on Monday after being locked up in Syria for 33 years, and also spent time inside Saydnaya.
American released from Syrian prison is flown out of the country, a US official says
- Travis Timmerman, 29, was flown out of Syria on a US military helicopter
- Timmerman was detained after he crossed into Syria while on a Christian pilgrimage
WASHINGTON: The US military has transported out of Syria an American who had disappeared seven months ago into former President Bashar Assad’s notorious prison system and was among the thousands released this week by rebels, a US official said Friday.
Travis Timmerman, 29, was flown out of Syria on a US military helicopter, according to a US official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing operation.
It’s unclear where Timmerman may go next. After being rescued, he thanked his rescuers for freeing him but has told American officials that he would like to stay in the region, according to another person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to comment publicly.
Timmerman was detained after he crossed into Syria while on a Christian pilgrimage from a mountain along the eastern Lebanese town of Zahle in June.
He told The Associated Press that he was not ill-treated while in Palestine Branch, a notorious detention facility operated by Syrian intelligence.
In his prison cell, Timmerman said, he had a mattress, a plastic drinking container and two others for waste.
He said the Friday calls to prayers helped keep track of days.
Timmerman said he was released Monday morning alongside a young Syrian man and 70 female prisoners, some of whom had their children with them, after rebels seized control of Damascus and forced Assad from power in a dramatic upheaval.
He said he was freed by “the liberators who came into the prison and knocked the door down (of his cell) with a hammer.” He had been held separately from Syrian and other Arab prisoners and said he didn’t know of any other Americans held in the facility.
Timmerman is from Urbana, Missouri, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Springfield in the southwestern part of the state. He earned a finance degree from Missouri State University in 2017.
RSF attacks main hospital in North Darfur’s Al-Fasher, says health official
CAIRO: The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces attacked the main still-functioning hospital in Al-Fasher, in Sudan’s North Darfur state, on Friday, killing nine people and injuring 20, according to a local health official and activists.
A drone fired four missiles at the hospital, destroying wards, waiting areas, and other facilities, said state health minister Ibrahim Khatir and the Al-Fasher resistance committee, a pro-democracy group that monitors violence in the area.
Images they shared showed debris scattered over hospital beds and damaged ceilings and walls.
The RSF says it does not target civilians and could not immediately be reached for comment.
Sudan’s army and the RSF have been locked in conflict for more than 18 months, triggering a profound humanitarian crisis in which more than 12 million people have been driven from their homes, and UN agencies have struggled to deliver relief.
Al-Fasher is one of the most active frontlines between the RSF, the Sudanese army, and its allies, fighting to maintain a last foothold in the Darfur region.
Observers fear that an RSF victory there could bring ethnic retribution, as happened in West Darfur last year.
Lebanon has ‘reached the brink of collapse’ despite ceasefire, UN report warns
- Lebanese army continues deployment in Khiam, opens road to Marjayoun
- Israeli army claims to have found Kornet missiles, anti-tank launch platform in southern Lebanon
BEIRUT: The Lebanese army command said its units were being deployed in the border village of Khiam on Friday after entering it on Thursday as a new UN report warned that Lebanon had “reached the brink of collapse” despite the signing of a ceasefire agreement last month to end hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.
The UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia also urged a reassessment of priorities, emphasizing that care is a fundamental element in achieving social stability and economic recovery.
In a study titled “Restoring Care, Rebuilding Communities: Path to Recovery for Lebanon,” ESCWA highlighted that the effects of the conflict extended beyond immediate humanitarian needs, affecting health, education, and social infrastructure.
On Friday, Lebanese army units began clearing the main road from the north of the town to the south, connecting Khiam to Marjayoun, by removing rubble and potential explosives left by the Israelis.
The army command said the deployment of its military units was taking place in coordination with the five-member committee tasked with monitoring the ceasefire agreement.
Israel completed the withdrawal of its forces from Khiam on Thursday morning.
The Lebanese army command warned “citizens not to approach the area and abide by the instructions of the military units until the completion of the deployment.”
