JABALIA, Gaza: The rats and dogs scavenging amid the ruins of her neighborhood in northern Gaza make Manal Al-Harsh’s return to her wrecked home even more miserable.
Despite the respite from Israeli bombardments that a ceasefire has brought, she still fears for her family’s security. They have trouble sleeping at night.
Even trying to find her children’s clothes amid the rubble of their house in Jabalia is a forlorn task.
Al-Harsh, 36, has erected a makeshift tent from salvaged blankets to provide shelter for her and her children.
“We are staying here, but we are afraid of rats and everything around us. There are dogs. There is no place to settle. We have children. It is difficult,” Harsh, 36, said as she stepped cautiously over the debris.
She said she had returned from the south of the Palestinian enclave when the ceasefire took effect but found her house destroyed.
Much of the rest of Gaza City also lies in ruins after 15 months of fighting and waves of Israeli airstrikes and artillery barrages that left it a shell of the bustling urban center it was before the war.
“We are practically sleeping here, but we don’t sleep. We are afraid someone might come upon us. We are sleeping and scared,” she said.
“I want to retrieve some clothes for the children to wear. We came with nothing. Life here is expensive, and there is no money to buy anything.”
Many of those returning, often laden with what personal possessions they still have after months of being moved around as the battlegrounds shifted, had trekked 20 km (12 miles) or more along the coastal highway north.
Like many displaced Palestinians, Al-Harsh faces uncertainty as she tries to salvage what remains. She had managed to pick some clothes from the rubble but they were in a sorry state.
“It’s all torn. Nothing is good. As much as we do, as much as we retrieve, it is all stones,” she said.
“Death is better,” Al-Harsh said, her voice heavy with despair.
Rats, dogs and torn clothes amid the ruins of Gaza homes
https://arab.news/nquh4
Rats, dogs and torn clothes amid the ruins of Gaza homes
- Much of the rest of Gaza City also lies in ruins after 15 months of fighting
- Like many displaced Palestinians, Al-Harsh faces uncertainty as she tries to salvage what remains
Lebanon’s president to Asharq Al-Awsat: Decision of war and peace lies solely with the state
BEIRUT: Lebanese President Joseph Aoun says he wants to build a state that has the decision of war and peace and stressed he is committed to implementing Security Council Resolution 1701.
In an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, his first since his election in January, Aoun said: “Our objective is to build the state, so nothing is difficult. And if we want to talk about the concept of sovereignty, its concept is to place the decisions of war and peace in the hands of the state, and to monopolize or restrict weapons to the state.”
“When will it be achieved? Surely, the circumstances will allow it,” he told the newspaper.
Asked whether the state will be able to impose control over all Lebanese territories with its own forces and without any military or security partnership, he said: "It is no longer allowed for anyone other than the state to fulfill its national duty in protecting the land and the people ... When there is an aggression against the Lebanese state, the state makes the decision, and it determines how to mobilize forces to defend the country."
He also stressed his full commitment to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1701. “The state and all its institutions are committed to implementing the Resolution” on the “entire Lebanese territories,” Aoun said.
On the possible adoption of a defense strategy, Aoun insisted that even if a state does not have enemies on its borders, it should agree on a national security strategy that not only deals with military goals but also economic and fiscal objectives.
“We are tired of war,” he said in response to a question. “We hope to end military conflicts and resolve our problems through diplomatic efforts,” he said.
Asked whether he was surprised that the Israeli army has stayed at five points in south Lebanon, Aoun said that Israel should have committed to the ceasefire agreement that was sponsored by the US and France and should have withdrawn from all areas it had entered during the war with Hezbollah.
“We are in contact with France and the US to pressure Israel to withdraw from the five points because they don’t have any military value,” he said.
“With the emergence of technologies, drones and satellites,” an army does not need a hill for surveillance, Aoun added.
"Saudi Arabia has become a gateway for the region and for the whole world. It has become a platform for global peace,” he said when asked why he has chosen to visit the Kingdom on his first official trip abroad.
“I hope and expect from Saudi Arabia, especially Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, that we correct the relationship for the benefit of both countries and remove all the obstacles ... so that we can build economic and natural relations between us.”
