RAFAH, Gaza Strip: The head of the main UN aid agency in the war-battered Gaza Strip warned late Saturday that its work is collapsing after nine countries decided to cut funding over allegations that several agency employees had participated in the deadly Hamas attack against Israel four months ago.
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNWRA, said he was shocked such decisions were taken as “famine looms” in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. “Palestinians in Gaza did not need this additional collective punishment,” he wrote on X. “This stains all of us.”
His warning came a day after he announced he had fired and was investigating several agency employees over allegations that they participated in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that sparked the war. The United States, which said 12 agency employees were under investigation, immediately said it is suspending funding, followed by several other countries, including Britain, Italy and Finland.
The agency, which has 13,000 employees in Gaza, most of them Palestinians, is the main organization aiding Gaza’s population amid the humanitarian disaster. More than 2 million of the territory’s 2.3 million people depend on it for “sheer survival,” including food and shelter, Lazzarini said, warning this lifeline can “collapse any time now.”
The Israel-Hamas war has killed more than 26,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, destroyed vast swaths of Gaza and displaced nearly 85 percent of the territory’s 2.3 million people. The Hamas attack in southern Israel killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and about 250 hostages were taken.
In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back Saturday after the International Court of Justice ruling to limit death and destruction in the military’s Gaza offensive, declaring that “we decide and act according to what is required for our security.”
Among the first deaths reported since the ruling, witnesses said three Palestinians were killed in an airstrike that Israel said targeted a Hamas commander.
Israel’s military is under increasing scrutiny now that the top United Nations court has asked Israel for a compliance report in a month. The court’s binding ruling on Friday stopped short of ordering a ceasefire, but its orders were in part a rebuke of Israel’s conduct in its nearly 4-month war against Gaza’s Hamas rulers.
At least 174 Palestinians were killed over the past day, the Health Ministry in Gaza said. It does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its tolls, but has said about two-thirds are women and children.
Israel holds Hamas responsible for civilian casualties, saying the militants embed themselves in the local population. Israel says its air and ground offensive in Gaza has killed more than 9,000 militants.
Israel’s military said it had conducted several “targeted raids on terror targets” in the southern city of Khan Younis in addition to the airstrike in nearby Rafah targeting a Hamas commander.
Bilal Al-Siksik said his wife, a son and a daughter were killed in the Rafah strike, which came as they slept. He said the UN court ruling meant little since it did not stop the war.
“No one can speak in front of them (Israel). America with all its greatness and strength can do nothing,” he said, standing beside the rubble and twisted metal of his home.
More than 1 million people have crammed into Rafah and the surrounding areas after Israel ordered civilians to seek refuge there. Designated evacuation areas have repeatedly come under airstrikes, with Israel saying it would go after militants as needed.
In Muwasi, a narrow coastal strip once designated as a safe zone but struck in recent days, displaced Palestinians tiptoed on sandaled feet through garbage-lined puddles in damp and chilly weather. Walls of sheets and tarps billowed in the wind. A mother wept after rain leaked in and soaked the blankets.
“This is our life. We have nothing and we left (our homes) with nothing,” said Bassam Bolbol, whose family ended up in Muwasi after leaving Khan Younis and finding no shelter in Rafah.
Frustration with the uncertainty grows. As thousands of Gazans fled Khan Younis toward Muwasi, Israel shared video showing a crowd appearing to call for bringing down Hamas.
The case brought by South Africa to the UN court alleged Israel is committing genocide against Gaza’s people, which Israel vehemently denies. A final ruling is expected to take years.
The court ordered Israel to urgently get aid to Gaza, where the UN has said aid entering the territory remains well below the daily average of 500 trucks before the war. The UN also says access to central and northern Gaza has been decreasing because of “excessive delays” at checkpoints and heightened military activity.
The World Health Organization and the medical charity MSF issued urgent warnings about the largest health facility in Khan Younis, Nasser Hospital, saying remaining staff could barely function with supplies running out and intense fighting nearby.
WHO footage showed people in the crowded facility being treated on blood-smeared floors as frantic loved ones shouted and jostled. Cats scavenged on a mound of medical waste.
“These are the only painkillers left we have. If you want to count them, they are only for maybe five or four patients,” Dr. Muhammad Harara said.
Gaza’s Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qidra said in a statement that Nasser Hospital lacked anesthesia and other medicines for intensive care units and had “dangerous” shortages of blood.
