WASHINGTON: The United States on Wednesday urged Israel to allow Muslims to worship at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem during Ramadan, after a far-right minister proposed barring Palestinians from the occupied West Bank from praying there.
“As it pertains to Al-Aqsa, we continue to urge Israel to facilitate access to Temple Mount for peaceful worshippers during Ramadan consistent with past practice,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters, using the Jewish term for the site, the holiest in Judaism.
“That’s not just the right thing to do, it’s not just a matter of granting people religious freedom that they deserve and to which they have a right, but it’s also a matter that directly is important to Israel’s security,” he said.
“It is not in Israel’s security interest to inflame tensions in the West Bank or in the broader region.”
Israel has been assessing how to address worship in Jerusalem during Ramadan, the Islamic holy month that will start on March 10 or 11, depending on the lunar calendar.
The month of fasting comes as Israel wages a relentless military campaign in the Gaza Strip in response to a major attack by Hamas inside Israel on October 7.
Hamas has called for a mass movement on Al-Aqsa for the start of Ramadan.
“We call on our people in Jerusalem, the West Bank and the occupied interior (Israel) to travel to Al-Aqsa from the first day of the blessed month of Ramadan, in groups or alone, to pray there to break the siege on it,” Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh said in a televised statement Wednesday.
Last week, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said that Palestinian residents of the West Bank “should not be allowed” entry to Jerusalem to pray during Ramadan.
“We cannot take risks,” he said, adding: “We cannot have women and children hostage in Gaza and allow celebrations for Hamas on the Temple Mount.”
Ben Gvir leads a hard-right party advocating Jewish control of the compound.
The United States has been pressing for a deal before Ramadan begins in which Israel would halt strikes in the Gaza Strip and hostages snatched on October 7 would be freed.
The Israeli military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 29,954 people, mostly women and children, according to the latest figures by the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
It was launched in response to Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel which resulted in the deaths of around 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
US urges Israel to let Muslims worship at Al-Aqsa during Ramadan
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US urges Israel to let Muslims worship at Al-Aqsa during Ramadan

- “It is not in Israel’s security interest to inflame tensions in the West Bank or in the broader region,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters
- Israel has been assessing how to address worship in Jerusalem during Ramadan
Flights resume at the rebel-held airport in Yemen’s capital, more than a week after Israeli strikes
The Israeli strikes on May 6 — a rare daytime attack — destroyed the airport’s terminal and left craters on its runway, according to Khaled Al-Shaif, the head of the airport. At least six passenger planes were hit, including three belonging to the national carrier, Yemen Airway or Yemenia, he said.
On Saturday, a flight operated by Yemenia landed at the Sanaa International Airport with 136 passengers on board, according to the Houthis’ Al-Masirah satellite news channel.
The flight had departed from Jordan’s capital, Amman, earlier in the day, the airliner said. Three more flights were scheduled on Saturday between Sanaa and Amman.
The Israeli offensive was in response to a Houthi ballistic missile that hit the grounds of Ben-Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv, which briefly halted flights and commuter traffic.
The Houthis have targeted Israel throughout Israel’s war with the militant Hamas group in Gaza, in solidarity with Palestinians there, while also targeting commercial and naval vessels on the Red Sea. The attacks have raised the Houthis’ profile at home and internationally as the last member of Iran’s self-described “Axis of Resistance” capable of launching regular attacks on Israel.
Since mid-March, the US military under President Donald Trump launched an intensified campaign of daily airstrikes targeting the Houthis. The two sides reached a deal to halt the US campaign in return for the Houthis halting their attacks on shipping.
However, the US-Houthis deal did not stop the rebels’ missile and drone attacks on Israel, which in turn responded with attacks on Yemen’s Red Sea ports held by the Houthis.
On Friday, the Israeli military said it struck the Hodeida and Salif ports, claiming that the Houthis were using the two facilities to transfer weapons. The Houthi-run health ministry said at least one person was killed and 11 others were wounded in Friday’s airstrikes.
Turkiye evacuates 82 nationals from Libya after unrest

ISTANBUL: Turkiye evacuated 82 of its nationals from the Libyan capital Tripoli after several days of fatal clashes between armed groups, foreign ministry sources said late Friday.
“Eighty-two citizens who wanted to return to Turkiye were assisted in their departure from Libya and allowed to return home,” the source said, referring to “the conflict and insecurity” that has gripped the North African nation in recent days.
The move came a day after the Turkish embassy said in a post on Facebook that it was preparing to evacuate its nationals via a Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul from the Libyan port city of Misrata, some 200 kilometers (125 miles) east of Tripoli. It said it would organize bus transport from the capital.
The ministry did not give details about those who returned home and didn’t say whether more flights were planned.
Violence flared in the Libyan capital late on Monday between loyalist forces and powerful armed groups that the government is trying to dismantle.
The UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) on Friday said “at least eight civilians” were killed in heavy clashes, which took place over the following days, bringing air traffic to an almost total standstill.
Although relative calm returned to Tripoli earlier on Friday, the situation remained highly volatile.
Turkiye, which backs the UN-recognized government in Tripoli led by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah, called on Wednesday for a truce and said it was “closely monitoring” the situation.
Libya has struggled to recover from years of unrest since the NATO-backed 2011 uprising that toppled and killed longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi, with the country split between Dbeibah’s government in the west and a rival authority backed by strongman Khalifa Haftar in the east.
Putin to host first Russia-Arab summit in October, Russian agencies report

