US official says Mideast mediators are preparing for implementation of ceasefire deal in advance

US official says Mideast mediators are preparing for implementation of ceasefire deal in advance
The minaret of a mosque is silhouetted in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza. (AFP)
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Updated 17 August 2024
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US official says Mideast mediators are preparing for implementation of ceasefire deal in advance

US official says Mideast mediators are preparing for implementation of ceasefire deal in advance
  • The comments came hours after mediators expressed hope that a ceasefire deal was within reach
  • They said two days of talks had wrapped up in Qatar and they plan to reconvene in Cairo next week

JERUSALEM: In a sign that mediators believe a Gaza ceasefire deal is imminent, a US official said Friday that Mideast negotiators are working out logistics for the potential release of hostages and distribution of aid as part of any agreement to end the Israel-Hamas war.
The official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity in keeping with rules set by the White House, said the proposal currently on the table basically bridges every gap between Israel and Hamas and mediators were making preparations before a final deal is approved.
It was unclear what measures were being taken, but the official said a new “implementation cell” was being established in Cairo in advance. The cell would focus on logistics, including freeing hostages, providing humanitarian aid for Gaza and ensuring that the terms of the pact are met, the official said.
The comments came hours after mediators expressed hope that a deal was within reach. They said two days of talks had wrapped up in Qatar and that they plan to reconvene in Cairo next week to seal an agreement to stop the fighting.
Israel issued a vague statement saying it appreciated the mediators’ efforts, and a statement from Hamas did not sound enthusiastic about the latest proposal to end the devastating 10-month war and free Israeli hostages held in Gaza. A ceasefire is seen as the best hope for heading off an even larger regional conflict.
US President Joe Biden seemed optimistic, saying, “We are closer than we’ve ever been” to an agreement. Biden has expressed optimism for a deal before, only for talks to break down.
“As of an hour ago, it’s still in play,” he said, as he was traveling to spend the weekend at the Camp David presidential retreat. “It’s far from over. Just a couple more issues, I think we got a shot.”
Both sides agreed in principle to the plan Biden announced on May 31. But Hamas has proposed amendments, and Israel has suggested clarifications, leading each side to accuse the other of trying to tank a deal.
The US official said the latest proposal is the same as Biden’s with some clarifications based on ongoing talks. The way it’s structured poses no risk to Israel’s security but enhances it, the official added.
Hamas has rejected Israel’s demands, which include a lasting military presence along the border with Egypt and a line bisecting Gaza where it would search Palestinians returning to their homes to root out militants.
Hamas quickly cast doubt on whether an agreement was near.
In a statement, the militant group said the latest proposal diverged significantly from the previous iteration they had agreed to in principle, implying they were not disposed to accept it.
The Israeli prime minister’s office issued a statement saying it “appreciates the efforts of the US and the mediators to dissuade Hamas from its refusal to a hostage release deal.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken planned to travel to Israel over the weekend to “continue intensive diplomatic efforts” toward a ceasefire and to underscore the need for all parties in the region to avoid escalation, State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said.
Blinken was expected to meet with Netanyahu on Monday to discuss the new deal, said an Israeli official who spoke on the condition of anonymity in line with official requirements.
The new push for an end to the Israel-Hamas war came as the Palestinian death toll in Gaza climbed past 40,000, according to Gaza health authorities, whose counts do not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Fears were still high that Iran and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon would attack Israel in retaliation for the killings of top militant leaders.
International mediators believe the best hope for calming tensions would be a deal between Israel and Hamas to halt the fighting and secure the release of Israeli hostages.
International diplomacy to prevent the war from spreading intensified Friday, with the British and French foreign ministers making a joint trip to Israel.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a statement that he told his British and French counterparts that if Iran attacks Israel, Israel expects its allies not just to help it defend itself, but to join in attacking Iran.
He also warned Iran — which backs Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthi rebels in Yemen, all of whom have attacked Israel since the Gaza war started — to stop the attacks.
“Iran is the head of the axis of evil, and the free world must stop it now before it’s too late,” Katz said on X.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed across the heavily guarded border on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 250 to Gaza. More than 100 were released during a weeklong ceasefire in November, and around 110 are believed to still be inside Gaza, though Israeli authorities believe around a third of them are dead.
Israel’s military spokesperson, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said Thursday that Israel had killed more than 17,000 Hamas militants in Gaza in the war, without providing evidence.
Diplomats hoped a ceasefire deal would persuade Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah to hold off on retaliating for the killing of a top Hezbollah commander in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut and of Hamas’ top political leader in an explosion in Tehran that was widely blamed on Israel.
The mediators have spent months trying to hammer out a three-phase plan in which Hamas would release the hostages in exchange for a lasting ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
While talks were ongoing, Israel continued its offensive in Gaza.
On Friday it dropped leaflets asking civilians to evacuate from areas in northern Khan Younis and eastern Deir Al-Balah, saying forces plan to respond to rocket fire that targeted Israel. After the orders were given, airstrikes hit some areas of Khan Younis, sending people fleeing. A video showed plumes of black smoke rising into the air after loud booms.
Also Friday, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi spoke to Biden and agreed to intensify joint efforts in the coming days to reach an agreement, said a spokesman for the presidency. El-Sisi also urged regional self-restraint.
In a clear message to Israel, Hezbollah released a video, with Hebrew and English subtitles, showing underground tunnels where trucks were transporting long-range missiles.
A Hezbollah official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was speaking about military affairs, said the missiles in the video have a range of about 140 kilometers (86 miles), capable of reaching deep inside Israel.
Hezbollah has tens of thousands of rockets, missiles and drones that the group says give it the ability to hit anywhere in Israel. Hezbollah started attacking Israel on Oct. 8 and says it will stop only when the Gaza war ends.


