SHANNON, Ireland: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Israel and Jordan on a trip through Wednesday, the State Department announced, after the US and Israeli leaders discussed hostage-release talks.
Blinken will travel to both countries, a State Department official confirmed as the top US diplomat refueled Sunday in Ireland.
The trip was announced after President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke by telephone about ongoing talks to halt Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip in return for the release of hostages.
Egypt, Qatar and the United States have been trying to mediate a new truce between Israel and Hamas for months, as public pressure mounts for a deal.
Biden also reiterated concerns about Israel launching an operation in Rafah, the southern Gaza city where more than one million Palestinians have taken shelter.
The State Department did not immediately announce details of the two stops.
Blinken to visit Israel, Jordan on new Mideast trip
https://arab.news/v68yg
Blinken to visit Israel, Jordan on new Mideast trip
Houthis say 8 wounded in US strikes on Yemen capital
- Since US President Donald Trump took office, those attacks have intensified, with almost daily strikes for the past month
SANAA: Iran-backed Houthi rebels said Saturday that a series of US strikes on territory under their control including the Yemeni capital Sanaa had wounded at least eight people.
“Eight citizens, including two children, were wounded when the American enemy targeted a residential district” west of Al-Rawda in Sanaa, said the Houthi-run Saba news agency.
It cited the Houthi administration’s health ministry as the source for what it said was a provisional toll.
An AFP correspondent in Sanaa reported earlier Saturday having heard explosions.
The Houthis, who control large parts of the war-torn country, also reported strikes in other parts of the country, including their stronghold Saada in the north.
They said the fuel port of Ras Issa in the western Hodeida region — where they say 80 people were killed in strikes just over a week ago — had also been hit.
The Houthis, part of Iran’s “axis of resistance” against Israel and the United States, portray themselves as defenders of Gaza during the Israel-Hamas war.
They have regularly launched missiles and drones at Israel and at cargo vessels plying the key Red Sea trade route.
The US military has since January 2024 been attacking their positions, saying it is targeting the “Iran-backed Houthi terrorists” to stop their attacks.
Since US President Donald Trump took office, those attacks have intensified, with almost daily strikes for the past month.
On Saturday, the Houthis said they had launched a missile and two drones at Israel, where the army said it had intercepted a missile from Yemen and a drone coming from the east.
On Saturday, CENTCOM, the US military command in the region, posted footage from the US aircraft carriers Harry S. Truman and Carl Vinson conducting strikes against the Houthis.
At least 11 Sudanese killed in RSF drone strike
- The escalation of such strikes, which have hampered the country’s electrical grid and plunged millions into weeks-long blackouts, comes two years into a damaging war as the army has been pushing the paramilitary force out of central Sudan
AL-DAMAR, Sudan: At least 11 people were killed after a drone strike by the Rapid Support Forces hit a displacement camp in Sudan’s River Nile state, the governor said in a statement, in an attack that also took out the regional power station for the fourth time.
The RSF, which denies carrying out drone attacks and did not respond to a request for comment, has targeted power stations in army-controlled locations in central and northern Sudan for the past several months, but the strikes had not previously left significant death tolls.
“We heard a large explosion and we found two families that had been burnt completely inside their tents, while they were sleeping,” said teacher Mashair Hemeidan as she shed tears.
“We had left Khartoum, fearful of the war, and now the war has followed us here. I don’t know where I will go with my family and children. We have no shelter or place to go to,” she added.
I don’t know where I will go with my family and children. We have no shelter or place to go to.
Mashair Hemeidan, Teacher
The escalation of such strikes, which have hampered the country’s electrical grid and plunged millions into weeks-long blackouts, comes two years into a damaging war as the army has been pushing the paramilitary force out of central Sudan.
Ground fighting in the war is now focused on the Darfur region, where the RSF is fighting to seize the army’s remaining foothold, driving hundreds of thousands from their homes.
There has also been fighting in western Omdurman, part of the capital, where the RSF remains.
The Friday morning attack by multiple missiles, which set some of the tents on fire, injured 23 other people, a medical official said.
Reuters witnesses saw at least nine children among the wounded.
“My nine-year-old son, Ahmed, was killed, and now my nine-year-old Fadi and my seven-year-old Omnia are in the hospital,” said Fadwa Adlan, a resident of the camp.
Some 179 families displaced by the fighting in the capital had been living in difficult conditions in an abandoned building and surrounding tents outside the town of Al-Damer, receiving little in the way of humanitarian assistance. The camp was located about 3 km from the Atbara power station, which was also struck.
