TEL AVIV: Hundreds of Israelis gathered in what has come to be known as Hostages Square in Tel Aviv on Saturday to call for the release of nearly 140 people still being held captive by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
As speakers took to the stage, those in the crowd held placards bearing messages like “they trust us to get them out of hell,” and “bring them home now.”
Ruby Chen, the father of 19-year-old hostage Itai Chen, said from the podium: “We are asking the Israeli cabinet, the war cabinet, to explain what exactly is on the negotiating table.
“We demand to be part of the negotiation process,” added Chen, whose son is a solider and was taken while on duty.
“Get them out now, immediately, whatever the price might be.”
Demonstrator Yoav Zalmanovitz said the government “did not care” about the hostages.
“They want revenge,” he told AFP.
Zalmanovitz’s 85-year-old father, Arye, was taken alive to Gaza and “murdered” there weeks later, Yoav said.
Hamas dragged around 240 hostages back to Gaza during its bloody October 7 attack on Israel, and fears for their safety have gripped the public through eight weeks of war.
A one-week truce deal that ended on December 1 saw 105 hostages released from Gaza, among them 80 Israelis — mostly women and children — freed in exchange for 240 Palestinians jailed by Israel.
However, efforts to revive the deal have stalled, and Israel says at least 137 hostages are believed to still be in Hamas captivity.
In the crowd on Saturday, Eli Eliezer, who said he had a relative among those still being held, told AFP the government should have prioritized returning the hostages over pressing its war against Hamas.
“They should have made a deal earlier,” the 61-year-old engineer said. “It’s the government’s job to keep its people and its land safe.”
Earlier on Saturday, 25-year-old Sahar Baruch, who hailed from one of the kibbutzim hit hardest on October 7, became the latest captive to be confirmed dead.
He was “kidnapped from his home by Hamas terrorists to Gaza... and murdered there,” the community of Beeri and the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a joint statement, without providing evidence.
The day before, Hamas had posted a video purporting to show Baruch’s body, saying he was killed during a failed rescue attempt. AFP was unable to independently verify the video’s authenticity.
In late October, Israeli soldier Ori Megidish, 19, was rescued in a military operation just over three weeks after she was kidnapped from an observation post on the heavily militarised Gaza border.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas in retaliation for the October 7 attack, which Israeli officials say killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
Its relentless bombardments and ground campaign in the Gaza Strip have killed at least 17,700 people, also mostly civilians, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
‘Bring them home’: Israelis call for hostages’ release
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‘Bring them home’: Israelis call for hostages’ release
- Demonstrator Yoav Zalmanovitz said the government “did not care” about the hostages
- Eli Eliezer said the government should have prioritized returning the hostages over pressing its war against Hamas
Syria war monitor says Israel struck military targets on Syrian coast
- “Israeli warplanes launched strikes” targeting a series of sites including air defense units and “surface-to-surface missile depots”
BEIRUT, Lebanon: A Syria war monitor said early Monday that Israeli strikes had targeted military sites in Syria’s coastal Tartus region, calling them “the heaviest strikes” in the area in more than a decade.
“Israeli warplanes launched strikes” targeting a series of sites including air defense units and “surface-to-surface missile depots,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, in what it said were “the heaviest strikes in Syria’s coastal region since the start of strikes in 2012.”
Syria rebel leader met visiting UN envoy: statement
- UN Security Council Resolution 2254 of 2015, to which the rebel statement referred, set out a roadmap for a political settlement in Syria, and also mentioned Nusra’s “terrorist” designation
DAMASCUS: The Syrian Islamist leader whose group led the offensive that toppled Bashar Assad met Sunday with UN envoy Geir Pedersen, who was visiting Damascus, said a statement on the rebels’ Telegram channel.
Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) leader Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani, now using his real name Ahmed Al-Sharaa, discussed with Pedersen “the changes that have occurred on the political scene which make it necessary to update” a 2015 United Nations Security Council resolution “to suit the new reality,” the statement said.
Jolani’s HTS is rooted in Syria’s branch of Al-Qaeda, the Al-Nusra Front, designated a “terrorist” organization by many Western governments.
UN Security Council Resolution 2254 of 2015, to which the rebel statement referred, set out a roadmap for a political settlement in Syria, and also mentioned Nusra’s “terrorist” designation.
