GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Israel launched air strikes Thursday on southern Gaza’s Rafah after threatening to send troops into the city, where around 1.4 million Palestinians have sought shelter from around the territory.
Global powers trying to navigate a way to end the Israel-Hamas war have so far come up short, but a US envoy was expected in Israel on Thursday to try to secure a truce deal.
International concern has spiraled over the high civilian death toll and dire humanitarian crisis in the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack against Israel.
More than four months of relentless fighting and air strikes have flattened much of the Hamas-run coastal territory, pushing its population of around 2.4 million to the brink of famine, according to the UN.
International concern has in recent weeks centered on Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, where more than 1.4 million people forced to flee their homes elsewhere in the territory are now living in crowded shelters and makeshift tents.
The last city untouched by Israeli ground troops, Rafah also serves as the main entry point via neighboring Egypt for desperately needed relief supplies.
Israel has warned it will expand its ground operations into Rafah if Hamas does not free the remaining hostages held in Gaza by next month’s start of the Muslim holy month Ramadan.
The war started when Hamas launched its attack on October 7, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Hamas militants also took about 250 hostages — 130 of whom remain in Gaza, including 30 presumed dead, according to Israel.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 29,313 people, mostly women and children, according to the latest count by the Hamas-run health ministry in the territory.
War cabinet member Benny Gantz said Israel’s operation in Rafah would begin “after the evacuation of the population,” although his government has not offered any details on where civilians would be evacuated to.
In the early hours of Thursday, AFP reporters heard multiple air strikes on Rafah, particularly in the Al-Shaboura neighborhood.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said early Thursday that 99 people had been killed around Gaza during the night, most of them women, children and elderly people.
Abdel Rahman Mohamed Jumaa said he lost his family in recent strikes on Rafah.
“I found my wife lying in the street,” he said. “Then I saw a man carrying a girl and I ran toward him and.... picked her up, realizing she was really my daughter.”
He was holding a small shrouded corpse in his arms.
Brett McGurk, the White House coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, was expected to arrive in Israel Thursday — his second stop in the region after Egypt as part of US efforts to advance a hostage deal and broker a truce.
Hamas’s chief Ismail Haniyeh was in Cairo for talks as well, according to the group.
Israel’s Gantz said there were efforts to “promote a new plan for the return of the hostages.”
“We are seeing the first signs that indicate the possibility of progress in this direction.”
Matthew Miller, US State Department spokesman, said Washington was hoping for an “agreement that secures a temporary ceasefire where we can get the hostages out and get humanitarian assistance,” but declined to give details on ongoing negotiations.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted the army will keep fighting until it has destroyed Hamas and freed the remaining hostages.
Israel’s parliament on Wednesday overwhelmingly backed a proposal by Netanyahu to oppose any unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state.
The vote came days after the Washington Post reported that US President Joe Biden’s administration and a small group of Arab nations were working out a comprehensive plan for long-term peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
It included a firm timeline for the establishment of a Palestinian state, the report said.
Separately, a report by an Israeli group that fights sexual violence said Hamas’s October 7 attack also involved systematic sexual assaults on civilians, based on witness testimonies, public and classified information, and interviews.
The report came the same week UN rights experts called for an independent probe into alleged Israeli abuses against Palestinian women and girls — which Israel rejected as “despicable and unfounded claims.”
Israeli officials have repeatedly alleged the militants committed violent sexual assaults during the attack — something Hamas has denied.
Combat and chaos have stalled sporadic aid deliveries for civilians in Gaza, while in Khan Yunis — a city just north of Rafah — medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said an Israeli tank had fired on a house sheltering their employees and families.
Two relatives of MSF staff were killed and six others injured, it said, condemning the strike in the “strongest possible terms.”
When contacted by AFP about the incident, the Israeli army said its forces had “fired at a building that was identified as a building where terror activity is occurring,” adding that it “regrets” harm to civilians.
In the same town, the Palestinian Red Crescent said another hospital was also hit by “artillery shelling.”
Israel has repeatedly said Hamas militants use civilian infrastructure including hospitals as operational bases — claims that Hamas has denied.
Israel strikes Gaza’s Rafah as truce talks under way
https://arab.news/ct8qv
Israel strikes Gaza’s Rafah as truce talks under way
- Global powers trying to navigate a way to end the Israel-Hamas war have so far come up short
- International concern has in recent weeks centered on Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah
Syrian girls’ right to schooling unrestricted, new education minister says
Half of Syria’s schools destroyed or damaged, Qadri says
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Education minister assures girls’ right to education remains unchanged
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New rulers promise equal treatment for all minority groups
DAMASCUS: Syria will remove all references to the former ruling Baath party from its educational system as of next week but will not otherwise change school curricula or restrict the rights of girls to learn, the country’s new education minister said.
“Education is a red line for the Syrian people, more important than food and water,” Nazir Mohammad Al-Qadri said in an interview from his office in Damascus.
“The right to education is not limited to one specific gender. ... There may be more girls in our schools than boys,” he said.
The secular, pan-Arab nationalist Baath Party governed Syria since a 1963 coup d’etat, seeing education as an important tool for instilling life-long loyalty among the young to the country’s authoritarian ruling system.