He said that during his visit he plans to ask Saudi Arabia to revive a grant of military aid to Lebanon.
On relations with the Syrian authorities, Aoun said he intends to have friendly ties the new Syrian administration and that one of the pressing issues is to resolve the problem of the porous border between the two countries.
“There are problems on the border (with Syria) with smugglers. Most importantly, the land and sea border with Syria should be demarcated,” he said.
Aoun also called for resolving the problem of Syrian refugees in Lebanon. “The Syrian state cannot give up on 2 million citizens who have been displaced to Lebanon.”
The refugees should return because “the Syrian war ended and the regime that was persecuting them collapsed,” he said.
PKK declares ceasefire with Turkiye after 40 years of armed struggle
Istanbul: Outlawed Kurdish militants on Saturday declared a ceasefire with Turkiye following a landmark call by jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan asking the group to disband.
It was the first reaction from the PKK after Ocalan this week called for the dissolution of his Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and asked it to lay down arms after fighting the Turkish state for over four decades.
“In order to pave the way for the implementation of leader Apo’s call for peace and democratic society, we are declaring a ceasefire effective from today,” the PKK executive committee said in a statement quoted by the pro-PKK ANF news agency, referring to Ocalan.
“We agree with the content of the call as it is and we say that we will follow and implement it,” the committee said.
The PKK, designated a terrorist group by Turkiye, the United States and the European Union, has waged an insurgency since 1984 with the aim of carving out a homeland for Kurds, who account for around 20 percent of Turkiye’s 85 million people.
Since Ocalan was jailed in 1999 there have been various attempts to end the bloodshed, which has cost more than 40,000 lives.
After the last round of peace talks collapsed in 2015, no further contact was made until October when a hard-line nationalist ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered a surprise peace gesture if Ocalan rejected violence.
While Erdogan backed the rapprochement, his government cranked up pressure on the opposition, arresting hundreds of politicians, activists and journalists.
After several meetings with Ocalan at his island prison, the pro-Kurdish DEM party on Thursday relayed his appeal for PKK to lay down its weapons and convene a congress to announce the organization’s dissolution.
New demand by Israel risks shaky Gaza truce
CAIRO: The fragile truce in Gaza was hanging by a thread on Friday after Israel demanded a six-week extension to the first phase of the deal.
The 42-day first stage of the ceasefire — under which Hamas released 33 Israeli hostages, more than 2,000 Palestinian prisoners were freed from Israeli jails and its forces partially withdrew from Gaza — ends on Saturday.
Talks on the second stage — the release of all remaining hostages and Israel’s complete military withdrawal from the Palestinian enclave — should have begun last month, but Egyptian security sources said on Friday that Israeli negotiators in Cairo were insisting on a further 42 days of the first stage.
Hamas opposes the extension and insists on proceeding to the second phase of the deal as originally agreed. “We call on the international community to pressure the occupation to... immediately enter the second phase of the agreement without any delay,” it said on Friday.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Varsen Aghabekian also said on Friday that she would like the ceasefire phases to move ahead as originally planned. “I doubt anyone in Gaza will want to go back to war,” she said.
However, there is also no sign of consensus on Gaza’s future. That uncertainty is complicating efforts to negotiate a lasting resolution.
A hostage-prisoner swap early Thursday was the final one under the initial stage of the truce.
Hamas returned the bodies of four Israelis and 643 Palestinians were released from Israeli jails. Many were awaiting treatment on Friday at a hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
Among those freed was Nael Barghouti, the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner who spent more than four decades behind bars. Another released prisoner, Yahya Shraideh, said: “We were in hell and we came out of hell.”
Getting the Israel-Hamas ceasefire to the next phase will be difficult. Here’s why
- President Donald Trump took credit for the ceasefire, which Witkoff helped push across the finish line after a year of negotiations led by the Biden administration, Egypt and Qatar
- Israelis were shocked to see the captives — some of whom were emaciated — paraded before crowds upon their release
CAIRO: Israel and Hamas have begun working to advance their ceasefire agreement in Gaza to the next phase, but it’s unclear if they’ll get there and, if not, what comes next.