On Tuesday, Pedersen said the fact that Nusra was listed by the UN Security Council as a terrorist organization was “obviously a complicating factor” in efforts to find a way forward.
However, he stressed that it was important to view HTS, which broke with Nusra in 2016 and has sought to soften its image, through the events of the civil war.
The rebel statement Sunday said Jolani had emphasized “the need to focus on Syrian territorial unity, reconstruction and achieving economic development.”
He also raised “the importance of providing a safe environment for the return of refugees and providing economic and political support for this,” said the statement.
Earlier Sunday, Pedersen urged a “political process... that is inclusive of all Syrians.
“That process obviously needs to be led by the Syrians themselves” with “help and assistance” from the rest of the world, he said.
Syrians return to ruined homes in city that became Hezbollah hub
- Qusayr had been used by rebels as a transit point for weapons and fighters from Lebanon, and was strategically vital for the Syrian government because it is close to a major road linking Damascus to the coast
AL-QUSAYR, Syria: Residents of Qusayr in central Syria are finally returning home after the departure of Hezbollah fighters, who helped Bashar Assad’s forces seize the city a decade ago and left with his fall.
Many of the houses are now in ruins, after years under the control of the Lebanese armed group, a key Assad ally which had set up a military base and training camp there.
“Most areas in the city of Qusayr were off-limits to us,” said 22-year-old resident Ali Khleif.
“Even the local residents who owned shops and establishments there were prohibited from entering.”
Syria’s military retook Qusayr, near the Lebanese border, in June 2013 after a blistering assault led by Hezbollah fighters.
Qusayr had been used by rebels as a transit point for weapons and fighters from Lebanon, and was strategically vital for the Syrian government because it is close to a major road linking Damascus to the coast.
Hezbollah used the buildings “as warehouses for weapons and ammunition,” said Khleif.
“After the liberation, the residents returned to their shops and land” and have reclaimed them, he said.
“We will begin rebuilding them.”
Hezbollah acknowledged in 2013 that it was fighting in Syria in support of Damascus, two years after war erupted when Assad brutally repressed a pro-democracy uprising.
Now in Qusayr, former Hezbollah posts have been ransacked.
Images of the group’s former chief Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in September in a huge Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs, have been slashed up and destroyed.
The 2013 battle for Qusayr forced thousands to flee, including many Lebanese residents of the area, which maintains close ties to Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley across the border.
Hezbollah fighters abandoned the area with the fall of Assad last week, after Islamist-led rebels pressed a lightning offensive, taking the capital on December 8.
Lawyer Ayman Soweid, 30, said that “during Hezbollah’s occupation of Qusayr, our city was regarded as a land bridge for transporting weapons, specifically from Syria and Iran, via Iraq, passing through us to Lebanon.”
Israeli strikes have also repeatedly hit the Qusayr area.
Israel, which has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria since 2011, mainly targeting the army and Iran-backed groups including Hezbollah, has rarely commented on individual raids but has repeatedly said it would not allow Iran to expand its presence in the country.
Elsewhere in Qusayr, Samar Harfouch, 38, was surveying piles of rubble.
She said she had returned on Saturday only to find her home destroyed.
“This is my home, and these are the homes of my husband’s brothers — three homes,” she told AFP, also indicating more relatives’ homes nearby.
“All destroyed,” she said.
“Twelve homes reduced to rubble.”
Trump and Netanyahu discuss Gaza hostages and Syria, Israeli PM says
- A bid by Egypt, Qatar and the United States to reach a truce that would also include a hostage deal has gained momentum in recent weeks
JERUSALEM/WEST PALM BEACH, Florida: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with US President-elect Donald Trump about developments in Syria and a recent push to secure the release of Israeli and foreign hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, he said on Sunday.
Netanyahu said he spoke with Trump on Saturday night about the issue, which will loom large as one of the main foreign challenges facing Trump when he takes office if it is not resolved before he is sworn in on Jan. 20.
Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people and abducted more than 250, including Israeli-American dual nationals, during their Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, according to Israeli tallies. More than 100 hostages have been freed through negotiations or Israeli military rescue operations. Of the 100 still held in Gaza, roughly half are believed to be alive.