On Friday, authorities could be seen hosing down the residents’ belongings destroyed in the fire and breaking down the camp. Residents were seen boarding buses to an unknown location.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has appointed a new deputy in a major step in naming a successor
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has appointed a new deputy in a major step in naming a successor
- The appointment of Hussein Al-Sheikh does not guarantee he will be the next Palestinian president
- It makes him the front-runner among longtime politicians in the dominant Fatah party
RAMALLAH, West Bank: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday named a veteran aide and confidant as his new vice president. It’s a major step by the aging leader to designate a successor.
The appointment of Hussein Al-Sheikh as vice president of the Palestine Liberation Organization does not guarantee he will be the next Palestinian president. But it makes him the front-runner among longtime politicians in the dominant Fatah party who hope to succeed the 89-year-old Abbas.
The move is unlikely to boost the image among many Palestinians of Fatah as a closed and corrupt movement out of touch with the general public.
Abbas hopes to play a major role in postwar Gaza. He has been under pressure from Western and Arab allies to rehabilitate the Palestinian Authority, which has limited autonomy in parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. He has announced a series of reforms in recent months, and last week his Fatah movement approved the new position of PLO vice president.
The PLO is the internationally recognized representative of the Palestinian people and oversees the Western-backed Palestinian Authority. Abbas has led both entities for two decades.
Under last week’s decision, the new vice president, coming from the PLO’s 16-member executive committee, would succeed Abbas in a caretaker capacity if the president dies or becomes incapacitated.
That would make him the front-runner to replace Abbas on a permanent basis, though not guarantee it. The PLO’s executive committee would need to approve that appointment, and the body is filled with veteran politicians who see themselves as worthy contenders.
The Palestinian Authority, meanwhile, would have a separate caretaker leader, Rawhi Fattouh, the speaker of the Palestinians’ non-functioning parliament. But within 90 days, it would have to hold elections. If that is not possible, the new PLO president would likely take over the position.
Al-Sheikh, 64, is a veteran politician who has held a series of top positions over decades, most recently as the secretary-general of the PLO’s executive committee for the past three years. He spent 11 years in Israeli prisons in his youth and is a veteran of the Palestinian security forces — experiences that could give him credibility with Palestinian security figures and the broader public.
Now he finds himself in a strong position to shore up his power.
He is Abbas’ closest aide and, most critically, maintains good working relations with Israel and the Palestinians’ Arab allies, including wealthy Gulf countries. As Abbas’ point man with Israel, Al-Sheikh is responsible for arranging coveted travel permits for Palestinians, including VIP leaders, giving him an important lever of power over his rivals.
However, polls show Al-Sheikh, like most of Fatah’s leadership, to be deeply unpopular with the general public. This week’s decision behind closed doors by the PLO’s aging leadership is likely to reinforce its image as being stodgy and out of touch.
The most popular Palestinian, Marwan Barghouti, is serving multiple life sentences in an Israeli prison, and Israel has ruled out releasing him as part of any swap for Israeli hostages held in Gaza by the Hamas militant group.
As Israel’s war with Hamas drags on, with talk by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of uprooting Palestinians in Gaza to relocate them elsewhere, Al-Sheikh will be under mounting pressure to unite the Palestinian leadership.
The PLO is a rival for Hamas, which won the last national elections in 2006 and is not in the PLO. Hamas seized control of Gaza from Abbas’ forces in 2007, and reconciliation attempts have repeatedly failed.
In a 2022 interview with The Associated Press, Al-Sheikh defended his unpopular coordination with Israel, saying there was no choice under the difficult circumstances of the occupation.
“I am not a representative for Israel in the Palestinian territories,” he said at the time. “We undertake the coordination because this is the prelude to a political solution for ending the occupation.”
Syria’s Kurds hold conference on vision for country’s future
- More than 400 people, including representatives from major Kurdish parties in Syria, Iraq and Turkiye, took part in the “Unity of the Kurdish Position and Ranks” conference in Qamishli
QAMISHLI: Syria’s Kurdish parties held a conference on Saturday aimed at presenting a unified vision for the country’s future following the fall of longtime ruler Bashar Assad, a high-ranking participant told AFP.
Eldar Khalil, an official in the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, said that since Kurds were a major component of the country, they “must present a solution and a project proposal for the future of Syria.”
On the question of federalism, Khalil said it was “one of the proposals on the table.”
More than 400 people, including representatives from major Kurdish parties in Syria, Iraq and Turkiye, took part in the “Unity of the Kurdish Position and Ranks” conference in Qamishli, according to the Kurdish Anha news agency.
The Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, which has controlled large swathes of Syria’s northeast since the early years of the country’s civil war, was represented at the gathering, as were groups opposed to it.
Last month, the Kurdish administration struck a deal to integrate into state institutions, with the new Islamist-led leadership seeking to unify the country following the December overthrow of Assad.
