Hamas warns Israeli invasion of Rafah will ‘torpedo’ hostage talks

A smoke plume erupts during Israeli bombardment over Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on February 11, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. (AFP)
Short Url
Updated 11 February 2024
Follow

Hamas warns Israeli invasion of Rafah will ‘torpedo’ hostage talks

  • Rafah, on the border with Egypt, has remained the last refuge for Palestinians fleeing Israel’s relentless bombardment elsewhere in the Gaza Strip in its four-month war against Hamas

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Hamas warned Israel on Sunday that a ground offensive in Rafah, crowded with displaced Gazans, would imperil future hostage releases, while US President Joe Biden urged the protection of civilians in the besieged territory.
Foreign governments, including Israel’s key ally the United States, and aid groups have voiced deep concern over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vow to extend operations into the far-southern Gaza city.
Rafah, on the border with Egypt, has remained the last refuge for Palestinians fleeing Israel’s relentless bombardment elsewhere in the Gaza Strip in its four-month war against Hamas, triggered by the group’s October 7 attack.
“Any attack by the occupation army on the city of Rafah would torpedo the exchange negotiations,” a Hamas leader told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Netanyahu has told troops to prepare to enter the city which now hosts more than half of Gaza’s total population, spurring concern about the impact on displaced civilians.
Biden spoke to Netanyahu on the phone Sunday and told him the Gaza advance should not go ahead in the absence of a “credible” plan to ensure “the safety” of people sheltering there, the White House said.
Some 1.4 million Palestinians have crowded into Rafah, with many living in tents while food, water and medicine are becoming increasingly scarce.
Netanyahu had told US broadcaster ABC News the Rafah operation would go ahead until Hamas is eliminated, adding he would provide “safe passage” to civilians wishing to leave.
When pressed about where they could go, Netanyahu said: “You know, the areas that we’ve cleared north of Rafah, plenty of areas there. But, we are working out a detailed plan.”
Mediators held new talks in Cairo for a pause in the fighting and the release of some of the 132 hostages Israel says are still in Gaza, including 29 thought to be dead.
Hamas seized some 250 hostages on October 7, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures. Dozens were released during a one-week truce in November.
Hamas’s military wing on Sunday said two hostages had been killed and eight others seriously wounded in Israeli bombardment in recent days, a claim AFP is unable to independently verify.
Netanyahu has faced calls for early elections and mounting protests over his administration’s failure to bring home the hostages.
Israeli strikes have long hit targets in Rafah, and combat on Sunday seemed intense several kilometers (miles) to the north in Khan Yunis city. AFP correspondents heard repeated explosions and saw plumes of black smoke.
Israel’s military said troops were conducting “targeted raids” in the west of Khan Yunis, southern Gaza’s main city, while Hamas reported violent clashes and said air strikes also hit Rafah.
Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Israel has responded with a relentless offensive in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip that the territory’s health ministry says has killed at least 28,176 people, mostly women and children.
Hamas said dozens of bodies had been found in Gaza City, in the coastal strip’s north, after Israeli ground troops withdrew from the area.
Most of them “were martyred by bullets of snipers,” the group said in a statement.
Hossam Al-Sharqawi of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies told reporters that “every day our ambulance guys (in Gaza) are martyred or injured.”
“This is unacceptable, this madness must stop.”
During a visit to a military base Sunday, Netanyahu said Israel aims for “the demilitarization of Gaza.”
“This requires our security control... over the entire area west of Jordan, including the Gaza Strip,” he said.
The United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) were some of the latest to raise the alarm over the plan for Rafah, Gaza’s last major population center that Israeli troops have yet to enter.
“The OIC strongly warned that the continuation and expansion of the Israeli military aggression is part of rejected attempts to forcibly expel the Palestinian people from their land,” the 57-nation Jeddah-based bloc said on social media.
It stressed “that such acts fall under genocide and would lead to a humanitarian catastrophe and collective massacre.”
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also rejected “forced” displacement of people from Rafah, evoking the trauma of Palestinians’ mass exodus and forced displacement around the time of Israel’s creation in 1948.
Riyadh called for an urgent UN Security Council meeting, while Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Cameron said the priority “must be an immediate pause in the fighting to get aid in and hostages out.”
Denouncing a “genocide” in Gaza, thousands rallied Sunday in Morocco’s capital Rabat and called on their government to undo a 2020 normalization pact with Israel.
Gazans, driven further and further south, have repeatedly said they can find no safe refuge from the fighting and bombing.
Farah Muhammad, 39, a mother of five displaced to Rafah from northern Gaza, said she felt helpless.
“There is no place to escape.”


