Israeli strikes kill 29 people in Gaza, medics say, as tanks push deeper in the north

Israeli strikes kill 29 people in Gaza, medics say, as tanks push deeper in the north
Ali Assaf (C), 20, reportedly the only survivor from his family killed in an overnight Israeli airstrike in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, is comforted by two young men as mourns near the bodies of his relatives in front of the Al-Maamadani on October 12, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 13 October 2024
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Israeli strikes kill 29 people in Gaza, medics say, as tanks push deeper in the north

Israeli strikes kill 29 people in Gaza, medics say, as tanks push deeper in the north
  • Israeli forces continue to pound Jabalia from air, ground
  • Around 150 killed in Jabalia over past week

CAIRO: Israeli military strikes on Gaza on Saturday killed at least 29 Palestinians, medics said, and forces kept pushing deeper into the Jabalia area, where international relief agencies say thousands of people are trapped.
Residents said Israeli forces continued to pound Jabalia, in the north of the enclave, the largest of its historic refugee camps, from the air and ground.
Nineteen people were killed in Gaza overnight, and 10 more died on Saturday evening after Israel struck two houses in Jabalia and the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza. The death toll could rise as many of the wounded are in critical condition, medics said.
The Israeli military published new evacuation orders on Saturday to two neighborhoods on the northern edge of Gaza City, which also lies in the north of the enclave, saying the area was a “dangerous combat zone.”
In a statement, Gaza’s Hamas-run interior ministry urged residents not to relocate within northern areas of the enclave and also to avoid heading south “where the occupation is conducting continued bombing and killing every day in the areas it claims to be safe.”
The Israeli military said it had been operating against Hamas fighters who had been using civilian buildings and said clear evacuation instructions had been issued over recent days to areas including the Kamal Adwan Hospital.
It said an evacuation convoy to take patients from the hospital to Gaza City had arrived on Saturday with a supply of fuel for the facility.
In recent days, the military had said that forces operating in Jabalia and nearby areas killed dozens of militants, located weapons and dismantled military infrastructure.
On Saturday, it said more than 20 fighters had been killed by tank fire, close range gunfire and airstrikes as forces continued operations throughout the Gaza Strip.
The operation in this area began a week ago and the military said then it aimed to fight against militants waging attacks and to prevent Hamas from regrouping. Hamas denies that its fighters deliberately use civilian areas as bases.
Palestinian health officials put the number of people killed in Jabalia over the past week at around 150.
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Displaced Palestinians make their way as they flee areas in the northern Gaza Strip, following an Israeli evacuation order, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Gaza City October 12, 2024. (REUTERS)

Palestinian and United Nations officials say there are no safe areas in Gaza. They have also voiced concerns over severe shortages of food, fuel, and medical supplies in northern Gaza, and said there is a risk of famine there.
Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, aimed at eliminating the militant group Hamas, has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians since it began a year ago, according to Gaza’s health ministry, and has laid waste to the enclave.
The war began after a Hamas-led assault on Oct. 7, 2023, on southern Israeli communities in which 1,200 people were killed and about 250 were taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
In a statement on Saturday, Hamas said Israel’s “massacre against the civilians” aimed to punish the residents of Jabalia for refusing to leave their homes. It also said it was a sign of Israel’s military failure to defeat the group.
Israel has denied it targets civilians.
The armed wings of Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, and smaller other factions said their fighters attacked Israeli forces in Jabalia and nearby areas with anti-tank rockets, and mortar fire.
United Nations officials said on Friday an Israeli offensive and evacuation orders in northern Gaza might affect the second phase of its polio vaccination campaign set to start next week.
The territory’s health ministry announced on Saturday that the campaign would begin on Monday in central Gaza Strip areas and would last three days before moving to other territories.
Aid groups carried out an initial round of vaccinations last month after a baby was partially paralyzed by the type 2 poliovirus in August, the first such case in the territory in 25 years.
As in the first phase, humanitarian pauses in the fighting in Gaza are planned, in order to reach hundreds of thousands of children.