The agreement, however, has not prevented the Kurdish administration from criticizing the new authorities, including over the formation of a new government and a recent constitutional declaration that concentrated executive power in the hands of interim President Ahmad Al-Sharaa during the transition period.
Mazloum Abdi, head of the administration’s armed wing, the Syrian Democratic Forces, said at the conference that “my message to all Syrian constituents and the Damascus government is that the conference does not aim, as some say, at division.”
It was being held, he added, “for the unity of Syria.”
Abdi included a call for “a new decentralized constitution that includes all components” of society.
“We support all Syrian components receiving their rights in the constitution to be able to build a decentralized democratic Syria that embraces everyone,” he said.
Khalil said that the participants will also discuss ways to address the role of the Kurds in the new Syria.
A massive explosion at an Iranian port linked to missile fuel shipment kills 8, injures around 750
- Helicopters dumped water from the air on the raging fire hours after the initial explosion
- The port took in a shipment of “sodium perchlorate rocket fuel” in March
MUSCAT: A massive explosion and fire rocked a port Saturday in southern Iran purportedly linked to a shipment of a chemical ingredient used to make missile propellant, killing eight people and injuring around 750 others.
Helicopters dumped water from the air on the raging fire hours after the initial explosion, which happened at the Shahid Rajaei port just as Iran and the United States met Saturday in Oman for the third round of negotiations over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program.
No one in Iran outright suggested that the explosion came from an attack. However, even Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who led the talks, on Wednesday acknowledged that “our security services are on high alert given past instances of attempted sabotage and assassination operations designed to provoke a legitimate response.”
Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni gave the casualty figure in an interview on state television. But there were few details on what sparked the blaze just outside of Bandar Abbas, which burned into Saturday night, causing other containers to reportedly explode.
Security firm says port received chemical for missile fuel
The port took in a shipment of “sodium perchlorate rocket fuel” in March, the private security firm Ambrey said. The fuel is part of a shipment from China by two vessels to Iran first reported in January by the Financial Times. The fuel was going to be used to replenish Iran’s missile stocks, which had been depleted by its direct attacks on Israel during the war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
“The fire was reportedly the result of improper handling of a shipment of solid fuel intended for use in Iranian ballistic missiles,” Ambrey said.
Ship-tracking data analyzed by The Associated Press put one of the vessels believed to be carrying the chemical in the vicinity in March, as Ambrey said. Iran hasn’t acknowledged taking the shipment. The Iranian mission to the United Nations didn’t respond to a request for comment on Saturday.
It’s unclear why Iran wouldn’t have moved the chemicals from the port, particularly after the Beirut port blast in 2020. That explosion, caused by the ignition of hundreds of tons of highly explosive ammonium nitrate, killed more than 200 people and injured more than 6,000 others. However, Israel did target Iranian missile sites where Tehran uses industrial mixers to create solid fuel.
Social media footage of the explosion on Saturday at Shahid Rajaei saw reddish-hued smoke rising from the fire just before the detonation. That suggests a chemical compound being involved in the blast — like in the Beirut explosion.
“Get back get back! Tell the gas (truck) to go!” a man in one video shouted just before the blast. “Tell him to go, it’s going to blow up! Oh God, this is blowing up! Everybody evacuate! Get back! Get back!”
On Saturday night, the state-run IRNA news agency said that the Customs Administration of Iran blamed a “stockpile of hazardous goods and chemical materials stored in the port area” for the blast, without elaborating.
An aerial shot released by Iranian media after the blast showed fires burning at multiple locations in the port, with authorities later warning about air pollution from chemicals such as ammonia, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide in the air. Schools in Bandar Abbas will be closed Sunday as well.
Port a major destination for Iranian cargo
Shahid Rajaei has been a target before. A 2020 cyberattack attributed to Israel targeted the port. It came after Israel said that it thwarted a cyberattack targeting its water infrastructure, which it attributed to Iran. Israeli officials didn’t respond to requests for comment regarding Saturday’s explosion.
Social media videos showed black billowing smoke after the blast. Others showed glass blown out of buildings kilometers, or miles, away from the epicenter of the explosion. State media footage showed the injured crowding into at least one hospital, with ambulances arriving as medics rushed one person by on a stretcher.
Hasanzadeh, the provincial disaster management official, earlier told state television that the blast came from containers at Shahid Rajaei port in the city, without elaborating. State television also reported that there had been a building collapse caused by the explosion, though no further details were offered.
The Interior Ministry said that it launched an investigation into the blast. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian also offered his condolences for those affected in the blast.
Shahid Rajaei port in Hormozgan province is about 1,050 kilometers (650 miles) southeast of Iran’s capital, Tehran, on the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Arabian Gulf through which 20 percent of all oil traded passes.
