GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: World leaders on Friday called for an investigation and a ceasefire nearly five months into the Gaza war, a day after dozens of desperate Palestinians were killed rushing an aid convoy.
Israeli troops opened fire as Palestinian civilians scrambled for food aid during a chaotic incident Thursday which the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry said killed more than 100 people in Gaza City.
The deaths came after a World Food Programme official had warned: “If nothing changes, a famine is imminent in northern Gaza.”
The Israeli military said a “stampede” occurred when thousands of Gazans surrounded the convoy of 38 aid trucks, leading to dozens of deaths and injuries, including some who were run over.
An Israeli source acknowledged troops had opened fire on the crowd, believing it “posed a threat.”
Gaza’s health ministry called it a “massacre” and said 112 people were killed and more than 750 others wounded.
The fatalities helped push the total number of Palestinian war dead in Gaza to 30,228 mostly women and children, according to the ministry’s latest toll.
Overnight Thursday-Friday 83 people were killed in strikes, the ministry said.
The war began on October 7 with an unprecedented Hamas attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, Israeli figures show.
Israel’s military says 242 soldiers have died in Gaza since ground operations began in late October.
“The Israeli army must fully investigate how the mass panic and shooting could have happened,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock wrote on social media platform X.
Her French counterpart Stephane Sejourne said: “there will have to be an independent probe to determine what happened,” and Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani urged Israel “to protect the people in Gaza and to rigorously ascertain facts and responsibilities.”
European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, also writing on X, said “every effort must be made to investigate what happened and ensure transparency.”
The head of Libya’s Presidential Council, Mohamed el-Manfi, appealed for “an urgent investigation” by the United Nations Security Council into the “unprecedented crime.”
US President Joe Biden — whose country provides billions of dollars in military aid to Israel — said Washington was checking “two competing versions” of the incident.
Aerial footage of the incident made clear “just how desperate the situation on the ground is,” a US State Department spokesman said. Washington was pushing Israel to allow in more aid, he said.
The Gaza City aid incident came with talks progressing toward a ceasefire, but would now complicate those efforts, Biden said.
The White House later said it had asked Israel to probe the “tremendously alarming” deaths. Deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton said the event “needs to be thoroughly investigated.”
Qatar’s foreign ministry condemned “in the strongest terms the heinous massacre committed by the Israeli occupation” and called for “urgent international action” to halt the fighting in Gaza.
Further afield, in South America, Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced the suspension of arms purchases from Israel after the “genocide” in Gaza City.
While the situation is particularly acute in Gaza’s north, Gazans are struggling for food, water and medical care throughout the territory including in far-south Rafah where around 1.4 million people have sought refuge from fighting elsewhere.
Israel is threatening to send in troops against Hamas fighters in Rafah.
Information conflicted on what exactly unfolded in Gaza City.
A witness, declining to be named for safety reasons, said the violence began when thousands of people rushed toward aid trucks, leading soldiers to open fire when “people came too close” to tanks.
Israeli army spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said the military had fired “a few warning shots” to try to disperse a “mob” that had “ambushed” the aid trucks.
“Thousands of Gazans” swarmed the trucks, “violently pushing and even trampling other Gazans to death, looting the humanitarian supplies,” he said.
When the crowd got too big, he said the convoy tried to retreat and “the unfortunate incident resulted in dozens of Gazans killed and injured.”
Aerial images released by the Israeli army showed what it said were scores of people surrounding aid trucks in the city.
Ali Awad Ashqir, who said he had gone to get some food for his starving family, told AFP he had been waiting for two hours when trucks began to arrive.
“The moment they arrived, the occupation army fired artillery shells and guns,” he said.
Hagari denied Israeli forces carried out any shelling or strikes at the time.
Looting of aid trucks has previously occurred in northern Gaza, where residents have taken to eating animal fodder and even leaves to stave off starvation.
The chief of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said no UN agency had been involved in Thursday’s aid delivery, and called the incident “another day from hell.”