Qatar: Deal reached to release Israeli hostage and allow Palestinians into north Gaza

Qatar: Deal reached to release Israeli hostage and allow Palestinians into north Gaza
Updated 32 min 46 sec ago
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Qatar: Deal reached to release Israeli hostage and allow Palestinians into north Gaza

Qatar: Deal reached to release Israeli hostage and allow Palestinians into north Gaza

DOHA/JERUSALEM: Mediator Qatar announced early Monday that an agreement has been reached to release an Israeli civilian hostage and allow Palestinians to return to northern Gaza, easing the first major crisis of the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
Qatar’s statement said Hamas will hand over the civilian hostage, Arbel Yehoud, along with two other hostages before Friday. And on Monday, Israeli authorities will allow Palestinians to return to northern Gaza.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a statement said the hostage release — which will include soldier Agam Berger — will take place on Thursday, and confirmed that Palestinians can move north on Monday. Israel’s military said people can start crossing on foot at 7 a.m.
Under the ceasefire deal, Israel on Saturday was to begin allowing Palestinians to return to their homes in northern Gaza. But Israel put that on hold because of Yehoud, who Israel said should have been released on Saturday. Hamas accused Israel of violating the agreement.

Netanyahu's office said that another six hostages would be released in the coming week, after talks with Hamas. Three would be released on Thursday and another three on Saturday, said a statement from his office.
 

 


Trump’s Palestinian refugee idea falls flat with Jordan and confounds a Senate ally

Trump’s Palestinian refugee idea falls flat with Jordan and confounds a Senate ally
Updated 27 January 2025
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Trump’s Palestinian refugee idea falls flat with Jordan and confounds a Senate ally

Trump’s Palestinian refugee idea falls flat with Jordan and confounds a Senate ally
  • Egypt and Jordan have made peace with Israel but support the creation of a Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, territories that Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War
  • Both Egypt and Jordan also have perpetually struggling economies and their governments, as well as those of other Arab states, fear massive destabilization of their own countries and the region from any such influx of refugees

DORAL, Florida: President Donald Trump’s push to have Egypt and Jordan take in large numbers of Palestinian refugees from besieged Gaza fell flat with those countries’ governments and left a key congressional ally in Washington perplexed on Sunday.
Fighting that broke out in the territory after ruling Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023 is paused due to a fragile ceasefire, but much of Gaza’s population has been left largely homeless by an Israeli military campaign. Trump told reporters Saturday aboard Air Force One that moving some 1.5 million people away from Gaza might mean that “we just clean out that whole thing.”
Trump relayed what he told Jordan’s King Abdullah when the two held a call earlier Saturday: “I said to him, ‘I’d love for you to take on more because I’m looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now, and it’s a mess.’”
He said he was making a similar appeal to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi during a conversation they were having while Trump was at his Doral resort in Florida on Sunday. Trump said he would “like Egypt to take people and I’d like Jordan to take people.”
Egypt and Jordan, along with the Palestinians, worry that Israel would never allow them to return to Gaza once they have left. Both Egypt and Jordan also have perpetually struggling economies and their governments, as well as those of other Arab states, fear massive destabilization of their own countries and the region from any such influx of refugees.
Jordan already is home to more than 2 million Palestinian refugees. Egypt has warned of the security implications of transferring large numbers of Palestinians to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, bordering Gaza.
Trump suggested that resettling most of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million could be temporary or long term.
Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, said Sunday that his country’s opposition to what Trump floated was “firm and unwavering.” Some Israel officials had raised the idea early in the war.
Egypt’s foreign minister issued a statement saying that the temporary or long-term transfer of Palestinians “risks expanding the conflict in the region.”
Trump does have leverage to wield over Jordan, which is a debt-strapped, but strategically important, US ally and is heavily dependent on foreign aid. The US is historically the single-largest provider of that aid, including more than $1.6 billion through the State Department in 2023.
Much of that comes as support for Jordan’s security forces and direct budget support.
Jordan in return has been a vital regional partner to the US in trying to help keep the region stable. Jordan hosts some 3,000 US troops. Yet, on Friday, new Secretary of State Marco Rubio exempted security assistance to Israel and Egypt but not to Jordan, when he laid out the details of a freeze on foreign assistance that Trump ordered on his first day in office.
Meantime, in the United States, even Trump loyalists tried to make sense of his words.
“I really don’t know,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, when asked on CNN’s “State of the Union” about what Trump meant by the ”clean out” remark. Graham, who is close to Trump, said the suggestion was not feasible.
“The idea that all the Palestinians are going to leave and go somewhere else, I don’t see that to be overly practical,” said Graham, R-S.C. He said Trump should keep talking to Mideast leaders, including Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and officials in the United Arab Emirates.
“I don’t know what he’s talking about. But go talk to MBS, go talk to UAE, go talk to Egypt,” Graham said. “What is their plan for the Palestinians? Do they want them all to leave?”
Trump, a staunch supporter of Israel, also announced Saturday that he had directed the US to release a supply of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel. Former President Joe Biden had imposed a hold due to concerns about their effects on Gaza’s civilian population.
Egypt and Jordan have made peace with Israel but support the creation of a Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, territories that Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War. They fear that the permanent displacement of Gaza’s population could make that impossible.
In making his case for such a massive population shift, Trump said Gaza is “literally a demolition site right now.”
“I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations, and build housing in a different location,” he said of people displaced in Gaza. “Where they can maybe live in peace for a change.”
 

