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Hamas to stay out of Gaza truce talks but may meet mediators afterwards

Update Hamas to stay out of Gaza truce talks but may meet mediators afterwards
An injured Palestinian man is rushed to the Nasser hospital following Israeli bombardment on Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on August 14, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 14 August 2024
Reuters
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Hamas to stay out of Gaza truce talks but may meet mediators afterwards

Hamas to stay out of Gaza truce talks but may meet mediators afterwards
  • The US has said it expects indirect talks to go ahead as planned in Qatar’s capital Doha on Thursday
  • Hamas has voiced skepticism about the talks, accusing Israel of stalling
Updated 14 August 2024
Reuters
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CAIRO: Hamas said on Wednesday it would not take part in a new round of Gaza ceasefire talks slated for Thursday in Qatar, but an official briefed on the talks said mediators expected to consult with the Palestinian group afterwards.
The US has said it expects indirect talks to go ahead as planned in Qatar’s capital Doha on Thursday, and that a ceasefire agreement was still possible, while warning that progress was needed urgently to avert a wider war.
Axios reported that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has postponed a trip to the Middle East that had been expected to begin on Tuesday. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that CIA Director Bill Burns and US Middle East envoy Brett McGurk will represent Washington at the talks on Thursday in Qatar.
Three senior Iranian officials have said that only a ceasefire deal in Gaza would hold Iran back from direct retaliation against Israel for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on its soil last month.
“Israel will send the negotiations team on the agreed upon date, that’s tomorrow Aug. 15th, in order to finalize the details of the implementation of the framework agreement,” government spokesperson David Mencer said in a briefing.
The delegation includes Israel’s spy chief David Barnea, head of the domestic security service Ronen Bar and the military’s hostages chief Nitzan Alon, a defense official said.
Hamas has voiced skepticism about the talks, accusing Israel of stalling. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has been the main obstacle to a deal.
“Going to new negotiations allows the occupation to impose new conditions and employ the maze of negotiation to conduct more massacres,” Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters.
Hamas’ absence from the talks does not eliminate chances of progress since its chief negotiator Khalil Al-Hayya is based in Doha and the group has open channels with Egypt and Qatar.
“Hamas is committed to the proposal presented to it on July 2, which is based on the UN Security Council resolution and the Biden speech and the movement is prepared to immediately begin discussion over a mechanism to implement it,” said Abu Zuhri.
A source familiar with the matter said Hamas wants the mediators to come back with a “serious response” from Israel. If that happens, the group says, it will meet with mediators after the Thursday session. An official briefed on the talks process said mediators expected to consult with Hamas.
In a statement Hamas issued late on Wednesday jointly with some smaller factions, it reaffirmed the outstanding demands the factions wanted a ceasefire agreement to achieve.
The group said negotiations “should examine mechanisms to implement what was agreed upon in the framework deal submitted by mediators that would achieve a comprehensive ceasefire, a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces, breaking the siege, opening crossings and reconstruction of Gaza as well as reaching a serious hostages/prisoners deal.”
The statement rejected any US or Israeli intervention in shaping the day after the war in Gaza.

Topics: War on Gaza Israel Hamas Doha Ceasefire White House Iran

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While Syrian refugees don’t want to return, officials in Lebanon and Syria see exodus as opportunity

Updated 20 sec ago
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While Syrian refugees don’t want to return, officials in Lebanon and Syria see exodus as opportunity

While Syrian refugees don’t want to return, officials in Lebanon and Syria see exodus as opportunity
Updated 20 sec ago
According to the UN refugee agency, more than 470,000 people — around 70 percent of them Syrian — have crossed the border since the escalation in Lebanon began in mid-September
Lebanon’s General Security agency estimates more than 550,000 people have fled, most of them Syrian

