DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: Israel’s military pushed ahead with its punishing air and ground offensive in Gaza on Saturday, bolstered by a US veto derailing UN Security Council efforts to end the war and word that an emergency sale of $106 million worth of tank ammunition had been approved by Washington.
Unable to leave Gaza, a territory 25 miles (40 kilometers) long by about 7 miles (11 kilometers) wide, more than 2 million Palestinians faced more bombardment Saturday, even in areas that Israel had described as safe zones.
The sale of nearly 14,000 rounds of tank ammunition was announced a day after the US vetoed a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, a measure that had wide international support. The US said Secretary of State Antony Blinken determined that “an emergency exists” in the national interest requiring the immediate sale, meaning it bypasses congressional review. Such a determination is rare.
A day after Israel confirmed it was rounding up Palestinian men for interrogation, some men told The Associated Press they had been treated badly, providing the first accounts of the conditions from the detentions.
Ahmad Nimr Salman showed his marked and swollen hands from zip ties. “They used to ask us, ‘Are you with Hamas?’ We say ‘no,’ then they would slap us or kick us,” he said. The Israeli military had no immediate comment when asked about the alleged abuse.
With the war in its third month, the Palestinian death toll in Gaza has surpassed 17,700, the majority women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-controlled territory. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths.
Two hospitals in central and southern Gaza received the bodies of 133 people from Israeli bombings over the past 24 hours, the Health Ministry said midday Saturday.
Israel holds the Hamas militants responsible for civilian casualties, accusing them of using civilians as human shields, and says it has made considerable efforts with evacuation orders to get civilians out of harm’s way. It says 97 Israeli soldiers have died in the ground offensive after Hamas raided southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking about 240 hostages.
Hamas said Saturday that it continued its rocket fire into Israel.
In Gaza, residents reported airstrikes and shelling, including in the southern city of Rafah near the Egyptian border — one area where the Israeli army had told civilians to go. In a colorful classroom there, knee-high children’s tables were strewn with rubble.
“We now live in the Gaza Strip and are governed by the American law of the jungle. America has killed human rights,” said Rafah resident Abu Yasser Al-Khatib.
In northern Gaza, Israel has been trying to secure the military’s hold, despite heavy resistance from Hamas. The military said that it found weapons inside a school in Shujaiyah, a densely populated neighborhood of Gaza City, and that, in a separate incident, militants shot at troops from a UN-run school in the northern town of Beit Hanoun.
More than 2,500 Palestinians have been killed since the Dec. 1 collapse of a weeklong truce, about two-thirds of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
The truce saw hostages and Palestinian prisoners released, but Israel says 137 hostages remain in Gaza.
On Saturday, a kibbutz that came under attack on Oct. 7 said 25-year-old hostage Sahar Baruch had died in captivity. His captors said Baruch was killed during a failed rescue mission by Israeli forces Friday. The Israeli military said Hamas killed him.
With no new cease-fire in sight and humanitarian aid reaching little of Gaza, residents reported severe food shortages. Nine of 10 people in northern Gaza reported spending at least one full day and night without food, according to a World Food Program assessment during the truce. Two of three people in the south said the same. The WFP called the situation “alarming.”
“I am very hungry,” said Mustafa Al-Najjar, sheltering in a UN-run school in the devastated Jabaliya refugee camp in the north. “We are living on canned food and biscuits and this is not sufficient.”
While adults can cope, “it’s extremely difficult and painful when you see your young son or daughter crying because they are hungry,” he said.
Israelis who had been taken hostage also saw the food situation deteriorate, the recently freed Adina Moshe told a rally of thousands of people in Tel Aviv seeking the rapid return of all. “We ended up eating only rice,” said Moshe, who was held for 49 days.
The rally speakers accused Israel’s government of not doing enough to bring loved ones home. “How can I sleep at night? How can I protect my daughter?” asked Eli Albag, the father of 18-year-old hostage Liri Albag.
On Saturday, 100 trucks carrying unspecified aid entered Gaza through the Rafah crossing with Egypt, said Wael Abu Omar, a spokesman for the Palestinian Crossings Authority. That is still well below the daily average before the war.
Despite growing international pressure, President Joe Biden’s administration remains opposed to an open-ended cease-fire, arguing it would enable Hamas to continue posing a threat to Israel.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has argued that “a cease-fire is handing a prize to Hamas.”
Blinken continued to speak with counterparts from Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and elsewhere amid open criticism of the US stance.