Among its war aims, Israel says it is fighting to bring home 130 hostages captured by militants on October 7 who remain in Gaza, including 31 presumed dead.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come under increasing pressure over the captives.
On Friday relatives and supporters of the hostages rallied outside the US embassy branch in Tel Aviv in a call for help to secure their release.
At another protest in the city on Thursday night, Alon Lee Green, 36, said things were at a crossroads.
“It’s either we are going into an eternal war that will never stop,” he said, “or we’re going to a diplomatic agreement, an Israeli-Palestinian peace.”
Calls for probe, ceasefire follow Israeli gunfire near aid convoy
https://arab.news/vg2mn
Calls for probe, ceasefire follow Israeli gunfire near aid convoy
- “The Israeli army must fully investigate how the mass panic and shooting could have happened,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock wrote on X
- European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, also writing on X, said “every effort must be made to investigate what happened and ensure transparency”
Hamas, two other Palestinian groups say Gaza ceasefire deal ‘closer than ever’
- Last week, indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas mediated by Qatar, Egypt, and the United States were held in Doha
CAIRO: Hamas and two other Palestinian militant groups said on Saturday that a Gaza ceasefire deal with Israel is “closer than ever,” provided Israel does not impose new conditions.
Last week, indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas mediated by Qatar, Egypt, and the United States were held in Doha, rekindling hope of an agreement.
“The possibility of reaching an agreement (for a ceasefire and prisoner exchange deal) is closer than ever, provided the enemy stops imposing new conditions,” Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said in a rare joint statement issued after talks in Cairo on Friday.
A Hamas leader told AFP on Saturday that talks had made “significant and important progress” in recent days.
“Most points related to the ceasefire and prisoner exchange issues have been agreed upon,” he said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak publicly on the issue.
“Some unresolved points remain, but they do not hinder the process. The agreement could be finalized before the end of this year, provided it is not disrupted by (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu’s new conditions.”
He said that if an agreement is reached it will be implemented in phases, ending with “a serious prisoner exchange deal, a permanent ceasefire and a complete withdrawal (of Israeli forces) from Gaza.”
On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he was “hopeful” for a deal, but avoided making any predictions as to when it would actually materialize.
“I don’t want to hazard a guess as to what the probability is,” he said at the Council on Foreign Relations.
“It should happen. It needs to happen. We need to get people home,” he said, referring to the release of hostages under a ceasefire deal.
Palestinian militants led by Hamas abducted 251 hostages during their attack on Israel on October 7 last year. Of those, 96 are still held in Gaza, including 36 the Israeli military says are dead.
Efforts to strike a truce and hostage release deal have repeatedly failed over key stumbling blocks.
Despite numerous rounds of indirect talks, Israel and Hamas have agreed just one truce, which lasted for a week at the end of 2023.
Negotiations have faced multiple challenges since then, with the primary point of contention being the establishment of a lasting ceasefire.
Netanyahu has repeatedly stated that he does not want to withdraw Israeli troops from the Philadelphi Corridor, a strip of land cleared and controlled by Israel along Gaza’s border with Egypt.
Another unresolved issue is the governance of post-war Gaza.
It remains a highly contentious issue, including within the Palestinian leadership.
Israel has said repeatedly that it will not allow Hamas to run the territory ever again.
16 injured after Israel hit by Yemen-launched ‘projectile’
- The projectile fell in Bnei Brak town, east of Tel Aviv
- Yemen’s Houthis claim missile attack on central Israel
JERUSALEM: Israel’s military said Saturday it had failed to intercept a “projectile” launched from Yemen that landed near Tel Aviv, with the national medical service saying 14 people were lightly wounded.
“Following the sirens that sounded a short while ago in central Israel, one projectile launched from Yemen was identified and unsuccessful interception attempts were made,” the Israeli military said on its Telegram channel.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for the missile attack in central Israel on Saturday, in a statement the Houthis said they had “targeted a military target of the Israeli enemy in the occupied area of” Tel Aviv using a ballistic missile. Israeli rescuers earlier reported 16 wounded in the attack.
Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have repeatedly launched missile attacks against Israel since the war in Gaza began more than a year ago, most of which have been intercepted.
In return, Israel has struck multiple targets in Yemen — including ports and energy facilities in areas controlled by the Houthis.
“A short time ago, reports were received of a weapon falling in one of the settlements within the Tel Aviv district,” Israeli police said Saturday.
According to Israeli media, the projectile fell in the town of Bnei Brak, east of Tel Aviv.
Israel’s emergency medical service said 14 people had been injured.
“Additional teams are treating several people on-site who were injured while heading to protected areas, as well as those suffering from anxiety,” a spokesman said.
The Houthi rebels say they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians and last week pledged to continue operations “until the aggression on Gaza stops and the siege is lifted.”
On December 9, a drone claimed by Houthis exploded on the top floor of a residential building in the central Israel city of Yavne, causing no casualties.
In July, a Houthi drone attack in Tel Aviv killed an Israeli civilian, prompting retaliatory strikes on the Yemeni port of Hodeidah.
The Houthis have also regularly targeted shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, leading to retaliatory strikes on Houthi targets by US and sometimes British forces.
The rebels said Thursday that Israeli air strikes that day killed nine people, after the group fired a missile toward Israel, badly damaging a school.
While Israel has previously hit targets in Yemen, Thursday’s were the first against the rebel-held capital Sanaa.
“The Israeli enemy targeted ports in Hodeida and power stations in Sanaa, and the Israeli aggression resulted in the martyrdom of nine civilian martyrs,” rebel leader Abdul Malik Al-Houthi said in a lengthy speech broadcast by the rebels’ Al-Masira TV.
Israel said it struck the targets in Yemen after intercepting a missile fired from the country, a strike the rebels subsequently claimed.
Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree said they had fired ballistic missiles at “two specific and sensitive military targets... in the occupied Yaffa area,” referring to the Jaffa region near Tel Aviv.
Qatar embassy reopens in Damascus with flag raising
DAMASCUS: Qatar reopened its embassy in Damascus on Saturday, 13 years after it was closed early in Syria’s civil conflict, as foreign governments seek to establish ties with the country’s new rulers.
An AFP journalist saw Qatar’s flag raised over the mission, making it the second nation, after Turkiye, to officially reopen its embassy since Islamist-led militants drove president Bashar Assad from power earlier this month.
Unlike several other Arab governments, Qatar — which supported opposition groups during Syria’s civil war — did not attempt to rehabilitate Assad before his toppling.
Earlier on Saturday, workers were busy sweeping the pavement, cleaning the area and removing graffiti from the building’s walls. One of the workers had placed the Qatari flag at the base of the flagpole.
Doha sent a diplomatic delegation to Damascus several days ago to meet with the transitional government. The mission expressed “Doha’s full commitment to support the Syrian people,” a Qatari diplomat said.
On Tuesday, the European Union said it was ready to reopen its diplomatic mission in Damascus, while Britain, France and the United States have all sent delegations to the Syrian capital since Assad’s overthrow.
The French flag was raised over Paris’s embassy in Damascus on Tuesday, although the country’s special envoy to Syria said the mission would remain closed “as long as security criteria are not met.”
Meanwhile, the United States on Friday dropped a $10 million bounty it had issued years earlier on Ahmed Al-Sharaa, Syria’s new leader and the head of the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham Islamist militant group that spearheaded the ouster of Assad.
HTS has its roots in Al-Qaeda, but has sought to moderate its image in recent years.
Syria’s new rulers name Asaad Al-Shibani as foreign minister, state news agency says
Syria’s new rulers have appointed a foreign minister, the official Syrian news agency (SANA) said on Saturday, as they seek to build international relations two weeks after Bashar Assad was ousted.
The ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan Al-Shibani as foreign minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international relations that bring peace and stability.”
No details were immediately available about Shibani.
Syria’s de facto ruler, Ahmed Al-Sharaa, has actively engaged with foreign delegations since assuming power, including hosting the UN’s Syria envoy and senior US diplomats.
