Hamas warns Israeli invasion of Rafah will ‘torpedo’ hostage talks

Hamas warns Israeli invasion of Rafah will ‘torpedo’ hostage talks
A smoke plume erupts during Israeli bombardment over Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on February 11, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. (AFP)
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Updated 11 February 2024
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Hamas warns Israeli invasion of Rafah will ‘torpedo’ hostage talks

Hamas warns Israeli invasion of Rafah will ‘torpedo’ hostage talks
  • Rafah, on the border with Egypt, has remained the last refuge for Palestinians fleeing Israel’s relentless bombardment elsewhere in the Gaza Strip in its four-month war against Hamas

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Hamas warned Israel on Sunday that a ground offensive in Rafah, crowded with displaced Gazans, would imperil future hostage releases, while US President Joe Biden urged the protection of civilians in the besieged territory.
Foreign governments, including Israel’s key ally the United States, and aid groups have voiced deep concern over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vow to extend operations into the far-southern Gaza city.
Rafah, on the border with Egypt, has remained the last refuge for Palestinians fleeing Israel’s relentless bombardment elsewhere in the Gaza Strip in its four-month war against Hamas, triggered by the group’s October 7 attack.
“Any attack by the occupation army on the city of Rafah would torpedo the exchange negotiations,” a Hamas leader told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Netanyahu has told troops to prepare to enter the city which now hosts more than half of Gaza’s total population, spurring concern about the impact on displaced civilians.
Biden spoke to Netanyahu on the phone Sunday and told him the Gaza advance should not go ahead in the absence of a “credible” plan to ensure “the safety” of people sheltering there, the White House said.
Some 1.4 million Palestinians have crowded into Rafah, with many living in tents while food, water and medicine are becoming increasingly scarce.
Netanyahu had told US broadcaster ABC News the Rafah operation would go ahead until Hamas is eliminated, adding he would provide “safe passage” to civilians wishing to leave.
When pressed about where they could go, Netanyahu said: “You know, the areas that we’ve cleared north of Rafah, plenty of areas there. But, we are working out a detailed plan.”
Mediators held new talks in Cairo for a pause in the fighting and the release of some of the 132 hostages Israel says are still in Gaza, including 29 thought to be dead.
Hamas seized some 250 hostages on October 7, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures. Dozens were released during a one-week truce in November.
Hamas’s military wing on Sunday said two hostages had been killed and eight others seriously wounded in Israeli bombardment in recent days, a claim AFP is unable to independently verify.
Netanyahu has faced calls for early elections and mounting protests over his administration’s failure to bring home the hostages.
Israeli strikes have long hit targets in Rafah, and combat on Sunday seemed intense several kilometers (miles) to the north in Khan Yunis city. AFP correspondents heard repeated explosions and saw plumes of black smoke.
Israel’s military said troops were conducting “targeted raids” in the west of Khan Yunis, southern Gaza’s main city, while Hamas reported violent clashes and said air strikes also hit Rafah.
Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Israel has responded with a relentless offensive in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip that the territory’s health ministry says has killed at least 28,176 people, mostly women and children.
Hamas said dozens of bodies had been found in Gaza City, in the coastal strip’s north, after Israeli ground troops withdrew from the area.
Most of them “were martyred by bullets of snipers,” the group said in a statement.
Hossam Al-Sharqawi of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies told reporters that “every day our ambulance guys (in Gaza) are martyred or injured.”
“This is unacceptable, this madness must stop.”
During a visit to a military base Sunday, Netanyahu said Israel aims for “the demilitarization of Gaza.”
“This requires our security control... over the entire area west of Jordan, including the Gaza Strip,” he said.
The United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) were some of the latest to raise the alarm over the plan for Rafah, Gaza’s last major population center that Israeli troops have yet to enter.
“The OIC strongly warned that the continuation and expansion of the Israeli military aggression is part of rejected attempts to forcibly expel the Palestinian people from their land,” the 57-nation Jeddah-based bloc said on social media.
It stressed “that such acts fall under genocide and would lead to a humanitarian catastrophe and collective massacre.”
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also rejected “forced” displacement of people from Rafah, evoking the trauma of Palestinians’ mass exodus and forced displacement around the time of Israel’s creation in 1948.
Riyadh called for an urgent UN Security Council meeting, while Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Cameron said the priority “must be an immediate pause in the fighting to get aid in and hostages out.”
Denouncing a “genocide” in Gaza, thousands rallied Sunday in Morocco’s capital Rabat and called on their government to undo a 2020 normalization pact with Israel.
Gazans, driven further and further south, have repeatedly said they can find no safe refuge from the fighting and bombing.
Farah Muhammad, 39, a mother of five displaced to Rafah from northern Gaza, said she felt helpless.
“There is no place to escape.”


