LONDON: The UK will decide “quickly” whether to remove the Islamist group HTS, which spearheaded the offensive to oust Syrian president Bashar Assad, from its list of terrorist organizations, a senior minister said on Monday.
Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) is rooted in Syria’s Al-Qaeda branch, but broke ties with the group in 2016. The UK and United States still classify it as a terror group.
Pat McFadden, whose ministerial role includes responsibility for UK national security, on Monday said that the government was considering removing the group from the blacklist.
“If the situation stabilizes, there’ll be a decision to make about how to deal with whatever new regime is in place there,” he told BBC Radio 4.
“I think it should be a relatively swift decision so it’s something that will have to be considered quite quickly, given the speed of the situation on the ground.”
McFadden added that Syrian opposition forces leader Abu Mohammad Al-Jolani was “saying some of the right things about the protection of minorities, about respecting people’s rights. So we’ll look at that in the days to come.”
He added to Sky News that “it will partly depend on... how that group behaves now.”
The ousted president’s wife, Asma Assad, was born and raised in the UK, but McFadden said nobody had yet contacted the government on her behalf.
“We’ve certainly had no contact or no request for Mr.Assad’s wife to come to the UK,” he told the BBC.
Asma Assad and other individuals and entities linked to her husband have been sanctioned by the US since 2020, with then-secretary of state Mike Pompeo calling her “one of Syria’s most notorious war profiteers.”
Bashar Assad, in power since 2000, was overthrown on Sunday following a swift campaign by HTS and its allies.
The government fell more than 13 years after Assad’s crackdown on anti-government protests ignited Syria’s civil war, which has drawn in foreign powers, jihadists and claimed more than half a million lives.
Bashar Assad and his family are in Moscow, according to Russian news agencies.
UK to decide ‘quickly’ on terror status of Syrian opposition forces
https://arab.news/cxhsc
UK to decide ‘quickly’ on terror status of Syrian opposition forces
- Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) is rooted in Syria’s Al-Qaeda branch, but broke ties with the group in 2016
An Israeli strike hit near a charity kitchen in Gaza as Palestinians gathered for food
- The strike hit around noon as the kitchen was distributing meals to displaced people living in tent camps
- Israel’s campaign has killed more than 1,000 health workers and at least 173 journalists, according to the UN and the Committee to Protect Journalists
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: An Israeli strike on Monday hit next to a charity kitchen where Palestinians crowded to receive cooked meals as food supplies dwindle under Israel’s month-long blockade of the Gaza Strip, one of a string of attacks in the territory that killed more than 30 people, mostly women and children, hospital officials said.
Another strike hit a media tent outside a hospital, killing two people, including a local reporter, and wounding six other journalists, medics said. The Israeli military said the strike targeted a man whom it identified as a Hamas militant posing as a journalist.
Video footage showed people carrying the body of a little girl, her face covered with blood, from the blast that witnesses said hit a tent next to the charity kitchen outside the southern city of Khan Younis. Six other people were killed, including two women, and at least 10 people were wounded, hospital officials said.
The strike hit around noon as the kitchen was distributing meals to displaced people living in tent camps. Samah Abu Jamie said her nephew was among those killed and her young daughter was wounded as they waited with their pots to collect meals for their families.
“They were going to get food. I told her, ‘Daughter, don’t go’,” she said. “These were children, and they had nothing with them but a pot. Is a pot a weapon?”
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the strike.
’Bombed and starved again’
Charity kitchens have been drawing bigger crowds of Palestinians because other sources of food are running out. More than a month ago, Israeli cut off all food, fuel, medicine and other supplies for Gaza’s population of more than 2 million people, forcing aid groups to ration their stocks.
The World Food Program has warned that its supplies to keep kitchens going could be depleted by next week. It had to stop distributing boxes of food staples directly to families last week, spokesperson Abeer Etefa said Monday. The bakeries it ran have also shut down for lack of flour, ending a main source of bread for hundreds of thousands of people.
Since it ended its ceasefire with Hamas last month, Israel has carried out bombardments across Gaza, killing hundreds of people, and ground forces have carved out new military zones. Israel says it is pressuring Hamas to free its remaining hostages, disarm and leave the territory. Under the ceasefire deal, it had agreed to negotiate for the hostages’ release.
The heads of six UN agencies operating in Gaza said in a joint statement Monday that the blockade has left Gaza’s population “trapped, bombed and starved again.” They said Israeli claims that enough supplies entered during the ceasefire “are far from the reality on the ground, and commodities are running extremely low.”