“From now on, humanity won’t think the USA. supports the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech.
Protesters at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai called for a cease-fire, despite restrictions on demonstrations.
Amid concerns about a wider conflict, Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen threatened to prevent any ship heading to Israeli ports from passing through the Red Sea and Arabian Sea until food and medicine can enter Gaza freely. Spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree said in a speech that all ships heading to Israel, no matter their nationality, will be a target.
In southern Gaza, thousands were on the run after what residents called a night of heavy gunfire and shelling.
Israel has designated a narrow patch of barren southern coastline, Muwasi, as a safe zone. But Palestinians described desperately overcrowded conditions with scant shelter and no toilets. They faced an overnight temperature of around 52 degrees (11 degrees Celsius).
“I am sleeping on the sand. It’s freezing,” said Soad Qarmoot, who described herself as a cancer patient forced to leave her home in the northern town of Beit Lahiya.
As she spoke, her children huddled around a fire.
Israel presses on with its Gaza offensive after US veto derails Security Council efforts to halt war
https://arab.news/wfmxv
Israel presses on with its Gaza offensive after US veto derails Security Council efforts to halt war
- The State Department approves the sale of tank ammunition to Israel in a deal that bypasses Congress
- In Gaza, residents reported airstrikes and shelling, including in southern city of Rafah near Egyptian border
Palestinian Red Crescent says Israeli strike kills 7 in West Bank
- The strike occurred in the village of Tamun in northern West Bank, organization says
- Israeli said its forces were involved in a ‘counterterrorism operation’ in the area
RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: The Palestinian Red Crescent said an Israeli drone strike in a village in the occupied West Bank killed at least seven people on Wednesday, while the military said it had struck an “armed cell.”
“An Israeli strike in the village of Tamun in the northern West Bank killed seven people,” the group said in a statement.
The Palestinian health ministry in Ramallah said eight people had been killed.
The Israeli military told AFP its forces were involved in a “counterterrorism operation” in the area.
As part of the operation, an Israeli “aircraft, with the direction of ISA (security agency) intelligence, struck an armed terrorist cell in the area of Tamun,” the military said in a statement.
Violence has soared throughout the West Bank since the war between Hamas and Israel broke out in Gaza on October 7, 2023.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 870 Palestinians, including many militants, in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
At least 29 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military raids in the territory over the same period, according to official Israeli figures.
First Gaza aid ship arrives at Egypt’s El-Arish port since ceasefire
CAIRO: A Turkish ship docked at Egypt’s El-Arish on Wednesday, delivering the first aid destined for Gaza through the port since a fragile ceasefire went into effect, a Turkish official and Egyptian sources said.
“We are prepared to heal the wounds of our Gazan brothers and sisters and to meet their temporary shelter needs,” Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya posted on X on Wednesday.
The ship was loaded with 871 tons of humanitarian aid, including 300 power generators, 20 portable toilets, 10,460 tents and 14,350 blankets, according to Yerlikaya.
A team from the Egyptian Red Crescent received the Turkish aid to make the necessary arrangements for its delivery to the Strip, a source at the port, 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of the Gaza Strip, said.
Two staff from the Egyptian Red Crescent also confirmed its arrival.
Since the start of the truce in the Palestinian territory, hundreds of truckloads of aid have entered Gaza while some has been airlifted in.
The truce between Israel and Hamas came after more than 15 months of war sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
Syria’s Sharaa: jihadist to interim head of state
DAMASCUS: In less than two months, Syria’s Ahmed Al-Sharaa has risen from rebel leader to interim president, after his Islamist group led a lightning offensive that toppled Bashar Assad.
Sharaa was appointed Wednesday to lead Syria for an unspecified transitional period, and has been tasked with forming an interim legislature after the dissolution of the Assad era parliament and the suspension of the 2012 constitution.
The former jihadist has abandoned his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani, trimmed his beard and donned a suit and tie to receive foreign dignitaries since ousting Assad from power on December 8.
The tall, sharp-eyed Sharaa has held a succession of interviews with foreign journalists, presenting himself as a patriot who wants to rebuild and reunite Syria, devastated and divided after almost 14 years of civil war.
Syria’s new authorities also announced Wednesday the dissolution of armed factions, including Sharaa’s own Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda.
Since breaking ties with Al-Qaeda in 2016, Sharaa has sought to portray himself as a more moderate leader, and HTS has toned down its rhetoric, vowing to protect Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities.