BEIRUT: Hundreds of thousands of Syrians refugees have returned to their country since Israel launched a massive aerial bombardment on wide swathes of Lebanon in September. Many who fled to Lebanon after the war in Syria started in 2011 did not want to go back.
But for officials in Lebanon, the influx of returnees comes as a silver lining to the war between Israel and Hezbollah that has killed more than 3,000 people and displaced some 1.2 million in Lebanon. Some in Syria hope the returning refugees could lead to more international assistance and relief from western sanctions.
’I wasn’t thinking at all about returning’
Nisreen Al-Abed returned to her northwest Syrian hometown in October after 12 years as a refugee in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. The airstrikes had been terrifying, but what really worried her was that her 8-year-old twin daughters need regular transfusions to treat a rare blood disorder, thalassemia.
“I was afraid that in Lebanon, in this situation, I wouldn’t be able to get blood for them,” Al-Abed said.
During their dayslong journey, Al-Abed and her daughters were smuggled from government-held to opposition-held territory before reaching her parent’ house. Her husband remained in Lebanon.
“Before these events, I wasn’t thinking at all about returning to Syria,” she said.
According to the UN refugee agency, more than 470,000 people — around 70 percent of them Syrian — have crossed the border since the escalation in Lebanon began in mid-September. Lebanon’s General Security agency estimates more than 550,000 people have fled, most of them Syrian.
Most of the returnees are in government-controlled areas of Syria, according to UNHCR, while tens of thousands have made their way to the Kurdish-controlled northeast and smaller numbers to the opposition-controlled northwest.
Political leaders in Lebanon, which was hosting an estimated 1.5 million Syrian refugees before the recent wave of returns, have been calling for years for the displaced to go home, and many don’t want the refugees to return.
Lebanon’s caretaker Minister of Social Affairs Hector Hajjar told Russia’s Sputnik News last month that the war in Lebanon could yield “a positive benefit, an opportunity to return a large number of displaced Syrians to their country, because the situation there is now better than here.”
A political opening for Syria?
Officials in Damascus point to increasing economic pressure from the masses fleeing Lebanon as an argument for loosening western sanctions on President Bashar Assad’s government.
Syria was already suffering from spiraling inflation, and the sudden influx of refugees has driven prices up even more, as have Israeli strikes on border crossings that have slowed legal cross-border trade and smuggling.
“Everyone knows that Syria is suffering from difficult economic conditions: hyperinflation, import inflation, and an economic blockade,” said Abdul-Qader Azzouz, an economic analyst and professor at Damascus University. The influx of refugees just “increases the economic burden,” he said.
Alaa Al-Sheikh, a member of the executive bureau in Damascus province, urged the US to lift sanctions on Syria because of the huge number of arrivals.
“The burden is big and we are in pressing need of international assistance,” she said.
Rights groups have raised concerns about the treatment of returning refugees. The Jordan-based Syrian think tank ETANA estimates at least 130 people were “arbitrarily arrested at official border crossings or checkpoints inside Syria, either because they were wanted for security reasons or military service,” despite a government-declared amnesty for men who dodged the draft.
Joseph Daher, a Swiss-Syrian researcher and professor at the European University Institute in Florence, noted the number of arrests is small and that Assad’s government might not view the returnees as a threat because they are mostly women and children.
Still, Daher labeled government attempts to show the returning refugees are welcome as “propaganda,” saying, “they’re unwilling and not ready in terms of economics or politics to do it.”
UNHCR head Filippo Grandi said this week that his agency is working with the Syrian government “to ensure the safety and security of all those arriving,” and he urged donors to provide humanitarian aid and financial assistance to help Syria recover after 13 years of war.
A temporary return
UNHCR regional spokeswoman Rula Amin said if people leave the country where they are registered as refugees, they usually lose their protected status.
Whether and how that will be applied in the current situation remains unclear, Amin said, underscoring the exodus from Lebanon took place “under adverse circumstances, that is under duress.”
“Given the current situation, the procedure will need to be applied with necessary safeguards and humanity,” she said.
Jeff Crisp, a visiting research fellow at the University of Oxford’s Refugee Studies Center and a former UNHCR official, said he believes Syrians are entitled to continued international protection “because of the grave threats to their life and liberty in both countries.”
Some refugees have entered Syria via smuggler routes so their departure from Lebanon is not officially recorded, including Um Yaman, who left Beirut’s heavily bombarded southern suburbs with her children for the city of Raqqa in eastern Syria.
“When I went to Syria, to be honest, I went by smuggling, in case we wanted to go back to Lebanon later when things calm down, so our papers would remain in order in Lebanon,” she said. She asked to be identified only by her honorific (“mother of Yaman”) to be able to speak freely.
If the war in Lebanon ends, Um Yaman said, they may return, but “nothing is clear at all.”