“We are witnessing acts of war in Gaza that show an utter disregard for human life,” they said. “Protect civilians. Facilitate aid. Release hostages. Renew a ceasefire.”
Strikes hit journalists and homes
The strike outside Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis about 2 a.m. set the media tent ablaze, killing Yousef Al-Faqawi, a reporter for the Palestine Today news website, and another man, according to hospital officials.
The military said the strike targeted Hassan Eslaiah, claiming he was a Hamas militant who took part in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel that ignited the war. Eslaiah was among six journalists who were wounded in the strike, according to the hospital.
Eslaiah had occasionally contributed images to The Associated Press and other international media outlets as a freelance journalist, including on Oct. 7. The AP has not worked with him for over a year.
A strike that hit a street in Gaza City killed an emergency room doctor, the Gaza Health Ministry said. Israel’s campaign has killed more than 1,000 health workers and at least 173 journalists, according to the UN and the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Hospitals in Khan Younis and the central town of Deir Al-Balah said they received the bodies of 33 people, 19 of them women and children, from strikes overnight and into the day on Monday, including those from the kitchen and the media tent attack.
Some of the strike reduced houses to rubble. Imad Maghari said the blast that hit his neighbors in Deir Al-Balah at 2 a.m. was like “an earthquake,” followed by the screams of women and children. He said one neighbor lost five family members and another a young boy.
“I don’t know what danger he poses. He’s 7 years old,” Maghari said.
Israel’s military offensive in retaliation for Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry, whose count does not distinguish between militants and civilians. The offensive has destroyed vast areas of the Gaza Strip and displaced around 90 percent of its population.
Israel says it tries to avoid civilian casualties and blames Hamas for their deaths because it operates among the population.
In the Oct. 7 attack, Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 people. They are still holding 59 captives — 24 of whom are believed to be alive — after most of the rest were released in ceasefires or other deals.
Protests in Israel as Netanyahu meets Trump
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with US President Donald Trump in Washington on Monday to discuss Gaza and other issues.
Dozens of protesters gathered outside Netanyahu’s official residence in Jerusalem to call for an agreement to release the captives. Many fear that Netanyahu’s decision to resume the fighting has put the remaining hostages in grave danger and hope Trump can help broker another deal.
“Now the moment of truth has come,” said Varda Ben Baruch, grandmother of Israeli American hostage Edan Alexander, addressing Netanyahu. “You are in the United States and you have to sit there with President Trump and close a deal so that everyone will be released home.”
Syria appoints finance expert as new central bank governor
- Hasriya takes over from Maysa Sabreen, who had been appointed caretaken governor in late December, after an Islamist-led offensive toppled longtime president Bashar Assad
DAMASCUS: Syria’s interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa on Monday appointed Abdul Qadir Al-Hasriya as governor of the war-battered country’s central bank, state media reported.
State news agency SANA posted a picture of Hasriya taking the oath as the new central bank chief in front of Sharaa, who on Monday led a first cabinet meeting to “discuss government priorities for the next phase.”
Sharaa announced the formation of a new government on March 29.
Syria’s national currency is considered the foremost challenge for the central bank post, after its value plummeted during 13 years of civil war.
Hasriya takes over from Maysa Sabreen, who had been appointed caretaken governor in late December, after an Islamist-led offensive toppled longtime president Bashar Assad.
Sabreen, a banking expert, had been the first woman to head the financial establishment, having served as first deputy governor since 2018.
Hasriya was born in 1961 and previously lived between the United Arab Emirates and Syria.
He studied at the American University of Beirut before completing his PhD in finance at the University of Durham in Britain.
He previously worked for accountancy firms EY, previously known as Ernst & Young, and Arthur Andersen, as well as having been a member of the financial committee of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Geneva.
He was a consultant on reforms to Syria’s central bank in cooperation with the United Nations Development Programme.
The Syrian pound has lost about 90 percent of its value since the start of the civil war in 2011, sinking from 50 pounds to currently around 10,000-12,000 to the US dollar.
Netanyahu says Israel working on fresh Gaza hostage deal
- The recent truce had allowed the return of 33 Israeli hostages, eight of whom were dead, in exchange for the release of some 1,800 Palestinians held in Israeli jails
WASHINGTON: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday during a White House appearance with President Donald Trump that new negotiations were in the works aimed at getting more hostages released from Hamas captivity in Gaza.
