FALLUJAH: Iraqi forces hunted down holdout terrorists in Fallujah Saturday after retaking the city center and trained their sights on Mosul, Daesh’s last remaining major hub in the country.
While not fully under government control yet, Fallujah is the latest in a string of battlefields losses for Daesh, which has seen its two-year-old “caliphate” shrink significantly in recent months.
Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi on Friday declared Fallujah retaken after the national flag was raised over the main government compound but Daesh terrorists still hold most northern neighborhoods.
Elite Iraqi forces “are continuing their progress in the liberation of neighborhoods in northern Fallujah,” Lt. Gen. Abdulwahab Al-Saadi, the overall commander of the operation, said.
Forces led by the police of Anbar province, where Fallujah is located, were meanwhile combing reconquered southern neighborhoods for pockets of Daesh fighters and explosive devices, he said.
Abadi announced the recapture of the city of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, in December but the security forces only established full control over the city in February.
Saadi and other commanders said Iraqi forces faced only limited resistance during the major advance that saw them push into the heart of Fallujah and clinch a breakthrough in the four-week-old operation.
Security sources said Daesh terrorists have been slipping out of the city by blending in with civilians fleeing the fighting.
Daesh’s retreat in Fallujah sparked what the Norwegian Refugee Council described as “an unprecedented tidal wave of mass displacement from Fallujah.”
It said late Friday that up to 20,000 people fled the city in just a few hours.
Footage on social media showed hundreds of people swimming across the Euphrates to reach safety.
“It is unknown how many families are still trapped inside Fallujah but we are concerned they are the most vulnerable — pregnant women, elderly people, people with disabilities,” the NRC said. Building on the momentum of the Fallujah operation, Iraq announced Saturday that joint Kurdish-federal forces were starting a new phase in the push on Mosul from the south.
Abadi ignored US advice to focus on Mosul last month when he declared the launch of the Fallujah operation but he vowed on Friday that the liberation of the northern city was “very near.”
Patrick Martin, Iraq analyst with the Institute for the Study of War, argued that Daesh could survive the loss of Fallujah.
Iraq forces hunt Daesh in Fallujah and eye Mosul
Iraq forces hunt Daesh in Fallujah and eye Mosul
Israeli military says four soldiers killed in north Gaza
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said on Saturday that four soldiers had died in combat in the north of the Gaza Strip, more than 15 months into its war with Hamas militants.
The deaths brought to 403 the total number of soldiers killed in the Palestinian territory since Israel launched its ground offensive in retaliation for Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack.
Displaced Gazan digs shelter against winter weather and war
- Nearly all of Gaza’s 2.4 million inhabitants have been displaced by the war that has ravaged the Palestinian territory for over 14 months
- For civilians fleeing the fighting, the lack of safe buildings means many have had to gather in makeshift camps
GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Faced with plunging temperatures and heavy rain in war-battered central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah, displaced Palestinian father Tayseer Obaid resorted to digging for a modicum of domestic comfort.
In the clay soil of the encampment area that his family has been displaced to by the war, Obaid dug a square hole nearly two meters deep and capped it with a tarpaulin stretched over an improvised wooden A-frame to keep out the rain.
“I had an idea to dig into the ground to expand the space as it was very limited,” Obaid said.
“So I dug 90 centimeters, it was okay and I felt the space get a little bigger,” he said from the shelter while his children played in a small swing he attached to the plank that serves as a beam for the tarpaulin.
In time, Obaid managed to dig 180 centimeters deep (about six feet) and then lined the bottom with mattresses, at which point, he said, “it felt comfortable, sort of.”
With old flour sacks that he filled with sand, he paved the entry to the shelter to keep it from getting muddy, while he carved steps into the side of the pit.
The clay soil is both soft enough to be dug without power tools and strong enough to stand on its own.
The pit provides some protection from Israeli air strikes, but Obaid said he feared the clay soil could collapse should a strike land close enough.
“If an explosion happened around us and the soil collapsed, this shelter would become our grave.”
Nearly all of Gaza’s 2.4 million inhabitants have been displaced by the war that has ravaged the Palestinian territory for over 14 months.
The UN’s satellite center (UNOSAT) determined in September 2024 that 66 percent of Gaza’s buildings had been damaged or completely destroyed by the war, in which Israel has made extensive use of air strikes as it fights the militant group Hamas.
For Palestinian civilians fleeing the fighting, the lack of safe buildings means many have had to gather in makeshift camps, mostly in central and southern Gaza.