The first phase of the ceasefire, which paused 15 months of war, freed Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, and enabled more humanitarian aid to reach Gaza, expires on Saturday. The two sides seem willing to maintain their truce while negotiators from the US, Egypt and Qatar guide talks aimed at getting to the next phase.
The parties were supposed to have begun ironing out the details of phase two weeks ago. But talks were delayed as the first six weeks of the ceasefire were marred by disputes between Israel and Hamas over alleged violations of the deal.
Under the terms of the truce that began in Jan. 19, the second phase would compel Hamas to release all the remaining living hostages from its Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war, in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners in Israel, a lasting ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
Over the past six weeks, Hamas has freed 33 living and dead hostages in exchange for more than 1,700 Palestinian prisoners. The militant group still holds 59 captives, 32 of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel is reportedly seeking an extension of the first phase to secure the freedom of more captives.
Getting to the ceasefire’s next phase will be challenging
Getting to the second phase will be difficult because it will likely force Israel to choose between its two main war goals — the safe return of the hostages and the annihilation of Hamas.
Already, there are signs of strain. The agreement calls for Israel to begin withdrawing troops from a narrow strip of land in southern Gaza this weekend and to complete the process within eight days. But an Israeli official said Thursday that Israeli forces would remain in the Philadelphi corridor indefinitely.
One possibility is that instead of moving to phase two, Israel will try to extend phase one and push for more exchanges of hostages for prisoners. Steve Witkoff, the Trump administration’s Mideast envoy, said in an interview with CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that he hoped to negotiate the second phase during an elongated first phase.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not publicly supported that idea. He is under pressure from hard-liners in his governing coalition to resume the war against Hamas. But he also faces pressure from the Israeli public to bring the remaining hostages home.
Witkoff said Netanyahu is committed to bringing back all the hostages but has set a “red line” that Hamas cannot be involved in governing Gaza after the war. Netanyahu has also ruled out any role in Gaza for the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, dominated by Hamas’ main rival, Fatah.
Hamas has said it is willing to hand over control of Gaza to other Palestinians, but it has dismissed Israel’s suggestion that its leadership go into exile.
That means the militant group, which does not accept Israel’s existence, would remain entrenched in Gaza. And it says it won’t lay down its arms unless Israel ends its occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem — — lands captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war that Palestinians want for a future state.
The ceasefire’s first phase has further embittered both sides
The first phase of the ceasefire has only deepened the mistrust on both sides.
Israelis were shocked to see the captives — some of whom were emaciated — paraded before crowds upon their release. After returning to Israel, hostages said they were held under harsh conditions.
Last Thursday, Hamas handed over coffins it said held the remains of Shiri Bibas and her two small children, who it said were killed in an Israeli airstrike. But Israel said a forensic investigation showed the two children were killed by their captors, and that the third body was a Palestinian woman. Hamas later released another body that was confirmed to be the mother.
On Saturday, Hamas further infuriated Israel by filming two hostages who were forced to watch the release of others. In the footage Hamas released, the hostages turn to a camera and beg to be released. Israel then delayed the release of hundreds of prisoners.
Hamas has accused Israel of violating the ceasefire by killing dozens of people who the army said had approached its forces or entered unauthorized areas. It also accused Israel of dragging its feet on the entry of mobile homes and equipment for clearing rubble, which entered late last week, and of beating and abusing Palestinian prisoners prior to their release.
Mixed signals from Trump
President Donald Trump took credit for the ceasefire, which Witkoff helped push across the finish line after a year of negotiations led by the Biden administration, Egypt and Qatar.
But Trump has since sent mixed signals about the deal.
Earlier this month, he set a firm deadline for Hamas to release all the hostages, warning that “all hell is going to break out” if the militants didn’t. But he said it was ultimately up to Israel, and the deadline came and went.
Trump sowed further confusion by proposing that Gaza’s population of some 2 million Palestinians be relocated to other countries and for the United States to take over the territory and develop it. Netanyahu welcomed the idea, which was universally rejected by Palestinians and Arab countries, including close US allies. Human rights groups said it could violate international law.
