Blinken meets Israeli PM for talks on Gaza truce plan

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during his meeting with Israel’s President Isaac Herzog in Jerusalem on Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2024. (Reuters)
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Updated 07 February 2024
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Blinken meets Israeli PM for talks on Gaza truce plan

  • Hamas proposed 135-day truce and hostage-prisoner exchange, according to Reuters

TEL AVIV: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Wednesday to push for a ceasefire as the Gaza war enters its fifth month.
Israel and Hamas have been weighing a proposal, brokered by US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators, that would be expected to temporarily halt the fighting and see Gaza hostages freed and Palestinian prisoners released.
“There’s still a lot of work to be done,” Blinken said in Doha late on Tuesday after earlier stops in Saudi Arabia and Egypt on his fifth Middle East crisis tour since the October 7 attack sparked the war.
“But we continue to believe that an agreement is possible and indeed essential, and we will continue to work relentlessly to achieve it,” the US top diplomat told reporters.
For now, the war raged on unabated in Hamas-ruled Gaza, where the health ministry said at least 100 people were killed overnight and AFP journalists reported more heavy bombing of southern cities.
Israeli forces, in their campaign to destroy Hamas, have pushed steadily south, with the heaviest combat raging in the city of Khan Yunis in recent weeks.
Fear has grown among the more than one million Palestinians now crowded into Gaza’s far south, around the city of Rafah on the Egyptian border, as the battlefront has crept ever closer.
“I am terrified that Israel will begin a ground operation in Rafah,” said Dana Ahmed, 40, who was displaced from Gaza City with her three children and now lives in a tent in Rafah.
She said she spent a sleepless night as Israeli fighter jets roared through the sky and explosions shook the ground.
“I cannot imagine what will happen to us,” she said. “Where will we go now? The situation is catastrophic. I feel like I am living a horror movie.”

Intense fighting
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned earlier this week that the army “will reach places where we have not yet fought... right up to the last Hamas bastion, which is Rafah.”
The UN aid coordination office OCHA voiced alarm about looming major combat in the densely crowded area.
“Intensified hostilities in Rafah in this situation could lead to large-scale loss of civilian lives, and we must do everything possible within our power to avoid that,” said its spokesman Jens Laerke.
The bloodiest ever Gaza war started with Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized around 250 hostages. Israel says 132 remain in Gaza, of whom 29 are believed to have died.
Israel vowed to eliminate Hamas and launched air strikes and a ground offensive that have killed at least 27,585 people, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry.
The campaign has devastated swathes of Gaza and displaced the majority of its 2.4 million people who have also endured dire shortages of food, water, fuel and medicine.
The humanitarian situation in long-blockaded Gaza has become “beyond catastrophic,” the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said on Tuesday.

Hamas proposes truce
To bring relief, the warring parties have discussed a possible new ceasefire deal which would follow a first, week-long truce in November that saw more than 100 hostages freed, the Israelis among them in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
Last week, a Hamas source said the proposed new truce calls for a six-week pause to fighting and a hostage-prisoner exchange, as well as more aid for Gaza, but negotiations have continued since.
Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said on Tuesday that Hamas had responded to a new proposal, adding that “the reply includes some comments, but in general it is positive.”
Blinken said he would discuss Hamas’s reply with Israeli leaders and Netanyahu’s office said the “details are being thoroughly evaluated” by the spy agency Mossad.
Netanyahu — who had yet to comment directly on the Hamas response — stressed that Israel’s overall war aim remained unchanged: “We are on the way to the total victory and we will not stop.”
Amid the Gaza war, Iran-backed groups in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen have launched attacks in support of Hamas, and Israel, the United States and its allies have launched strikes on them.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels have for weeks targeted what they say are Israel-linked ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, disrupting global trade and prompting reprisals by US and British forces.
Last week, the United States also carried out strikes on Iran-backed groups in Syria and Iraq, killing dozens in retaliation for an attack that killed three US troops in Jordan.
Israel has also traded deadly cross-border fire with Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement and has repeatedly bombed Iran-linked targets in Syria.
Israeli strikes on the Syrian city of Homs on Wednesday killed 10 people, including at least six civilians, according to the Britain-based war monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

 


US strike on Yemen kills Al-Qaeda members: Yemeni security sources

Updated 3 sec ago
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US strike on Yemen kills Al-Qaeda members: Yemeni security sources

“Five Al-Qaeda members were eliminated,” said a security source in Abyan
Washington once regarded the group as the militant network’s most dangerous branch

DUBAI: Five Al-Qaeda members have been killed in a strike blamed on the United States in southern Yemen, two Yemeni security sources told AFP on Saturday.