But Sharaa has yet to calm misgivings among some analysts and Western governments that still class HTS as a terrorist organization.
“He is a pragmatic radical,” Thomas Pierret, a specialist in political Islam, told AFP.
“In 2014, he was at the height of his radicalism,” Pierret said, referring to the period of the war when he sought to compete with the jihadist Daesh group.
“Since then, he has moderated his rhetoric.”
Born in 1982 in Saudi Arabia, Sharaa is from a well-to-do Syrian family and was raised in Mazzeh, an upscale district of Damascus.
In 2021, he told US broadcaster PBS that his nom de guerre was a reference to his family’s roots in the Golan Heights. He said his grandfather was among those forced to flee the territory after its capture by Israel in 1967.
According to the Middle East Eye news website, it was after the September 11, 2001 attacks that he was first drawn to jihadist thinking.
“It was as a result of this admiration for the 9/11 attackers that the first signs of jihadism began to surface in Jolani’s life, as he began attending secretive sermons and panel discussions in marginalized suburbs of Damascus,” the website said.
Following the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, he left Syria to take part in the fight.
He joined Al-Qaeda in Iraq, led by Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, and was subsequently detained for five years, preventing him from rising through the ranks of the jihadist organization.
In March 2011, when the revolt against Assad’s rule erupted in Syria, he returned home and founded Al-Nusra Front, Syria’s branch of Al-Qaeda.
In 2013, he refused to swear allegiance to Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, who would go on to become the emir of the Daesh group, and instead pledged his loyalty to Al-Qaeda’s Ayman Al-Zawahiri.
A realist in his partisans’ eyes, an opportunist to his adversaries, Sharaa said in May 2015 that he, unlike Daesh, had no intention of launching attacks against the West.
He also proclaimed that should Assad be defeated, there would be no revenge attacks against the Alawite minority that the president’s clan stems from.
He cut ties with Al-Qaeda, claiming to do so in order to deprive the West of reasons to attack his organization.
According to Pierret, he has since sought to chart a path toward becoming a credible statesman.
In January 2017, Sharaa imposed a merger with HTS on rival Islamist groups in northwestern Syria, thereby taking control of swathes of Idlib province that had been cleared of government troops.
In areas under its grip, HTS developed a civil administration and established a semblance of a state in Idlib province, while crushing its rebel rivals.
Throughout this process, HTS faced accusations from residents and human rights groups of brutal abuses against those who dared dissent, which the United Nations has classed as war crimes.
Palestinian Red Crescent says Israeli strike kills 7 in West Bank
- Palestinian Red Crescent: ‘An Israeli strike in the village of Tamun in the northern West Bank killed seven people’
- Israeli said that its forces were involved in a ‘counterterrorism operation’ in the area
RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: The Palestinian Red Crescent said an Israeli drone strike in a village in the occupied West Bank killed at least seven people on Wednesday, while the military said it had struck an “armed cell.”
“An Israeli strike in the village of Tamun in the northern West Bank killed seven people,” the group said in a statement.
The Palestinian health ministry in Ramallah said eight people had been killed.
The Israeli military told AFP its forces were involved in a “counterterrorism operation” in the area.
As part of the operation, an Israeli “aircraft, with the direction of ISA (security agency) intelligence, struck an armed terrorist cell in the area of Tamun,” the military said in a statement.
Violence has soared throughout the West Bank since the war between Hamas and Israel broke out in Gaza on October 7, 2023.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 870 Palestinians, including many militants, in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
At least 29 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military raids in the territory over the same period, according to official Israeli figures.
Palestinians’ return to northern Gaza complicates Netanyahu’s war aims
- “There is no war to resume,” said Ofer Shelah, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv think tank
- The “total victory” envisioned by Netanyahu remains elusive
TEL AVIV: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed 15 months ago that Israel would achieve “total victory” in the war in Gaza — by eradicating Hamas and freeing all the hostages. One week into a ceasefire with the militant group, many Israelis are dubious.
Not only is Hamas still intact, there’s also no guarantee all of the hostages will be released. But what’s really raised doubts about Netanyahu’s ability to deliver on his promise is this week’s return of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to their homes in northern Gaza. That makes it difficult for Israel to relaunch its war against Hamas should the two sides fail to extend the ceasefire beyond its initial six-week phase.
“There is no war to resume,” said Ofer Shelah, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv think tank. “What will we do now? Move the population south again?”
“There is no total victory in this war,” he said.
