FRANKFURT: Germany on Saturday said there was an “urgent need” for measures to calm tensions in the Middle East as Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza threatened to spread to Lebanon.
Attacks carried out by Israel or blamed on the country, including air strikes and the explosions of hand-held communications devices, have killed dozens and injured thousands in Lebanon since Tuesday.
The country’s Iran-backed Hezbollah militia and Israel have also intensified cross-border fire that has raged since the Gaza war broke out on October 7 last year.
“We have an urgent need for concrete measures in the Middle East to defuse the situation and avoid more civilian victims,” the German foreign ministry wrote on X.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has been in contact with her Israeli and Lebanese counterparts to discuss the next steps, it added.
The German federal government said it was “deeply concerned” by the recent escalation in the region but added that it was not “inevitable.”
“A diplomatic solution to the conflict must be possible,” government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said in a statement.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s office warned that a regional conflagration would “have terrible and lasting consequences for the populations of the whole region,” resulting in “catastrophic” destruction.
Germany says ‘urgent need’ for measures in Mideast
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Germany says ‘urgent need’ for measures in Mideast
- “We have an urgent need for concrete measures in the Middle East to defuse the situation and avoid more civilian victims,” the German foreign ministry wrote on X
Lebanon’s new president stresses urgency of Israeli withdrawal from south under truce deal
- The ceasefire requires Israeli forces to withdraw from southern Lebanon within 60 days
- UN to exert utmost efforts to secure an Israeli withdrawal within the set deadline under the ceasefire terms
CAIRO: Lebanon’s new president Joseph Aoun stressed to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Saturday the urgency of an Israeli military withdrawal as stipulated by a ceasefire deal that ended the Israel-Hezbollah war in November.
According to a statement by the Lebanese presidency on X, Aoun told Guterres during a meeting in Beirut that continued Israeli breaches were a violation of Lebanese sovereignty and the agreed ceasefire deal.
The ceasefire, which took effect on Nov. 27 and was brokered by the United States and France, requires Israeli forces to withdraw from southern Lebanon within 60 days, and for Hezbollah to remove all its fighters and weapons from the south.
Guterres said the UN would exert utmost efforts to secure an Israeli withdrawal within the set deadline under the ceasefire terms, according to the statement.
He had said on Friday the Israeli military’s continued occupation of territory in south Lebanon and the conduct of military operations in Lebanese territory were violations of a UN resolution upon which the ceasefire is based.
Despite the deal, Israeli forces have continued strikes on what they say are Hezbollah fighters ignoring the accord under which they must halt attacks and withdraw beyond the Litani River, about 30km from the border with Israel.
Foreign minister says Syria looking forward to return to Arab League
CAIRO: Syria’s foreign minister said on Saturday he was looking forward to the return of Syria to the Arab League as the country’s new rulers seek a place in the regional political landscape.
Asaad Hassan Al-Shibani made his statements during a joint press conference in Damascus with Arab League Assistant Secretary General Hossam Zaki, who said the Arab League was working with member states to activate Syria’s participation.
Missile fired from Yemen intercepted over central Israel, military says
Explosions were heard over Jerusalem after sirens blared across the city and central Israel on Saturday morning, AFP journalists reported, while the Israeli military said a projectile had been launched from Yemen.
The explosions and sirens came after Qatar, a key mediator between Israel and Hamas, said that the ceasefire in the war in Gaza would take effect from 0630 GMT on Sunday.
Sirens and explosions were heard over Jerusalem at around 10:20 am (08:20 GMT) on Saturday, shortly after sirens sounded across central Israel in response to the projectile launched from Yemen, the military said in a statement.
Minutes later, the military said it had intercepted the projectile launched from Yemen.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have repeatedly launched missile and drone attacks on Israel since the war in Gaza broke out in October 2023.
On Friday, the Houthis warned that they would keep up their attacks if Israel did not respect the terms of its ceasefire with Hamas.
Two UAE aid convoys reach Gaza as part of Operation Chivalrous Knight 3
- The UAE has sent 155 aid convoys under Operation Chivalrous Knight 3
DUBAI: The more UAE aid convoys crossed into the Gaza Strip this week through Egypt’s Rafah border crossing to bring various humanitarian supplies for Palestinians affected by the devastating Israeli offensive.
The convoys, part of the Operation Chivalrous Knight 3 initiative, comprise 25 trucks laden with over 309.5 tonnes of humanitarian aid, including food supplies, shelter tents and other essential items, state news agency WAM reported on Saturday.
The UAE has sent 155 aid convoys under Operation Chivalrous Knight 3, with approximately 29,584 tonnes of humanitarian supplies delivered so far for the Palestinian people.
A ceasefire early Sunday morning is expected to provide relief to the besieged enclave’s population, and despite an Israeli ban on the UN’s aid agency for Palestinians from operating in the conflict-ridden area.
Gaza ceasefire to start early Sunday morning
- Qatar foreign ministry makes announcement on social media
- Israel to free 737 prisoners during the first phase of the truce deal
JERUSALEM/DOHA: A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip will take effect at 0630 GMT on Sunday morning, Qatar, which helped mediate the deal, said on Saturday.
“As coordinated by the parties to the agreement and the mediators, the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip will begin at 8:30 am on Sunday, January 19, local time in Gaza,” Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari said on X.
“We advise the inhabitants to take precaution, exercise the utmost caution, and wait for directions from official sources.”
The exact time of the ceasefire’s start had been unclear, though Israel, whose cabinet earlier on Saturday approved the hostage and prisoner exchange deal, had said no prisoners would be freed before 1400 GMT.
During the first phase of the truce deal, Israel’s justice ministry said 737 prisoners and detainees will be freed.
It said in a statement on its website that “the government approves” the “release (of) 737 prisoners and detainees” currently in the custody of the prison service.
Palestinian militant group Hamas also said on Saturday that the mechanism of the release of Israeli hostages it holds in Gaza would depend on the number of Palestinian prisoners Israel would free.
In a statement, Hamas said the list of Palestinian prisoners to be released would be published one day before the exchange under terms of its ceasefire deal reached with Israel on Wednesday.
Israel’s cabinet voted to approve the ceasefire deal early Saturday, according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, ending days of uncertainty about whether the truce would go into effect this weekend.
Those named by the ministry include men, women and children who it said will not be released before Sunday at 4:00 p.m. local time (1400 GMT).
It had previously published a list of 95 Palestinian prisoners, the majority women, to be freed in exchange for Israeli captives in Gaza.
Among those on the expanded list was Zakaria Zubeidi, a chief of the armed wing of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah party.
Zubeidi escaped from Israel’s Gilboa prison with five other Palestinians in 2021, sparking a days-long manhunt, and is lauded by Palestinians as a hero.
Also to be freed is Khalida Jarar, a leftist Palestinian lawmaker whom Israel arrested and imprisoned on several occasions.
Jarar is a prominent member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a group designated a “terrorist organization” by Israel, the United States and the European Union.
Detained in late December in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, the 60-year-old has been held since then without charge.
Two sources close to Hamas said that the first group of hostages to be released consists of three Israeli women soldiers.
However, since the Palestinian Islamist movement considers any Israeli of military age who has completed mandatory service a soldier, the reference could also apply to civilians abducted during the attack that triggered the war.
The first three names on a list obtained by AFP of the 33 hostages set to be released in the first phase are women under 30 who were not in military service on the day of the Hamas attack.
Justice ministry spokeswoman Noga Katz has said the final number of prisoners to be released in the first swap would depend on the number of live hostages released by Hamas.