The United States, Israel’s closest ally, has increasingly called for restraint and for more humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza while supporting the offensive.
More mediation lies ahead in search of a deal to secure the release of hostages who remain captive in Gaza. Over 100 were released in a swap for Palestinian prisoners during a week-long ceasefire in November. An unspecified number of the remaining 136 are believed to be dead.
The US CIA director will meet in Europe with the head of the intelligence agencies of Israel and Egypt and with the prime minister of Qatar, according to three people familiar with the matter who insisted on anonymity to discuss the sensitive talks.
Netanyahu in his address said he would not take back “a single word” of his earlier criticism of Qatar, again accusing it of hosting Hamas leaders and funding Hamas.
“If they position themselves as a mediator, so please, let them prove it and bring back the hostages, and in the meantime deliver the medicines to them,” he said.
While the prime minister’s comments appeared to be aimed at his right-leaning base of supporters, other Israelis again gathered in Tel Aviv and outside Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem to call for new elections, frustrated with the government’s failure to bring all hostages home. Israel also was marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day, alongside other countries around the world.
Hamas has said it will only release the hostages in exchange for an end to the war and the release of large numbers of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
Embattled UN agency warns its aid operation in Gaza is ‘collapsing’ over a wave of funding cuts
https://arab.news/cspq6
Embattled UN agency warns its aid operation in Gaza is ‘collapsing’ over a wave of funding cuts
- 9 countries decided to cut funding to agency over allegations several employees participated in Oct. 7 attacks against Israel
- The agency, which has 13,000 employees in Gaza, most of them Palestinians, is the main organization aiding Gaza’s population
Sudan’s army chief welcomes Turkish offer to resolve conflict: FM
- The war in Sudan has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted 12 million more
PORT SUDAN, Sudan: Sudan’s army chief has welcomed a Turkish offer to resolve the brutal 20-month conflict between his forces and their paramilitary rivals, the Sudanese foreign minister said.
In early December, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a phone call with Sudan’s Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan that Ankara could help establish “peace and stability” in the war-torn African state.
At a meeting in Port Sudan on Saturday, Burhan asked Turkiye’s deputy foreign minister Burhanettin Duran to “deliver the Sudanese leadership’s welcoming of the initiative” to Erdogan, Sudanese foreign minister Ali Youssef said in a briefing after the meeting.
“Sudan needs brothers and friends like Turkiye,” Youssef said, adding that “the initiative can lead to... realizing peace in Sudan.”
Erdogan said in his December call with Burhan that Turkiye “could step in to resolve disputes” and prevent Sudan from “becoming an area of external interventions,” according to a statement from the Turkish presidency.
Following his meeting with Burhan on Saturday, Turkiye’s Duran said that the peace process “entails concerted efforts,” and that his country was ready to play a “role in mobilizing other regional actors to help overcoming the difficulties in ending this conflict.”
In a statement last week, the UAE welcomed “diplomatic efforts” by Turkiye to “resolve the ongoing crisis in Sudan.”
“The UAE is fully prepared to cooperate and coordinate with the Turkish efforts and all diplomatic initiatives to end the conflict in Sudan and find a comprehensive solution to the crisis,” its foreign ministry said.
The war in Sudan, which has pitted Burhan against his former deputy and RSF chief Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted 12 million more.
It has also pushed the country to the brink of famine, with analysts warning involvement from other countries will only prolong the suffering.
Syrian FM visits Qatar as new authorities seek regional and global diplomatic ties
- The Syrian minister’s visit to Qatar is his second foreign trip less than a month since former President Bashar Assad was ousted
DOHA: DAMASCUS: Syria’s new foreign minister met with his Qatari counterpart and Qatar’s prime minister in Doha on Sunday, as Syria’s new de facto authorities under Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham establish diplomatic ties with regional and global governments.
Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shibani posted on X that he’s also set to visit Jordan and the United Arabs Emirates to develop strategic partnerships, and support Syria’s security and economic recovery.
Al-Shibani met with his Saudi counterpart in Riyadh on Thursday. And he also welcomed the foreign ministers of Germany and France in Damascus on Friday.
HTS led a lightning insurgency that ousted President Bashar Assad on Dec. 8 and ended his family’s decades-long rule. From 2011 until Assad’s downfall, Syria’s uprising and civil war killed an estimated 500,000 people.
Much of the world ended diplomatic relations with Assad because of his crackdown on protesters, and sanctioned him and his Russian and Iranian associates.