Israeli strikes kill dozens in Gaza as US pushes for ceasefire

Updated 2 sec ago
Follow

Israeli strikes kill dozens in Gaza as US pushes for ceasefire

  • US, Qatar, Egypt intensify ceasefire efforts amid ongoing conflict
  • Israel says it will not end the war until Hamas is dismantled, hostages free
CAIRO: Israeli military strikes across Gaza killed at least 22 people on Wednesday, Palestinian medics said, as the US stepped up efforts to overcome sticking points between Israel and Hamas to reach a ceasefire to end the war.
One of the airstrikes killed at least 10 people in a multi-story house in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City on Wednesday, while another killed five in the nearby Zeitoun suburb, medics said.
In Deir Al-Balah city in central Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are sheltering, an Israeli airstrike killed three other people.
In Jabalia, where the army has operated for more than three weeks, an Israeli airstrike killed four people, medics said.
On Tuesday, Israeli military strikes killed at least 24 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip, medics said, with two airstrikes hitting tent encampments in Mawasi, to the west of the southern city of Khan Younis, killing 18 people. The dead included several women and children.
There was no comment by the Israeli military on those incidents.
As Israeli continued its bombardments, the US, Qatar and Egypt were making the most intensive effort in months to reach a ceasefire, with one source close to the talks saying this was the most serious attempt to reach a deal so far.
The outgoing US administration has called for a final push for a deal before President Joe Biden leaves office, and many in the region view President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20 as an unofficial deadline.
“Things are better than ever before, but there is no deal yet,” the source told Reuters.
But with the clock ticking, both sides accuse the other of blocking a deal by adhering to conditions that have torpedoed all previous peace efforts for more than a year.
On Tuesday, Hamas stood by its demand that it will only free its remaining hostages if Israel agrees to end the war and withdraw all its troops from Gaza. Israel says it will not end the war until Hamas is dismantled and all hostages are free. Hamas also said that Trump was rash to say there would be “hell to pay” unless the hostages go free by his inauguration.
Osama Hamdan, an official with the Islamist group, told a news conference in Algiers on Tuesday: “I think the US president must make more disciplined and diplomatic statements.”
Nearly 46,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s assault on Gaza, according to health officials in the enclave. The assault was launched after Hamas fighters stormed Israeli territory on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and capturing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

EU could lift some Syria sanctions quickly, France says

Updated 13 min 9 sec ago
Follow

EU could lift some Syria sanctions quickly, France says

PARIS: European Union sanctions in Syria that obstruct the delivery of humanitarian aid and hinder the country’s recovery could be lifted swiftly, France’s foreign minister said Wednesday.
The United States on Monday issued a sanctions exemption for transactions with governing institutions in Syria for six months after the end of Bashar Assad’s rule to try to ease the flow of humanitarian assistance.
Speaking to France Inter radio, Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said the EU could take a similar decision soon without giving precise timing, while adding that lifting more political sanctions would depend on how Syria’s new leadership handled the transition and ensured exclusivity.
“There are other (sanctions), which today hinder access to humanitarian aid, which hinder the recovery of the country. These could be lifted quickly,” said Barrot, who met Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa on Friday with Germany’s foreign minister.
“Finally, there are other sanctions, which we are discussing with our European partners, which could be lifted, but obviously depending on the pace at which our expectations for Syria regarding women and security are taken into account.”
Three European diplomats speaking on condition of anonymity said the EU would seek to agree to lift some sanctions by the time the bloc’s 27 foreign ministers meet in Brussels on Jan. 27.
Two of the diplomats said one aim was to facilitate financial transactions to allow funds to return to the country, ease air transport and lessen sanctions targeting the energy sector to improve power supplies.
Syria suffers from severe power shortages, with state-supplied electricity available two or three hours per day in most areas. The caretaker government says it aims to provide electricity for up to eight hours per day within two months.
The US waivers allow some energy transactions and personal remittances to Syria until July 7, but do not remove any sanctions.


