Israel takes control of key Gaza corridor, to expand offensive

Palestinians ferry their belongings as they arrive in Gaza City to flee neighbourhoods to the east of the city following Israeli evacuation orders on April 11, 2025.(AFP)
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Updated 13 April 2025
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Israel takes control of key Gaza corridor, to expand offensive

  • Israel said on April 2 that troops had begun seizing an area it called the Morag Axis, a reference to a former Israeli settlement once located between the cities of Rafah and Khan Younis, in southern

GAZA CITY: Israel announced on Saturday that its military had completed the takeover of a new corridor in southern Gaza, advancing its efforts to seize large parts of the war-battered Palestinian territory.
The announcement from Defense Minister Israel Katz came as Hamas expected “real progress” toward a ceasefire deal to end the war in Gaza, with senior leaders from the Palestinian movement scheduled to hold talks with Egyptian mediators in Cairo on Saturday.
“The IDF (military) has now completed its takeover of the Morag axis, which crosses Gaza between Rafah and Khan Yunis, turning the entire area between the Philadelphi Route (along the border with Egypt) and Morag into part of the Israeli security zone,” Katz said in a statement addressed to residents of Gaza.
“Soon, IDF (military) operations will intensify and expand to other areas throughout most of Gaza, and you will need to evacuate the combat zones.
“In northern Gaza as well — in Beit Hanoun and other neighborhoods — residents are evacuating, the area is being taken over and the security zone is being expanded, including in the Netzarim corridor,” he added.
Hope of 'real progress'
Since a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas collapsed in mid-March, Israel’s renewed offensive in Gaza has displaced hundreds of thousands of people while the military has seized large areas of the war-battered territory.
Top Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have repeatedly said that the ongoing assault aims to pressure Hamas into freeing the remaining hostages held in Gaza.
Hamas on Saturday said that the offensive not only “kills defenseless civilians but also makes the fate of the occupation’s prisoners (hostages) uncertain.”

Katz’s announcements came ahead of a meeting between Hamas and Egyptian mediators in Cairo on Saturday.
The scheduled talks also came days after US President Donald Trump suggested an agreement to secure the release of hostages was close to being finalized.
A Hamas official told AFP that the group anticipated the meeting in Cairo would yield significant progress.
“We hope the meeting will achieve real progress toward reaching an agreement to end the war, halt the aggression and ensure the full withdrawal of occupation forces from Gaza,” the official familiar with the ceasefire negotiations said on condition of anonymity, as he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
According to the official, Hamas has not yet received any new ceasefire proposals, despite Israeli media reports suggesting that Israel and Egypt had exchanged draft documents outlining a potential ceasefire and hostage release agreement.
“However, contacts and discussions with mediators are ongoing,” he added, accusing Israel of “continuing its aggression” in Gaza.
The Times of Israel reported that Egypt’s proposal would involve the release of eight living hostages and eight bodies, in exchange for a truce lasting between 40 and 70 days and a substantial release of Palestinian prisoners.

Projectiles fired
President Trump said during a cabinet meeting this week that “we’re getting close to getting them (hostages in Gaza) back.”
Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff was also quoted in an Israeli media report as saying “a very serious deal is taking shape, it’s a matter of days.”
Since Israel resumed its Gaza strikes, more than 1,500 people have been killed, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory to which Israel cut off aid more than a month ago.
Dozens of these strikes have killed “only women and children,” according to a report by UN human rights office.
The report also warned that expanding Israeli evacuation orders were resulting in the “forcible transfer” of people into ever-shrinking areas, raising “real concern as to the future viability of Palestinians as a group in Gaza.”
Gaza’s civil defense agency reported an Israeli air strike on a house in Gaza City on Saturday morning.
AFP footage of the aftermath of the strike showed the bodies of four men, wrapped in white shrouds, at a local hospital, while several individuals gathered to offer prayers before the funeral.
The Israeli military, meanwhile, said its air force intercepted three projectiles that were identified as crossing into Israeli territory from southern Gaza on Saturday.
The war in Gaza broke out after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel. It resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Gaza’s health ministry said on Friday that at least 1,563 Palestinians had been killed since March 18 when the ceasefire collapsed, taking the overall death toll since the war began to 50,933.


