GAZA: Hamas on Sunday called on US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators to implement a ceasefire plan for Gaza put forward by US President Joe Biden, instead of holding “more negotiations.”
Hamas “demands that the mediators present a plan to implement what they proposed to the movement... based on Biden’s vision and the UN Security Council resolution, and compel the occupation (Israel) to comply, rather than going through more negotiation rounds or new proposals,” the Palestinian group said in a statement.
Mediators have invited both Israel and Hamas for a round of negotiations on Thursday.
Last week, shortly after the killing of Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran, Israel agreed to a new round of Gaza ceasefire talks to facilitate the release of hostages still held in the Palestinian territory.
Iran and Hamas have blamed Israel for the killing of Haniyeh.
Several rounds of negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza have failed until now, except for a one-week truce that was observed at the end of November.
That truce saw the release of scores of hostages in exchange of dozens of Palestinians prisoners who were held in Israeli jails.
On May 31, Biden unveiled what he said was a three-stage plan for a ceasefire in Gaza.
The first phase of the plan includes a “full and complete ceasefire” lasting six weeks, with Israeli forces withdrawing from “all populated areas of Gaza.”
Hamas would release “a number” of hostages captured in the October 7 attacks, including women, the elderly and the wounded. The remains of some hostages who had been killed would also be returned.
Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners would be released in exchange.
Palestinian civilians would be allowed to return to their “homes and neighborhoods” throughout Gaza, including in the north, which has been devastated by months of Israeli bombing.
During the initial six-week period, Israel and Hamas would “negotiate the necessary arrangements to get to phase two, which is a permanent end to hostilities.”
The ceasefire would also be extended if the negotiations continue, with mediators working to ensure they continue, Biden said at the time.
In phase two, also lasting around another six weeks, Israeli forces would completely withdraw from Gaza.
Hamas would release “all remaining living hostages” including male Israeli soldiers. This has been a key sticking point for Hamas in the past.
If both sides keep to the deal it will lead to the “cessation of hostilities permanently,” Biden said, quoting what he said had been an Israeli proposal.
In the third and final stage, a major reconstruction and stabilization plan for Gaza would begin, backed by the US and the international community.
The October 7 Hamas attacks resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized 251 people, 111 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 39 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive in Gaza has killed at least 39,790 people, according to the health ministry of the Hamas-run territory, which does not provide details on civilian and militant deaths.
Hamas tells Gaza mediators to implement Biden truce plan instead of ‘more negotiations’
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Hamas tells Gaza mediators to implement Biden truce plan instead of ‘more negotiations’
- Mediators have invited both Israel and Hamas for a round of negotiations on Thursday
- Several rounds of negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza have failed until now
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.
Rights groups say evidence of Assad abuses must be protected
- The Saydnaya complex, the site of extrajudicial executions, torture and forced disappearances, epitomised the atrocities committed against Assad’s opponents
BEIRUT, Lebanon: Three rights group on Monday appealed to Syria’s new rulers to urgently preserve evidence of atrocities committed under former president Bashar Assad.
Such evidence — including government and intelligence documents as well as mass graves — will be essential for establishing the fate of tens of thousands of people forcibly disappeared, and for prosecuting those responsible for crimes under international law, the groups said.
“The transitional Syrian authorities should urgently take steps to secure and preserve evidence of atrocities committed under the government of former president Bashar Assad,” said Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons in Sednaya Prison (ADMSP).
The Saydnaya complex, the site of extrajudicial executions, torture and forced disappearances, epitomised the atrocities committed against Assad’s opponents.
“Every additional minute of inaction heightens the risk that a family may never discover the fate of their missing loved one, and an official responsible for horrific crimes may never be brought to justice,” Shadi Haroun, ADMSP program manager, said in a statement issued by Amnesty.
The statement said investigators from the three organizations visited detention facilities, mass graves and the military court after Islamist-led rebels toppled Assad on December 8.
“In all of the detention facilities visited, researchers observed that official documents were often left unprotected, with significant portions looted or destroyed,” the groups said.
They said they gathered testimony that security and intelligence personnel burned some material before they fled, but in other cases the armed groups who took control of the facilities, or newly-freed prisoners, also burned and looted material.
The researchers said they themselves saw ordinary people and some journalists “take some documents.”
“These documents may contain vital information,” the watchdogs said, calling on the new authorities to coordinate with fact-finding bodies created by the United Nations, “after urgently securing these locations and ensuring that the remaining evidence is not tampered with.”
The rights groups said they also underscored to Syria’s new authorities “the importance of securing the sites of the mass graves across the country,” having seen “local residents and families of the disappeared try to dig up some of the remains.”
They said officials from Syria’s new administration had promised the visiting researchers that they would “strengthen security around key facilities.”
On Sunday Robert Petit, the visiting head of a UN investigative body for Syria, said it was possible to find “more than enough” evidence to convict people of crimes under international law, but there was an immediate need to secure and preserve it.
Women rally for equal rights in Syria after Assad’s fall to Islamists
- Hostilities between the SDF and a Turkiye-backed Syrian force known as the Syrian National Army have escalated since Assad was ousted, with the SDF driven out of the northern city of Manbij
QAMISHLI, Syria: Thousands of women rallied in the northeastern Syrian city of Qamishli on Monday to demand the new Islamist rulers in Damascus respect women’s rights and to condemn Turkish-backed military campaigns in Kurdish-led regions of the north.
Many of the protesters waved the green flag of the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ), an affiliate of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units militia (YPG) that Turkiye deems a national security threat and wants disbanded immediately.
“We are demanding women’s rights from the new state ... and women must not be excluded from rights in this system,” said Sawsan Hussein, a women’s rights activist.
“We are (also) condemning the attacks of the Turkish occupation against the city of Kobani.”
Kurdish groups have enjoyed autonomy across much of the north since Syria’s civil war began in 2011. The Kurdish YPG militia, which leads the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) armed group, is a major force in the area.
But Syria’s power balance has shifted away from these groups since the Islamist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham group (HTS) swept into Damascus and toppled Bashar Assad two weeks ago, establishing a new administration friendly to Ankara.
Syria’s dominant Kurdish groups embrace an ideology emphasising socialism and feminism — in contrast to the conservative Sunni Islamist views of HTS, a former Al-Qaeda affiliate.
Turkiye views the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been waging an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 and is deemed a terrorist group by Turkiye, the United States and the European Union.
Hostilities between the SDF and a Turkiye-backed Syrian force known as the Syrian National Army have escalated since Assad was ousted, with the SDF driven out of the northern city of Manbij.
Syrian Kurdish leaders have warned that Turkish forces are mobilizing for an offensive on the SDF-controlled city of Kobani at the Turkish border, also known as Ayn Al-Arab.
There is widespread apprehension among Syrians that the new Damascus administration will gravitate toward hard-line Islamist rule, marginalizing minorities and women from public life.
Obaida Arnout, a spokesperson for the Syrian transitional government, said last week that women’s “biological and physiological nature” rendered them unfit for certain governmental jobs.
Hemrin Ali, an official in the Kurdish-led administration of northeastern Syria, told Reuters at Monday’s rally: “Yes to supporting the YPJ. Yes to preserving the rights and gains of the women’s revolution in northern and eastern Syria.”