Lebanon to extradite son of late Muslim cleric Al-Qaradawi to UAE, PM’s office says

Updated 08 January 2025
Follow

Lebanon to extradite son of late Muslim cleric Al-Qaradawi to UAE, PM’s office says

  • The UAE and Egypt have both filed requests for his extradition

CAIRO: Lebanon is set to extradite the son of late senior Muslim cleric Youssef Al-Qaradawi to the United Arab Emirates after the country’s caretaker cabinet approved the move on Tuesday, the Lebanese prime minister’s office said.
Abdul Rahman Al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian-Turkish poet, was detained in Lebanon on Dec. 28 after returning from Syria, according to his lawyer Mohammad Sablouh and human rights group Amnesty International.
Youssef was stopped by Lebanese authorities on the basis of an Egyptian court ruling against him that dates back to 2016.
The arrest was made based on an Interpol notice issued by the Arab Interior Ministers Council based on the 2016 court ruling to imprison Youssef for three years on charges of spreading false news.
The UAE and Egypt have both filed requests for his extradition.
Qaradawi’s lawyer said he would file an urgent appeal to block his extradition on Wednesday morning but feared his client might be flown out of the country before then.


UN calls for $370m in new humanitarian aid for Lebanon

Imran Riza, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, attends an interview with Reuters in Beirut, Lebanon October 3, 2024.
Updated 08 January 2025
Follow

UN calls for $370m in new humanitarian aid for Lebanon

  • Following nearly a year of exchanges of cross-border fire initiated by Hezbollah over the war in Gaza, Israel in September stepped up its bombing campaign and later sent troops into Lebanon

UNITED NATIONS, United States: The United Nations joined the Lebanese government on Tuesday to appeal for an additional $371.4 million in humanitarian aid for people displaced by the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
The extension builds on an initial aid appeal for $426 million launched in October, as all-out war flared between the two sides and sent hundreds of thousands in Lebanon fleeing their homes.
That appeal raised approximately $250 million, according to the UN.
Following nearly a year of exchanges of cross-border fire initiated by Hezbollah over the war in Gaza, Israel in September stepped up its bombing campaign and later sent troops into Lebanon.
After two months of warring, in which Hezbollah’s influential chief Hassan Nasrallah and multiple other leaders were killed, a ceasefire deal was reached that went into effect in late November.
“While the cessation of hostilities offers hope, over 125,000 people remain displaced, and hundreds of thousands more face immense challenges rebuilding their lives,” Imran Riza, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon, said in a statement Tuesday.
The additional funding “is urgently required to sustain life-saving efforts and prevent further deterioration of an already dire situation,” he added.
The appeal is primarily aimed to assist an estimated one million Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian refugees affected by the conflict, funding a three-month period of emergency efforts through March 2025.
Since the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon began on November 27, more than 800,000 displaced people in Lebanon have been able to return home, according to UN figures.
 

 


Qatar and Turkiye dispatch two power ships to generate electricity for Syria

Updated 08 January 2025
Follow

Qatar and Turkiye dispatch two power ships to generate electricity for Syria

  • The vessels, which have power plants installed, are expected to increase the amount of electricity generated in the country by about 50 percent
  • Syria’s energy infrastructure was badly damaged during the decade-long civil war, with most areas receiving power for only two or three hours a day

LONDON: Qatar and Turkiye sent two power-generating ships to Syria on Tuesday to help address the energy crisis in the country caused by insufficient electricity supplies.

Khaled Abu Di, the director of Syria’s Public Establishment for Transmission and Distribution of Electricity, said the floating power plants are capable of generating a total of 800 megawatts a day, which would increase the amount of electricity generated in the country by about 50 percent, state news agency SANA reported.

Syria’s energy infrastructure was badly damaged during more than a decade of civil war in the country that culminated in the fall of the ruling Assad regime in December. The deterioration resulted in severe power shortages, with many areas receiving electricity for only two or three hours a day.

Abu Di said efforts are underway to secure transmission lines to deliver the electricity generated by the ships. He added that his team is also working to repair dozens of damaged conversion plants and connection lines to get the national grid up and running again.