CAIRO: At least seven Palestinians were killed and 12 wounded after an Israeli strike on a former school that was sheltering displaced people in Gaza City, the civil emergency service said on Saturday.
The Israeli military is looking into the report, a spokesperson said.
Earlier on Saturday the Israeli military said it had targeted Hamas militants who were operating within a school compound in Gaza City and that it had taken measures to reduce harm to civilians.
The dead include a woman and her baby, according to medics. It was unclear whether the other fatalities were Hamas fighters.
The Palestinian Islamist group denies embedding its fighters among civilians in Gaza
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Seven Palestinians killed in Israeli strike on Gaza school, civil emergency says
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Seven Palestinians killed in Israeli strike on Gaza school, civil emergency says
- The dead include a woman and her baby, according to medics
Top Arab, US diplomats meet to discuss Syria’s future
- Arab diplomats seek assurances from Turkiye that it supports an inclusive political process
AQABA, Jordan: Top diplomats from the United States, Turkiye, the European Union and Arab nations met in Jordan on Saturday for talks on Syria as regional and global powers scramble for influence over whatever government replaces ousted President Bashar Assad.
Outgoing US President Joe Biden’s administration has begun engaging with the victorious militant groups including Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), which led a lightning assault that ended in the capture of Damascus on Sunday.
Biden sent Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the region this week to seek support for principles that Washington hopes will guide Syria’s political transition, such as respect for minorities.
Meanwhile Syria’s northern neighbor Turkiye has for years supported Syrian opposition forces looking to oust Assad and is poised to play an influential role in Damascus.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Friday that his country’s embassy in the Syrian capital would resume work on Saturday, after Turkiye’s intelligence chief visited this week.
Syria’s neighbor Jordan was hosting Saturday’s gathering in Aqaba. Russia and Iran, who were Assad’s key supporters, were not invited.
Blinken, UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pederson and EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, Fidan and foreign ministers from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar met around a circular table at a Jordanian government guesthouse. There was no Syrian representative at the table.
The Arab diplomats earlier met separately.
Blinken, meeting Pederson at his hotel earlier on Saturday, said it was a time of “both opportunity but also real challenge” for Syria.
Arab diplomats attending the talks said they were seeking assurances from Turkiye that it supports an inclusive political process that prevents partition of Syria on sectarian lines.
Turkiye and the United States, both NATO members, have conflicting interests when it comes to some of the militants. Turkiye-backed militants in northern Syria have clashed with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The SDF, which controls some of Syria’s largest oil fields, is the main ally in a US coalition against Daesh militants. It is spearheaded by YPG militia, a group that Ankara sees as an extension of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants who have fought the Turkish state for 40 years and who it outlaws.
Blinken told Turkish officials during a visit to Ankara on Thursday and Friday that Daesh must not be able to regroup, and the SDF must not be distracted from its role of securing camps holding Daesh fighters, according to a US official with the US delegation. Turkish leaders agreed, the official said.
Fidan told Turkish TV later on Friday that the elimination of the YPG was Turkiye’s “strategic target” and urged the group’s commanders to leave Syria.
Palestinian security forces clash with militants in West Bank
- Gunshots and explosions could be heard in the city, where friction has risen in recent days between militant factions and the Palestinian Authority
- Residents identified the man who was killed as a militant though none of the factions immediately confirmed his affiliation
JENIN, West Bank: At least one person was killed as Palestinian security forces clashed with Palestinian militants and set up checkpoints on Saturday in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, residents and medics said.
Gunshots and explosions could be heard in the city, where friction has risen in recent days between militant factions and the Western-backed Palestinian Authority (PA) of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas following raids by the PA.
Residents identified the man who was killed as a militant though none of the factions immediately confirmed his affiliation.
The PA’s security branch said in a statement that its forces were undertaking a security operation to restore law and order to Jenin’s historic refugee camp suburb, a stronghold of Palestinian militants alienated from the Palestinian leadership.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas, which has been fighting Israeli forces in Gaza for more than a year, condemned the PA for the Jenin operation and its allied group Islamic Jihad called for a day of protests.