 


Syria monitor says 35 people summarily executed in three days

Syria monitor says 35 people summarily executed in three days
Updated 27 January 2025
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Syria monitor says 35 people summarily executed in three days

Syria monitor says 35 people summarily executed in three days
  • Most of those executed are former officers in the toppled Assad government who had presented themselves in centers set up by the new authorities, according to the Britain-based monitor with a network of sources inside Syria

DAMASCUS: Fighters affiliated with Syria’s new Islamist leaders have carried out 35 summary executions over 72 hours, mostly of Assad-era officers, a war monitor said Sunday.
The authorities, installed by the rebel forces that toppled longtime president Bashar Assad last month, said they had carried out multiple arrests in the western Homs area over unspecified “violations.”
Official news agency SANA said the authorities on Friday accused members of a “criminal group” who used a security sweep to commit abuses against residents, “posing as members of the security services.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said that “these arrests follow grave violations and summary executions that had cost the lives of 35 people over the past 72 hours.”
It also said that “members of religious minorities” had suffered “humiliations.”
Most of those executed are former officers in the toppled Assad government who had presented themselves in centers set up by the new authorities, according to the Britain-based monitor with a network of sources inside Syria.
“Dozens of members of local armed groups under the control of the new Sunni Islamist coalition in power who participated in the security operations” in the Homs area “have been arrested,” the Observatory said.
It added that these groups “carried out reprisals and settled old scores with members of the Alawite minority to which Bashar Assad belongs, taking advantage of the state of chaos, the proliferations of arms and their ties to the new authorities.”
The Observatory listed “mass arbitrary arrests, atrocious abuse, attacks against religious symbols, mutilations of corpses, summary and brutal executions targeting civilians,” which it said showed “an unprecedented level of cruelty and violence.”
Civil Peace Group, a civil society organization, said in a statement that there had been civilian victims in multiple villages in the Homs area during the security sweep.
The group “condemned the unjustified violations” including the killing of unarmed men.
Since seizing power, the new authorities have sought to reassure religious and ethnic minorities in Syria that their rights would be upheld.
Members of Assad’s Alawite minority have expressed fear of retaliation over abuses during his clan’s decades in power.
 