Israel’s response has killed almost 45,000 people, mostly civilians, according to authorities in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, displaced nearly the entire population and left much of the enclave in ruins.
Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, warned last week during a visit to the region that it would “not be a pretty day” if the hostages held in Gaza were not released before Trump’s inauguration.
Trump said earlier this month there would be “hell to pay” in the Middle East if the hostages were not released before he came into office.
A Trump spokesperson on Sunday declined to give further details about the call.
A bid by Egypt, Qatar and the United States to reach a truce that would also include a hostage deal has gained momentum in recent weeks.
Netanyahu said he had spoken with Trump about efforts to secure a hostage release. “We discussed the need to complete Israel’s victory and we spoke at length about the efforts we are making to free our hostages,” he said.
President Joe Biden’s outgoing administration is working hard to achieve a deal. US national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who was in the region last week, said on Thursday he believed a deal on a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release may be close, and deputy national security adviser Jon Finer told Reuters there was momentum in the process.
Netanyahu said he and Trump had also discussed the situation in Syria following the overthrow of President Bashar Assad. Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on Syria’s strategic weapons stockpiles in the days since Assad’s ouster and moved troops into a demilitarised zone inside Syria.
“We have no interest in a conflict with Syria,” Netanyahu said in a statement. Israeli actions in Syria were intended to “thwart the potential threats from Syria and to prevent the takeover of terrorist elements near our border,” he said.
Back in Damascus, rebel leader confident of post-Assad unity
- Since toppling Assad, HTS and the transitional government have insisted that the rights of all Syrians will be protected
DAMASCUS: Syrian rebel leader Riad Al-Asaad told AFP on Sunday he was confident that the myriad of factions which helped topple Bashar Assad after years of war will now unite as one force.
Asaad, a former colonel, defected from the Syrian air force in July 2011, early in the Assad government’s crackdown of democracy protests that spiralled into civil war.
He went on to found the Free Syrian Army (FSA), one of the main opposition factions during the 13-year war, and lost a leg in March 2013 in a bomb attack on his car in eastern Syria.
The longtime ruler was overthrown last week following a lightning offensive led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), which has since appointed an interim government.
The FSA’s Asaad said he had been working closely with HTS and was sure that the new government would seek to unite the various rebel factions.
“It is natural that the revolution has gone through several struggles” that produced different factions sometimes with opposing ideologies, Asaad told AFP at a hotel in Damascus.
“But the truth is that what we have been striving for from the beginning” is “to have one single body,” akin to a supreme military council, to lead the forces opposed to Assad and “to achieve victory,” he said.
Sunni Muslim HTS is rooted in Syria’s branch of Al-Qaeda, but it has sought to moderate its rhetoric in recent years.
Since toppling Assad, HTS and the transitional government have insisted that the rights of all Syrians will be protected.
Some other factions that have taken up arms against the Assad government represent religious and ethnic minorities, like the Kurds in northern Syria, or ideologies like secular nationalism.
Foreign powers have given varying degrees of support to their favorite factions, including Turkiye which was quick to reopen its embassy in Damascus after the HTS takeover.
Assad’s rule, in turn, was backed by Russia, Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement.
Asaad no longer commands the FSA, which in itself has become an umbrella for several groups, but he remains a leading figure and is proud to have returned to Damascus.
He said that together with the new HTS-backed authorities, he was working to unite armed factions under a revamped defense ministry, in the hopes that such a move would prevent in-fighting and reprisals.
“Our goal is forgiveness and reconciliation, but there must be transitional justice so that there is no revenge,” he said, demanding that members of the ousted government face justice for crimes committed under Assad’s iron-fisted rule.
Asaad also urged the international community to back the new authorities.
As the FSA had sought foreign backing during the war, in a bid to make it as short as possible, Asaad said that “today, we ask again to stand with the Syrian people... so that it is truly Syria for all the Syrian people.”
The new Syria Asaad envisions would have “good relations with all the world’s countries,” he said.
But Russia, Assad’s key backer which still has an air base and a port is western Syria, should mend its ways, he added.
Moscow must “reconsider its calculations,” Asaad said.
“It was an enemy of the Syrian people. We hope that it will abandon this hostility and be a friend.”