Jenin has also been a hotbed of conflict between the Palestinian militant groups and the Israeli military in recent years. Since March 2022, Jenin and outlying areas in the north of the West Bank have drawn intensified Israeli raids after a spate of Palestinian street attacks.
Turkiye to reopen embassy in Syria as diplomats gather for talks
- Move comes as Middle Eastern and Western diplomats gathered in Jordan for high-level talks on Syria
DAMASCUS: Turkiye was set to reopen its embassy in Damascus on Saturday, nearly a week after president Bashar Assad was toppled by forces backed by Ankara, and 12 years after the diplomatic outpost was shuttered early in Syria’s civil war.
The move came as Middle Eastern and Western diplomats gathered in Jordan for high-level talks on Syria, and a day after nationwide celebrations at Assad’s ouster.
Ankara has been a major player in Syria’s conflict, holding considerable sway in the northwest and financing armed groups there, and maintaining a working relationship with the Islamist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), which spearheaded the offensive that brought down Assad.
Turkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said the new charge d’affaires, Burhan Koroglu, left for Syria on Friday, with the embassy expected to be “operational” the following day.
Fidan also said Ankara had urged Assad backers Russia and Iran not to intervene as the Islamist-led militants mounted their lightning advance last week.
“The most important thing was to talk to the Russians and Iranians to ensure that they didn’t enter the equation militarily... They understood,” Fidan told private television network NTV.
Turkish diplomats joined counterparts from the European Union, the United States and the Arab world on Saturday for talks in the Jordanian city of Aqaba.
A day before the meetings in Jordan, Syrians had celebrated what they called the “Friday of victory,” with fireworks heralding the fall of the Assad dynasty.
Celebrations continued into the night on the first Friday — the Muslim day of rest and prayer — since Assad was ousted.
Umayyad Square in Damascus was jammed with vehicles, people and waving flags as fireworks shot into the air, AFPTV footage showed.
Crowds also gathered in the squares and streets of other Syrian cities, including Homs, Hama and Idlib.
Syria war monitor reports Israeli strikes on military sites
Beirut: A Syria war monitor said Israel launched strikes early Saturday targeting military sites in Damascus and its countryside, in the latest such raids since rebels brought down Bashar Assad almost a week ago.
“Israeli strikes destroyed a scientific institute” and other related military facilities in Barzeh, in northern Damascus, and targeted a “military airport” in the capital’s countryside, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Strikes also targeted “Scud ballistic missile warehouses” and launchers in the Qalamun area, as well as “rockets, depots and tunnels under the mountain,” according to the Britain-based Observatory, which has a network of sources inside Syria.
The Observatory said several rounds of bombardment targeted “military sites of the former regime forces, as part of destroying what is left of the future Syrian army’s capabilities.”
Israel air strikes on Friday targeted “a missile base at the top of Damascus’s Mount Qasyun,” the group said, as well as an airport in southern Sweida province and “defense and research labs in Masyaf,” in Hama province.
Since Assad’s fall, Israel has launched hundreds of strikes against Syrian military sites, targeting everything from chemical weapons stores to air defenses.
In a move that has drawn international condemnation, Israel also seized a United Nations-patrolled buffer zone on the Syrian Golan Heights just hours after the rebels, led by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, took Damascus.
On Thursday, UN chief Antonio Guterres expressed concern over “extensive violations” of Syrian sovereignty and the Israeli strikes in the country, his spokesman said.
Iran will not impede IAEA access, head of its atomic organization says
- IAEA reported that Iran had multiplied the pace of its enrichment to up to 60 percent purity, close to the 90 percent of weapons-grade
Iran will not impede UN nuclear watchdog’s access and inspection of its sites, the head of the country’s Atomic Energy Organization said on Saturday.
According to a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) earlier this week, Iran has agreed to tougher monitoring by the agency at its Fordow site after it greatly accelerated uranium enrichment to close to weapons grade there.
Last week, the IAEA reported that Iran had multiplied the pace of its enrichment to up to 60 percent purity, close to the 90 percent of weapons-grade, at Fordow.
“We have not created and will not create any obstacles for the agency’s inspections and access,” Atomic Energy Organization head Mohammad Eslami was quoted as saying by Iranian media.
“We operate within the framework of safeguards, and the agency also acts according to regulations— no more, no less,” he added.
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