Hundreds of thousands of Syrians refugees have returned to their country since Israel launched a massive aerial bombardment on wide swathes of Lebanon in September. Many who fled to Lebanon after the war in Syria started in 2011 did not want to go back. (AP/File)

More than 20 killed as Israeli strikes pound towns in Lebanon, Lebanese officials say

More than 20 killed as Israeli strikes pound towns in Lebanon, Lebanese officials say
Updated 29 min 17 sec ago
Reuters
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More than 20 killed as Israeli strikes pound towns in Lebanon, Lebanese officials say

More than 20 killed as Israeli strikes pound towns in Lebanon, Lebanese officials say
  • At least 16 more people were killed in Israeli strikes on Saturday across the eastern plains around the historic city of Baalbek
  • The Lebanese health ministry said Israeli attacks have killed at least 3,136 people and wounded 13,979 in Lebanon over the last year
Updated 29 min 17 sec ago
Reuters

BEIRUT: Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon over the last day have killed more than 20 people including several children, Lebanese authorities said on Saturday, after heavy Israeli bombardment pounded the southern suburbs of the capital Beirut overnight.
At least seven people were killed in the coastal city of Tyre late on Friday, Lebanon’s health ministry said. The Israeli military has previously ordered swathes of the city to evacuate but there were no orders published by the Israeli military spokesperson on social media platform X ahead of Friday’s strikes.
The ministry said two children were among the dead. Rescue operations were ongoing and other body parts retrieved in the aftermath of the attack would undergo DNA testing to identify them, the ministry added.
At least 16 more people were killed in Israeli strikes on Saturday across the eastern plains around the historic city of Baalbek, the area’s governor said in a post on social media platform X.
Israel’s military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Lebanese health ministry said Israeli attacks have killed at least 3,136 people and wounded 13,979 in Lebanon over the last year. The toll includes 619 women and 194 children.
Israel has been locked in fighting with Lebanese armed group Hezbollah since October 2023, but fighting has escalated dramatically since late September of this year. Israel has intensified and expanded its bombing campaign, and Hezbollah has ramped up daily rocket and drone attacks against Israel.
The Iran-backed group announced more than 20 operations on Saturday, as well as one that it said fighters carried out the previous day against a military factory south of Tel Aviv.
More than a dozen Israeli strikes also hit the southern suburbs of Beirut overnight, once a bustling collection of neighborhoods and a key stronghold of Hezbollah.
Now, many buildings have been almost entirely flattened, with Hezbollah’s yellow flags jutting out from the ruins, according to Reuters reporters who were taken on a tour of the area by Hezbollah.
Some buildings were partially damaged by the strikes, leading some floors to collapse and sending furniture and other personal belongings spilling onto parked cars below.
Men and women were picking through the rubble for their belongings, shoving blankets and mats under their arms or into black plastic bags.
“We are trying to gather as many (of our possessions) as we can, so we can manage to live off them, nothing more,” said Hassan Hannawi, one of the men looking for his belongings.

Topics: Battlefield Lebanon Israel Ras Baalbek tyre Lebannon Hezbollah

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Officials say Qatar decides to suspend Gaza mediation efforts

Officials say Qatar decides to suspend Gaza mediation efforts
Updated 36 min 53 sec ago
AP
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Officials say Qatar decides to suspend Gaza mediation efforts

Officials say Qatar decides to suspend Gaza mediation efforts
  • Qatar’s announcement comes after growing frustration with the lack of progress on a ceasefire deal
  • Senior Hamas official said aware of decision, “but no one told us to leave”
Updated 36 min 53 sec ago
AP