Shortages caused by the complete blockade of the coastal territory mean that construction materials are scarce, and the displaced must make do with what is at hand.
On top of the hygiene problems created by the lack of proper water and sanitation for the thousands of people crammed into the camps, winter weather has brought its own set of hardships.
On Thursday, the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, warned that eight newborns died of hypothermia and 74 children died “amid the brutal conditions of winter” in 2025.
“We enter this New Year carrying the same horrors as the last — there’s been no progress and no solace. Children are now freezing to death,” UNRWA’s spokeswoman Louise Wateridge said.
At least 46,537 Palestinians, a majority of them civilians, have been killed in Israel’s military campaign in Gaza since the war began, according to data provided by the health ministry. The United Nations has acknowledged these figures as reliable.
The October 7 attack that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, which includes hostages killed in captivity.
Obaid’s sunken shelter provides some protection from the cold winter nights, but not enough.
For warmth, he dug a chimney-like structure and fireplace in which he burns discarded paper and cardboard.
Though Obaid improved his lot, his situation remains bleak. “If I had a better option, I wouldn’t be living in a hole that looks like a grave,” he says.
Emirati, Lebanese leaders agree to reopen UAE embassy in Beirut
- Sheikh Mohamed congratulated Aoun on his recent election
ABU DHABI: UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan and Lebanon’s newly elected President Joseph Aoun agreed on Saturday to reopen the UAE embassy in Beirut, the Emirates News Agency reported.
The two leaders said during a phone call they would take required steps to ensure this would happen.
On Thursday, Sheikh Mohamed congratulated Aoun on his recent election, and reaffirmed the UAE’s commitment to supporting all efforts that ensure Lebanon’s security and stability and realise the aspirations of its people.
Sheikh Mohamed shared “his hope to work together for the mutual benefit and prosperity of both nations and their peoples,” a statement added.
In return, Aoun also affirmed his commitment to strengthening bilateral relations.
Israel’s Netanyahu sends Mossad director to Gaza ceasefire talks in Qatar
- Netanyahu’s office announced the decision Saturday
- It was not immediately clear when David Barnea would travel to Doha
JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has approved sending the director of the Mossad foreign intelligence agency to ceasefire negotiations in Qatar in a sign of progress in talks on the war in Gaza.
Netanyahu’s office announced the decision Saturday. It was not immediately clear when David Barnea would travel to Qatar’s capital, Doha, site of the latest round of indirect talks between Israel and the Hamas militant group. His presence means high-level Israeli officials who would need to sign off on any agreement are now involved.
Just one brief ceasefire has been achieved in 15 months of war, and that occurred in the earliest weeks of fighting. The talks mediated by the United States, Egypt and Qatar have repeatedly stalled since then.
Netanyahu has insisted on destroying Hamas’ ability to fight in Gaza. Hamas has insisted on a full Israeli troop withdrawal from the largely devastated territory. On Thursday, Gaza’s Health Ministry said over 46,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war.
Gaza rescuers say eight dead in Israel strike on school building
- Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal confirmed eight people, including two children and two women, were killed by Israeli shelling on the Halwa school
- The Israeli military, in a statement, acknowledged it conducted a strike on the facility
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Gaza’s civil defense agency said an Israeli air strike on a school-turned-shelter on Saturday killed eight people, including two children, while the Israeli military said it targeted Hamas militants.
Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal confirmed eight people, including two children and two women, were killed by Israeli shelling on the Halwa school in the northern Gaza city of Jabalia.
Bassal said the strike wounded 30 people, including 19 children, and that the Halwa school housed “thousands of displaced people.”
The Israeli military, in a statement, acknowledged it conducted a strike on the facility.
It said the air force “conducted a precise strike on terrorists in a command-and-control center” that had previously served as the Halwa school in Jabaliya.
It said it targeted the premises because “the school had been used by Hamas terrorists to plan and execute attacks.”
The attack was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes on school buildings housing displaced people in Gaza, where fighting has raged for more than 14 months.
A strike on the United Nations-run Al-Jawni school in central Gaza on September 11 drew international outcry after the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said six of its staff were among the 18 reported dead.
The Israeli military accuses Hamas of hiding in school buildings where thousands of Gazans have sought shelter — a charge denied by the Palestinian militant group.
At least 46,537 Palestinians, a majority of them civilians, have been killed in Israel’s military campaign in Gaza since the war began, according to data provided by the health ministry. The United Nations has acknowledged these figures as reliable.
The October 7 attack that triggered it resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, which includes hostages killed in captivity.
