GAZA: Heavy battles and bombardment hit Gaza City’s Shujaiya district for a fourth day on Sunday, months after Israel declared Hamas’s command structure dismantled in the northern area.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled the devastated neighborhood, where the army said it has fought Palestinian militants both “above and below ground” in tunnels.
Months of on-and-off talks toward a Gaza truce and hostage release deal have meanwhile made little progress, with Hamas saying Saturday there was “nothing new” in a revised plan presented by US mediators.
The Israeli military said ground and air forces had carried out raids on compounds used by militants and “eliminated several terrorists” over the past 24 hours.
It also reported clashes in central Gaza and the southern Rafah area, a week after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the “intense phase” of the war raging since October 7 was nearing an end.
The United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA estimated that “60,000 to 80,000 people were displaced” from Shujaiya since new fighting broke out there on Thursday and the army issued evacuation orders.
For those who remain, “our lives have become hell,” said 50-year-old Shujaiya resident Siham Al-Shawa.
She told AFP people were trapped as strikes could happen “anywhere” and “it is difficult to get out of the neighborhood under fire.”
“We do not know where to go to protect ourselves.”
Netanyahu said Israeli “forces are operating in Rafah, Shujaiya, everywhere in the Gaza Strip.”
According to a statement from Netanyahu’s office, he told his cabinet that “dozens of terrorists are being eliminated every day.”
The war started with Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza including 42 the army says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 37,877 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
Six people were killed in an air strike at dawn targeting a house in Rafah, said medics at Nasser Hospital where the bodies were taken.
Artillery shelling also rocked parts of the city, witnesses said.
The Israeli military launched a ground operation in Rafah in early May, leading to the closure of a key aid crossing.
United Nations and other relief agencies have voiced alarm over the dire humanitarian crisis and threat of starvation the war and Israeli siege have brought for Gaza’s 2.4 million people.
“Everything is rubble,” said Louise Wateridge from UNRWA, the UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees, speaking Friday from the city of Khan Yunis.
“There’s no water there, there’s no sanitation, there’s no food. And now, people are living back in these buildings that are empty shells.”
In Israel, thousands of protesters again took to the streets of Tel Aviv on Saturday, demanding greater efforts to return the remaining captives, and calling for early elections.
Former hostage Noa Argamani, 26, who was rescued in a June 8 raid, said in a video address that “we can’t forget about the hostages who are still in Hamas captivity, and we must do everything possible to bring them back home.”
About a month after US President Joe Biden outlined a truce plan, Washington last week presented “new language” for parts of the proposed deal, according to US news site Axios.
A Hamas official in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan, confirmed that the Islamist movement had received the latest proposal but said it presented “no real progress in the negotiations.”
Hamdan labelled the proposals “a waste of time” that aimed to give Israel “additional time... to practice genocide.”
Hamas has called for a permanent ceasefire and full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, demands repeatedly rejected by Israel.
Netanyahu on Sunday said “Hamas is the only obstacle to the release of our hostages.”
With military and diplomatic “pressure... we will return them all,” he said.
The Gaza conflict has also led to soaring tensions on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, where the army has traded cross-border fire with the Hezbollah movement, an Iran-backed Hamas ally.
Threats of a full-blown war have escalated this month.
Iran’s mission to the UN, on social media Saturday, said it “deems as psychological warfare” Israeli “propaganda about intending to attack Lebanon.”
It also warned its arch foe that, “should it embark on full-scale military aggression, an obliterating war will ensue” that could draw in more Tehran-aligned armed groups in the region.
Hezbollah on Sunday claimed several attacks on Israeli military positions, and Lebanese official media reported Israeli strikes in the border area.
The Shiite Muslim movement announced three deaths among its ranks.
Fighting rages in Gaza City’s Shujaiya for fourth day; 80,000 Palestinians displaced
https://arab.news/gymm9
Fighting rages in Gaza City’s Shujaiya for fourth day; 80,000 Palestinians displaced
- Israeli tanks fire shells toward several houses, leaving families trapped inside and unable to leave
- Israel’s military operations in Rafah aimed at eradicating the last armed battalions of Hamas
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.
