Netanyahu says Gaza war exacting ‘heavy price’ on Israel army

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chairs Cabinet meeting at the Kirya, which houses the Israeli Ministry of Defence, in Tel Aviv, Israel. (File/Reuters)
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Updated 24 December 2023
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Netanyahu says Gaza war exacting ‘heavy price’ on Israel army

  • Gaza war rages on Christmas Eve as Biden urges caution
  • Israeli military has lost 153 soldiers in the Palestinian territory, including 10 on Saturday

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that the Gaza war was exacting a “very heavy price” as the toll of soldiers killed in fighting with Hamas mounted.
“This is a difficult morning, after a very difficult day of fighting in Gaza,” he said after the army announced 14 soldiers had been killed in the Palestinian territory since Friday.
“The war is exacting a very heavy price... but we have no choice but to keep fighting,” he added in a statement.
“We are continuing with full force until the end, until victory, until we achieve all of our goals: the destruction of Hamas, the return of our hostages and ensuring that Gaza will never again constitute a threat to the State of Israel.”
He added: “Let it be clear: This will be a long war... (until) Hamas is eliminated and we restore security in both the north and the south.”
Since Israel’s ground assault began on October 27, the military has lost 153 soldiers in the Palestinian territory, including 10 on Saturday, making it one of the deadliest days for the army, which is also facing Hezbollah militants across its northern border with Lebanon.

Gaza war rages on Christmas Eve

Israel pushed on Sunday with its military campaign to destroy Hamas over the October 7 attacks, as the focus of the deadly combat shifted to southern Gaza where most displaced Palestinians are trapped.
US President Joe Biden stressed the “critical need” to protect civilians, in a call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who vowed Israel would “continue the war until all of its goals have been achieved,” officials said.
As heavy fighting raged on, the Israeli army said it had struck another 200 targets in the past 24 hours in the besieged Palestinian territory where it is seeking to defeat Hamas and free remaining hostages.
The army said soldiers had raided a northern Gaza compound near schools, a mosque and a clinic and found “explosive belts adapted for children, dozens of mortar shells, hundreds of grenades and intelligence documents.”
Hamas rejected those claims as lies meant “to justify their massacring of innocent civilians and their destructive aggression that has affected the entire infrastructure... in the already blockaded Gaza Strip.”
The bloodiest ever Gaza war broke out when Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7 and its Islamist militants killed about 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
The gunmen also seized around 250 hostages, 129 of whom are believed to remain in Gaza following the exchange of captives for Palestinians prisoners during a week-long truce late last month.
Israel’s withering military campaign, including massive aerial bombardment, has killed 20,424 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Vast areas of Gaza lie in ruins and its 2.4 million people have endured dire shortages of water, food, fuel and medicine due to an Israeli siege, alleviated only by the limited arrival of aid trucks.
Eighty percent of Gazans have been displaced, according to the UN, many now shielding against the winter cold in makeshift tents and forced into the south of Gaza even as ground fighting comes closer.
Near the far southern Gaza city of Rafah, Umm Amir Abu Al-Awf, 27, suffered wounds to her hand and legs in a strike on her house early Sunday.
“Who won?” she said. “Nothing has been achieved except killing civilians... They keep saying Rafah is safe. It is not safe. Nowhere is safe. Every house has a martyr and injured.”

Expanding the offensive
Israeli military spokesman Jonathan Conricus indicated that forces were close to gaining operational control in northern Gaza and that now “we focus our efforts against Hamas in southern Gaza.”
Fighting has raged in the main southern city of Khan Yunis, the birthplace of Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’ leader in Gaza and the man Israel holds most responsible for the October 7 attack.
Elsewhere, Palestinian rescuers scrambled again to pull survivors and bodies from the rubble of a destroyed residential building, after a strike hit in the central city of Deir Al-Balah.
“I was praying when a huge explosion occurred,” said Yazan Moqbel, a wounded man whose sister was still under the broken concrete. “Rubble fell on us. I didn’t know what happened.”
The head of the UN refugee agency, Filippo Grandi, urged an end to the suffering in the third month of the war.
“For aid to reach people in need, hostages to be released, more displacement to be avoided and above all stop the appalling loss of lives, a humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza is the only way forward,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
“War defies logic and humanity, and prepares a future of more hatred and less peace.”
On Friday, the United States allowed the passage of a UN Security Council resolution that effectively called on Israel to allow “immediate, safe and unhindered” deliveries of life-saving aid to Gaza “at scale.”
World powers had wrangled for days over the wording and, at Washington’s insistence, toned down some provisions — including removing a call for a cease-fire.
One displaced Gazan, Ahmad Al-Burawi, now living in Rafah in southern Gaza, said: “We just want to return to our lands, that’s all. We want a solution... People are dying.”

