Israel to pursue new talks on Gaza hostage deal

Palestinians inspect the damage after an overnight Israeli airstrike in Beit Lahia, the northern Gaza Strip, on October 27, 2024. (AFP)
Palestinians inspect the damage after an overnight Israeli airstrike in Beit Lahia, the northern Gaza Strip, on October 27, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 29 October 2024
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Israel to pursue new talks on Gaza hostage deal

Palestinians inspect the damage after an overnight Israeli airstrike in Beit Lahia, the northern Gaza Strip, on October 27, 2024
  • Netanyahu’s office said Mossad intelligence chief David Barnea had met US and Qatari officials in Doha and agreed they should talk to Hamas about a deal to free Israelis

JERUSALEM: Israel said Monday it had discussed with international mediators the outline of proposed talks with Hamas on a deal to release Israeli hostages held in Gaza, as its forces pounded both Lebanon and the Palestinian territory.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Mossad intelligence chief David Barnea had met US and Qatari officials in Doha and agreed they should talk to Hamas about a deal to free Israelis seized in last year’s October 7 attack.
The statement came two days after Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi proposed a two-day truce and limited hostage-prisoner exchange that, he said, could lead to a permanent ceasefire.
“During the meeting, the parties discussed a new unified framework that combines previous proposals and also takes into account key issues and recent developments in the region,” Netanyahu’s office said.
“In the coming days, discussions will continue between the mediators and Hamas to assess the feasibility of talks and to further efforts to promote a deal.”
US President Joe Biden, asked about the possibility of a ceasefire just over a year after Hamas’s cross-border attack triggered the Gaza war which has spread to Lebanon and threatened to draw in Iran, said he would talk to Israel immediately to push for a ceasefire.
“My staff is talking to them right now,” Biden said, after casting an early ballot in the race for his successor. “We need a ceasefire. We should end this war. It should end, it should end, it should end.”
The United States is Israel’s top military supplier and a mediator in the Doha talks. Biden has stood by the country’s right to defend itself despite international outrage at the mounting death toll in both Gaza and Lebanon, where for the past month it has engaged in a ground and air war against the Iran-backed Hezbollah group.


Flights resume between Mashhad and Dammam

Flights resume between Mashhad and Dammam
Updated 10 sec ago
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Flights resume between Mashhad and Dammam

Flights resume between Mashhad and Dammam

DUBAI: Iran Air on Tuesday resumed flights between Mashhad and Dammam after a nine year hiatus, the Iranian Student News Agency (ISNA) reported.

“A deputy from Iran’s embassy, the representative of Iran Air and representatives from Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation welcomed arriving passengers in Dammam and stressed the need to facilitate the movement of people between the two countries,” ISNA said.


Lebanon asked US, France to press Israel to halt truce breaches, say sources

Lebanon asked US, France to press Israel to halt truce breaches, say sources
Updated 55 min 38 sec ago
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Lebanon asked US, France to press Israel to halt truce breaches, say sources

Lebanon asked US, France to press Israel to halt truce breaches, say sources
  • The truce came into effect on Nov. 27 and prohibits Israel from conducting offensive military operations in Lebanon
  • Lebanon’s parliament speaker says Beirut had logged at least 54 Israeli violations of the ceasefire so far