US embassy in Tripoli denies report of planned relocation of Palestinians to Libya

Updated 18 May 2025
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US embassy in Tripoli denies report of planned relocation of Palestinians to Libya

  • Palestinians vehemently reject any plan involving them leaving Gaza

TRIPOLI: The US embassy in Libya denied on Sunday a report that the US government was working on a plan to relocate Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Libya.
On Thurdsay, NBC News said the Trump administration is working on a plan to permanently relocate as many as one million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Libya.
NBC News cited five people with knowledge of the matter, including two people with direct knowledge and a former US official.
“The report of alleged plans to relocate Gazans to Libya is untrue,” the US embassy said on the X platform.
The Tripoli-based interionationally-recognized Government of National Unity was not available for immediate comment.
Trump has previously said he would like the United States to take over the Gaza Strip and its Palestinian population resettled elsewhere.
Palestinians vehemently reject any plan involving them leaving Gaza, comparing such ideas to the 1948 “Nakba,” or “catastrophe,” when hundreds of thousands were dispossessed of their homes in the war that led to the creation of Israel.
When Trump first floated his idea after taking the presidency, he said he wanted US allies Egypt and Jordan to take in people from Gaza. Both states rejected the idea, which drew global condemnation, with Palestinians, Arab nations and the UN saying it would amount to ethnic cleansing.
In April, Trump said Palestinians could be moved “around to different countries, and you have plenty of countries that will do that.”
During a visit to Qatar this week, Trump reiterated his desire to take over the territory, saying he wanted to see it become a “freedom zone” and that there was nothing left to save.
Trump has previously said he wants to turn Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”


Libya’s PM says eliminating militias is ‘ongoing project’ as ceasefire holds

Updated 18 May 2025
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Libya’s PM says eliminating militias is ‘ongoing project’ as ceasefire holds

  • The United Nations Support Mission in Libya expressed concern on Friday about the escalation of violence in Tripoli, calling on parties to protect civilians and public property

TRIPOLI: Libyan Prime Minister Abdulhamid Al-Dbeibah said on Saturday that eliminating militias is an “ongoing project,” as a ceasefire after deadly clashes this week remained in place.
“We will not spare anyone who continues to engage in corruption or extortion. Our goal is to create a Libya free of militias and corruption,” Dbeibah said in a televised speech.
Dbeibah is the country’s internationally recognized leader in the west, based in Tripoli.
After Dbeibah on Tuesday ordered the armed groups to be dismantled, Tripoli was rocked by its fiercest clashes in years between two armed groups. The clashes killed at least eight civilians, according to the United Nations.
The government announced a ceasefire on Wednesday.
It followed Monday’s killing of major militia chief Abdulghani Kikli, widely known as Ghaniwa, and the sudden defeat of his Stabilization Support Apparatus group by factions aligned with Dbeibah.
SSA is under the Presidential Council that came to power in 2021 with the Government of National Unity of Dbeibah through a United Nations-backed process.
SSA was based in the densely populated Abu Salim neighborhood.
GNU’s Interior Ministry said in a statement that nine decomposed corpses were found in a morgue refrigerator in Abu Salim-based Al-Khadra hospital. It said SSA never reported them to authorities. The PM’s media office posted a video of Dbeibah greeting the security force protecting the Prime Ministry Building. It said he later received delegations from elders to discuss Tripoli’s situation and what he called “successful security operation in Abu Salim.”
“The Prime Minister stressed that this operation falls within the state’s fixed vision to eliminate armed formations outside the police and army institutions,” the media office said.
On Friday, at least three ministers resigned in sympathy with hundreds of protesters who took to the streets calling for Dbeibah’s ouster.
Dbeibah did not comment on their resignations. “The protests are annoying, but I’ve put up with them. I know some of them are real, but a lot of them are paid,” he said.
The United Nations Support Mission in Libya expressed concern on Friday about the escalation of violence in Tripoli, calling on parties to protect civilians and public property.
Libya has had little stability since a 2011 NATO-backed uprising ousted longtime autocrat Muammar Qaddafi. The country split in 2014 between rival eastern and western factions, though an outbreak of major warfare paused with a truce in 2020.
While eastern Libya has been dominated for a decade by commander Khalifa Haftar and his Libyan National Army, control in Tripoli and western Libya has been splintered among numerous armed factions.
A major energy exporter, Libya is also an important way station for migrants heading to Europe, while its conflict has drawn in foreign powers including Turkiye, Russia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.
State-oil firm NOC said on Friday that its operations at oil facilities are proceeding as normal, with oil and gas exports operating regularly.