President Bashar Assad was toppled on Dec. 8 by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), an Islamist rebel group that some Syrians fear may seek to implement a conservative form of Islamist governance.
But Qadri’s plans reflect their wider management approach and moderate messaging so far.
Syria has long been seen to have one of the Arab world’s strongest education systems, a reputation that has largely survived 13 years of civil war.
Qadri said religion — both Muslim and Christian — will continue to be taught as a subject in school.
Primary schools will remain mixed between boys and girls, while secondary education will stay largely segregated, he said.
“After primary school, there were always schools for females and schools for males. We won’t change that,” said Qadri, who had taken to his ornately-furnished office so recently that he had not yet procured Syria’s new green, white and black flag.
Syria’s new rulers, who have long-since disavowed their former Al-Qaeda links, have said that all of Syria’s minority groups including Kurds, Christians, Druze and Alawites will be treated equal as the new government focuses on rebuilding.
They face a formidable challenge.
Syria remains under tight Western sanctions.
Entire cities were levelled in 13 years of war that Qadri said had also left about half the country’s 18,000 schools damaged or destroyed.
But the rebels have moved into government fast, extending a hand to former state employees who have shown up to work in droves.
Most of the new ministers are young — in their 30s or 40s — making 54-year-old Qadri among the oldest in government.
Born and raised in Damascus, he was imprisoned by the Assad regime in 2008 on what he said were spurious charges of inciting sectarian strife, preventing him from finishing his bachelor’s degree.
He was released a decade later and fled to northern Idlib, then under the control of HTS, becoming education minister in its Salvation Government in 2022.
He is currently finishing his masters thesis in Arabic language.
With the political and social contours of the new Syrian state still being drawn, Qadri said students would not be tested on their mandatory “nationalist studies” — previously a vehicle for teaching Baathism and Assad family history — this year.
Palestinian health ministry says 4 killed in Israeli West Bank strike
RAMALLAH: The Palestinian health ministry said Thursday that an Israeli air strike on a car killed four Palestinians and wounded three near the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarem.
The ministry announced that the Palestinians were killed “as a result of the (Israeli) bombing of a vehicle in Tulkarem camp,” which the Israeli army did not immediately confirm to AFP.
Turkiye, Iran leaders at Muslim summit in Cairo
- Relations between Egypt and Iran have been strained for decades, but diplomatic contacts have intensified since Cairo became a mediator in the war in Gaza
CAIRO: The leaders of Turkiye and Iran were in Egypt on Thursday for a summit of eight Muslim-majority countries, meeting for the first time since the ouster of Syria’s president Bashar Assad.
Turkiye historically backed the opposition to Assad, while Iran supported his rule.
The gathering of the D-8 Organization for Economic Cooperation, also known as the Developing-8, was being held against a backdrop of regional turmoil including the conflict in Gaza, a fragile ceasefire in Lebanon and unrest in Syria.
In a speech to the summit, Turkiye’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for unity and reconciliation in Syria, urging “the restoration of Syria’s territorial integrity and unity.”
He also voiced hope for “the establishment of a Syria free of terrorism,” where “all religious sects and ethnic groups live side by side in peace.”
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian urged action to address the crises in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, saying that it is a “religious, legal and human duty to prevent further harm” to those suffering in these conflict zones.
Pezeshkian, who arrived in Cairo on Wednesday, is the first Iranian president to visit Egypt since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who visited in 2013.
Relations between Egypt and Iran have been strained for decades, but diplomatic contacts have intensified since Cairo became a mediator in the war in Gaza.
Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi visited Egypt in October, while his Egyptian counterpart Badr Abdelatty traveled to Tehran in July to attend Pezeshkian’s inauguration.
Ahead of the summit, the Iranian top diplomat said he hoped it would “send a strong message to the world that the Israeli aggressions and violations in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria” would end “immediately.”
Erdogan was in Egypt earlier this year, and discussed with President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi economic cooperation as well as regional conflicts.
Established in 1997, the D-8 aims to foster cooperation among member states, spanning regions from Southeast Asia to Africa.
The organization includes Egypt, Turkiye, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Malaysia as member states.
Iraq begins repatriating Syrian soldiers amid border security assurances
DUBAI: Iraq has begun the process of returning Syrian soldiers to their home country, according to state media reports on Wednesday.
Lt. Gen. Qais Al-Muhammadawi, deputy commander of joint operations, emphasized the robust security measures in place along Iraq’s borders with Syria.
“Our borders are fortified and completely secure,” he said, declaring that no unauthorized crossings would be permitted.
Muhammadawi said that all border crossings with Syria are under tight control, stating: “We will not allow a terrorist to enter our territory.”
Turkiye won’t halt Syria military activity until Kurd fighters ‘disarm’
ISTANBUL: Turkiye will push ahead with its military preparations until Kurdish fighters “disarm,” a defense ministry source said Thursday as the nation faces an ongoing threat along its border with northern Syria.
“Until the PKK/YPG terrorist organization disarms and its foreign fighters leave Syria, our preparations and measures will continue within the scope of the fight against terrorism,” the source said.
