GAZA STRIP: The UN chief warned Monday that an invasion of Rafah in far-southern Gaza would “put the final nail in the coffin” of aid operations, after Israel said its army had readied a plan to move civilians out of the packed city.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Rafah — where 1.4 million Palestinians live in crowded shelters near the Egyptian border — is also “the core of the humanitarian aid operation” in the besieged Gaza Strip.
As tensions simmered across the region, Israel fired the first strikes on Lebanon’s east since the start of the Gaza war, killing two Hezbollah fighters.
In another shock impact of the almost five-month-old war, Palestinian prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh in the occupied West Bank handed in his government’s resignation to the head of the Palestinian Authority, president Mahmud Abbas.
Shtayyeh cited “the new reality” in Gaza and “the escalation in the West Bank and Jerusalem,” where deadly violence has surged since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7 with the Palestinian group’s attack.
Israel’s top ally Washington and other powers discussing a post-war Gaza have called for a reformed Palestinian Authority to take charge of both the West Bank and Gaza, which has been ruled by Hamas since 2007.
Shtayyeh urged intra-Palestinian consensus after years of rift and the “extension of the Authority’s rule over the entire land of Palestine.”
Heavy fighting raged on in Gaza, where Israeli forces launched strikes and ground operations, killing 92 people overnight according to the Hamas-ruled territory’s health ministry.
Displaced Gazan Sharif Muammar said his son’s body had been pulled from the rubble in Rafah.
“There was no one here — only children, they are all children,” he told AFP.
“There were no fighters at all. We weren’t launching missiles... We barely live.”
Israel’s military campaign has killed at least 29,782 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the ministry.
The war broke out after Hamas launched their unprecedented attack which killed 1,160 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.
Militants also took about 250 hostages, 130 of whom remain in Gaza, including 31 presumed dead, according to Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed Sunday that, despite ongoing talks toward a ceasefire, the army will launch a ground invasion of Rafah to achieve “total victory” over Hamas.
Once land operations are launched there, an Israeli victory would be “weeks away,” he said, adding that any truce deal would delay, not prevent, the operation.
On Monday Netanyahu’s office said the military had shown Israel’s war cabinet its plan for evacuating civilians from Rafah.
But no details have been released on where those displaced people could go in war-torn Gaza.
Neighbouring Egypt has built a large walled enclosure next to Gaza, but Cairo has denied any plans to allow the mass flight of refugees across the border.
Foreign governments and aid groups have issued dire warnings that a Rafah invasion would inflict mass casualties.
Guterres warned “an all-out Israeli offensive on the city would not only be terrifying for more than a million Palestinian civilians sheltering there; it would put the final nail in the coffin of our aid programs.”
He said that “nothing can justify Hamas’s deliberate killing, injuring, torturing and kidnapping of civilians” and “nothing justifies the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”
Desperate families in Gaza’s north have scavenged for food as most aid trucks have been halted, with many people eating animal fodder and the meat of slaughtered horses.
“We have no food or drink for ourselves or our children,” Omar Al-Kahlout told AFP, as he waited near Gaza City for aid to arrive.
Dire food shortages in northern Gaza are “a man-made disaster” that can be mitigated, said Philippe Lazzarini, chief of the UN aid agency for Palestinians.
“Famine can still be avoided through genuine political will to grant access and protection to meaningful assistance.”
Aid entering Gaza has halved in February from the previous month, he said.
Mediators meanwhile continued stuttering negotiations toward a ceasefire and hostage release deal, with hopes it can be in place before the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in about two weeks.
Media reports suggest the warring parties are weighing a six-week halt to fighting and the initial exchange of dozens of hostages for several hundred Palestinian detainees held by Israel.
An unnamed Israeli official told news site Ynet the “direction is positive,” and Israeli media reported that military and intelligence officials were headed to Qatar for further talks on a deal.
Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani — whose country hosts Hamas leaders and helped broker a one-week truce in November — is due in Paris this week, the French presidency said.
Sheikh Tamim has met Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Doha and discussed efforts “aimed at reaching an immediate and permanent ceasefire agreement” in Gaza, the official Qatar News Agency said.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II warned that fighting during Ramadan “will increase the threat of expanding the conflict” which has drawn in armed groups elsewhere in the Middle East.
Israel has exchanged near-daily cross-border fire with Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hamas ally Hezbollah since early October.
Israeli strikes near the Hezbollah-dominated city of Baalbek killed two group members Monday, security sources told AFP, in a rare attack far from the border.
Israel confirmed the strike and said it targeted sites used by Hezbollah for its aerial defense system, after a missile downed an Israeli drone earlier Monday.
Hezbollah fired a volley of 60 rockets at an Israeli military base in response, the group said.
