JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday signaled that he was moving ahead with US President Donald Trump’s proposal to transfer the Palestinian population out of Gaza, calling it “the only viable plan to enable a different future” for the region.
Netanyahu discussed the plan with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who kicked off a Middle East visit by endorsing Israel’s war aims in Gaza, saying Hamas “must be eradicated.” That created further doubt around the shaky ceasefire as talks on its second phase are yet to begin.
Rubio, in his upcoming stops in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, is likely to face more pushback from Arab leaders over Trump’s proposal, which includes redeveloping Gaza under US ownership. Netanyahu has said all emigration from Gaza should be “voluntary,” but rights groups and other critics say that the plan amounts to coercion given the territory’s vast destruction.
Netanyahu said he and Trump have a “common strategy” for Gaza. Echoing Trump, he said “the gates of hell would be open” if Hamas doesn’t release dozens of remaining hostages abducted in the militant group’s attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that triggered the 16-month war.
The ceasefire’s first phase ends in two weeks. Negotiations were meant to begin two weeks ago on the second phase, in which Hamas would release dozens of remaining hostages in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners, a lasting truce and the withdrawal of Israeli forces
Trump’s special Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, told Fox News that “phase two is absolutely going to begin” and he had ”very productive” calls Sunday with Netanyahu and officials from Egypt and Qatar, which serve as mediators, about continuing talks this week. He also said hostages to be released include 19 Israeli soldiers and “we believe all of them are alive.”
Netanyahu’s office said Israel’s security Cabinet would meet Monday to discuss the second phase.
Trump later told journalists it is “up to Israel what the next step is, in consultation with me.”
In another sign of closing ranks, Israel’s Defense Ministry said it received a shipment of 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) MK-84 munitions from the United States. The Biden administration paused a shipment of such bombs last year over concerns about civilian casualties in Gaza.
Resuming the war could doom hostages
This week marks 500 days of the war. Netanyahu has signaled readiness to resume the fighting after the ceasefire’s current phase, though it could be a death sentence for remaining hostages.
Rubio said peace becomes impossible as long as Hamas “stands as a force that can govern or as a force that can administer or as a force that can threaten by use of violence,” adding, “It must be eradicated.”
Hamas reasserted control over Gaza when the ceasefire began last month, despite suffering heavy losses.
Netanyahu has offered Hamas a chance to surrender and send top leaders into exile. Hamas has rejected that scenario and insists on Palestinian rule. Spokesman Abdul Latif Al-Qanou told The Associated Press the group accepts a Palestinian unity government or a technocratic committee to run Gaza.
Netanyahu instructed negotiators to leave for Cairo on Monday to discuss further implementation of the ceasefire’s first phase, as issues over delivery of shelter materials continue.
The Israeli military, meanwhile, said it carried out an airstrike on people who approached forces in southern Gaza. The Hamas-run Interior Ministry said it killed three of its police officers while they secured the entry of aid trucks near Rafah on the Egyptian border.
‘If someone has a better plan ... that’s great’
In an interview last week, Rubio indicated that Trump’s Gaza proposal was in part aimed at pressuring Arab states to make their own postwar plan that would be acceptable to Israel.
Rubio also appeared to suggest that Arab countries send troops to combat Hamas.
“If the Arab countries have a better plan, then that’s great,” Rubio said Thursday on the “Clay and Buck Show.”
But “Hamas has guns,” he added. “Someone has to confront those guys. It’s not going to be American soldiers. And if the countries in the region can’t figure that piece out, then Israel is going to have to do it.”
Rubio wasn’t scheduled to meet with Palestinians on his trip.
Arabs have limited options
For Arab leaders, facilitating the mass expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza or battling Palestinian militants on behalf of Israel are nightmare scenarios that would bring fierce domestic criticism and potentially destabilize an already volatile region.
Egypt hosts an Arab summit on Feb. 27 and is working with other countries on a counterproposal that would allow for Gaza’s rebuilding without removing its population. Human rights groups say the expulsion of Palestinians would likely violate international law.
Egypt has warned that any mass influx of Palestinians from Gaza would undermine its nearly half-century peace treaty with Israel, a cornerstone of US influence in the region.
The UAE and Saudi Arabia also have rejected any mass displacement of Palestinians.