Cancelled celebrations
As the war rages on, Christians around the world celebrate Christmas Eve, and festivities are usually held in the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem where they believe Jesus was born.
But this year the city is almost deserted, with few worshippers around and no Christmas tree erected, after church leaders decided to forego “any unnecessarily festive” celebrations, in solidarity with Gazans.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas voiced hope Christmas would mark “a cessation of the Israeli war against the Palestinian people in Gaza, as well as across the occupied Palestinian territories.”
The Gaza war has heightened tensions across the Middle East, where Israel faces a range of enemies — Iran-backed armed groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen that have voiced strong support for Hamas.
Cross-border fire has erupted almost daily between Israel and Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah movement.
And Yemen’s Houthi rebels have fired at cargo vessels in the Red Sea, leading the United States to build a naval taskforce to deter the missile and drone strikes.
The US military said four drones had targeted the USS Laboon, but had been shot down, and that an Indian-flagged tanker was hit and sent out a distress call.
Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Ali Bagheri, denied the Islamic republic was orchestrating the campaign, saying the Houthis act on their “own decisions and capabilities.”
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron, in an interview published Sunday, branded Iran “a thoroughly malign influence in the region and in the world.”

 


Families yearn for an end to PKK-Turkiye war

Updated 18 February 2025
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Families yearn for an end to PKK-Turkiye war

  • The PKK’s jailed founder Abdullah Ocalan is widely expected to urge followers to lay down their arms in the coming weeks
  • The new peace efforts are backed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, and families on both sides of the divide want it to succeed

DIYARBAKIR, Turkiye: A mother weeping for a teenaged daughter shot dead by a Turkish sniper and a father mourning a son killed by PKK militants are among countless families hoping that a new peace drive can end Turkiye’s four-decade-old Kurdish conflict.
Both live in the Kurdish-majority southeast, where tens of thousands of lives have been lost in violence between the Turkish state and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The new peace efforts are backed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, and families on both sides of the divide want it to succeed.

Fahriye Cukur (L) and Mustafa Cukur hold a portrait of their daughter Rozerin, who was killed in 2016 during fierce clashes between militants and security forces in January 2016, during an interview in Diyarbakir, southeastern Turkey, on February 14, 2025. (AFP)

At her home in the city of Diyarbakir, Fahriye Cukur, 63, cannot take her eyes off a picture on the wall of her daughter Rozerin in school uniform. She was killed during clashes between militants and security forces in January 2016.
The collapse of a truce in 2015 sparked a new round of the conflict when many government curfews were imposed, including in the city’s Sur district.
Cukur said her daughter — who was passionate about photography — had gone to Sur during a break in a curfew to collect exam papers from friends. But the authorities suddenly reduced the break from five hours to three and the fighting reignited.
“People were stuck there, including my daughter. She took refuge at the home of an elderly couple, but when she tried to leave, she was shot by a sniper,” her mother told AFP.
The family found out about the death through a news bulletin.

It took five months, several protests and a hunger strike for the grieving parents to get her body back.

A women walks next to the Four-Legged Minaret Mosque where Kurdish lawyer Tahir Elci was shot dead at the historical Sur district in Diyarbakir, southeastern Turkey, on February 14, 2025. (AFP)

Cukur said the authorities had mixed up their teenage daughter with a female PKK fighter, codenamed Roza, who had been hiding in the same district.
They claimed she had been trained in the mountains, but her mother told AFP: “My daughter was never engaged in political activism.
“She loved school, she wanted to become a psychiatrist and help her people,” she added, indicating the “TC” insignia — meaning “republic of Turkiye” — on her school uniform.
The PKK’s jailed founder Abdullah Ocalan is widely expected to urge followers to lay down their arms in the coming weeks.
Many families hope this will end the conflict and spare other families from the pain they live with.
“We can’t forget what happened but we have to hope. I have two more kids: how do I know the same thing won’t happen to them tomorrow?” she said.
Last month, the International Crisis Group said clashes between the militants and Turkish troops were largely confined to northern parts of Iraq and Syria, with violence on Turkish soil at its lowest level since 2015.
“At least we can breathe a bit now,” she said.
“I want the bloodshed to stop. I want a ceasefire. And I am not alone.”