UN voices alarm as Israel says preparing for Rafah invasion
https://arab.news/nvpm3
UN voices alarm as Israel says preparing for Rafah invasion
- Guterres said Rafah is “the core of the humanitarian aid operation” in the besieged Gaza Strip
- Israel’s military campaign has killed at least 29,782 people in Gaza, mostly women and children
Israeli military says intercepted projectile that was launched from Yemen
- There were no immediate reports of casualties
CAIRO: The Israel military said in a statement early on Tuesday that sirens sounded in several areas in central Israel following the launch of a projectile from Yemen.
The missile was intercepted before crossing into Israeli territory, it added. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
The Iran-backed group in Yemen has repeatedly fired drones and missiles toward Israel in what it describes as acts of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza..
Sudan drops out of hunger-monitor system on eve of famine report
- Sudan’s withdrawal from the IPC system could undermine humanitarian efforts to help millions of Sudanese suffering from extreme hunger, said the leader of a non-governmental organization operating there, speaking on condition of anonymity
KHARTOUM: The Sudanese government has suspended its participation in the global hunger-monitoring system on the eve of a report that’s expected to show famine spreading across the country, a step likely to undercut efforts to address one of the world’s largest hunger crises.
In a letter dated Dec. 23, the government’s agriculture minister said the government is halting its participation in the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) system. The letter accused the IPC of “issuing unreliable reports that undermine Sudan’s sovereignty and dignity.”
On Tuesday, the IPC is expected to publish a report finding that famine has spread to five areas in Sudan and could expand to 10 by May, according to a briefing document seen by Reuters. “This marks an unprecedented deepening and widening of the food and nutrition crisis, driven by the devastating conflict and poor humanitarian access,” the document stated.
A spokesperson for the Rome-based IPC declined to comment.
Sudan’s withdrawal from the IPC system could undermine humanitarian efforts to help millions of Sudanese suffering from extreme hunger, said the leader of a non-governmental organization operating there, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“Withdrawal from the IPC system won’t change the reality of hunger on the ground,” the NGO source said. “But it does deprive the international community of its compass to navigate Sudan’s hunger crisis. Without independent analysis, we’re flying blind into this storm of food insecurity.”
A diplomat with Sudan’s mission to the United Nations in New York didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the move to cut off the IPC.
The IPC is an independent body funded by Western nations and overseen by 19 large humanitarian organizations and intergovernmental institutions. A linchpin in the world’s vast system for monitoring and alleviating hunger, it is designed to sound the alarm about developing food crises so organizations can respond and prevent famine and mass starvation.
IPC analysts typically partner with national governments to analyze data related to food insecurity and to report on conditions within a country’s borders. The government has headed the IPC’s analysis group in Sudan. But the system has increasingly struggled to function since civil war erupted in April 2023.
The fighting between the army-backed government and its foe, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary, has disrupted data collection in areas held by both sides.
A recent Reuters investigation found that the Sudanese government obstructed the IPC’s work earlier this year, delaying by months a famine determination for the sprawling Zamzam camp for internally displaced people where some have resorted to eating tree leaves to survive.
Monday’s letter was addressed to the IPC and it s Famine Review Committee, which vets and verifies a famine finding, as well as to diplomats. It says the forthcoming IPC report lacks updated malnutrition data and assessments of crop productivity during the recent summer rainy season.
The growing season was successful, the letter says.
It also notes “serious concerns” about the IPC’s ability to collect data from territories controlled by the RSF.
The IPC’s struggles go beyond Sudan. In a series of reports this year, Reuters has reported that authorities in Myanmar and Yemen have also tried to thwart the global hunger-monitoring process by blocking or falsifying the flow of data to the IPC or suppressing its findings.
In Myanmar, the IPC recently scrubbed from its website its assessment on hunger there, fearing for the safety of researchers. Reuters recently reported that representatives of the country’s ruling military junta have warned aid workers against releasing data and analysis showing that millions in Myanmar are experiencing serious hunger.
In Ethiopia, the government disliked an IPC finding in 2021 that 350,000 people were experiencing catastrophic acute food insecurity – so it stopped working with the IPC.
Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University’s Fletcher School, called Sudan’s move to stop cooperating with the IPC “both pathetic and tragic.”
“It’s part of a long history of the government of Sudan denying famine going back more than 40 years,” said de Waal, a leading specialist on famine. “Whenever there’s a famine in Sudan, they consider it an affront to their sovereignty, and they’re more concerned about their pride and their control than they are over the lives of their citizens.”
Iraq says to eliminate pollutant gas flaring by end of 2027
- The office of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani in a statement Monday evening pointed to “a rise in the level of eliminating gas flaring” in the country
BAGHDAD: Iraqi authorities on Monday announced that the energy-rich country would eliminate the polluting practice of gas flaring by the end of 2027, a statement from the prime minister’s office said.