‘Total victory’ is elusive
Israel launched its war against Hamas after the militant group’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, in which some 1,200 people were killed and roughly 250 were taken hostage. Within hours, Israel began a devastating air assault on Gaza, and weeks later it launched a ground invasion.
Israel has inflicted heavy losses on Hamas. It has killed most of its top leadership, and claims to have killed thousands of fighters while dismantling tunnels and weapons factories. Months of bombardment and urban warfare have left Gaza in ruins, and more than 47,000 Palestinians are dead, according to local health authorities who don’t distinguish between militants and civilians in their count.
But the “total victory” envisioned by Netanyahu remains elusive.
In the first phase of the ceasefire, 33 hostages in Gaza will be freed, nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israel will be released, and humanitarian aid to Gaza will be vastly increased. Israel is also redeploying troops to enable over 1 million Palestinians to return to their homes in northern Gaza.
In the second phase of the ceasefire, which the two sides are expected to begin negotiating next week, more hostages would be released and the stage would be set for a more lasting truce.
But if Israel and Hamas do not agree to advance to the next phase, more than half of the roughly 90 remaining hostages will still be in Gaza; at least a third of them are believed to be dead.
Despite heavy international and domestic pressure to develop a postwar vision for who should rule Gaza, Netanyahu has yet to secure an alternative to the militant group. That has left Hamas in command.
Hamas sought to solidify that impression as soon as the ceasefire began. It quickly deployed uniformed police to patrol the streets and staged elaborate events for the hostages’ release, replete with masked gunmen, large crowds and ceremonies. Masked militants have also been seen along Gaza’s main thoroughfares, waving to and welcoming Palestinians as they head back home.
A Hamas victory?
Despite the scale of death and destruction in Gaza — and the hit to its own ranks — Hamas will likely claim victory.
Hamas will say, “Israel didn’t achieve its goals and didn’t defeat us, so we won,” said Michael Milshtein, an Israeli expert on Palestinian affairs.
The return of displaced Palestinians to northern Gaza is an important achievement for Hamas, Milshtein said. The group long insisted on a withdrawal of Israeli troops and an end to war as part of any deal — two conditions that have effectively begun to be realized.
And Hamas can now reassert itself in a swath of the territory that Israel battled over yet struggled to entirely control.
To enable Palestinians to return to northern Gaza, Israel opened the Netzarim corridor, a roughly 4-mile (6-kilometer) military zone bisecting the territory. That gives Hamas more freedom to operate, while taking away leverage that would be difficult for Israel regain even if it restarted the war, said Giora Eiland, a former Israeli general who had proposed a surrender-or-starve strategy for northern Gaza.
“We are at the mercy of Hamas,” he said in an interview with Israeli Army Radio. “The war has ended very badly” for Israel, he said, whereas Hamas “has largely achieved everything it wanted.”
Little appetite to resume war
President Donald Trump could play an important role in determining the remaining course of the war.
He has strongly hinted that he wants the sides to continue to the second phase of negotiations and shown little enthusiasm for resuming the war. A visit by his Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff, to Israel this week and a visit to the White House next week by Netanyahu will likely give stronger indications of where things are headed.
In announcing the ceasefire, Netanyahu said Israel was still intent on achieving all the war’s goals. He said Israel was “safeguarding the ability to return and fight as needed.”
While military experts say Israel could in practice relaunch the war, doing so will be complicated.
Beyond the return of displaced Palestinians, the international legitimacy to wage war that it had right after Hamas’ attack has vanished. And with joyful scenes of freed hostages reuniting with their families, the Israeli public’s appetite for a resumption of fighting is also on the decline, even if many are disappointed that Hamas, a group that committed the deadliest attack against Israelis in the country’s history, is still standing.
An end to the war complicates Netanyahu’s political horizon. The Israeli leader is under intense pressure to resume the war from his far-right political allies, who want to see Hamas crushed. They envision new Jewish settlements in Gaza and long-term Israeli rule there.
One of Netanyahu’s coalition partners already resigned in protest at the ceasefire deal and a second key ally has threatened to topple the government if the war doesn’t resume after the first phase. That would destabilize the government and could trigger early elections.
“Where is the total victory that this government promised?” Itamar Ben-Gvir, the former Cabinet minister who quit the government over the ceasefire said Monday.
Israel Ziv, a retired general, said restarting the war would require a new set of goals and that its motivations would be tainted.
“The war we entered into is over,” he told Israeli Army Radio. “Other than political reasons, I don’t see any reason to resume the war.”