“We’re working now on another deal that we hope will succeed, and we’re committed to getting all the hostages out,” Netanyahu told reporters in the Oval Office.
Trump for his part said: “We are trying very hard to get the hostages out. We’re looking at another ceasefire, we’ll see what happens.”
Netanyahu added that “the hostages are in agony, and we want to get them all out.”
The Israeli leader, seated next to Trump, highlighted an earlier hostage release agreement negotiated in part by Trump’s regional envoy Steve Witkoff that “got 25 out.”
Netanyahu’s visit follows the collapse of Israel’s six-week truce with Palestinian group Hamas, whose militants launched an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 that triggered the war.
The fragile ceasefire ended with Israel’s resumption of air strikes on Gaza on March 18.
The recent truce had allowed the return of 33 Israeli hostages, eight of whom were dead, in exchange for the release of some 1,800 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
The prime minister and his government maintain — against the advice of most hostage families — that increased military pressure is the only way to force Hamas to return the remaining hostages, dead or alive.
Of the 251 hostages abducted during Hamas’s October 7 attack, 58 remain in captivity in Gaza, including 34 who the Israeli military says are dead.
Aoun meets US delegation amid latest Israeli strikes
- Motorcyclist killed in southern border area accused by Israel of being Hezbollah commander
- Aoun urges Washington to pressure Israel, as US official insists on reform
BEIRUT: An Israeli strike Monday in southern Lebanon killed one person, according to the Health Ministry, with Israel’s military saying it had “eliminated” a Hezbollah commander.
The attack was conducted by an Israeli drone which targeted a motorcycle repair shop in the border town of Taybeh, with Israel claiming to have struck “a commander in Hezbollah’s artillery system.”
A Lebanese security source said the attack targeted “a motorcycle as its rider stopped in front of a motorcycle repair shop on the Taybeh-Adaisseh road, resulting in his death and a fire breaking out at the location.”
Hezbollah later identified the deceased man as Mohammed Adnan Mansour.
Under the terms of the ceasefire agreement, Hezbollah was meant to withdraw fighters from south of the Litani River and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure there.
Israel was to withdraw all its forces from southern Lebanon but continues to hold five positions that it deems “strategic.”
Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun has urged Washington to pressure Israel to withdraw from the five border points, saying the ongoing troop presence “complicates the situation.”
On Monday, the Lebanese government received a message from the US confirming the need to disarm Hezbollah and implement necessary reforms for the country to receive financial aid, with Washington anticipating swift action on these issues.
A delegation from the American Task Force on Lebanon, headed by Edward Gabriel, conveyed the message to Aoun.
Aoun said there is no place for any weapons or armed groups outside the framework of the Lebanese state.
Aoun on Monday said the issue needed to be resolved “through communication and dialogue because, in the end, Hezbollah is a Lebanese component.”
Authorities would soon begin drafting a “national security strategy,” he added.
During a meeting with the delegation, Aoun reaffirmed Lebanon’s full commitment to UN Resolution 1701, commending the work of UNIFIL south of the Litani River.
Aoun pointed to “Israeli violations of the ceasefire agreement,” saying that “Israel’s continued presence in the five hills it occupied will not be beneficial for Lebanon and will further complicate the situation.
“Therefore, we call on the US to pressure Israel to withdraw from them,” he added.
“The Lebanese Army, north of the Litani River, dismantled six camps that were under the control of Palestinian groups outside the refugee camps,” Aoun continued.
“They are now empty, and the weapons found were either confiscated or destroyed.”
Aoun confirmed that “the priority is to reduce tension in the south.”
He added: “The will is there, and the UNIFIL are doing their job to the fullest. But we must take into account that they are bearing many responsibilities. Lebanon needs time to resolve matters calmly.”
Aoun noted that “three weeks ago, the government approved the recruitment of 4,500 soldiers to boost our preparedness in the south.”
He emphasized to the American delegation that “reforms and the disarmament of weapons are demands from Lebanon, as well as from the international community and the US. We are committed to working towards these goals, and building trust is a step we have already initiated.”
Gabriel spoke about the “significant recognition of the efforts made by the Lebanese Army and the commendable work of the president.”
He stated: “I understand that your contribution to this was extremely important, and there are still many tasks that need to be completed, which we have been made aware of. The sooner these are carried out, the quicker we can assist you.”
Gabriel revealed that “a funding bill is being prepared in Congress for the upcoming year, along with three significant pieces of legislation included in the economic package.”