Sharaa has signaled a willingness to engage diplomatically with international envoys, saying his primary focus is on reconstruction and achieving economic development. He has said he is not interested in engaging in any new conflicts.
US delegation to Syria says Assad’s torture-prison network is far bigger than previously thought
- In first official visit to Syria by US officials in 12 years, team led by secretary of state for near eastern affairs meets the country’s interim leadership
- As they search for missing Americans, delegates discover the number of regime prisons could be as high as 40, much more than the 10 or 20 they suspected
CHICAGO: There are “many more” regime prisons in Syria than previously believed, a high-level delegation of US diplomats said on Friday as they searched for missing Americans in the country.
In the first official visit to Syria by American officials in 12 years, the delegation met on Friday with members of the country’s interim leadership both to urge the formation of an inclusive government and to locate US citizens who disappeared during the conflict.
Western countries have sought to establish connections with senior figures in the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham militant group that led the offensive which forced President Bashar Assad from power this month.
Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf, who led the US delegation, told journalists, including Arab News, that the delegates attended a commemorative event for “the tens of thousands of Syrians and non-Syrians alike who were detained, tortured, forcibly disappeared or are missing, and who brutally perished at the hands of the former regime.”
Among the missing Americans are freelance journalist Austin Tice, who was kidnapped in 2012, and Majid Kamalmaz, a psychotherapist from Texas who disappeared in 2017 and is thought to have died.
Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens, who is part of the delegation, said the number of prisons in which detainees were tortured and killed by the Assad regime is much higher than suspected.
“We thought there’d be maybe 10 or 20,” he said. “It’s probably more like 40; it might even be more. They’re in little clusters at times. Sometimes they’re in the far outreaches of Damascus.
“Over 12 years, we’ve been able to pinpoint about six facilities that we believe have a high possibility of having had Austin Tice at one point or another. Now, over the last probably 11 or 12 days, we’ve received additional information based on the changing conditions, which leads us to add maybe one or two or three more facilities to that initial number of six.”
Carstens said the US has limited resources available in Syria and will focus on six of the prisons in an attempt to determine Tice’s fate. But he said the search would eventually expand to cover all 40 prison locations.
“We’re going to be like bulldogs on this,” he said. “We’re not going to stop until we find the information that we need to conclude what has happened to Austin, where he is, and to return him home to his family.”
He said the FBI cannot be present on the ground in Syria for an extended period of time to search for missing Americans “right now,” but suggested this might change in the future. Meanwhile, the US continues to work with “partners,” including nongovernmental organizations and the news media in Syria, he added.
Leaf confirmed the delegation met Ahmad Al-Sharaa, the commander of Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, an Islamist group that was once aligned with Al-Qaeda and is still designated as a terrorist organization by Washington. She said she told Al-Sharaa the US would not pursue the $10 million reward for his capture, and hoped the group will be able to help locate Tice and other missing Americans.
The delegation received “positive messages” from the Syrian representatives they met during their short visit, Leaf said. America is committed to helping the Syrian people overcome “over five decades of the most horrifying repression,” she added.
“We will be looking for progress on these principles and actions, not just words,” she said. “I also communicated the importance of inclusion and broad consultation during this time of transition.
“We fully support a Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political process that results in an inclusive and representative government which respects the rights of all Syrians, including women and Syria's diverse ethnic and religious communities.”
Leaf said the US would be able to help with humanitarian assistance and work with Syrians to “seize this historic opportunity.”
She added: “We also discussed the critical need to ensure terrorist groups cannot pose a threat inside of Syria or externally, including to the US and our partners in the region. Ahmad Al-Sharaa committed to this.”
Bringing Assad to justice for his crimes, particularly those carried out during the civil war, which started in 2011, remains a priority for the US government, Leaf said.
“Syrians desperately want that,” she added.
She called on the international community to offer technical expertise and other support to help document Assad’s crimes, including evidence from the graves and mass graves that have been uncovered since his downfall on Dec. 8.
