ASHKELON, Israel: Effi Hajjaj has reopened his seafront stall in south Israel’s Ashkelon, offering coffee and snacks to beach-goers who are back in what he called a “victory” after almost 100 days of war.
Were it not for the sound of explosions from the besieged Gaza Strip, about 10 kilometers (six miles) down the coast, it may have appeared as a perfectly quiet day on the sandy beach.
“Victory means a return to routine, and a certain routine has returned,” said 55-year-old Hajjaj, whose business like many others had been shut after Hamas’s October 7 attack.
But behind the scene of normality, the trauma of the attack — the worst in Israel’s 75-year history — still looms large.
Palestinian militants stormed southern Israel and under a barrage of rockets, resulting in about 1,140 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
In response, Israel has vowed to eradicate Hamas, labelled a “terrorist” organization by the United States and the European Union.
A relentless Israeli military campaign has killed more than 23,700 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza.
With fighting now mainly restricted to the narrow Palestinian territory, Israelis are for the most part protected from the violence but fear for captives held across the border and troops inside Gaza.
Around 250 hostages were seized on October 7, 132 of whom Israel says remain in Gaza.
“We have to keep going, move forward... but wherever we go, the conversations revolve around the hostages, around the things we’ve been through,” said Marina Michaeli, a 54-year-old real estate agent in Ashkelon.
“We’ve lost our joy,” she said.
Support for the war remains high among Israel’s Jewish majority, recent public opinion polls suggest.
In December, a Israel Democracy Institute survey found that 75 percent of Jewish Israelis were opposed to calls — including from close ally the United States — to reduce the intensity of bombing in populated areas.
And 80 percent felt that the suffering of Palestinian civilians should be given “little” or “very little” consideration in the context of the war, the poll said.
As soon as schools and shops reopened, many Ashkelon residents went on with their everyday lives.
And on the seafront, “people are going out again,” Hajjaj said.
On October 7, Palestinian militants reached the outskirts of the city.
But now, Hajjaj said, “there are hardly any rockets and they are no longer afraid of terrorist attacks.”
Most rockets fired from Gaza are intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system.
Still, the hospital in Ashkelon has treated some 1,260 people for injuries related to the October 7 attacks or from rockets, according to a hospital spokeswoman.
Closer to Gaza as well as in areas along the Lebanese border, some 200,000 Israelis have been unable to return to their homes since the violence erupted.
The Israeli military has also called up 360,000 reservists in more than three months of war.
The army says at least 186 soldiers have been killed inside Gaza since the ground offensive began in late October.
Concern for soldiers, hostages and displaced Israelis means “we can’t talk about a return to normality,” said Denis Charbit, a political scientist at Israel’s Open University.
But he argued “Israeli resilience” is “the best revenge: to be deeply shaken, but to triumph with this incredible momentum and will to live.”
The stories of fallen soldiers and interviews with their families are all over TV and radio broadcasts, and posters of the hostages seem to cover every street corner.
Some are stamped with the word “Home” for those released, most of them during a one-week truce that began in November.
Others offer condolences: “May their memory be a blessing.”
While the “Bring them home now” campaign to free the remaining hostages keeps getting louder, there are also some signs of a return to pre-war life in Israel, a country of just over nine million.
Political controversies that had been put aside, most notably around the hard-right government’s judicial overhaul that last year divided the nation, have begun to reemerge.
And in early January, Israel announced it was sending several thousand reservists home in a bid to help boost the economy.
To support consumption, the Bank of Israel lowered interest rates for the first time since April 2022.
In Jerusalem, large crowds have returned to the city’s central Mahane Yehuda market, particularly at the start of the weekend.
“It’s wonderful to see people coming to shop... when everything used to be empty,” said Hanna Gabbay, 22.
“The country is still traumatized,” she said. “But life is stronger than anything, we have to keep going.”
In Israel’s north, a strip of land several kilometers along on the border with Lebanon has been evacuated due to clashes with Hamas-allied Hezbollah militants and fears of attacks on civilians.
In the south, the border with the Gaza Strip largely remains a no-go zone.
Most of Sderot’s 35,000 inhabitants have yet to return to their town just two kilometers from Gaza, where militants on October 7 killed at least 40 people.