Gas flaring during the production or processing of crude is intended to convert excess methane to carbon dioxide, but the process is often incomplete, resulting in further methane release.
Iraq has the third highest global rate of gas flaring, after Russia and Iran, having flared about 18 billion cubic meters of gas in 2023, according to the World Bank.
The office of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani in a statement Monday evening pointed to “a rise in the level of eliminating gas flaring” in the country.
The office said that the current rate of elimination stood at 67 percent, with the aim of raising that rate to 80 percent by the end of 2025.
It added that the country aims to fully eliminate gas flaring by the end of 2027, compared to the previous administration’s target of 2030.
In 2017, Iraq joined a World Bank-led initiative aiming to end gas flaring globally by 2030.
Gas flaring is cheaper than capturing the associated gas, processing and marketing it.
In an April report, Greenpeace Middle East and North Africa said gas flaring “produces a number of cancer-linked pollutants including benzene.”
Iraq is considered by the United Nations to be one of the five countries most vulnerable to some impacts of climate change.
In recent years, it has suffered increasingly from droughts and further desertification, with the country gripped by dust storms much of the year.
Defense minister acknowledges Israel killed Hamas leader in Iran
- The comments by Israel Katz appeared to mark the first time that Israel has admitted killing Ismail Haniyeh
- Katz said the Houthis leadership would meet a similar fate to that of Haniyeh
JERUSALEM: Israel’s defense minister has confirmed that Israel assassinated Hamas’ top leader last summer and is threatening to take similar action against the leadership of the Houthi group in Yemen.
The comments by Israel Katz appeared to mark the first time that Israel has admitted killing Ismail Haniyeh, who died in an explosion in Iran in July.
Israel was widely believed to be behind the blast, and leaders have previously hinted at its involvement.
In a speech Monday, Katz said the Houthis would meet a similar fate as the other members of an Iranian-led alliance in the region, including Haniyeh.
He also noted that Israel has killed other leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, helped topple Syria’s Bashar Assad, and destroyed Iran’s anti-aircraft systems.
“We will strike (the Houthis’) strategic infrastructure and cut off the head of the leadership,” he said.
“Just like we did to Haniyeh, Sinwar, and Nasrallah in Tehran, Gaza, and Lebanon, we will do in Hodeida and Sanaa,” he said, referring to Hamas and Hezbollah leaders killed in previous Israeli attacks.
The Iranian-backed Houthis have launched scores of missiles and drones at Israel throughout the war, including a missile that landed in Tel Aviv on Saturday and wounded at least 16 people.
Israel has carried out three sets of airstrikes in Yemen during the war and vowed to step up the pressure on the militant group until the missile attacks stop.
New conflict in northeast Syria could bring ‘dramatic consequences’, UN envoy says
- Turkiye regards the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants who have fought an insurgency against the Turkish state and are deemed terrorists by Ankara, Washington and the European Union
BEIRUT: Tensions in northeast Syria between Kurdish-led authorities and Turkish-backed groups should be resolved politically or risk “dramatic consequences” for all of Syria, the United Nations envoy for the country Geir Pedersen told Reuters on Monday. Hostilities have escalated between Syrian rebels backed by Ankara and the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces in the northeast since Bashar Assad was toppled on Dec. 8.
Syrian armed groups seized the city of Manbij from the SDF on Dec. 9 and could be preparing to attack the key city of Kobani, or Ayn Al-Arab, on the northern border with Turkiye.
“If the situation in the northeast is not handled correctly, it could be a very bad omen for the whole of Syria,” Pedersen said by phone, adding that “if we fail here, it would have dramatic consequences when it comes to new displacement.” The SDF — which is spearheaded by the Kurdish YPG — has proposed to withdraw its forces from the area in exchange for a complete truce. But Turkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, speaking alongside Syria’s de facto new leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa on Sunday in Damascus, said the YPG should disband totally.
Turkiye regards the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants who have fought an insurgency against the Turkish state and are deemed terrorists by Ankara, Washington and the European Union.
Pedersen said a political solution “would require serious, serious compromises” and should be part of the “transitional phase” led by Syria’s new authorities in Damascus. Fidan said he had discussed the YPG presence with the new Syrian administration and believed Damascus would take steps to ensure Syria’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday the country will remain in close dialogue with Sharaa. Kurdish groups have had autonomy across much of the northeast since Syria’s war began in 2011, but now fear it could be wiped out by the country’s new Islamist rule. Thousands of women rallied on Monday in a northeast city to condemn Turkiye and demand their rights be respected.
Pedersen said Sharaa had told him in meetings in Damascus last week that they were committed to “transitional arrangements that will be inclusive of all.”
But he said resolving tensions in the northeast would be a test for a new Syria after more than a half-century of Assad family rule.
“The whole question of creating a new, free Syria would be off to a very, extremely ... to put it diplomatically, difficult start,” he said.