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: Qatar has decided to suspend its key mediation efforts between Hamas and Israel, officials said Saturday.
However, Qatar is highly likely to return to the efforts if both sides show “serious political willingness” to reach a deal on the war in Gaza, according to one official with Egypt, the other key mediator.
A diplomatic source briefed on the matter said Israel and Hamas, along with the United States, were informed after the decision was made. The source added that “as a consequence, the Hamas political office no longer serves its purpose” in Qatar.
A senior Hamas official said they were aware of Qatar’s decision to suspend mediation efforts, “but no one told us to leave.”
Qatar’s announcement comes after growing frustration with the lack of progress on a ceasefire deal.
“After rejecting repeated proposals to release hostages, (Hamas) leaders should no longer be welcome in the capitals of any American partner. We made that clear to Qatar following Hamas’ rejection weeks ago of another hostage release proposal,” a US senior administration official said.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. The Israeli prime minister’s office had no comment.
Meanwhile, three separate Israeli strikes killed at least 16 people, including women and children, in Gaza on Saturday, Palestinian medical officials said, and Israel announced the first delivery of humanitarian aid in weeks to hungry, devastated northern Gaza.
There continued to be no end in sight to Israel’s campaigns against Hamas militants in Gaza or Hezbollah in Lebanon, where Israel’s military said that it struck command centers and other militant infrastructure overnight in Beirut’s southern suburbs. An Israeli airstrike on the southern port city of Tyre late Friday left at least seven dead, officials and a resident said.
One of the strikes in Gaza hit a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City’s eastern Tufah neighborhood, killing at least six people, the territory’s Health Ministry said. Two local journalists, a pregnant woman and a child were among the dead, it said. The Israeli army said the strike targeted a militant belonging to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, offering no evidence or details.
Seven people were killed when an Israeli strike hit a tent in the southern city of Khan Younis where displaced people were sheltering, according to Nasser Hospital. It said the dead included two women and a child. The Israeli army didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
And Palestinian medical officials said an Israeli strike hit tents in the courtyard of central Gaza’s main hospital, including one serving as a police point. At least three people were killed and a local journalist was wounded, Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir Al-Balah said. It was the eighth Israeli attack on the compound since March.
Israel says aid trucks reach northern Gaza
The Israeli military body in charge of humanitarian aid to Gaza, COGAT, said Saturday that 11 aid trucks containing food, water and medical equipment reached the enclave’s far north on Thursday. It’s the first time any aid has reached the far north since Israel began a new military campaign there last month.
But not all the aid reached the agreed drop-off points, according to the the UN World Food Program, which was involved in the delivery process. In the urban refugee camp of Jabaliya, Israeli troops stopped one convoy bound for nearby Beit Lahiya and ordered the supplies to be offloaded, WFP spokesperson Alia Zaki said.
Israel’s offensive has focused on Jabaliya, where Israel says Hamas had regrouped. Other areas affected include Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun just north of Gaza City.
US deadline is looming for Israel
The aid announcement came days before a US deadline demanding that Israel improve aid deliveries across Gaza or risk losing access to US weapons funding.
The US says Israel must allow a minimum of 350 trucks a day carrying food and other supplies.
Meanwhile, a report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, issued Thursday said there’s a strong likelihood that famine is imminent in parts of northern Gaza, the territory’s most isolated area.
COGAT rejected the IPC’s finding and said the report relied “on partial, biased data and superficial sources with vested interests.”
No emergency services functioning north of Gaza City
The UN estimates that tens of thousands of people remain in northern Gaza. Earlier this week, the Health Ministry said there were no ambulances or emergency crews operating north of Gaza City.
The conflict has left 90 percent of Palestinians in Gaza displaced, according to UN figures. Israel’s army has struck several schools and tent camps packed with tens of thousands of Palestinians driven from their homes by Israeli offensives and evacuation orders.
The military has accused Hamas of operating from within civilian infrastructure in Gaza, including schools, UN facilities and hospitals.
More than a year of war in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 people, Palestinian health officials say. They don’t distinguish between civilians and combatants, but say more than half of those killed were women and children.
The war began after Palestinian militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducting 250 others.
___
Samy Magdy reported from Cairo. Matthew Lee in Washington, and Jack Jeffery in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report.
___
Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