Trump stood by the plan in a Fox News interview over the weekend but said he’s “not forcing it.”
Israeli PM Netanyahu to hold security meeting after delegation returns from Cairo
- Hamas called on Friday for the international community to press Israel to immediately enter the second phase without delay
- Israel has killed more than 48,000 people, according to Palestinian authorities, while destroying large swathes of the tiny, crowded territory and leaving most of its 2 million inhabitants homeless
- Trump proposed this month that the US should take over Gaza and redevelop it as a “Riviera of the Middle East” with its population displaced into Egypt and Jordan
CAIRO/JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was due to hold consultations with security chiefs and ministers on Friday after an Israeli delegation returned from Cairo with no agreement on extending the Gaza ceasefire, two Israeli officials said.
A Hamas official confirmed that Israel had sought to extend the 42-day truce agreed as a first stage in the ceasefire agreement through the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which begins this weekend. But he said Hamas wanted to move on to negotiations over the second stage, opening the way to a permanent end to the war.
“We are committed to the agreement,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Egyptian and Qatari mediators asked for some time over the next few days to resolve the impasse over the ceasefire, which is due to expire on Saturday, the officials said.
The agreement reached last month halted 15 months of fighting, allowing the exchange of 33 Israeli hostages and five Thais for around 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees and was meant to lead to subsequent talks to build on the truce.
Israeli officials have previously said Israel was ready to resume fighting in Gaza if all its remaining hostages are not returned.
However, Israel and Hamas remain far apart on key issues and each has accused the other of violating the ceasefire, casting doubt over the second phase of the deal meant to include releases of additional hostages and prisoners as well as steps toward a permanent end of the war.
There is no sign of agreement, either among or between Israelis and Palestinians, or between Western and Arab governments, over Gaza’s future. That uncertainty is complicating efforts to negotiate a lasting resolution.
Hamas called on Friday for the international community to press Israel to immediately enter the second phase without delay. It is unclear what will happen if the first phase ends on Saturday without a deal.
A senior official of the Palestinian Authority, State Minister of Foreign Affairs Varsen Aghabekian, also said on Friday that she would like the ceasefire phases to move ahead as originally planned.
“I doubt anyone in Gaza will want to go back to war,” she said in Geneva.
The Cairo talks are being mediated by Egypt and Qatar with US support. US President Donald Trump said on Thursday there were “pretty good talks going on.”
Asked whether the ceasefire deal would move into the second phase, Trump said: “Nobody really knows, but we’ll see what happens.”
The Gaza war is the latest confrontation in decades of conflict between Israel and Palestinians.
It began on Oct. 7, 2023, when fighters from the Islamist group Hamas stormed border defenses from Gaza and attacked Israeli communities, killing around 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
The Israeli military campaign in retaliation has killed more than 48,000 people, according to Palestinian authorities, while destroying large swathes of the tiny, crowded territory and leaving most of its 2 million inhabitants homeless.
CEASEFIRE
The ceasefire has mostly held during its first six weeks, although both sides have accused each other of breaches, particularly in the treatment of Israeli hostages and Palestinian detainees, and in the handling of releases.
The United Nations has described images of both emaciated Israeli hostages and released Palestinian detainees as distressing, saying they reflected the dire conditions in which they were held.
Hamas has staged shows of strength during hostage releases, parading them in front of cameras. Israeli authorities have made released detainees wear clothes bearing pro-Israeli slogans.
Israel is now negotiating to extend the first phase of the ceasefire deal by 42 days, according to the Egyptian security sources.
Israeli government officials said earlier this week that Israel would attempt to extend the initial phase with Hamas freeing three hostages a week in return for the release of Palestinian detainees.
Discussions on an end to the war are complicated by the lack of any agreement over basic questions such as how Gaza would be governed, how its security would be managed, how it could be rebuilt, and who would pay for that.
Trump proposed this month that the US should take over Gaza and redevelop it as a “Riviera of the Middle East” with its population displaced into Egypt and Jordan.
Arab countries have rejected that idea but have yet to announce their own plan.
European countries have also rejected the displacement of Palestinians and say they still support a two-state solution to the conflict.
