JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday signaled that he was moving ahead with US President Donald Trump’s proposal to transfer the Palestinian population out of Gaza, calling it “the only viable plan to enable a different future” for the region.
Netanyahu discussed the plan with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who kicked off a Middle East visit by endorsing Israel’s war aims in Gaza, saying Hamas “must be eradicated.” That created further doubt around the shaky ceasefire as talks on its second phase are yet to begin.
Rubio, in his upcoming stops in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, is likely to face more pushback from Arab leaders over Trump’s proposal, which includes redeveloping Gaza under US ownership. Netanyahu has said all emigration from Gaza should be “voluntary,” but rights groups and other critics say that the plan amounts to coercion given the territory’s vast destruction.
Netanyahu said he and Trump have a “common strategy” for Gaza. Echoing Trump, he said “the gates of hell would be open” if Hamas doesn’t release dozens of remaining hostages abducted in the militant group’s attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that triggered the 16-month war.
The ceasefire’s first phase ends in two weeks. Negotiations were meant to begin two weeks ago on the second phase, in which Hamas would release dozens of remaining hostages in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners, a lasting truce and the withdrawal of Israeli forces
Trump’s special Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, told Fox News that “phase two is absolutely going to begin” and he had ”very productive” calls Sunday with Netanyahu and officials from Egypt and Qatar, which serve as mediators, about continuing talks this week. He also said hostages to be released include 19 Israeli soldiers and “we believe all of them are alive.”
Netanyahu’s office said Israel’s security Cabinet would meet Monday to discuss the second phase.
Trump later told journalists it is “up to Israel what the next step is, in consultation with me.”
In another sign of closing ranks, Israel’s Defense Ministry said it received a shipment of 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) MK-84 munitions from the United States. The Biden administration paused a shipment of such bombs last year over concerns about civilian casualties in Gaza.
Resuming the war could doom hostages
This week marks 500 days of the war. Netanyahu has signaled readiness to resume the fighting after the ceasefire’s current phase, though it could be a death sentence for remaining hostages.
Rubio said peace becomes impossible as long as Hamas “stands as a force that can govern or as a force that can administer or as a force that can threaten by use of violence,” adding, “It must be eradicated.”
Hamas reasserted control over Gaza when the ceasefire began last month, despite suffering heavy losses.
Netanyahu has offered Hamas a chance to surrender and send top leaders into exile. Hamas has rejected that scenario and insists on Palestinian rule. Spokesman Abdul Latif Al-Qanou told The Associated Press the group accepts a Palestinian unity government or a technocratic committee to run Gaza.
Netanyahu instructed negotiators to leave for Cairo on Monday to discuss further implementation of the ceasefire’s first phase, as issues over delivery of shelter materials continue.
The Israeli military, meanwhile, said it carried out an airstrike on people who approached forces in southern Gaza. The Hamas-run Interior Ministry said it killed three of its police officers while they secured the entry of aid trucks near Rafah on the Egyptian border.
‘If someone has a better plan ... that’s great’
In an interview last week, Rubio indicated that Trump’s Gaza proposal was in part aimed at pressuring Arab states to make their own postwar plan that would be acceptable to Israel.
Rubio also appeared to suggest that Arab countries send troops to combat Hamas.
“If the Arab countries have a better plan, then that’s great,” Rubio said Thursday on the “Clay and Buck Show.”
But “Hamas has guns,” he added. “Someone has to confront those guys. It’s not going to be American soldiers. And if the countries in the region can’t figure that piece out, then Israel is going to have to do it.”
Rubio wasn’t scheduled to meet with Palestinians on his trip.
Arabs have limited options
For Arab leaders, facilitating the mass expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza or battling Palestinian militants on behalf of Israel are nightmare scenarios that would bring fierce domestic criticism and potentially destabilize an already volatile region.
Egypt hosts an Arab summit on Feb. 27 and is working with other countries on a counterproposal that would allow for Gaza’s rebuilding without removing its population. Human rights groups say the expulsion of Palestinians would likely violate international law.
Egypt has warned that any mass influx of Palestinians from Gaza would undermine its nearly half-century peace treaty with Israel, a cornerstone of US influence in the region.
The UAE and Saudi Arabia also have rejected any mass displacement of Palestinians.
The UAE was the driving force behind the 2020 Abraham Accords in which four Arab states — Bahrain, the UAE, Morocco and Sudan — normalized relations with Israel during Trump’s previous term. Trump hopes to expand the accords to include Saudi Arabia, potentially offering closer US defense ties, but the kingdom has said it won’t normalize relations with Israel without a pathway to a Palestinian state.
Rubio won’t be visiting Egypt or Jordan, close US allies at peace with Israel that have refused to accept any influx of Palestinian refugees. Trump has suggested he might slash US aid if they don’t comply, which could be devastating for their economies.
Rubio is also skipping Qatar.
Arab and Muslim countries have conditioned any support for postwar Gaza on a return to Palestinian governance with a pathway to statehood in Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories that Israel seized in the 1967 Mideast war.