A Lebanese resident who was killed on Thursday when Israeli forces raided Khiam Square a few hours following the Lebanese army’s entry to the area has been identified as Mustafa Awada. Several people were injured in the Israeli assault.
Awada had just broadcast a live video from his phone when an Israeli attack drone killed him and injured many others who were with him in Khiam Square.
The Lebanese army retrieved Awada’s body and transported it to the Marjayoun Governmental Hospital on Friday.
The Israeli army continued its hostilities in the invaded southern area, raiding the coastal town of Naqoura on Friday morning.
An Israeli drone also raided the Tebna area near Baisariyeh.
The Israeli army renewed its warnings to residents of southern Lebanon, instructing them not to move south of an area that includes 50 villages, the houses and infrastructure of which have been almost destroyed.
Lebanon’s southern border with Israel extends 120 km from the west of Naqoura to the east of Shebaa, constituting an area of 30,575 hectares.
There are 30 towns and villages on the borderline, comprising an estimated 32,000 homes.
Some 170,000 people reside in these towns, including around 90,000 permanent residents, who are still displaced.
Official statistics indicate that 70 percent of people in the area Israeli forces invaded are Shiites, while the remaining residents include Sunni Muslims, Druze, and Christians.
Israeli troops are set to withdraw from the area within 60 days since the ceasefire agreement came into force.
Under the ceasefire agreement, the Lebanese army is supposed to deploy 6,000 soldiers south of the Litani River to work in coordination with UN peacekeeping force UNIFIL to extend state authority and withdraw unauthorized weapons from the area.
Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee claimed on Friday in a social media post that Brigade 769 forces discovered and destroyed “Kornet missiles and an anti-tank missile launcher” in southern Lebanon.
Adraee claimed that the forces discovered numerous combat tools, including rocket launchers and Kornet missiles camouflaged in rugged and mountainous areas, in addition to Kalashnikov rifles, ammunition magazines, and other military equipment.
They also found an anti-tank rocket launcher that Hezbollah operatives had used to fire at towns in the Galilee panhandle area over the past year, which was subsequently confiscated.
Adraee said Israeli forces also “discovered a weapons depot containing RPG shells and mortar rounds, all of which were confiscated.”
The troops were conducting field operations to “neutralize threats,” he added.
Also on Friday, explosions were heard in the mountain range and villages of Baalbek-Hermel, in eastern Lebanon.
It was confirmed that these explosions originated from firing ranges located east of Baalbek, where the Lebanese army was detonating missiles left over from the recent Israeli aggression.
The Masnaa border crossing between Lebanon and Syria continued to witness heavy traffic for the sixth consecutive day, with families fleeing Syrian territory following the fall of the Assad regime.
The Lebanese General Security prevents the entry of those who do not meet specific conditions while facilitating the passage of Syrian refugees in Lebanon returning to their homeland.
Several Lebanese truck owners, stranded in Daraa, Syria, appealed to Lebanese authorities to urgently intervene to facilitate the passage of their vehicles to Lebanon through the Masnaa border crossing.
The truck owners said in their plea that their number is estimated at 70 trucks loaded with cheese and food products destined for Lebanese markets.
They said that delays in procedures and increasing restrictions at the border left the trucks stranded on Syrian land for several days.
The Lebanese army on Friday launched an investigation into a road accident involving 30 Syrian nationals who sustained injuries when the passenger bus they were traveling in overturned and collided with a curb in Akkar, in the far north of Lebanon.
It was revealed that those travelers had entered Lebanon clandestinely through an illegal border crossing along the Nahr Al-Kabir river between Syria and Lebanon.
The bus driver, a Lebanese national, was among 11 injured people who needed to be hospitalized. Some passengers were in critical condition.
In other developments, Wafiq Safa, Hezbollah’s head of liaison and coordination unit, has assured that the movement would support the Lebanese army’s mission as outlined in the ceasefire agreement to the greatest extent possible.
The assurance came at a recent meeting between Army Commander Gen. Joseph Aoun and Safa, the Central News Agency, known as Al-Markazia, reported on Friday.
The parliament speaker’s adviser, Ahmed Baalbaki, was also present.
Safa previously survived airstrikes targeting him in Beirut in October.