BEIRUT: Top Lebanese officials have urged Washington and Paris to press Israel to uphold a ceasefire, after dozens of military operations on Lebanese soil that Beirut has deemed violations, two senior Lebanese political sources told Reuters on Tuesday.
Deadly Israeli strikes on south Lebanon and Hezbollah rocket launches on an Israeli military post on Monday have put a US-brokered ceasefire between the two in an increasingly fragile position less than a week after it came into effect.
Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, a close Hezbollah ally who negotiated the deal on behalf of Lebanon, spoke to officials at the White House and French presidency late Monday and expressed concern about the state of the ceasefire, the sources said.
Neither the French presidency nor the foreign ministry were immediately available to comment. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot spoke to his Israeli counterpart Gideon Saar on Monday, saying both sides should adhere to the ceasefire.
US State Department spokesperson Matt Miller told reporters on Monday that the ceasefire “is holding” and that the US had “anticipated that there might be violations.”
The truce came into effect on Nov. 27 and prohibits Israel from conducting offensive military operations in Lebanon while requiring Lebanon to prevent armed groups, including Hezbollah, from launching attacks on Israel. It gives Israeli troops 60 days to withdraw from south Lebanon.
A monitoring mechanism chaired by the United States is tasked with monitoring, verifying and helping enforce the truce, but it has yet to begin work.
Berri on Monday urged it to “urgently” ensure Israel halts its breaches, saying Beirut had logged at least 54 Israeli violations of the ceasefire so far.
Israel says its continued military activity in Lebanon is aimed at enforcing the ceasefire and does not violate its obligations under the truce.
Mikati on Monday met in Beirut with US General Jasper Jeffers, who will chair the monitoring committee, and stressed the need for Israeli troops to swiftly withdraw.
Two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters that France’s representative to the committee, General Guillaume Ponchin, will arrive in Beirut on Wednesday and that the committee would hold its first meeting on Thursday.
“There is an urgency to finalize the mechanism, otherwise it will be too late,” the source said, referring to Israel’s gradual intensification of strikes despite the truce.
Miller said the monitoring mechanism would begin its work “in the coming days.”
At least 12 people were killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon on Monday, Lebanese authorities said, in the deadliest day since the ceasefire came into effect.
They included six people in the southern town of Hariss and another four people in the southern town of Taloussa, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.


Israel strikes car on Damascus airport road: state media

Israel strikes car on Damascus airport road: state media
Updated 03 December 2024
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Israel strikes car on Damascus airport road: state media

Israel strikes car on Damascus airport road: state media
  • An Israeli air strike hit a car on the Damascus airport road on Tuesday, causing it to explode

DAMASCUS: An Israeli air strike hit a car on the Damascus airport road on Tuesday, causing it to explode, Syria’s official news agency SANA reported.
“A car exploded after it was targeted in an Israeli aggression on the road to Damascus International Airport,” SANA reported, citing a police source, without saying who was targeted or if there were any casualties.


Hamas, Fatah agree on joint committee to run post-war Gaza

Hamas, Fatah agree on joint committee to run post-war Gaza
Updated 03 December 2024
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Hamas, Fatah agree on joint committee to run post-war Gaza

Hamas, Fatah agree on joint committee to run post-war Gaza

CAIRO: Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah party have agreed to create a committee to jointly administer post-war Gaza, negotiators from both sides said Tuesday.
Under the plan, which needs Abbas’s approval, the committee would be composed of 10 to 15 non-partisan figures with authority on matters related to the economy, education, health, humanitarian aid and reconstruction, according to a draft of the proposal seen by AFP.


Iraqi armed group urges government to deploy troops to Syria

Iraqi armed group urges government to deploy troops to Syria
Updated 03 December 2024
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Iraqi armed group urges government to deploy troops to Syria

Iraqi armed group urges government to deploy troops to Syria

BAGHDAD: Iraq’s powerful Iran-aligned Kataeb Hezbollah armed group has called on Baghdad to send troops to Syria to support the Damascus government against a militant offensive.
Kataeb Hezbollah, or Hezbollah Brigades, made the appeal in a statement shared on pro-Iranian Telegram channels late Monday. Excerpts were also posted on its official website.
The militant offensive, led by Islamists, has seized the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, stirring concern in political and security circles in neighboring Iraq.
A spokesman for Kataeb Hezbollah, part of the Iran-backed “axis of resistance,” said the group had not yet decided to deploy its own fighters but urged Baghdad to act.
“We believe the Iraqi government should take the initiative to send regular military forces in coordination with the Syrian government, as these groups pose a threat to Iraq’s national security and the region,” the spokesman said.
Kataeb Hezbollah has previously fought in Syria alongside forces loyal to President Bashar Assad.
In Iraq, it is part of the Hashed Al-Shaabi, a coalition of former paramilitary forces now integrated into the regular armed forces.
This coalition, under the Iraqi prime minister’s command, denies involvement outside Iraq’s borders.
Iraq remains scarred by the rise of the Daesh group in 2014, which saw the extremists capture nearly a third of the country before being defeated in 2017.
On Monday, Iraq said it had sent armored vehicles to bolster security along its 600-kilometer (370-mile) border with Syria.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, reported the deployment of about 200 pro-Iranian Iraqi fighters in Syria’s Aleppo region to back government forces.