Israel says to have ‘safety restrictions’ at Al-Aqsa for Ramadan

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Israel says to have ‘safety restrictions’ at Al-Aqsa for Ramadan

Israel says to have ‘safety restrictions’ at Al-Aqsa for Ramadan
“The usual restrictions for public safety will be in place as they have been every year,” Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said
Only men aged 55 and older and women over 50 were allowed to enter the mosque

JERUSALEM: Israel said Thursday that it will implement what it called “safety restrictions” at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins over the weekend.
During Ramadan, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians come to pray at Al-Aqsa, the third holiest site in Islam located in East Jerusalem — a sector of the Holy City occupied and annexed by Israel.
This year, Ramadan coincides with a fragile ceasefire in Gaza, which has largely halted fighting after a devastating war that left tens of thousands dead in the Palestinian territory.
“The usual restrictions for public safety will be in place as they have been every year,” Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said in an online briefing to journalists.
Last year, amid the Gaza war, Israeli authorities imposed restrictions on visitors coming to Al-Aqsa, particularly on those Palestinians coming from the occupied West Bank.
Only men aged 55 and older and women over 50 were allowed to enter the mosque compound “for security reasons,” while thousands of Israeli police officers were deployed across Jerusalem’s Old City.
Mencer indicated that precautions would be taken again this year.
“What we cannot, of course, and no country would countenance is people seeking to foment violence and attacks on anyone else,” he said, without detailing this year’s police deployment.
The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound is a symbol of Palestinian national identity.
By longstanding convention, Jews are allowed to visit but not pray in the compound, which they revere as the site of their second temple, destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.
In recent years, growing numbers of Jewish ultranationalists have defied the rules, including far-right politician Itamar Ben-Gvir, who publicly prayed there while serving as national security minister in 2023 and 2024.
The Israeli government has said repeatedly that it intends to uphold the status quo at the compound but Palestinian fears about its future have made it a flashpoint for violence.
Last year, Israel allowed Muslims to worship at Al-Aqsa in the same numbers as in previous year despite the war raging in Gaza.