The UAE was the driving force behind the 2020 Abraham Accords in which four Arab states — Bahrain, the UAE, Morocco and Sudan — normalized relations with Israel during Trump’s previous term. Trump hopes to expand the accords to include Saudi Arabia, potentially offering closer US defense ties, but the kingdom has said it won’t normalize relations with Israel without a pathway to a Palestinian state.
Rubio won’t be visiting Egypt or Jordan, close US allies at peace with Israel that have refused to accept any influx of Palestinian refugees. Trump has suggested he might slash US aid if they don’t comply, which could be devastating for their economies.
Rubio is also skipping Qatar.
Arab and Muslim countries have conditioned any support for postwar Gaza on a return to Palestinian governance with a pathway to statehood in Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories that Israel seized in the 1967 Mideast war.
Israel has ruled out a Palestinian state and any role in Gaza for the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, whose forces were driven out when Hamas seized power there in 2007.
Netanyahu signals he’s moving ahead with Trump’s idea to transfer Palestinians from Gaza
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Netanyahu signals he’s moving ahead with Trump’s idea to transfer Palestinians from Gaza
Syrian pro-Assad fighter jailed for life in Germany for crimes against humanity
The court in the city of Stuttgart found the former militiaman guilty of crimes including murder and torture after a trial which involved testimony from 30 witnesses.
Shortly after the outbreak of anti-Assad protests in early 2011, the man joined a pro-government Shia militia in the southern town of Bosra Al-Sham.
He proceeded to take part in several crimes against the local Sunni population with the aim of “terrorizing” them and driving them from the town, the court found.
German authorities have pursued several suspects for crimes committed in Syria’s civil war under the principle of universal jurisdiction, even after Assad’s ouster last December.
In 2022, former Syrian colonel Anwar Raslan was found guilty of overseeing the murders of 27 people and the torture of 4,000 others at the notorious Al-Khatib jail in 2011 and 2012.
That was the first international trial over state-sponsored torture in Syrian prisons and was hailed as “historic” by human rights activists.
More than 4 million refugees have fled Sudan since war began, UN says
GENEVA: The number of people who have fled Sudan since the beginning of the war has surpassed 4 million, a spokesperson for the UN refugee agency said on Tuesday.
UNHCR spokesperson Eujin Byun told a Geneva press briefing that the milestone was reached on Monday and that the scale of displacement was “putting regional and global stability at stake.”
US to eventually reduce military bases in Syria to one: US envoy
ISTANBUL: The United States has begun reducing its military presence in Syria with a view to eventually closing all but one of its bases there, the US envoy for the country has said in an interview.
Six months after the ouster of longtime Syrian ruler Bashar Assad, the United States is steadily drawing down its presence as part of Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR), a military task force launched in 2014 to fight the Daesh group (IS).
“The reduction of our OIR engagement on a military basis is happening,” the US envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack, said in an interview with Turkiye’s NTV late on Monday.
“We’ve gone from eight bases to five to three. We’ll eventually go to one.”
But he admitted Syria still faced major security challenges under interim leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa, whose Islamist-led coalition toppled Assad in December.
Assad’s ouster brought an end to Syria’s bloody 14-year civil war, but the new authorities have struggled to contain recent bouts of sectarian violence.
Barrack, who is also the US ambassador to Turkiye, called for the “integration” of the country’s ethnic and religious groups.
“It’s very tribal still. It’s very difficult to bring it together,” he said.
But “I think that will happen,” he added.
The Pentagon announced in April that the United States would halve its troops in Syria to less than 1,000 in the coming months, saying the IS presence had been reduced to “remnants.”
Gaza officials say Israeli forces killed 27 heading to aid site. Israel says it fired near suspects
- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday condemned the killing of more 30 Palestinians
- He called for an “immediate and independent investigation” into the incident
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip: Palestinian health officials and witnesses say Israeli forces fired on people as they headed toward an aid distribution site on Tuesday, killing at least 27, in the third such incident in three days.
The army said it fired “near a few individual suspects” who left the designated route, approached its forces and ignored warning shots.
The near-daily shootings have come after an Israeli and US-backed foundation established aid distribution points inside Israeli military zones, a system it says is designed to circumvent Hamas.
The United Nations has rejected the new system, saying it doesn’t address Gaza’s mounting hunger crisis and allows Israel to use aid as a weapon.