Cats roam around a small square where a few shops have reopened but are struggling for customers. Only birdsong and the occasional passing car break the silence.
“We don’t feel safe,” said resident Eti Buhbut, 46.
“But we only have one country, and nowhere else to go.”
Israelis cautiously embrace ‘routine’ as Gaza war nears 100 days
https://arab.news/9e5cf
Israelis cautiously embrace ‘routine’ as Gaza war nears 100 days
- A relentless Israeli military campaign has killed more than 23,700 people
- With fighting now mainly restricted to the narrow Palestinian territory, Israelis are for the most part protected from the violence
Tunisia row over ‘repressive’ transfers of political detainees
- Weekly prison visits in Tunisia allow families to bring prisoners baskets of food to last them through the week
TUNIS: Several jailed Tunisian opposition figures have been transferred without prior notice to prisons far from their families in a move their lawyers and relatives on Friday denounced as “repressive.”
At least seven political figures were moved on Thursday from Mornaguia prison near Tunis to remote facilities, lawyer Dalila Msaddek told AFP.
Prominent figure Issam Chebbi was taken to a jail in Tunisia’s northernmost city of Bizerte, while Ridha BelHajj was moved to Siliana some two hours south of Tunis.
“They were moved without any warning to their families or lawyers,” said Msaddek.
She called the transfers “a form of harassment” aimed at making it harder for their Tunis-based families and lawyers to visit.
Weekly prison visits in Tunisia allow families to bring prisoners baskets of food to last them through the week.
Msaddek said some prison inmates resisted the move but were forcibly transferred.
In a letter from prison posted on social media, BelHajj denounced what he called a forced transfer “far from my family, my children, and my lawyers, in yet another attempt to break my will.”
He said he, Chebbi and Ghazi Chaouachi were “prisoners or conscience, not criminals.”
“What is happening today is a desperate attempt to silence free voices and intimidate anyone who dares to say ‘no’ to injustice and tyranny,” he wrote.
Since President Kais Saied’s power grab in July 2021, when he dissolved parliament and began ruling by decree, rights groups have warned of a sharp decline in civil liberties in the North African country.
In a video statement, Chebbi’s wife denounced the authorities’ move as “an injustice” and “abuse.”
She said she learned of the transfer during her scheduled weekly visit, and that her husband was informed just an hour before being moved.
Once a French military bunker built in 1932, Bizerte prison — Borj Erroumi — became infamous for its harsh conditions under Tunisia’s former longtime rulers Habib Bourguiba and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
All of the transferred prisoners were defendants in a mass trial last month that saw around 40 public figures, some staunch Saied critics, sentenced to long terms on charges including plotting against the state.
The trial drew international criticism, from France, Germany and the United Nations, which Saied dismissed as “blatant interference in Tunisia’s internal affairs.”
During a protest in Tunis demanding the release of jailed lawyer Ahmed Souab, public figures also condemned the prison transfers.
Souab had been a member of the defense team during the mass trial. He was detained on terrorism-related charges after claiming that judges were under political pressure to hand the defendants hefty sentences.
“We’re seeing a return to the old practices of the Ben Ali dictatorship which aimed at breaking the morale of political prisoners by moving them from one prison to another,” opposition figure Chaima Issa told AFP during the protest.
Also attending the rally, Chebbi’s wife said he was now detained in “inhumane” conditions after visiting him.
She said he was being held in the same room as 60 other inmates, deprived of even “basic standards of detention.”
Libya protesters call on PM to quit in third weekly march
- The clashes were sparked by the killing of an armed faction leader by a group aligned with Dbeibah’s government — the 444 Brigade which later fought a third group, the Radaa force that controls parts of eastern Tripoli and the city’s airport
TRIPOLI: Hundreds of protesters gathered in central Tripoli on Friday for the third week in a row to demand the resignation of UN-recognized Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah following recent clashes in Libya’s capital.
Demonstrators chanted “Dbeibah out,” “the people want the fall of the government,” and “long live Libya.”
At least 200 people had assembled by late afternoon, with several hundred more following suit later. Some blasted slogans on loudspeakers from their cars.
Libya is split between the UN-recognized government in Tripoli, led by Dbeibah, and a rival administration in the east controlled by the family of military strongman Khalifa Haftar.