Israel said Thursday that it will implement what it called “safety restrictions” at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins over the weekend. (AFP/File)

Israel car ramming attack wounds 13 people at bus stop

Israel car ramming attack wounds 13 people at bus stop
Updated 27 February 2025
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Israel car ramming attack wounds 13 people at bus stop

Israel car ramming attack wounds 13 people at bus stop
  • 13 people including a police officer were wounded
  • Israel’s first responders treated injured people at the site of the incident

JERUSALEM: Israeli police said a Palestinian man rammed a car into a bus stop in the north of the country on Thursday, wounding 13 civilians in an incident they were treating as a “terror” attack.
“At 16:17 today, Israel Police’s emergency dispatch received reports of a ramming attack at Karkur Junction, where a vehicle struck multiple civilians waiting at a bus stop,” police said in a statement.
Israel’s first responders, Magen David Adom, said a team treated injured people at the site of the incident, including a 17-year old girl who was in critical condition.
Police said 13 people, including a police officer, were wounded, and that two of them were in “serious” condition.
The suspect was a “53-year-old Palestinian from the Jenin area, (who) was residing in Israel unlawfully with his family,” the police statement said.
“The circumstances of his presence in Israel are under investigation,” the police said, adding that “preliminary findings indicate that he deliberately targeted civilians waiting at a bus stop.”
Israel’s military launched earlier this year a major offensive in the north of the occupied West Bank, deploying tanks into the area for the first time in 20 years.
Dubbed “Iron Wall” by the Israeli military, the operation came days after a ceasefire took effect in Gaza.
The raids have spanned multiple refugee camps near the cities of Jenin, Tulkarem and Tubas.
Military operations are commonplace in Jenin’s refugee camp, a bastion of Palestinian militancy.


More than 1,000 Syrians died in airport prison under Assad, report says

More than 1,000 Syrians died in airport prison under Assad, report says
Updated 27 February 2025
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More than 1,000 Syrians died in airport prison under Assad, report says

More than 1,000 Syrians died in airport prison under Assad, report says
  • Grave sites identified using a combination of witness testimony, satellite imagery and documents

DAMASCUS: More than 1,000 Syrians died in detention at a military airport on the outskirts of Damascus, killed by execution, torture or maltreatment at a site that was widely feared, according to a report to be published Thursday tracing the deaths to seven suspected grave sites.

In the report, the Syria Justice and Accountability Center said it identified the grave sites by using a combination of witness testimony, satellite imagery and documents photographed at the military airport in the Damascus suburb of Mezzeh after the ouster of President Bashar Assad in December.

Some sites were on the airport grounds. Others were across Damascus.

Two of the sites, one on the Mezzeh airport property and another at a cemetery in Najha, show clear signs of long trenches dug during periods consistent with witness testimony from SJAC.

Shadi Haroun, one of the report’s authors, said he was among the captives. Held over several months in 2011-2012 for organizing protests, he described daily interrogations with physical and psychological torture intended to force him into baseless confessions.

Death came in many forms, he said.

Although detainees saw nothing except their cell walls or the interrogation room, they could hear “occasional shootings, shot by shot, every couple of days.”

Then there were the injuries inflicted by their tormentors.

“A small wound on the foot of one of the detainees, caused by a whipping he received during torture, was left unsterilized or untreated for days, which gradually turned into gangrene and his condition worsened until it reached the point of amputation of the entire foot,” Haroun said, describing a cellmate’s plight.

In addition to obtaining the documents, SJAC and the Association for the Detained and Missing Persons in Sednaya Prison interviewed 156 survivors and eight former members of air force intelligence, Syria’s security service that was tasked with the surveillance, imprisonment and killing of regime critics.

The new government has issued a decree forbidding former regime officials from speaking publicly and none were available to comment.

“Although some of the graves mentioned in the report had not been discovered before, the discovery itself does not surprise us, as we know that there are more than 100,000 missing persons in Assad’s prisons who did not come out during the days of liberation in early December,” said a colonel in the new government’s Interior Ministry who identified himself by his military alias, Abu Baker.

“Discovering the fates of those missing persons and searching for more graves is one of the greatest legacies left by the Assad regime,” he said.

Hundreds of thousands of Syrians are estimated to have been killed since 2011, when Assad’s crackdown on protests spiraled into a full-scale war. Both Assad and his father Hafez, who preceded him as president and died in 2000, have long been accused by rights groups, foreign governments and war-crimes prosecutors of widespread extrajudicial killings, including mass executions within the country’s prison system and using chemical weapons against the Syrian people.


