Sudan’s army chief welcomes Turkish offer to resolve conflict: FM
The war in Sudan has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted 12 million more
Updated 05 January 2025
AFP
PORT SUDAN, Sudan: Sudan’s army chief has welcomed a Turkish offer to resolve the brutal 20-month conflict between his forces and their paramilitary rivals, the Sudanese foreign minister said.
In early December, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a phone call with Sudan’s Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan that Ankara could help establish “peace and stability” in the war-torn African state.
At a meeting in Port Sudan on Saturday, Burhan asked Turkiye’s deputy foreign minister Burhanettin Duran to “deliver the Sudanese leadership’s welcoming of the initiative” to Erdogan, Sudanese foreign minister Ali Youssef said in a briefing after the meeting.
“Sudan needs brothers and friends like Turkiye,” Youssef said, adding that “the initiative can lead to... realizing peace in Sudan.”
Erdogan said in his December call with Burhan that Turkiye “could step in to resolve disputes” and prevent Sudan from “becoming an area of external interventions,” according to a statement from the Turkish presidency.
Following his meeting with Burhan on Saturday, Turkiye’s Duran said that the peace process “entails concerted efforts,” and that his country was ready to play a “role in mobilizing other regional actors to help overcoming the difficulties in ending this conflict.”
In a statement last week, the UAE welcomed “diplomatic efforts” by Turkiye to “resolve the ongoing crisis in Sudan.”
“The UAE is fully prepared to cooperate and coordinate with the Turkish efforts and all diplomatic initiatives to end the conflict in Sudan and find a comprehensive solution to the crisis,” its foreign ministry said.
The war in Sudan, which has pitted Burhan against his former deputy and RSF chief Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted 12 million more.
It has also pushed the country to the brink of famine, with analysts warning involvement from other countries will only prolong the suffering.
Israeli official says force withdrawal from key Gaza corridor has begun, as part of ceasefire deal
Updated 3 sec ago
AP
TEL AVIV: An Israeli official said Sunday that Israeli forces have begun withdrawing from a key Gaza corridor, part of a ceasefire deal with Hamas that is moving ahead.
Israel agreed as part of the truce to remove its forces from the Netzarim corridor, a strip of land that bisects northern Gaza from the south. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss troop movement with the media.
At the start of the ceasefire, Israel began allowing Palestinians to cross Netzarim to head to their homes in the war-battered north and the withdrawal of forces from the area will fulfill another commitment to the deal.
It was not clear how many troops Israel had withdrawn on Sunday.
2 mass graves with bodies of nearly 50 migrants found in southeastern Libya
Updated 7 min 30 sec ago
AP
CAIRO: Libya authorities uncovered nearly 50 bodies this week from two mass graves in the country’s southeastern desert, officials said Sunday, in the latest tragedy involving people seeking to reach Europe through the chaos-stricken North African country.
The first mass grave with 19 bodies was found Friday in a farm in the southeastern city of Kufra, the security directorate said in a statement, adding that authorities took them for autopsy.
Authorities posted images on its Facebook page showing police officers and medics digging in the sand and recovering dead bodies that were wrapped in blankets.
The Al-Abreen charity, which helps migrants in eastern and southern Libya, said that some were apparently shot and killed before being buried in the mass grave.
A separate mass grave with at least 30 bodies was also found in Kufra after raiding a human trafficking center, according to Mohamed Al-Fadeil, head of the security chamber in Kufra. Survivors said nearly 70 people were buried in the grave, he added. Authorities were still searching the area.
Migrants’ mass graves are not uncommon in Libya. Last year, authorities unearthed the bodies of at least 65 migrants in the Shuayrif region, 350 kilometers (220 miles) south of the capital, Tripoli.
Libya is the dominant transit point for migrants from Africa and the Middle East trying to make it to Europe. The country plunged into chaos following a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime autocrat Muammar Qaddafi in 2011. Oil-rich Libya has been ruled for most of the past decade by rival governments in eastern and western Libya, each backed by an array of militias and foreign governments.
Human traffickers have benefited from more than a decade of instability, smuggling migrants across the country’s borders with six nations, including Chad, Niger, Sudan Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia.
Once at the coast, traffickers pack desperate migrants seeking a better life in Europe into ill-equipped rubber boats and other vessels for risky voyages on the perilous Central Mediterranean Sea route.
Rights groups and UN agencies have for years documented systematic abuse of migrants in Libya including forced labor, beatings, rapes and torture. The abuse often accompanies efforts to extort money from families before migrants are allowed to leave Libya on traffickers’ boats.
Those who have been intercepted and returned to Libya — including women and children — are held in government-run detention centers where they also suffer from abuse, including torture, rape and extortion, according to rights groups and UN experts.
Egypt to host emergency Arab summit on Feb. 27 to discuss ‘serious’ Palestinian developments
Egypt has been rallying regional support against US President Donald Trump’s plan to relocate Palestinians
Updated 2 min 34 sec ago
AFP
CAIRO: Egypt will host a summit of Arab nations on February 27 to discuss “the latest serious developments” concerning the Palestinian territories, its foreign ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
The “emergency Arab summit” comes as Egypt has been rallying regional support against US President Donald Trump’s plan to relocate Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Egypt and Jordan while establishing US control over the coastal territory.
Sunday’s statement said the gathering was called “after extensive consultations by Egypt at the highest levels with Arab countries in recent days, including Palestine, which requested the summit, to address the latest serious developments regarding the Palestinian cause.”
That included coordination with Bahrain, which currently chairs the Arab League, the statement said.