15 Turkish-backed fighters killed in north Syria clashes with Kurdish-led forces

15 Turkish-backed fighters killed in north Syria clashes with Kurdish-led forces
Updated 25 November 2024
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15 Turkish-backed fighters killed in north Syria clashes with Kurdish-led forces

15 Turkish-backed fighters killed in north Syria clashes with Kurdish-led forces
  • SDF fighters “infiltrated positions of the Turkish-backed” troops in the Aleppo countryside, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said
  • The SDF is a US-backed force that spearheaded the fighting against the Daesh group in its last Syria strongholds before its territorial defeat in 2019

BEIRUT: At least 15 Ankara-backed Syrian fighters were killed Sunday after Kurdish-led forces infiltrated their territory in the country’s north, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said.
Fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who controls swathes of the country’s northeast, “infiltrated positions of the Turkish-backed” fighters in the Aleppo countryside, said the Observatory, which has a network of sources inside Syria.
“The two sides engaged in violent clashes” that killed 15 of the Ankara-backed fighters, the monitor said.
An AFP correspondent in Syria’s north said the clashes had taken place near the city of Al-Bab, where authorities said schools would be suspended on Monday due to the violence.
The SDF is a US-backed force that spearheaded the fighting against the Daesh group in its last Syria strongholds before its territorial defeat in 2019.
It is dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), viewed by Ankara as an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) which claimed the attack on Ankara.
Turkish troops and allied rebel factions control swathes of northern Syria following successive cross-border offensives since 2016, most of them targeting the SDF.


Israel moving towards a ceasefire deal in Lebanon, Axios reports

Israel moving towards a ceasefire deal in Lebanon, Axios reports
Updated 25 November 2024
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Israel moving towards a ceasefire deal in Lebanon, Axios reports

Israel moving towards a ceasefire deal in Lebanon, Axios reports

BEIRUT: Israel is moving towards a ceasefire agreement in Lebanon with the Hezbollah militant group, Axios reporter Barak Ravid posted on X on Sunday, citing a senior Israeli official.
A separate report from Israel's public broadcaster Kan, citing an Israeli official, said there was no green light given on an agreement in Lebanon, with issues still yet to be resolved.

 


Russian plane catches fire after landing in Turkiye but passengers and crew are safely evacuated

Russian plane catches fire after landing in Turkiye but passengers and crew are safely evacuated
Updated 25 November 2024
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Russian plane catches fire after landing in Turkiye but passengers and crew are safely evacuated

Russian plane catches fire after landing in Turkiye but passengers and crew are safely evacuated
  • “Eighty nine passengers and six crew members on board were safely evacuated at 9:43 p.m. (1843 GMT) and there were no injuries”

ANKARA, Turkiye: The engine of a Russian plane with 95 people on board caught fire after landing at Antalya airport in southern Turkiye on Sunday, Turkiye’s transportation ministry said. All passengers and crew were safely evacuated.
The Sukhoi Superjet 100 type aircraft run by Azimuth Airlines had taken off from Sochi and was carrying 89 passengers and six crew members, the ministry said in a statement.
The pilot made an emergency call after the aircraft landed at 9:34 p.m. local time, and airport rescue and firefighting crews quickly extinguished the fire, according to the statement.
No one was hurt, the statement said.
The cause of the fire was not immediately known.
A video of the incident posted by the aviation news website, Airport Haber, showed flames coming out from the left side of the plane as emergency crews doused the aircraft. Passengers were seen evacuating the plane through an emergency slide, some carrying belongings.
The transportation ministry said efforts were underway to remove the aircraft from the runway. Arrivals at the airport were temporarily suspended while departures were taking place from a military-run runway.

 


War-hit Lebanon suspends in-person classes in Beirut area till end of December

Smoke billows over Beirut’s southern suburbs after an Israeli strike, seen from Baabda.
Smoke billows over Beirut’s southern suburbs after an Israeli strike, seen from Baabda.
Updated 25 November 2024
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War-hit Lebanon suspends in-person classes in Beirut area till end of December

Smoke billows over Beirut’s southern suburbs after an Israeli strike, seen from Baabda.
  • Education minister announced “the suspension of in-person teaching” in schools, technical institutes and private higher education institutions in Beirut
  • Suspension of in-person teaching also applies to parts of neighboring Metn, Baabda and Shouf districts starting Monday

BEIRUT: Lebanon has suspended in-person classes in the Beirut area until the end of December, the education ministry announced Sunday, citing safety concerns after a series of Israeli air strikes this week.
Education Minister Abbas Halabi announced in a statement “the suspension of in-person teaching” in schools, technical institutes and private higher education institutions in Beirut and parts of the neighboring Metn, Baabda and Shouf districts starting Monday “for the safety of students, educational institutions and parents, in light of the current dangerous conditions.”
Earlier on Sunday, Lebanese state media reported two Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, about an hour after the Israeli military posted evacuation calls online for parts of the Hezbollah bastion.
“Israeli warplanes launched two violent strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs in the Kafaat area,” the official National News Agency said.
The southern Beirut area has been repeatedly struck since September 23 when Israel intensified its air campaign also targeting Hezbollah bastions in Lebanon’s east and south. It later sent in ground troops to southern Lebanon.