The Israeli military said it was looking into reports of casualties on Tuesday.
It previously said it fired warning shots at suspects who approached its forces early Sunday and Monday, when health officials and witnesses said 34 people were killed.
The military denies opening fire on civilians or blocking them from reaching the aid sites.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which operates the sites, says there has been no violence in or around them. On Tuesday,
it acknowledged that the Israeli military was investigating whether civilians were wounded “after moving beyond the designated safe corridor and into a closed military zone,” in an area that was “well beyond our secure distribution site.”
‘Either way we will die’ The shootings all occurred at the Flag Roundabout, around a kilometer (1,000 yards) from one of the GHF’s distribution sites in the now mostly uninhabited southern city of Rafah.
The entire area is an Israeli military zone where journalists have no access outside of army-approved embeds.
At least 27 people were killed early Tuesday, according to Zaher Al-Waheidi, the head of the Gaza Health Ministry’s records department.
Hisham Mhanna, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said its field hospital in Rafah received 184 wounded people, 19 of whom were declared dead on arrival and eight more who later died of their wounds.
The 27 dead were transferred to Nasser Hospital in the city of Khan Younis. Yasser Abu Lubda, a 50-year-old displaced Palestinian from Rafah, said the shooting started around 4 a.m. in the city’s Flag Roundabout area, around one kilometer (1,000 yards) away from the aid distribution hub.
He said he saw several people killed or wounded. Neima Al-Aaraj, a woman from Khan Younis, gave a similar account.
“There were many martyrs and wounded,” she said, saying the shooting by Israeli forces was “indiscriminate.”
She said she managed to reach the hub but returned empty-handed.
“There was no aid there,” she said. “After the martyrs and wounded, I won’t return,” she said.
“Either way we will die.” Rasha Al-Nahal, another witness, said “there was gunfire from all directions.”
She said she counted more than a dozen dead and several wounded along the road.
She said she also found no aid when she arrived at the distribution hub, and that Israeli forces “fired at us as we were returning.” 3 Israeli soldiers killed in northern Gaza
The Israeli military meanwhile said Tuesday that three of its soldiers were killed in the Gaza Strip, in what appeared to be the deadliest attack on Israel’s forces since it ended a ceasefire with Hamas in March.
The military said the three soldiers, all in their early 20s, fell during combat in northern Gaza on Monday, without providing details.
Israeli media reported that they were killed in an explosion in the Jabaliya area.
Israel ended the ceasefire in March after Hamas refused to change the agreement to release more hostages sooner.
Israeli strikes have killed thousands of Palestinians since then, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 people hostage in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack into Israel that ignited the war.
They are still holding 58 hostages, a third of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s military campaign has killed over 54,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were civilians or combatants.
The ministry is led by medical professionals but reports to the Hamas-run government.
Its toll is seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts, though Israel has challenged its numbers.
Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence. Around 860 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the Oct. 7 attack, including more than 400 during the fighting inside Gaza.
One dead, dozens injured as quake hits Turkey's Marmaris
- One killed and dozens injured reported the interior minister
- The quake struck at 2:17 am 10 kilometers off the coast of Marmaris, the AFAD disaster agency said
ANKARA: A 5.8 magnitude earthquake struck the Marmaris area of southwestern Turkiye early on Tuesday, killing one teenager and injuring dozens of people, the interior minister said.
A 14-year-old girl died following a panic attack and some 70 people were hurt in the province of Mugla as they rushed to find safety, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on X.
There were no initial reports of buildings destroyed, he said.
The quake struck at 2:17 am (2317 GMT on Monday) some 10 kilometers (six miles) off the coast of Marmaris, the AFAD disaster agency said.
“In Fethiye, a 14-year-old girl named Afranur Gunlu was taken to the hospital due to a panic attack but, unfortunately, despite all interventions, she passed away,” Yerlikaya said.
Marmaris’ governor, Idris Akbiyik, told the station that seven people were being treated for injuries after jumping from windows or balconies in panic but there was no immediate report of any serious damage.
Turkiye sits on top of major fault lines and earthquakes are frequent.
In 2023, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake killed more than 53,000 people in Turkiye and destroyed or damaged hundreds of thousands of buildings in 11 southern and southeastern provinces. Another 6,000 people were killed in the northern parts of neighboring Syria.