Israel has ruled out a Palestinian state and any role in Gaza for the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, whose forces were driven out when Hamas seized power there in 2007.
Netanyahu signals he’s moving ahead with Trump’s idea to transfer Palestinians from Gaza
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Netanyahu signals he’s moving ahead with Trump’s idea to transfer Palestinians from Gaza
Three suspects detained for storming Libya’s state oil firm, attorney general says
The three suspects were handed over by the defense ministry
TRIPOLI: Three suspects have been detained for allegedly storming the Libyan state oil firm’s headquarters in Tripoli, the country’s attorney general said on Thursday, a day after its rival government in the east threatened to declare force majeure on oil fields and ports citing assaults on the firm.
The National Oil Corporation is based in Tripoli under the control of the internationally-recognized Government of National Unity. The parallel government in Benghazi in the east is not internationally recognized, but most oilfields in the major oil producing country are under the control of eastern Libyan military leader Khalifa Haftar.
The NOC has previously denied its corporation’s headquarters were stormed, calling it “completely false” and quoted its acting chief as calling it “nothing more than a limited personal dispute that occurred in the reception area.”
But the eastern-based government has threatened to also temporarily relocate the NOC’s headquarters to “safe cities” such as Ras Lanuf and Brega, both of which it controls.
“The public prosecution reviewed the evidence of the storming of the Corporation’s headquarters, inspected the scene, reviewed the video footage recorded at the time of the incident and heard the testimonies of those present,” the attorney general said in a statement.
The three suspects were handed over by the defense ministry, which was asked “to arrest the remaining contributors to the incident,” the attorney general said.
The national output of crude oil in the past 24 hours reached 1,389,055 barrels per day, the NOC said on Wednesday, reflecting normal levels.
Libya’s oil output has been disrupted repeatedly in the chaotic decade since 2014 when the country divided between two rival authorities in the east and west following the NATO-backed uprising that toppled Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
RSF drone strike kills six in Sudan hospital: army source
- “The militia launched a drone strike on the Social Insurance Hospital, killing six and wounding 12,” an army source said
- A medical source at El-Obeid Hospital, the city’s main facility, confirmed the toll
KHARTOUM: Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces bombarded El-Obeid on Friday, killing six people in a hospital in the key southern city, medical and army sources said.
“The militia launched a drone strike on the Social Insurance Hospital, killing six and wounding 12, simultaneously attacking residential areas of the city with heavy artillery,” an army source told AFP, adding that the bombardment had also hit a second hospital in the city center.
A medical source at El-Obeid Hospital, the city’s main facility, confirmed the toll, adding that the Social Insurance Hospital had been forced shut “due to damage” sustained in the drone strike.
El-Obeid, a strategic city 400 kilometers (250 miles) southwest of Khartoum which is the capital of North Kordofan state, was besieged by the RSF for nearly two years before the regular army broke the siege in February.
It was one of a series of counteroffensives that also saw the army recapture Khartoum, but El-Obeid has continued to come under RSF bombardment.
The city is a key staging post on the army’s supply route to the west, where the besieged city of El-Fasher is the only state capital in the vast Darfur region still under its control.
The RSF and the army have clashed repeatedly along the road between El-Obeid and El-Fasher in recent weeks.
On Thursday, the paramilitaries said they retaken the town of Al-Khoei, around 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of El-Obeid, after the army recaptured it earlier this month.
The war between army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted 13 million since it erupted in April 2023.
The United Nation says the conflict has created the world’s biggest hunger and displacement crises.
It has also effectively split Sudan in two, with the army holding the center, east and north, while the paramilitaries and their allies control nearly all of Darfur and parts of the south.
Since losing Khartoum in March, the RSF has adopted a two-prong strategy: long-range drone strikes on army-held cities accompanied by a counteroffensive in the south.
On Thursday, the paramilitaries also announced they had recaptured Dibeibat, in South Kordofan state some 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of El-Obeid, another town that the army had retaken earlier this month.
Swathes of South Kordofan are controlled by a rebel group allied with the RSF, Abdelaziz Al-Hilu’s faction of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North.
Israel minister says ‘we will build Jewish Israeli state’ in West Bank
- “This is a decisive response to the terrorist organizations that are trying to harm and weaken our hold on this land,” Katz said
- Katz was speaking during a visit to the Sa-Nur settlement outpost in the northern West Bank
JERUSALEM: Defense Minister Israel Katz vowed on Friday to build a “Jewish Israeli state” in the occupied West Bank, a day after the government announced the creation of 22 new settlements in the Palestinian territory.
Israeli settlements in the West Bank, seen as a major obstacle to lasting peace, are regularly condemned by the United Nations as illegal under international law, and Thursday’s announcement drew sharp foreign criticism.
“This is a decisive response to the terrorist organizations that are trying to harm and weaken our hold on this land — and it is also a clear message to (French President Emmanuel) Macron and his associates: they will recognize a Palestinian state on paper — but we will build the Jewish Israeli state here on the ground,” Katz was quoted as saying Friday in a statement from his office.