Aoun also met on Monday with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri to discuss the outcomes of the visit of US Deputy Envoy to the Middle East Morgan Ortagus to Lebanon last weekend.
According to a political observer, the emphasis was placed on “expediting the approval of reform laws in parliament” after “constructive and positive” discussions with Ortagus.
Less than 24 hours before the strike on the motorcycle repair shop in Tayah, an Israeli drone targeted a vehicle in Naqoura.
Israeli Army spokesman Avichay Adraee claimed that the “targeted people were two members of Hezbollah who worked on an engineering vehicle in the Zebqin area of southern Lebanon, attempting to reconstruct infrastructure associated with Hezbollah.”
Meanwhile, in more positive news, Pierre Achkar, president of the Federation for Tourism and the Hotel Association in Lebanon, said that Eid Al-Fitr brought a significant influx of Qatari and Kuwaiti tourists to the Mediterranean country.
“While Iraqis had historically been the top tourist group, followed by Jordanians, Egyptians, and Syrians, Qataris and Kuwaitis now make up a larger portion of visitors to Lebanon,” he said.
“The occupancy rate in hotels located in safe areas and downtown reached 70 percent to 80 percent, while others saw 50 percent to 60 percent occupancy rates,” he added.
Achkar expressed hope that, with the increasing number of Gulf tourists, travel bans on Saudi and Emirati nationals visiting Lebanon would be lifted “as their presence could significantly benefit the Lebanese tourism sector.”
Elsewhere protests broke out in Lebanon on Monday across the country in response to a global call for solidarity with the people of Gaza. Many educational institutions and markets went on strike, and the Lebanese military implemented strict security measures around the US Embassy to prevent protesters from gathering in the area.
Trump announces direct Iran nuclear talks during meeting with Netanyahu
- Trump’s announcement came day after Iran dismissed direct negotiations on new deal
- US president pulled out of last deal in 2018 during first presidency
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said the United States would start direct, high-level talks with Iran over its nuclear program on Saturday, in a shock announcement during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“We’re having direct talks with Iran, and they’ve started,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday after a meeting that was meant to focus on Israel’s bid to avoid US tariffs.
“Maybe a deal’s going to be made, that would be great. We are meeting very importantly on Saturday, at almost the highest level,” he said.
Trump’s stunning announcement came a day after Iran dismissed direct negotiations on a new deal to curb the Islamic republic’s nuclear program, calling the idea pointless.
The US president pulled out of the last deal in 2018 during his first presidency and there has been widespread speculation that Israel, possibly with US help, might attack Iranian facilities if no new agreement is reached.
Trump said “everybody agrees that doing a deal would be preferable to doing the obvious — and the obvious is not something that I want to be involved with, or frankly, that Israel wants to be involved with, if they can avoid it.”
The surprise announcement came as Netanyahu became the first foreign leader to personally plead for a reprieve from stinging US tariffs that have shaken the world.
The Israeli premier pledged that he would “eliminate” the trade deficit between the two countries and also knock down trade “barriers.” His country moved to lift its last remaining tariffs on US imports ahead of the meeting.
Netanyahu said he felt Israel could serve “as a model for many countries” when it came to negotiating on tariffs.
Netanyahu and Trump also discussed Gaza, where a short-lived, US-brokered truce between Israel and Hamas has collapsed.
Netanyahu said that new negotiations were in the works aimed at getting more hostages released from war-torn Gaza.
“We’re working now on another deal that we hope will succeed, and we’re committed to getting all the hostages out,” Netanyahu said in the Oval Office.
Trump also doubled down on his plan for the US to “control” the Gaza strip — which he described as a “great piece of real estate” — which he initially announced when Netanyahu last visited him in February.
Earlier, Trump greeted Netanyahu outside the West Wing and pumped his fist, before the two leaders — both wearing dark suits, red ties and white shirts — went inside for a meeting in the Oval Office.
A planned press conference between the two leaders was canceled at short notice without explanation in an unusual move but they spoke to a smaller group of pool reporters at length in the Oval Office.
The Israeli premier’s visit is his second to Trump since the US president returned to power and comes at short notice — just days after Trump slapped a 17 percent tariff on Israel in his “Liberation Day” announcement last week.
Trump refused to exempt the top beneficiary of US military aid from his global tariff salvo as he said Washington had a significant trade deficit with Israel.
Netanyahu met with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on Sunday night soon after his arrival, according to his office.
The Israeli premier also met Trump’s special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff on Monday.