Legal threats close in on Israel’s Netanyahu, could impact ongoing wars   

Legal threats close in on Israel’s Netanyahu, could impact ongoing wars   
Updated 24 November 2024
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Legal threats close in on Israel’s Netanyahu, could impact ongoing wars   

Legal threats close in on Israel’s Netanyahu, could impact ongoing wars   
  • The trial opened in 2020 and Netanyahu is finally scheduled to take the stand next month after the court rejected his latest request to delay testimony on the grounds that he had been too busy overseeing the war to prepare his defense

JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces legal perils at home and abroad that point to a turbulent future for the Israeli leader and could influence the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, analysts and officials say. The International Criminal Court (ICC) stunned Israel on Thursday by issuing arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense chief Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the 13-month-old Gaza conflict. The bombshell came less than two weeks before Netanyahu is due to testify in a corruption trial that has dogged him for years and could end his political career if he is found guilty. He has denied any wrongdoing. While the domestic bribery trial has polarized public opinion, the prime minister has received widespread support from across the political spectrum following the ICC move, giving him a boost in troubled times.
Netanyahu has denounced the court’s decision as antisemitic and denied charges that he and Gallant targeted Gazan civilians and deliberately starved them.
“Israelis get really annoyed if they think the world is against them and rally around their leader, even if he has faced a lot of criticism,” said Yonatan Freeman, an international relations expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
“So anyone expecting that the ICC ruling will end this government, and what they see as a flawed (war) policy, is going to get the opposite,” he added.
A senior diplomat said one initial consequence was that Israel might be less likely to reach a rapid ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon or secure a deal to bring back hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza.
“This terrible decision has ... badly harmed the chances of a deal in Lebanon and future negotiations on the issue of the hostages,” said Ofir Akunis, Israel’s consul general in New York.
“Terrible damage has been done because these organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas ... have received backing from the ICC and thus they are likely to make the price higher because they have the support of the ICC,” he told Reuters.
While Hamas welcomed the ICC decision, there has been no indication that either it or Hezbollah see this as a chance to put pressure on Israel, which has inflicted huge losses on both groups over the past year, as well as on civilian populations.

IN THE DOCK The ICC warrants highlight the disconnect between the way the war is viewed here and how it is seen by many abroad, with Israelis focused on their own losses and convinced the nation’s army has sought to minimize civilian casualties.
Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, said the ICC move would likely harden resolve and give the war cabinet license to hit Gaza and Lebanon harder still.
“There’s a strong strand of Israeli feeling that runs deep, which says ‘if we’re being condemned for what we are doing, we might just as well go full gas’,” he told Reuters.
While Netanyahu has received wide support at home over the ICC action, the same is not true of the domestic graft case, where he is accused of bribery, breach of trust and fraud.
The trial opened in 2020 and Netanyahu is finally scheduled to take the stand next month after the court rejected his latest request to delay testimony on the grounds that he had been too busy overseeing the war to prepare his defense.
He was due to give evidence last year but the date was put back because of the war. His critics have accused him of prolonging the Gaza conflict to delay judgment day and remain in power, which he denies. Always a divisive figure in Israel, public trust in Netanyahu fell sharply in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas assault on southern Israel that caught his government off guard, cost around 1,200 lives.
Israel’s subsequent campaign has killed more than 44,000 people and displaced nearly all Gaza’s population at least once, triggering a humanitarian catastrophe, according to Gaza officials.
The prime minister has refused advice from the state attorney general to set up an independent commission into what went wrong and Israel’s subsequent conduct of the war.
He is instead looking to establish an inquiry made up only of politicians, which critics say would not provide the sort of accountability demanded by the ICC.
Popular Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth said the failure to order an independent investigation had prodded the ICC into action. “Netanyahu preferred to take the risk of arrest warrants, just as long as he did not have to form such a commission,” it wrote on Friday.

ARREST THREAT The prime minister faces a difficult future living under the shadow of an ICC warrant, joining the ranks of only a few leaders to have suffered similar humiliation, including Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi and Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic.
It also means he risks arrest if he travels to any of the court’s 124 signatory states, including most of Europe.
One place he can safely visit is the United States, which is not a member of the ICC, and Israeli leaders hope US President-elect Donald Trump will bring pressure to bear by imposing sanctions on ICC officials.
Mike Waltz, Trump’s nominee for national security adviser, has already promised tough action: “You can expect a strong response to the antisemitic bias of the ICC & UN come January,” he wrote on X on Friday. In the meantime, Israeli officials are talking to their counterparts in Western capitals, urging them to ignore the arrest warrants, as Hungary has already promised to do.
However, the charges are not going to disappear soon, if at all, meaning fellow leaders will be increasingly reluctant to have relations with Netanyahu, said Yuval Shany, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute.
“In a very direct sense, there is going to be more isolation for the Israeli state going forward,” he told Reuters.