Russian President Vladimir Putin has invited all leaders and the secretary general of the Arab League for the first Russia-Arab summit on October 15, Russia's news agencies reported on Saturday, citing a statement from the Kremlin.
"I am confident that this meeting will contribute to the further strengthening of mutually beneficial, multifaceted cooperation between our countries and will help in finding ways to ensure peace, security, and stability in the Middle East and North Africa," Interfax agency cited Putin as saying in the statement.
The Arab League, a regional organisation of Arab states in the Middle East and parts of Africa, has 22 member states who have pledged, among others, to cooperate on political, economic and military affairs in the region.
The reports came following a four-day trip by U.S. President Donald Trump through the Gulf region this week, during which Washington said it had secured several deals, including a $600 billion commitment by Saudi Arabia to invest in the U.S., $142 billion in arms sales to the kingdom, and an AI partnership with the United Arab Emirates.
Arab summit host Iraq pledges $40 mn for Gaza, Lebanon reconstruction

BAGHDAD: Iraq Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani, whose country is hosting an Arab League summit, said Saturday it would provide $40 million for the reconstruction of Lebanon and Gaza after wars with Israel.
Iraq backs the creation of an “Arab fund to support reconstruction efforts” after crises in the region, Sudani told Arab leaders in Baghdad. Iraq will contribute “$20 million to the reconstruction of Gaza and $20 million for the reconstruction of Lebanon,” he added.
Regional leaders met in Baghdad on Saturday at the annual summit of the Arab League, with the war in Gaza expected to once again loom large.
In March, at an emergency summit in Cairo, Arab leaders endorsed a proposed plan for reconstruction of the Gaza Strip without displacing its roughly 2 million residents.
Saturday’s summit comes two months after after Israel ended a ceasefire reached with the Hamas militant group in January. In recent days, Israel has launched widespread attacks in Gaza and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed a further escalation of force to pursue his aim of destroying Hamas.
The Baghdad meeting was upstaged by US President Donald Trump’s tour in the region earlier in the week. Trump’s visit did not usher in a deal for a new ceasefire in Gaza as many had hoped, but he grabbed headlines by meeting with new Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa — who had once fought against U.S. forces in Iraq — and promising to remove U.S. sanctions imposed on Syria.
Al-Sharaa was not attending the summit in Baghdad, where Syria’s delegation was headed by Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani. Iraqi Shiite militias and political factions are wary of al-Sharaa’s past as a Sunni militant and had pushed back against his invitation to the summit.
Formerly known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, al-Sharaa joined the ranks of al-Qaeda insurgents battling US forces in Iraq after the US-led invasion in 2003 to oust Saddam Hussein and still faces a warrant for his arrest on terrorism charges in Iraq.
During Syria’s conflict that began in March 2011, several Iraqi Shiite militias fought alongside the forces of former Syrian President Bashar Assad, making al-Sharaa today a particularly sensitive figure for them.
Iraq, which has strong — and sometimes conflicting — ties with both the United States and Iran, has sought to strike a difficult balance between them and to position itself as a regional mediator.
An Iraqi political official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment, said that Iran’s Quds Force commander Esmail Ghaani had paid a visit to Baghdad prior to the summit and “conveyed messages of support for the Iranian-American negotiations” for a nuclear deal and a demand for the lifting of crippling sanctions on Iran.
Gaza rescuers say 10 killed as Israel announces new operation

- Gaza’s civil defense agency earlier said Israeli strikes on Gaza had killed 100 people on Friday
JERUSALEM: Gaza rescuers said Israeli strikes killed 10 people on Saturday, after the Israeli military announced the early stages of an intensified operation aimed at defeating Hamas.
The stepped-up campaign came as the humanitarian situation in the besieged territory continued to worsen, with one of its last functioning hospitals warning it was no longer able to treat seriously wounded patients due to shortages of supplies and a nearby attack that damaged the premises.
Civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP 10 bodies had been brought to Gaza hospitals after strikes on Saturday morning.
Three people were killed and four wounded in drone strikes east of the southern city of Khan Yunis, he said, while three others were killed and several wounded in the bombing of a house in Jabalia, in the north.
An attack on an apartment northwest of Khan Yunis killed three people, he added, while one person was killed and five wounded, “including a girl, a young woman and a pregnant woman,” in a strike on a tent west of the same city.
The reports of deaths came after the Israeli army announced it had “launched extensive strikes and transferred forces to seize control of areas within the Gaza Strip.”
The moves were part of the “the expansion of the battle in the Gaza Strip, with the goal of achieving all the war’s objectives, including the release of the abducted and the defeat of Hamas,” the military said.
The operation was launched as Israel faces pressure to lift a sweeping aid blockade it imposed on Gaza in early March as negotiations faltered over next steps in a ceasefire that collapsed weeks later.
Aid organizations have warned that the blockade has created critical shortages of everything from food and clean water to fuel and medicines.
Marwan Sultan, director of the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, said the situation there was “tragic and catastrophic after its surroundings were targeted again this morning, causing the collapse of ceilings and cracks in the walls.”
“The operating rooms and intensive care units are completely full and we are unable to receive any more critical cases,” he said.
He added there was “a severe shortage of blood units, medicines, medical and therapeutic supplies, and surgical procedures.”
Sultan said doctors had been forced to source blood for transfusions from other patients and even from themselves “due to the impossibility of donations from citizens due to malnutrition.”