The North African country has remained deeply divided since the 2011 NATO-backed revolt that toppled and killed longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi.
National elections scheduled for December 2021 were postponed indefinitely due to disputes between the two rival powers.
The recent unrest came after deadly clashes between armed groups controlling different areas of Tripoli killed at least eight people, according to the UN.
The clashes were sparked by the killing of an armed faction leader by a group aligned with Dbeibah’s government — the 444 Brigade which later fought a third group, the Radaa force that controls parts of eastern Tripoli and the city’s airport.
The fighting broke out also after Dbeibah announced a string of executive orders seeking to dismantle Radaa and dissolve other Tripoli-based armed groups but excluding the 444 Brigade.
The government and UN support mission in Libya have been pressing efforts to reach a permanent ceasefire since.
Last Saturday, a separate protest in Tripoli drew hundreds in support of Dbeibah.
Demonstrators condemned the armed groups and called for the reinstatement of Libya’s 1951 constitution, which was abolished by Qaddafi after his 1969 coup.
Israel strikes western Syria, despite talks
- Syrian state television said the strike targeted sites in the Jableh countryside south of Latakia
- The Israeli military said it struck weapon storage facilities containing coastal missiles
DAMASCUS: Israel on Friday struck western Syria, the Israeli military and Syrian state media said, in the first such attack on the country in nearly a month.
It came after Damascus announced earlier this month indirect talks with Israel to calm tensions, and the US called for a “non-aggression agreement” between the two countries, which are technically at war.
“A strike from Israeli occupation aircraft targeted sites close to the village of Zama in the Jableh countryside south of Latakia,” state television said.
The Israeli military shortly thereafter said it “struck weapon storage facilities containing coastal missiles that posed a threat to international and Israeli maritime freedom of navigation, in the Latakia area of Syria.”
“In addition, components of surface-to-air missiles were struck in the area of Latakia,” it said, adding that it would “continue to operate to maintain freedom of action in the region, in order to carry out its missions and will act to remove any threat to the State of Israel and its citizens.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights meanwhile reported that jets likely to be Israeli struck military sides on the outskirts of Tartus and Latakia.
Syria and Israel have technically been at war since 1948. Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967 and has carried out hundreds of strikes and several incursions since the overthrow of Bashar Assad in December.
Israel says its strikes aim to stop advanced weapons reaching Syria’s new authorities, whom it considers jihadists.
UN condemns ‘armed individuals’ for looting medical supplies in Gaza
- The group “stormed the warehouses at a field hospital in Deir Al-Balah, looting large quantities of medical equipment,” said Dujarric
- The stolen aid had been brought into war-ravaged Gaza just a day earlier
UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations condemned Friday a group of “armed individuals” for raiding warehouses in the Palestinian territory of Gaza and looting large amounts of medical supplies.
The group “stormed the warehouses at a field hospital in Deir Al-Balah, looting large quantities of medical equipment, supplies, medicines, nutritional supplements that was intended for malnourished children,” said Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
The stolen aid had been brought into war-ravaged Gaza just a day earlier, he said.
“As conditions on the ground further deteriorate and public order and safety breaks down, looting incidents continue to be reported,” he said.
But Dujarric highlighted the difference between Friday’s event and the looting two days earlier of a UN World Food Programme (WFP) warehouse by “starving” Palestinians, desperate for aid.
“This appeared to be much more organized and much different from the looting we’d seen... in the past days,” he said.
“This was an organized operation with armed men.”
Since the beginning of last week, Israel has begun to allow a trickle of aid into the Palestinian territory, after a total blockade imposed on March 2.
The UN has warned that the aid allowed through so far was “a drop in the ocean” of the towering needs in Gaza, after the blockade created dramatic shortages of food and medicine.
The UN humanitarian agency warned Friday that “100 percent of the population (are) at risk of famine.”
Gaza has been decimated by Israel’s punishing military offensive on the territory, which has killed at least 54,321 people, mostly civilians, according to health ministry figures the UN considers reliable.
It has also reduced much of the territory to rubble, destroying hospitals, schools, residential areas and basic road and sewage infrastructure.