“Residents of the area informed us of the US strike... five Al-Qaeda members were eliminated,” said a security source in Abyan province, which borders the seat of Yemen’s internationally-recognized government in Aden.

“The US strike on Friday evening north of Khabar Al-Maraqsha killed five,” said a second source, referring to a mountainous area known to be used by Al-Qaeda.

The second security source added that, though the names of those killed in the strike were not known, it was believed one of Al-Qaeda’s local leaders was among the dead.

Washington once regarded the group, known as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), as the militant network’s most dangerous branch.

Born in 2009 from the merger of Al-Qaeda’s Yemeni and Saudi factions, AQAP grew and developed in the chaos of Yemen’s war, which since 2015 has pitted the Iran-backed Houthi militants against a Saudi-led coalition backing the government.

Earlier this month, the United States agreed a ceasefire with the Houthis, who have controlled large swathes of Yemen for more than a decade, ending weeks of intense American strikes on militant-held areas of the country.

The Houthis began firing at shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden in November 2023, weeks after the start of the Israel-Hamas war, prompting military strikes by the US and Britain beginning in January 2024.

The conflict in Yemen has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, although fighting decreased significantly after a UN-negotiated six-month truce in 2022.

Iraq seeks deal to swap kidnapped academic for jailed Iranian

Updated 1 min 18 sec ago
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Iraq seeks deal to swap kidnapped academic for jailed Iranian

BAGHDAD: Baghdad is working on a deal to free kidnapped Israeli-Russian academic Elizabeth Tsurkov in exchange for an Iranian jailed in Iraq for murdering a US civilian, security sources said Saturday.
The deal depends on US approval, the senior Iraqi security officials told AFP, asking to remain anonymous because the matter is considered sensitive.
Tsurkov, a doctoral student at Princeton University, was kidnapped in Baghdad in March 2023.
There was no claim of responsibility for her abduction, but Israel accused Iraq’s powerful Kataeb Hezbollah of holding Tsurkov.
The Iran-backed armed faction has implied it was not involved.
Iraq has been working to solve the issue which “depends on the Americans’ approval for the release of the Iranian accused of killing an American citizen,” a senior security source said.
The three Iraqi sources said that Washington has not yet agreed to this.
“The Americans have not yet agreed to one of the conditions, which is the release of the Iranian who is being held for killing an American citizen,” one official said.
Iraq is both a significant ally of Iran and a strategic partner of the United States, and has for years negotiated a delicate balancing act between the two foes.
The Iranian and another four Iraqis were sentenced to life in prison in Iraq for murdering American civilian Stephen Troell, who was shot dead in Baghdad in November 2022.
In December last year, the US Justice Department announced that a “complaint was unsealed... charging” Iranian Mohammad Reza Nouri, “an officer” in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), with allegedly orchestrating the killing.
Tsurkov, who is likely to have entered Iraq on her Russian passport, traveled to the country as part of her doctoral studies.
Security and diplomatic sources have told AFP they do not rule out the possibility that she may have been taken to Iran.
In November 2023, Iraqi channel Al Rabiaa TV aired the first hostage video of Tsurkov since her abduction.
AFP was unable to independently verify the footage or to determine whether she spoke freely in it or under coercion.

British Airways cancels Israel flights until August

Updated 11 min 15 sec ago
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British Airways cancels Israel flights until August

  • UK carrier suspended route to Tel Aviv after Houthi attack on Ben Gurion Airport in May
  • Air France flights remain suspended but Delta, Aegean flights recommenced this week

LONDON: There will be no British Airways flights from the UK to Israel until at least August, the airline has said.

BA cited security concerns for the decision, having suspended flights to Tel Aviv in May following a Houthi missile attack that injured six people at Ben Gurion International Airport. The airline subsequently evacuated staff staying in the city to the Austrian capital Vienna.

