UN ‘doing what it can’ to deliver Gaza aid as evacuation orders cause extreme difficulties

JERUSALEM: Some 90,000 Palestinians prayed at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City under tight security by Israeli forces in the first Friday prayers of Ramadan.
Thousands made their way from the West Bank into Jerusalem for the prayers after Israel allowed men over 55 and women over 50 to enter from the occupied territory for the prayers.
Tensions have risen in the West Bank in the past weeks amid Israeli raids on militants. But there was no immediate sign of frictions on Friday.

It was the Palestinians’ first chance to enter occupied Jerusalem since last Ramadan about a year ago, when Israel also let in worshippers under similar restrictions.
Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023, the Israeli government has blocked Palestinians in the West Bank from crossing to Jerusalem or visiting Israel.

Last Ramadan, the war was raging, but this time, a fragile ceasefire has been in place since mid-January — though its future is uncertain.
In Gaza, thousands gathered for the Friday communal prayers in the shattered concrete husk of a mosque, heavily damaged by Israeli forces during the fighting.
On Thursday evening, Palestinians strung festive Ramadan lights around the rubble of destroyed buildings surrounding their tent camp in Gaza City and set up long communal tables for hundreds of people where aid groups served up iftar.
At Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, Nafez Abu Saker said he left his home in the village of Aqraba in the northern West Bank at 7 a.m., taking three hours to make the 45-km trip through Israeli checkpoints to reach Jerusalem. “If the people from the West Bank will be permitted to come, people from all the cities, villages, and camps will come to Al-Aqsa to pray,” he said.
“The reward of prayer here is 500 prayers — despite the difficulty of getting here. It brings a great reward from God,” said Ezat Abu Laqia, also from Aqraba.
The faithful formed rows to listen to the Friday sermon and kneel in prayer at the foot of the golden Dome of the Rock on the sprawling mosque compound.
The Islamic Trust oversees the Al-Aqsa compound and said 90,000 attended the prayers.
The Israeli police said it deployed thousands of additional officers around the area.
The compound and the surrounding area of Jerusalem’s Old City have been the site of clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police in the past.
Thousands of Palestinians coming from the West Bank lined up at the Qalandia checkpoint on the edge of Jerusalem to attend the prayers.  But, some were turned away because they did not have the proper permits or the checkpoint was closed.
Israeli police said authorities had approved the entry of 10,000 Palestinians from the West Bank.
“All the young people, elderly people, and women were waiting here. They refused to let anyone cross at the checkpoint,” said Mohammed Owaizat, who arrived to find the crossing closed.

The first phase of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire brought the release of 25 Israeli hostages held by militants in Gaza and the bodies of eight others in exchange for the freeing of nearly 2,000 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
But an intended second phase of the deal — meant to bring the release of remaining hostages and a lasting truce and complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza — has been thrown into doubt. Israel has balked at entering negotiations over the terms of the second phase. Instead, it has called for Hamas to release half its remaining hostages in return for an extension of the ceasefire and a promise to negotiate a lasting truce.
It says its bar on aid to Gaza will continue and could be escalated until Hamas accepts the proposal — a move rights groups and Arab countries have decried as a “starvation tactic.”
Hamas has demanded that the original ceasefire deal be implemented.
Egypt’s State Information Service said that a Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo on Friday to discuss the deal’s implementation and to push for the second phase.
Israel’s military offensive has killed over 48,000 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

JERUSALEM: Israel’s army said it conducted strikes on “military sites” belonging to the Iran-backed Hezbollah group in south Lebanon on Friday, as Lebanese media reported a series of Israeli strikes in the south.
A November 27 truce agreement largely halted more than a year of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, including two months of full-blown war in which Israel sent in ground troops.
Israel has continued to carry out periodic strikes on Lebanese territory since the agreement took effect.
“A short while ago, the IDF conducted intelligence-based strikes on military sites in southern Lebanon belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organization in which weapons and rocket launchers belonging to Hezbollah were identified,” the army said in a statement.
“The weapons and the rocket launchers in the military sites posed a threat to the State of Israel and constituted a blatant violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon,” it added.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) reported a series of Israeli strikes targeting several areas of Lebanon’s south.
Israel had been due to withdraw from Lebanon by February 18 after missing a January deadline, but it has kept troops at five locations it deems “strategic.”
The ceasefire also required Hezbollah to pull back north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border, and to dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south.