Sustainable City — Yiti and Ahli Islamic Oman sign partnership to advance sustainable urban development

Sustainable City — Yiti and Ahli Islamic Oman sign partnership to advance sustainable urban development
Updated 27 February 2025
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Sustainable City — Yiti and Ahli Islamic Oman sign partnership to advance sustainable urban development

Sustainable City — Yiti and Ahli Islamic Oman sign partnership to advance sustainable urban development
  • As Oman’s largest sustainable urban development, Yiti integrates renewable energy, food production, water and waste recycling, smart mobility and climate-resilient infrastructure to create a “future-ready” community

MUSCAT: The Sustainable City — Yiti, Oman’s flagship sustainable development and the pioneering net zero emissions community, signed a strategic partnership on Thursday with Ahli Islamic Oman bank.

The partnership was formalized at a signing ceremony held on-site at The Sustainable City — Yiti, attended by senior executives from Yiti and Ahli Islamic Oman, along with key stakeholders.

As Oman’s largest sustainable urban development, Yiti integrates renewable energy, food production, water and waste recycling, smart mobility and climate-resilient infrastructure to create a “future-ready” community.

With 96 percent of its infrastructure already completed, the project is progressing toward its full realization by 2026, bringing together residential, commercial, hospitality and educational spaces designed to advance sustainable living.

“With an investment of nearly $1 billion, we are redefining the real estate landscape by integrating sustainability, innovation, and long-term value creation. This collaboration with Ahli reinforces our commitment to responsible growth, ensuring that we deliver a world-class, net-zero emissions community that aligns with Oman’s Vision 2040 and sets a benchmark for sustainable cities worldwide,” said Mohammed Al-Ghufaili, COO of Oman Tourism Development Company (OMRAN) Group and a board member of Yiti.

Yousuf Al-Rawahi, head of Ahli Islamic Oman, said: “Our collaboration with The Sustainable City — Yiti reflects the overall commitment and endeavor to support Sharia-compliant and sustainable investments that align with Oman Vision 2040.

“By providing the needed financial solutions, we empower individuals and businesses to be part of a groundbreaking net-zero emissions community. Together, we are fostering a responsible urban grown society, while ensuring long-term value creation, and contributing to a more sustainable future for many in the Sultanate of Oman.”

Developed by Diamond Developers in collaboration with OMRAN, Yiti spans nearly one million square meters along the Gulf of Oman coastline, and offers smart infrastructure, low-carbon living and sustainable tourism.

The development features a mix of residential, commercial, hospitality, educational spaces, two hotels, alongside essential community infrastructure such as schools, a nursery, an equestrian center, an indoor sports complex and outdoor leisure areas.

It has been designed to achieve net zero emissions by 2040, as a key contributor to Oman’s environmental and economic transformation.


Ocalan calls for PKK to drop weapons, be dissolved

Ocalan calls for PKK to drop weapons, be dissolved
Updated 27 February 2025
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Ocalan calls for PKK to drop weapons, be dissolved

Ocalan calls for PKK to drop weapons, be dissolved
  • “All groups must lay down their arms and PKK must dissolve itself,” he said in a declaration
  • His words were read out by a delegation of lawmakers from the pro-Kurdish DEM party

ISTANBUL: Jailed PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan on Thursday called for his Kurdish militant group to lay down its weapons and dissolve itself in a landmark declaration read out in Istanbul.
“All groups must lay down their arms and PKK must dissolve itself,” he said in a declaration drawn up in his cell on Imrali prison island where he has been held in solitary confinement since 1999.
The call came four months after Ankara offered an olive branch to the 75-year-old who founded the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has led a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state that has cost tens of thousands of lives.
His words were read out by a delegation of lawmakers from the pro-Kurdish DEM party who visited him earlier on Thursday.
“I am making a call for the laying down of arms, and I take on the historical responsibility of this call,” he said.
Since Ocalan was jailed in 1999, there have been various attempts to end the bloodshed which erupted in 1984 and has cost more than 40,000 lives.
The last round of talks collapsed amid violence in 2015.
After that, there was no contact until October when hard-line nationalist MHP leader Devlet Bahceli offered Ocalan a surprise peace gesture if he would reject violence in a move endorsed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.