A BA spokesman said in a statement: “We continually monitor operating conditions and have made the decision to suspend our flights to and from Tel Aviv, up to and including 31 July. We’ve apologised to our customers for the inconvenience.”

A message on the airline’s website for the route reads: “Sorry, we have no flights available. Please edit your search to find other routes.” The next scheduled flight from London to Tel Aviv is on Aug. 1.

Air France has halted flights in and out of Israel until at least May 26. Greek airline Aegean resumed flights to Tel Aviv on Wednesday, while US carrier Delta commenced daily flights from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to Ben Gurion on Monday.  Both had suspended their routes following the Houthi attack.


African Union urges permanent ceasefire in Libya after clashes

Updated 48 min 8 sec ago
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African Union urges permanent ceasefire in Libya after clashes

  • Libya is split between the UN-recognized government in Tripoli, led by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah
  • The clashes were sparked by the killing of an armed faction leader by a group aligned with Dbeibah’s government

ADIS ABABA: The African Union called for a permanent ceasefire in Libya on Saturday after deadly clashes in the capital earlier this month and demonstrations demanding the prime minister’s resignation.
The latest fighting in the conflict-torn North African country pitted an armed group aligned with the Tripoli-based government against factions it has sought to dismantle, resulting in at least eight dead, according to the United Nations.
Despite a lack of a formal ceasefire, the clashes mostly ended last week, with the Libya Defense Ministry saying this week that efforts toward a truce were “ongoing.”
On Saturday, the AU’s Peace and Security Council condemned the recent violence, calling for an “unconditional and permanent ceasefire.”
In a statement on X, the council urged “inclusive, Libyan-led reconciliation,” adding that it “appeals for no external interference.”
Libya is split between the UN-recognized government in Tripoli, led by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah, and a rival administration in the east.
The country has remained deeply divided since the 2011 NATO-backed revolt that toppled and killed longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi.
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.
It came after Dbeibah announced a string of executive orders seeking to dismantle Radaa and dissolve other Tripoli-based armed groups but excluding the 444 Brigade.


South Lebanon votes in municipal elections that will test support for Hezbollah

Updated 44 min 35 sec ago
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South Lebanon votes in municipal elections that will test support for Hezbollah

  • Municipal elections are taking place in Lebanon as residents in the south cast their votes over the weekend
  • Hezbollah and Amal representatives are among those running for elections

BEIRUT: Residents of southern Lebanon voted Saturday in the country’s municipal elections that will test support for Hezbollah in the predominantly Shiite areas, months after the end of the destructive Israel-Hezbollah war.
Hezbollah is running in an alliance with the Amal group of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and both are expected to win mayoral races and the majority of seats in municipal councils. Both groups already won many municipalities uncontested.
South Lebanon is the fourth and last district to vote in the elections since May 4. Among those who voted Saturday were Hezbollah members wounded in the Sept. 17, 2024, explosions of thousands of pagers that blew up near-simultaneously in an operation carried out by Israel. More than a dozen were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded.
“The will of life is stronger than death and the will of construction is stronger than destruction,” President Joseph Aoun said during a tour of south Lebanon Saturday. He told reporters in his hometown of Aaichiyeh that he voted for the first time in 40 years.
Saturday’s vote came two days after Israel’s air force carried out intense airstrikes in different parts of south Lebanon.
Residents of villages and towns on the border with Israel, including the village of Kfar Kila that was almost completely destroyed during the war, cast their ballots at polling stations set up in the nearby city of Nabatiyeh. Residents of other border villages cast their ballots in the port city of Tyre.
“Southerners are proving again that they are with the choice of resistance,” Hezbollah legislator Ali Fayad, who represents border villages, said in Nabatiyeh.
Lebanon’s cash-strapped government has been scrambling to secure international funds for the war reconstruction, which the World Bank estimates at over $11 billion.
Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, one day after a deadly Hamas-led incursion into southern Israel sparked the war in Gaza. Israel responded with shelling and airstrikes in Lebanon that escalated into a full-blown war that left more than 4,000 dead in Lebanon and more than 80 soldiers and 47 civilians in Israel. A US-brokered ceasefire went into effect in late November.