In the nearby province of Mardin, Sehmuz Kaya, a 67-year-old Kurd, recalled how his son Vedat, a police officer, was kidnapped by PKK militants in eastern Turkiye in July 2015.
Vedat Kaya, wearing civilian clothes, was in a car with his brother and four others when militants blocked the road.
“They only kidnapped Vedat,” he told AFP, saying it was months before the family saw a PKK video of him in the Kandil mountains of northern Iraq.
The family tried every possible channel, through the state and the main pro-Kurdish party, to secure his release.
But after six years, they received a devastating call from the authorities, who said he was one of the 13 “Gara martyrs.” The 13, all but one of whom were soldiers or police, had been killed by the PKK in the Gara region of northern Iraq.
“I was devastated,” he said, struggling for words, saying his son had been tortured before his death.
“They have no faith nor conscience. My son was just doing his job,” he said.
Pinned on the ceiling is a huge Turkish flag, and on the walls are photos of Vedat, whose name has been given to a nearby park.
Although he wants peace more than anything, he admitted he has little faith.
“They are not honest,” he snapped, referring to DEM, the main pro-Kurdish party that is relaying messages from Ocalan to the government. He suspects they have ties to the PKK.
“The families of the martyrs are heartbroken. Enough is enough,” he said. “We support the process but we want something real.”
 

 


Israel defense minister announces agency for ‘voluntary departure’ of Gazans

A photograph taken by a drone shows tents amidst the destruction caused by the Israeli air and ground offensive in Beit Lahiya.
Updated 18 February 2025
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Israel defense minister announces agency for ‘voluntary departure’ of Gazans

  • Earlier this month, Katz said he had ordered the army to formulate a plan to allow Palestinians to leave Gaza

JERUSALEM: Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said Monday that a special agency would be established for the “voluntary departure” of Gazans, after Israel expressed commitment to a US proposal to take over the Palestinian territory and expel its residents.
“Defense Minister Israel Katz held a meeting today (Monday) on the voluntary departure of Gaza residents, at the end of which he decided that a directorate for the voluntary departure of Gaza residents would be established within the ministry of defense,” a ministry statement said.
Earlier this month, Katz said he had ordered the army to formulate a plan to allow Palestinians to leave Gaza, adding that he welcomed “Trump’s bold plan, which could allow a large portion of Gaza’s population to relocate to various places around the world.”
An initial plan presented during the meeting on Monday “includes extensive assistance that will allow any Gaza resident who wishes to emigrate voluntarily to a third country to receive a comprehensive package, which includes, among other things, special departure arrangements via sea, air, and land,” the statement added.
Earlier on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was “committed to US President Donald Trump’s plan for the creation of a different Gaza,” also promising that after the war, “there will be neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority” ruling the territory.
Trump’s repeated proposal for a US “takeover” of Gaza and the resettlement of Palestinians in other countries such as Egypt and Jordan lacks detail but has triggered widespread international outrage.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel sparked the Gaza Strip’s deadliest war and resulted in the deaths of 1,211 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 48,284 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory that the United Nations considers reliable.
More than 15 months of war destroyed or damaged more than 69 percent of Gaza’s buildings, displaced almost the entire population, and triggered widespread hunger, according to the United Nations.


Zelensky says arrived in Turkiye for talks with Erdogan

Updated 17 February 2025
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Zelensky says arrived in Turkiye for talks with Erdogan

KYIV, Ukraine: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday he had arrived in Turkiye for talks with Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on prisoner exchanges and other matters.
“Official visit with the First Lady to Turkiye. Meetings with President Erdogan and First Lady Emine Erdogan,” Zelensky said on his Telegram account.