Topics: War on Gaza Israel Qatar Palestine Gaza Hamas

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Iran urges Trump to change ‘maximum pressure’ policy

Iran urges Trump to change ‘maximum pressure’ policy
Updated 09 November 2024
AFP
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Iran urges Trump to change ‘maximum pressure’ policy

Iran urges Trump to change ‘maximum pressure’ policy
  • Nuclear deal of 2015 torpedoed in 2018 after US unilaterally withdrew under Trump
  • Tehran repeatedly denied Western countries’ accusations it is seeking to develop nuclear weapon
Updated 09 November 2024
AFP

TEHRAN: Iran on Saturday urged US President-elect Donald Trump to reconsider the “maximum pressure” policy he pursued against Tehran during his first term.
“Trump must show that he is not following the wrong policies of the past,” Iranian Vice President for Strategic Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif told reporters on Saturday.
Zarif, a veteran diplomat who previously served as Iran’s foreign minister, helped seal the 2015 nuclear accord between Tehran and Western powers, including the US.
The deal however was torpedoed in 2018 after the US unilaterally withdrew from it under Trump, who later reimposed sanctions on Tehran.
In response, Iran rolled back its obligations under the deal and has since enriched uranium up to 60 percent, just 30 percent lower than nuclear-grade.
Tehran has repeatedly denied Western countries’ accusations that it is seeking to develop a nuclear weapon.
Zarif also said on Saturday that Trump’s political approach toward Iran led to the surge in enrichment levels.
“He must have realized that the maximum pressure policy that he initiated caused Iran’s enrichment to reach 60 percent from 3.5 percent,” he said.
“As a man of calculation, he should do the math and see what the advantages and disadvantages of this policy have been and whether he wants to continue or change this harmful policy,” Zarif added.
During his first term, Trump also ordered the killing of revered Iranian commander, Qasem Soleimani, who led the Revolutionary Guards’ foreign operations arm, the Quds Force.
Soleimani was killed in a drone strike while he was in the Iraqi capital Baghdad in January 2020.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei on Thursday said he hoped the president-elect’s return to the White House would allow Washington to “revise the wrong approaches of the past” — however stopping short of mentioning Trump’s name.
On Tuesday, Trump told reporters he was “not looking to do damage to Iran.”
“My terms are very easy. They can’t have a nuclear weapon. I’d like them to be a very successful country,” he said after he cast his ballot.
Trump’s victory comes as Iran has exchanged direct attacks with its arch-nemesis, Israel, raising fears of further regional spillover of the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon.

Topics: US Election 2024 Iran US

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Israeli rejects ‘biased’ warning of famine in Gaza

Israeli rejects ‘biased’ warning of famine in Gaza
Updated 09 November 2024
Reuters
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Israeli rejects ‘biased’ warning of famine in Gaza

Israeli rejects ‘biased’ warning of famine in Gaza
  • “Unfortunately, the researchers continue to rely on partial, biased data and superficial sources with vested interests,” the military said
  • Israel’s military said it had increased aid efforts including opening an additional crossing on Friday
Updated 09 November 2024
Reuters

JERUSALEM: Israel rejected on Saturday a group of global food security experts’ warning of famine in parts of northern Gaza where it is waging war against Palestinian militant group Hamas.
“Unfortunately, the researchers continue to rely on partial, biased data and superficial sources with vested interests,” the military said in a statement.
The independent Famine Review Committee (FRC) said on Friday in a rare alert that there was a strong likelihood of imminent famine in parts of north Gaza with immediate action required from the warring parties to ease a catastrophic situation.
Israel’s military said it had increased aid efforts including opening an additional crossing on Friday.
In the last two months, 39,000 trucks carrying more than 840,000 tons of food have entered Gaza, it said, and meetings were taking place daily with the UN which had 700 trucks of aid awaiting pickup and distribution.
With some critics decrying a starvation tactic in north Gaza, Israel’s main ally the US has set a deadline within days for it to improve the humanitarian situation or face potential restrictions on military cooperation.

Topics: War on Gaza Famine Israel Hamas

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Latest updates

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