Now, Syrian authorities hope to reestablish those ties and lift sanctions slapped on HTS and leader Ahmad Al-Sharaa to help make Syria’s battered economy viable again. Assad was backed by Russia, Iran and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. HTS now hopes Syria can strengthen ties with Arab countries in the region.
“We conveyed to Doha our concerns about the challenges related to the economic sanctions imposed on the Syrian people, and we renew our call on the United States to lift those sanctions,” Syrian radio station Sham FM quoted Al-Shibani as saying.
Around 90 percent of Syrians live in poverty, while more than half of the population doesn’t know where their next meal will come from, according to the United Nations.
Al-Sharaa has said he will hold a national dialogue summit that includes different groups across Syria to agree upon a new political road map leading to a new constitution and an election.
He vowed to dissolve HTS during the summit and has said in an interview with Saudi television network Al Arabiya that the de facto rulers are all of the same political background during this transitional phase for the sake of efficiency in running the country.
Still, it’s unclear whether Washington will lift sanctions anytime soon. Europe, meanwhile, appears hesitant because of fears over how religious minorities and women will be treated.
Red Cross says determining fate of Syria’s missing ‘huge challenge’
- The fate of tens of thousands of detainees and missing people remains one of the most harrowing legacies of Syria’s civil war
- Red Cross working with the caretaker authorities, NGOs and the Syrian Red Crescent to collect data to give families answers
DAMASCUS: Determining the fate of those who went missing during Syria’s civil war will be a massive task likely to take years, the president of the International Committee for the Red Cross said.
“Identifying the missing and informing the families about their fate is going to be a huge challenge,” ICRC president Mirjana Spoljaric said in an interview.
The fate of tens of thousands of detainees and missing people remains one of the most harrowing legacies of the conflict that started in 2011 when president Bashar Assad’s forces brutally repressed anti-government protests.
Many are believed to have been buried in mass graves after being tortured in Syria’s jails during a war that has killed more than half a million people.
Thousands have been released since Islamist-led militants ousted Assad last month, but many Syrians are still looking for traces of relatives and friends who went missing.
Spoljaric said the ICRC was working with the caretaker authorities, non-governmental organizations and the Syrian Red Crescent to collect data to give families answers as soon as possible.
But “the task is enormous,” she said in the interview late Saturday.
“It will take years to get clarity and to be able to inform everybody concerned. And there will be cases we will never (be able) to identify,” she added.
“Until recently, we’ve been following up on 35,000 cases, and since we established a new hotline in December, we are adding another 8,000 requests,” Spoljaric said.
“But that is just potentially a portion of the numbers.”
Spoljaric said the ICRC was offering the new authorities to “work with us to build the necessary institution and institutional capacities to manage the available data and to protect and gather what... needs to be collected.”
Human Rights Watch last month urged the new Syrian authorities to “secure, collect and safeguard evidence, including from mass grave sites and government records... that will be vital in future criminal trials.”
The rights group also called for cooperation with the ICRC, which could “provide critical expertise” to help safeguard the records and clarify the fate of missing people.
Spoljaric said: “We cannot exclude that data is going to be lost. But we need to work quickly to preserve what exists and to store it centrally to be able to follow up on the individual cases.”
More than half a century of brutal rule by the Assad family came to a sudden end in early December after a rapid militant offensive swept across Syria and took the capital Damascus.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, says more than 100,000 people have died in detention from torture or dire health conditions across Syria since 2011.
Syria monitor says fighting between pro-Turkiye, Kurdish forces kills 101
BEIRUT: More than 100 combatants were killed over the last two days in northern Syria in fighting between Turkish-backed groups and Syrian Kurdish forces, a war monitor said on Sunday.
Since Friday evening, clashes in several villages around the city of Manbij have left 101 dead, including 85 members of pro-Turkish groups and 16 from the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
In a statement, the SDF said it had repelled “all the attacks from Turkiye’s mercenaries supported by Turkish drones and aviation.”
Turkish-backed factions in northern Syria resumed their fight with the SDF at the same time Islamist-led rebels were launching an offensive on November 27 that overthrew Syrian president Bashar Assad just 11 days later.
They succeeded in capturing the cities of Manbij and Tal Rifaat in northern Aleppo province from the SDF.
The fighting has continued since, with heavy casualties.
According to Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Observatory, the Turkish-backed groups aim to take the cities of Kobani and Tabqa, before moving on to Raqqa.