Israel launched its offensive in response to an unprecedented Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, also mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
On Thursday, “we and our humanitarian partners only managed to collect five truckloads of cargo from the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom crossing,” Dujarric said.
“Another 60 trucks had to return to the crossing due to intense hostilities in the area.”
He rejected Israeli allegations that the UN was not collecting available aid.
“It was no longer safe to use that road,” which Israel’s military had asked aid organizations to use, he said, stressing that there are “a lot of armed gangs” operating there.
The five trucks that did make it through on Thursday were carrying medical supplies for the Deir Al-Balah field hospital.
And most of those supplies “were looted today, very sadly and tragically,” Dujarric said.
Syrian minister says lifting of economic sanctions offers hope for recovery
- Hind Kabawat: Govt to launch ‘temporary schools’ for the children of refugees returning to their home areas
DAMASCUS: The lifting of economic sanctions on the Syrian Arab Republic will allow the government to begin work on daunting tasks that include fighting corruption and bringing millions of refugees home, Hind Kabawat, the minister of social affairs and labor, told The Associated Press on Friday.
Kabawat is the only woman and the only Christian in the 23-member cabinet formed in March to steer the country during a transitional period after the ouster of former President Bashar Assad in December.
Her portfolio will be one of the most important as the country begins rebuilding after nearly 14 years of civil war.
She said moves by the US and the EU in the past week to at least temporarily lift most of the sanctions that had been imposed on Syria over the decades will allow that work to get started.
Before, she said, “we would talk, we would make plans, but nothing could happen on the ground because sanctions were holding everything up and restricting our work.”
With the lifting of sanctions, they can move to “implementation.”
One of the first programs the new government is planning to launch is “temporary schools” for the children of refugees and internally displaced people returning to their home areas.
Kabawat said that it will take time for the easing of sanctions to show effects on the ground, particularly since unwinding some of the financial restrictions will involve complicated bureaucracy.
“We are going step by step,” she said.
“We are not saying that anything is easy — we have many challenges — but we can’t be pessimistic. We need to be optimistic.”
The new government’s vision is “that we don’t want either food baskets or tents after five years,” Kabawat said, referring to the country’s dependence on humanitarian aid and many displacement camps.
That may be an ambitious target, given that 90 percent of the country’s population currently lives below the poverty line, according to the UN.
The civil war that began in 2011 also displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million people.
The UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, estimates that about half a million have returned to Syria since Assad was ousted.
But the dire economic situation and battered infrastructure have also dissuaded many refugees from coming back.
The widespread poverty also fed into a culture of public corruption that developed in the Assad era, including solicitation of bribes by public employees and shakedowns by security forces at checkpoints.
Syria’s new leaders have pledged to end corruption, but they face an uphill battle. Public employees make salaries far below the cost of living, and the new government has so far been unable to make good on a promise to hike public sector wages by 400 percent.
“How can I fight corruption if the monthly salary is $40 and that is not enough to buy food for 10 days?” Kabawat asked.
Syria’s new rulers, led by President Ahmad Al-Sharaa, have been under scrutiny by Western countries over the treatment of Syrian women and religious minorities.
In March, clashes between government security forces and pro-Assad armed groups spiraled into sectarian revenge attacks on members of the Alawite sect to which Assad belongs. Hundreds of civilians were killed.
The government formed a committee to investigate the attacks, which has not yet reported its findings.
Many also criticized the transitional government as giving only token representation to women and minorities.
Apart from Kabawat, the Cabinet includes only one member each from the Druze and Alawite sects and one Kurd.
“Everywhere I travel … the first and last question is, ‘What is the situation of the minorities?’” Kabawat said.
“I can understand the worries of the West about the minorities, but they should also be worried about Syrian men and women as a whole.”
She said the international community’s priority should be to help Syria build its economy and avoid the country falling into “chaos.”
Despite being the only woman in the Cabinet, Kabawat said “now there is a greater opportunity for women” than under Assad and that “today there is no committee being formed that does not have women in it.”
“Syrian women have suffered a lot in these 14 years and worked in all areas,” she said.
“All Syrian men and women need to have a role in rebuilding our institutions.”
She called for those wary of President Al-Sharaa to give him a chance.
The West has warmed to the new president — particularly after his recent high-profile meeting with US President Donald Trump.