On Friday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty spoke with regional partners including Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to shore up opposition to any forced displacement of Palestinians from their land.
Last week, Trump floated the idea of US administration over Gaza, envisioning rebuilding the devastated territory into the “Riviera of the Middle East” after resettling Palestinians elsewhere, namely Egypt and Jordan.
The remarks have prompted global backlash, and Arab countries have firmly rejected the proposal, insisting on a two-state solution with an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Israeli military says it is expanding West Bank operation
Updated 10 min 18 sec ago
Arab News
JERUSALEM: A Palestinian woman was killed in the West Bank as part of an expanded Israeli army operation in the occupied territory.
The Israeli army said they expanded the military operation to four refugee camps in the West Bank. In Nur Shams, a Palestinian refugee camp east of Tulkarm, Israeli forces had killed several “militants” and detained wanted individuals in the area, a military spokesperson said on Sunday.
The Palestinian Health ministry said Sunday that a woman was killed and her husband injured by Israeli gunfire in Tulkarm.
Israeli military, police and intelligence services launched a counter-terrorism operation in Jenin in the West Bank on January 21.
It is described by Israeli officials as a “large-scale and significant military operation”.
Hamas frees three Israeli hostages in fifth Gaza exchange
Exchange takes place ahead of negotiations on next phase of ceasefire between Hamas, Israel
Hamas has so far freed 21 hostages in exchange for hundreds of mostly Palestinian prisoners
Updated 09 February 2025
AP
DEIR EL-BALAH, Palestinian Territories: Israel and Hamas completed their fifth hostage-prisoner swap under a fragile Gaza ceasefire deal on Saturday, with the frail, disoriented appearance of the three freed Israelis sparking dismay among their relatives.
Out of the 183 inmates released by Israel in return, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group said seven required hospitalization, decrying “brutality” and mistreatment in jail.
The fifth exchange since the truce took effect last month comes as negotiations were set to begin on the next phase of the ceasefire, which should pave the way for a permanent end to the war.
FASTFACT
The Hostage and Missing Families Forum urged the Israeli government on Friday to stick with the ceasefire.
Or Levy, Ohad Ben Ami, and Eli Sharabi, who were all seized by militants during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack that sparked the war, “crossed the border into Israeli territory” on Saturday, the Israeli military said.
With their return, 73 out of 251 hostages taken during the attack now remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Jubilant crowds in Israel’s commercial hub, Tel Aviv, cheered as they watched live footage of the three hostages, flanked by masked gunmen, brought on stage in Deir El-Balah before being handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
But the joy at their release was quickly overtaken by concern for their condition, with all three appearing thin and pale.
Sharabi’s cousin Yochi Sardinayof said “he doesn’t look well.”
“I’m sure he will now receive the right treatment and get stronger ... He has an amazing family, and we will all be there for him.”
The choreographed handover included forced statements from the three on stage, in which they stated support for finalizing the subsequent phases of the Israel-Hamas truce.
Sharabi, 52, and Ben Ami, a 56-year-old dual German citizen, were both abducted from their homes in kibbutz Beeri when militants stormed the small community near the Gaza border.
Sharabi lost his wife and two daughters in the attack.
Palestinians gather around a stage being prepared ahead of the hand over to the Red Cross of three Israeli hostages by Hamas in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza Strip on Feb. 8, 2025. (AP)
Levy was abducted from the Nova music festival, where gunmen murdered his wife.
In the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority, relatives and supporters gathered to welcome inmates released by Israel, embracing them and cheering as they stepped off the bus that brought them from nearby Ofer prison.
Israel’s prison service said that “183 terrorists ... were released” to the West Bank, annexed East Jerusalem and Gaza.
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group and the Palestinian Red Crescent said that seven of them had been admitted to hospital in the West Bank.
“All the prisoners who were released today need medical care ... as a result of the brutality they were subjected” to in jail, said the advocacy group, which has long decried abuses of Palestinians in Israeli custody.
Hamas, in a statement, accused Israel of “systematic assaults and mistreatment of our prisoners,” calling it “part of the policy of ... the slow killing of prisoners.”
Gaza militants have so far freed 21 hostages in exchange for hundreds of mostly Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli jails.
Five Thai hostages freed last week from Gaza were discharged on Saturday from a hospital in central Israel, where they had been treated since their release, and were headed back to their home country.
The ceasefire aims to secure the release of 12 more hostages during its first 42-day phase.
Negotiations on the second stage of the ceasefire were set to begin on Monday, but there have been no details on the status of the talks.
The Hostage and Missing Families Forum urged the Israeli government on Friday to stick with the truce.
“An entire nation demands to see the hostages return home,” the Israeli campaign group said in a statement.
“Now is the time to ensure the agreement is completed — until the very last one,” it added.
Netanyahu’s office said that after Saturday’s swap, an Israeli delegation would head to Doha for further talks.
Israel’s offensive has killed at least 48,181 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. The UN considers the figures reliable.
The confirmed number of dead published by the ministry has continued to rise daily as bodies are discovered under the rubble, victims are identified or people die from wounds sustained earlier in the war.
Over the last 48 hours, 26 deaths have been recorded and more than 570 earlier deaths had been confirmed, according to the ministry.
It said a total of 111,638 people have been wounded during the war, which began in October 2023.
A study published in early January in the British medical journal The Lancet estimated the death toll in Gaza due to hostilities during the first nine months of the war was about 40-percent higher than the figures recorded by the Gaza Health Ministry.
