Thousands of Druze mourn youths killed in Golan rocket attack

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.

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.