 

 


In first, French minister visits Western Sahara claimed by Morocco

Updated 17 February 2025
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In first, French minister visits Western Sahara claimed by Morocco

  • Algeria has backed the separatist Polisario Front and had already cut diplomatic relations with Rabat in 2021 — the year after Morocco normalized ties with Israel under a deal that awarded it US recognition of its annexation of the Western Sahara

LAAYOUNE: France’s Culture Minister Rachida Dati became on Monday the first French official to make a formal visit to the Western Sahara, a sign of Paris’s recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed territory.
“This is the first time that a French minister has come to the southern provinces,” Dati told AFP, using Morocco’s name for the area, a former Spanish colony controlled by Rabat but claimed by the Algeria-backed Polisario Front.
Dati described the visit as “historic.”
The United Nations considers Western Sahara a “non-self-governing territory” and has had a peacekeeping mission there since 1991, whose stated aim is to organize a referendum on the territory’s future.
But Rabat has repeatedly rejected any vote in which independence is an option, instead proposing autonomy under Morocco.
Dati, accompanied by Moroccan Culture Minister Mohamed Mehdi Bensaid, launched a French cultural mission in Laayoune, Western Sahara’s main city.
She promised to open the territory’s first French culture center to “benefit children in the region, but also teachers, schools, students and teacher trainers.”
In Dakhla, the Western Sahara’s second city some 530 kilometers (330 miles) south of Laayoune, Dati said she is set to sign a cooperation agreement in the field of cinema and audiovisual art.
France’s stance on Western Sahara has been ambiguous in recent years, often straining ties between Rabat and Paris.
But in July, French President Emmanuel Macron said that Morocco’s autonomy plan was the “only basis” to resolve the Western Sahara dispute.
The turnabout marked by Macron’s statement drew a strong reaction from Algiers.
Algeria has backed the separatist Polisario Front and had already cut diplomatic relations with Rabat in 2021 — the year after Morocco normalized ties with Israel under a deal that awarded it US recognition of its annexation of the Western Sahara.
Macron renewed French support for Morocco’s plan in October, pledging investments and a “strong and exceptional partnership.”
Also in October, the UN Security Council called for parties to “resume negotiations” to reach a “lasting and mutually acceptable solution” for the Western Sahara dispute.
 

 


Israel minister says Hamas must leave Gaza, surrender arms

Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Israel should go for a “complete conquest” of Gaza. (File/AFP)
Updated 17 February 2025
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Israel minister says Hamas must leave Gaza, surrender arms

  • “If Hamas refuses this ultimatum, Israel will open the gates of hell,” said Smotrich, echoing an expression used by both Trump and Netanyahu

JERUSALEM: Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Monday that Hamas militants must surrender their arms and leave Gaza.
He was speaking ahead of a cabinet meeting to discuss the next phase of the truce between Israel and Hamas Palestinian militants.
Smotrich in a video statement said he “will demand a vote” by ministers on US President Donald Trump’s plan and that Israel must “issue a clear ultimatum to Hamas — immediately release all hostages, leave Gaza for other countries, and lay down your arms.”
“If Hamas refuses this ultimatum, Israel will open the gates of hell,” said Smotrich, echoing an expression used by both Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
A strong opponent of stopping the war, he has threatened to quit Netanyahu’s ruling coalition if the war is not resumed after the end of the first stage of the ceasefire.
Trump’s plan lacked detail but has triggered widespread outrage internationally for his call to resettle Palestinians in other countries such as Egypt and Jordan under a US “takeover” of Gaza.
Smotrich said Israel should go for a “complete conquest” of the territory.
According to Israeli media, the security cabinet convened on Monday evening to discuss phase two of the fragile ceasefire which began on January 19.
More than 15 months of war destroyed or damaged more than 69 percent of Gaza’s buildings, displaced almost the entire population, and triggered widespread hunger, according to the United Nations.
“It’s them or us. Either we crush Hamas, or God forbid, Hamas will crush us,” Smotrich said.
“I call on the prime minister to declare that once the war resumes after Phase One, Israel will, from the first day, seize 10 percent of Gaza’s territory, establish full sovereignty there, and immediately apply Israeli law,” he added.
“Furthermore, it must be announced that once combat resumes, all humanitarian aid will be completely halted.”
Smotrich further said that according to a plan currently in preparation “Gaza’s residents will be allowed to leave, but only in one direction — with no possibility of return.”
“The loss of territory is the only heavy price our enemies understand — the only thing that will make them realize we are serious,” Smotrich added.
Since the first phase of the truce began last month, 19 Israeli hostages have been released in exchange for more than 1,100 Palestinian prisoners.
Out of 251 people seized in Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the war, 70 remain in Gaza, including 35 the Israeli military says are dead.