“The paper will be thrown into the trash bin of history, and the State of Israel will flourish and prosper.”
Katz was speaking during a visit to the Sa-Nur settlement outpost in the northern West Bank.
Sa-Nur was evacuated in 2005 as part of Israel’s disengagement from Gaza, promoted by then prime minister Ariel Sharon.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.
During a visit to Singapore on Friday, French President Macron asserted that recognition of a Palestinian state, with some conditions, was “not only a moral duty, but a political necessity.”
An international conference meant to resurrect the idea of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is set to take place in June at the UN headquarters in New York.
A diplomat in Paris close to preparations for the conference said it should pave the way for more countries to recognize a Palestinian state.
Macron said in April that France could recognize a Palestinian state in June.
Following Israel’s announcement of the new settlements on Thursday, Britain called the move a “deliberate obstacle” to Palestinian statehood, while UN chief Antonio Guterres’s spokesman said it pushed efforts toward a two-state solution “in the wrong direction.”
11 Sudanese migrants killed in a car crash in the Libya desert, authorities say
- Authorities say 11 Sudanese migrants and a Libyan driver were killed in a car crash in the desert in Libya
- The dead included three women and two children. A 65-year-old man and his 10-year-old son were also wounded in the crash
The crash between the migrants’ vehicle and a truck happened early Friday in the desert, 90 kilometers (56 miles) north of the Libyan town of Kufra, the town’s Ambulance and Emergency Service said in a statement.
The dead included three women and two children, the service’s director Ibrahim Abu Al-Hassan told The Associated Press.
A 65-year-old man and his 10-year-old son were also wounded in the crash, he added.
It was the latest deadly incident involving Sudanese migrants in the Libyan desert.
Earlier this month, seven Sudanese were found dead after their vehicle broke down in the desert. The vehicle broke down in a path used by traffickers between Chad and Libya, leaving 34 migrants on board stranded for several days in the desert.
Libya was plunged into chaos following a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime autocrat Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
It has become a main transit point for migrants fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East to seek better lives in Europe. The country shares borders with six nations and has a long coastline along the Mediterranean.
Human traffickers have benefited from more than a decade of instability, smuggling migrants across Libya’s borders with six nations, including Chad, Niger, Sudan Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia.
Thousands of Sudanese have fled to Libya since April 2023 after simmering tensions between the Sudanese military and a powerful paramilitary group exploded into street fighting across the country.
The conflict in Sudan has turned into a civil war that killed thousands people, displaced over 14 million, and pushed parts of the county into famine.
Egypt denies court ruling threatens historic monastery
- A court in Sinai ruled on that the monastery ‘is entitled to use’ the land, which ‘the state owns as public property’
- Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens called the court ruling ‘scandalous’
CAIRO: Egypt has denied that a controversial court ruling over Sinai’s Saint Catherine monastery threatens the UNESCO world heritage landmark, after Greek and church authorities warned of the sacred site’s status.
A court in Sinai ruled on Wednesday in a land dispute between the monastery and the South Sinai governorate that the monastery “is entitled to use” the land, which “the state owns as public property.”
President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi’s office defended the ruling Thursday, saying it “consolidates” the site’s “unique and sacred religious status,” after the head of the Greek Orthodox church in Greece denounced it.
Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens called the court ruling “scandalous” and an infringement by Egyptian judicial authorities of religious freedoms.
He said the decision means “the oldest Orthodox Christian monument in the world, the Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine in Mount Sinai, now enters a period of severe trial — one that evokes much darker times in history.”
El-Sisi’s office in a statement said it “reiterates its full commitment to preserving the unique and sacred religious status of Saint Catherine’s monastery and preventing its violation.”
The monastery was established in the sixth century at the biblical site of the burning bush in the southern mountains of the Sinai peninsula, and is the world’s oldest continually inhabited Christian monastery.
The Saint Catherine area, which includes the eponymous town and a nature reserve, is undergoing mass development under a controversial government megaproject aimed at bringing in mass tourism.
Observers say the project has harmed the reserve’s ecosystem and threatened both the monastery and the local community.
Archbishop Ieronymos warned that the monastery’s property would now be “seized and confiscated,” despite “recent pledges to the contrary by the Egyptian President to the Greek Prime Minister.”
Greek Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis contacted his Egyptian counterpart Badr Abdelatty on Thursday, saying “there was no room for deviation from the agreements between the two parties,” the ministry’s spokesperson said.
In a statement to Egypt’s state news agency, the foreign ministry in Cairo later said rumors of confiscation were “unfounded,” and that the ruling “does not infringe at all” on the monastery’s sites or its religious and spiritual significance.
Greek government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis said “Greece will express its official position ... when the official and complete content of the court decision is known and evaluated.”
He confirmed both countries’ commitment to “maintaining the Greek Orthodox religious character of the monastery.”