Israel says intercepted missile from Yemen, Houthis claim attack

Updated 30 min 2 sec ago
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Israel says intercepted missile from Yemen, Houthis claim attack

CAIRO: The Israeli military said Sunday it had intercepted a missile fired from Yemen, where the Iran-backed Houthis claimed launching two missiles at Israel’s main airport.
“A missile that was launched from Yemen was intercepted,” the Israeli military said in a statement, adding that air raid sirens had sounded in several areas of the country.
The Houthis later said they had fired “two ballistic missiles” toward Israel’s Ben Gurion airport, near Tel Aviv.
The Iran-backed militants have regularly fired missiles and drones at Israel since the war in Gaza broke out in October 2023, following an attack on Israel by the Houthis’ Palestinian ally Hamas.
Earlier this month, a Houthi missile struck the area of the Tel Aviv airport, gouging a hole near its main terminal building and wounding several people in a rare penetration of Israeli air defenses.
On Friday, Israel bombed the Houthi-held Red Sea ports of Hodeida and Salif following three missile attacks in as many days. It threatened to target the Houthi leadership if the attacks continued.
In response to the strike that landed near Ben Gurion, Israel has struck the airport in Yemen’s rebel-controlled capital Sanaa and three nearby power stations.
On Sunday, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the group would continue targeting Israel until the “siege is lifted” on Gaza.
The Houthis, who control swathes of Yemen, have also targeted Red Sea shipping throughout the Gaza war, saying they act in solidarity with Palestinians.
Their attacks on the vital shipping route drew retaliatory strikes by the United States, which in early May sealed a ceasefire with the group that did not include Israel.


Syria announces commissions for missing persons, transitional justice

Updated 18 May 2025
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Syria announces commissions for missing persons, transitional justice

  • A decree signed by interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa and released by the presidency announced the formation of an independent “national commission for missing persons”

DAMASCUS: Syria on Saturday announced the formation of a national commission for missing persons and another for transitional justice, more than five months after the ouster of longtime ruler Bashar Assad.
Syria’s new authorities have pledged justice for victims of atrocities committed under Assad’s rule, and a five-year transitional constitution signed in March provided for the formation of a transitional justice commission.
The fate of tens of thousands of detainees and others who went missing remains one of the most harrowing legacies of Syria’s conflict, which erupted in 2011 when Assad’s forces brutally repressed anti-government protests, triggering more than a decade of war.
A decree signed by interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa and released by the presidency announced the formation of an independent “national commission for missing persons.”
The body is tasked with “researching and uncovering the fate of the missing and forcibly disappeared, documenting cases, establishing a national database and providing legal and humanitarian support to their families.”
A separate decree announced the formation of a national commission for transitional justice to “uncover the truth about the grave violations caused by the former regime.”
That commission should hold those responsible to account “in coordination with the relevant authorities, remedy the harm to victims, and firmly establish the principles of non-recurrence and national reconciliation,” according to the announcement.
The decree noted “the need to achieve transitional justice as a fundamental pillar for building a state of law, guaranteeing victims’ rights and achieving comprehensive national reconciliation.”
Both bodies will have “financial and administrative independence” and act over all of Syrian territory, according to the decrees signed by Sharaa.
In December, an Islamist-led coalition toppled Assad after five decades of his family’s iron-fisted rule and nearly 14 years of brutal war that killed more than half a million people and displaced millions more.
Tens of thousands of people were detained and tortured in the country’s jails, while Assad has been accused of using chemical weapons against his own people.
Rights groups, activists and the international community have repeatedly emphasized the importance of transitional justice in the war-torn country.
In March, Sharaa signed into force a constitutional declaration for a five-year transitional period.
It stipulated that during that period, a “transitional justice commission” would be formed to “determine the means for accountability, establish the facts, and provide justice to victims and survivors” of the former government’s misdeeds.
This week, prominent Syrian human rights lawyer Mazen Darwish told AFP that lasting peace in Syria depended on the country building a strong judicial system giving justice to the victims of all crimes committed during the Assad era.


Israeli strikes across Gaza kill at least 66 people, hospitals and medics say

Updated 16 min 47 sec ago
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Israeli strikes across Gaza kill at least 66 people, hospitals and medics say

  • The Nasser hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis said it received the bodies of 20 people who were killed in multiple overnight airstrikes

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 66 people overnight and into Sunday, hospitals and medics in the battered enclave said as Israel launches an escalation of its war in the territory, which it says is meant to ramp up pressure on Hamas to agree to a temporary ceasefire.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment.
The Nasser hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis said it received the bodies of 20 people who were killed in multiple overnight airstrikes that hit houses and tents sheltering displaced families in the Muwasi area.
In northern Gaza, at least 36 people were killed in multiple strikes, according to first responders from the health ministry and the civil defense.
The dead included nine people from a single family who were killed when an airstrike hit their house in the built-up Jabaliya refugee camp, according to the health ministry’s emergency services.
Another strike hit the house of the Berawi family, also in Jabaliya, killing 10 people including seven children and a woman, according to the civil defense, which operates under the Hamas-run government. Among the dead were two parents and their three children and a father and his four children, it said.
In central Gaza, at least 10 people were killed in two separate strikes, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in the town of Deir Al-Balah. One strike in the Zweida town killed seven people, including two children and four women. The second hit an apartment in Deir Al-Balah, killing two parents and their child, the hospital said.