 


US says ceasefire agreement between Lebanon, Israel to continue until February 18

US says ceasefire agreement between Lebanon, Israel to continue until February 18
Updated 27 January 2025
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US says ceasefire agreement between Lebanon, Israel to continue until February 18

US says ceasefire agreement between Lebanon, Israel to continue until February 18
  • Lebanon confirms adhering to the extended ceasefire agreement, says Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati
  • Israeli forces killed 22 people in south Lebanon on Sunday as a deadline for their withdrawal passed

WASHINGTON: The US said on Sunday that the agreement between Lebanon and Israel would remain in effect until Feb. 18, after Israel said on Friday it would keep troops in the south beyond the Sunday deadline set out in a US-brokered ceasefire that halted last year’s war with Hezbollah.
“The arrangement between Lebanon and Israel, monitored by the United States, will continue to be in effect until February 18, 2025,” the White House said in a statement.

Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said in a statement early on Monday that Lebanon confirmed it will continue to adhere to the extended ceasefire agreement.

Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati. (AFP)

Israeli forces killed 22 people in south Lebanon on Sunday as a deadline for their withdrawal passed and thousands of people tried to return to their homes in defiance of Israeli military orders, Lebanese authorities said.
Lebanon’s US-backed military, which reported one of its soldiers among those killed by Israeli forces on Sunday, has accused Israel of procrastinating in its withdrawal.
The Hezbollah-Israel conflict was fought in parallel with the Gaza war, and peaked in a major Israeli offensive that uprooted more than a million people in Lebanon and left the Iran-backed group badly weakened.
Israel has not said how long its forces would remain in the south, where the Israeli military says it has been seizing Hezbollah weapons and dismantling its infrastructure.
Israel said its offensive against Hezbollah aimed to secure the return home of tens of thousands of Israelis who were forced to leave homes at the border by Hezbollah rocket fire.
Hezbollah opened fire in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas at the start of the Gaza war on Oct. 8, 2023.
The White House on Sunday also said the governments of Lebanon, Israel and the US would begin negotiations for “the return of Lebanese prisoners captured after October 7, 2023.”

 

 


Arab League says any plan to uproot Palestinians from Gaza would be ‘ethnic cleansing’

Arab League says any plan to uproot Palestinians from Gaza would be ‘ethnic cleansing’
Updated 27 January 2025
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Arab League says any plan to uproot Palestinians from Gaza would be ‘ethnic cleansing’

Arab League says any plan to uproot Palestinians from Gaza would be ‘ethnic cleansing’
  • The regional bloc was reacting to US President Trump's suggestion to “clean out” the Gaza Strip and move its population to Egypt and Jordan
  • Egyptian President El-Sisi has repeatedly warned that any planned displacement would threaten Egypt’s national security

CAIRO: The Arab League on Sunday warned against “attempts to uproot the Palestinian people from their land,” after US President Donald Trump suggested a plan to “clean out” the Gaza Strip and move its population to Egypt and Jordan.
“The forced displacement and eviction of people from their land can only be called ethnic cleansing,” the regional bloc’s general secretariat said in a statement.

“Attempts to uproot the Palestinian people from their land, whether by displacement, annexation or settlement expansion, have been proven to fail in the past,” the statement added.
Earlier Sunday, Egypt vehemently expressed its objection to Trump's suggestion.

Cairo’s foreign ministry in a statement expressed Egypt’s “continued support for the steadfastness of the Palestinian people on their land.”
It “rejected any infringement on those inalienable rights, whether by settlement or annexation of land, or by the depopulation of that land of its people through displacement, encouraged transfer or the uprooting of Palestinians from their land, whether temporarily or long-term.”
After 15 months of war, Trump said Gaza had become a “demolition site” and he would “like Egypt to take people, and I’d like Jordan to take people.”
Moving Gaza’s inhabitants could be done “temporarily or could be long term,” he said.
Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023 both countries have warned of plans to displace Palestinians from Gaza into neighboring Egypt and from the West Bank into Jordan.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, with whom Trump said he would speak on Sunday, has repeatedly warned that said displacement would aim to “eradicate the cause for Palestinian statehood.”
El-Sisi has described the prospect as a “red line” that would threaten Egypt’s national security.
The Egyptian foreign ministry on Sunday urged the implementation of the “two-state solution,” which Cairo has said would become impossible if Palestinians were removed from their territories.