The SDF controls vast areas of Syria’s northeast and parts of Deir Ezzor province in the east where the Kurds created an autonomous administration following the withdrawal of government forces during the civil war that began in 2011.
The group, which receives US backing, took control of much of its current territory, including Raqqa, after capturing it from the jihadists of the Daesh group.
Ankara considers the SDF an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought a decades-long insurgency in southeastern Turkiye and is banned as a terrorist organization by the government.
The Turkish military regularly launches strikes against Kurdish fighters in Syria and neighboring Iraq, accusing them of being PKK-linked.
Ahmed Al-Sharaa, Syria’s new leader and the head of the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), has previously said the SDF would be integrated into the country’s future army.
HTS led the coalition of rebel groups that overthrew Assad last month.
Israel-Hamas talks resume in Qatar as violence shows no let-up
- Israel’s defense chief says indirect negotiations with Hamas seek release of hostages
- Ninety-six Israeli hostages remain in Gaza, including 34 Israeli military says are dead
GAZA STRIP: Israel confirmed on Saturday that negotiations for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal had resumed in Qatar, as rescuers said more than 30 people had been killed in fresh bombardment of the territory.
The civil defense agency said a dawn air strike on the home of the Al-Ghoula family in Gaza City killed 11 people, seven of them children.
AFP images from the neighborhood of Shujaiya showed residents combing through smoking rubble. Bodies including those of small children were lined up on the ground, shrouded in white sheets.
As the violence raged, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed that indirect negotiations with Hamas had resumed in Qatar for the release of hostages seized in the October 2023 attacks.
The minister told relatives of one of the hostages, woman soldier Liri Albag, that “efforts are under way to free the hostages, notably the Israeli delegation which left yesterday (Friday) for negotiations in Qatar,” his office said.
Katz said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had given “detailed instructions for the continued negotiations.”
He was speaking after Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, released a video of Albag in captivity in Gaza.
In the undated, three-and-half-minute recording that AFP has not been able to verify, the 19-year-old conscript called in Hebrew for the Israeli government to secure her release.
In response, her family issued an appeal to Netanyahu, saying: “It’s time to take decisions as if it were your own children there.”
A total of 96 Israeli hostages remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said the latest video was “firm and incontestable proof of the urgency of bringing the hostages home.”
Hamas had said late on Friday that the negotiations were poised to resume.
The militant group, whose October 7, 2023, attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war, said they would “focus on ensuring the agreement leads to a complete cessation of hostilities (and) the withdrawal of occupation forces.”
Mediators Qatar, Egypt and the United States have been engaged in months of effort that have failed to end nearly 15 months of war.
In December, Qatar expressed optimism that “momentum” was returning to the talks following the US election of Donald Trump, who takes office in 16 days.
But Hamas and Israel then accused each other of setting new conditions and obstacles.
As the clock ticks down to the handover of power in Washington, the outgoing administration of President Joe Biden notified Congress of an $8 billion arms sale to Israel, a source familiar with the plan said on Saturday.
“The department has informally notified Congress of an $8 billion proposed sale of munitions to support Israel’s long-term security by resupplying stocks of critical munitions and air defense capabilities,” the official said.
The United States is Israel’s largest military supplier.
Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said the Ghoula home in Gaza City “was completely destroyed” by the dawn strike.
“It was a two-story building and several people are still under the rubble,” he said, adding Israeli drones had “also fired on ambulance staff.”
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli army did not immediately comment.
“A huge explosion woke us up. Everything was shaking,” said neighbor Ahmed Mussa.
“It was home to children, women. There wasn’t anyone wanted or who posed a threat.”
Elsewhere, the civil defense agency said an Israeli strike killed five security officers tasked with accompanying aid convoys as they drove through the southern city of Khan Yunis.
The Israeli army said the five had been “implicated in terrorist activities” and were not escorting aid trucks at the time of the strike.
Rescuers said strikes elsewhere in Gaza killed 10 other people.
AFP images showed Palestine Red Crescent paramedics in Gaza City moving the body of one of their colleagues, his green jacket laid over the blanket that covered his corpse.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said a total of 136 people had been killed over the previous 48 hours.
On Sunday, the Israeli military said it intercepted a missile launched from Yemen in the latest of a series of attacks.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have been firing missiles and drones at Israel — as well as at ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden — in what they say is a solidarity campaign with Palestinians during the war in Gaza.
The Hamas attack that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 45,717 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Gaza health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.
