Israeli strikes kill dozens in Gaza Strip as new ceasefire talks begin

Update Palestinian women react at the site of an Israeli strike on a house, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City, January 4, 2025. (Reuters)
Palestinian women react at the site of an Israeli strike on a house, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City, January 4, 2025. (Reuters)
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Updated 04 January 2025
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Israeli strikes kill dozens in Gaza Strip as new ceasefire talks begin

Israeli strikes kill dozens in Gaza Strip as new ceasefire talks begin
  • Israeli military strikes in the Gaza Strip have killed at least 70 people over the last day
  • At least 17 killed in airstrikes on two houses in Gaza City, the first of which destroyed the home of the Al-Ghoula family

CAIRO/GAZA: Israeli military strikes in the Gaza Strip have killed at least 70 people over the last day, Palestinian medics said on Saturday, as mediators launched a new ceasefire push to end the 15-month-old war.
At least 17 of those who died were killed in airstrikes on two houses in Gaza City, the first of which destroyed the home of the Al-Ghoula family in the early hours, medics and residents said.
“At about 2 a.m. we were woken up by the sound of a huge explosion,” said Ahmed Ayyan, a neighbor, adding that 14 or 15 people had been staying in the house.
“Most of them are women and children, they are all civilians, there is no one there who shot missiles, or is from the resistance,” Ayyan told Reuters.
People scoured the rubble for any survivors trapped under the debris and medics said several children were among those killed. A few flames and trails of smoke still rose from burning furniture in the ruins hours after the attack.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the incident.

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Another strike on a house in Gaza City killed five people later on Saturday, the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said, adding that at least 10 others were feared trapped under the rubble.
The Israeli military said earlier its forces had continued their operations this week in Beit Hanoun town in the northern edge of the enclave, where the army has been operating for three months, and has destroyed a military complex that had been used by Hamas.
At least six other Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes in Jabalia in the north and near the central town of Deir Al-Balah, medics said.
Saturday’s deaths brought the toll to 70 since Friday, Palestinian health officials said.
RENEWED CEASEFIRE PUSH
A renewed push is under way to reach a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas and return Israeli hostages before US President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20.
Israeli mediators were dispatched to resume talks in Doha brokered by Qatari and Egyptian mediators, and US President Joe Biden’s administration, which is helping broker the talks, urged Hamas on Friday to agree to a deal.
Hamas said it was committed to reaching an agreement as soon as possible, but it was unclear how close the two sides were.
The armed group released a video on Saturday showing Israeli hostage Liri Albag — who local media said was a soldier — urging Israel to do more to secure the hostages’ release. She said their lives were in danger because of Israel’s military action in Gaza.
Albag’s family said the video had “torn our hearts to pieces.”
“This is not the daughter and sister we know. Her severe psychological distress is evident,” a family statement said, calling on Israel’s government and world leaders not to miss the opportunity to bring all remaining hostages back alive.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in response to the video that Israel continued to work tirelessly to bring the hostages home.
“Anyone who dares to harm our hostages will bear full responsibility for their actions,” he said.
Israel launched its assault on Gaza in response to the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, in which militants stormed border communities from Gaza, killing about 1,200 people and seizing around 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Its military campaign, with the stated goal of eradicating Hamas, has leveled swathes of the enclave, driving most people from their homes, and has killed 45,717 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry. 


Lebanon presses for full Israeli withdrawal after troops remain in 5 points

Lebanon presses for full Israeli withdrawal after troops remain in 5 points
Updated 6 sec ago
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Lebanon presses for full Israeli withdrawal after troops remain in 5 points

Lebanon presses for full Israeli withdrawal after troops remain in 5 points
Aoun said Beirut was in contact with truce brokers the United States and France to press Israel to complete its withdrawal
In a statement, Aoun, along with Lebanon’s prime minister and parliament speaker, warned the government would ask the UN Security Council to push Israel to leave

KFAR KILA, Lebanon: Lebanese leaders said Beirut was in contact with Washington and Paris to press Israel to fully withdraw from south Lebanon, branding its presence in five points an “occupation” after a ceasefire deadline expired on Tuesday.
The UN called the incomplete pull-out a violation of a Security Council resolution, though it has allowed many displaced residents to return to border villages, many largely destroyed in more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said Beirut was in contact with truce brokers the United States and France to press Israel to complete its withdrawal, after an initial late January deadline set under the deal was already extended.
Decision-makers are “unified in adopting the diplomatic option, because nobody wants war,” Aoun said, according to a statement.
Earlier Tuesday, Lebanon said any Israeli presence on its soil constituted an “occupation.”
In a statement, Aoun, along with Lebanon’s prime minister and parliament speaker, warned the government would ask the UN Security Council to push Israel to leave, and said that Lebanese armed forces were ready to assume duties on the border, adding Beirut had “the right to adopt all means” to make Israel withdraw.
In the south, many returned to destroyed or heavily damaged homes, farms and businesses after more than a year of fighting between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah that included two months of all-out war, which halted with the November 27 ceasefire.
“The entire village has been reduced to rubble. It’s a disaster zone,” said Alaa Al-Zein, back in Kfar Kila.
Israel had announced just before the pullout deadline that it would keep troops in “five strategic points” near the border, and on Tuesday its Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said they would withdraw “once Lebanon implements its side of the deal.”
Israel’s army had said it would remain on the five hilltops, overlooking swathes of both sides of the border, “temporarily” to “make sure there’s no immediate threat.”
Lebanon’s army announced it had deployed, starting Monday, in 11 southern border villages and other areas from which Israeli troops have pulled out.
The official National News Agency said two people were found alive in Kfar Kila, three months after contact was lost. One was a Hezbollah fighter thought to have been killed.
The agency also said that “enemy forces” set off a powerful explosion outside the village of Kfarshuba.
In a joint statement, UN envoy Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert and the UNIFIL peacekeeping force said that at “the end of the period set” for Israel’s withdrawal and the Lebanese army’s deployment, any further “delay in this process is not what we hoped would happen.”
They said it was a violation of a Security Council resolution that ended a 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.
In Lebanon, the cost of reconstruction is expected to reach more than $10 billion, while more than 100,000 people remain displaced, according to the United Nations.
Despite the devastation, returning resident Zein said his fellow villagers were adamant about going home.
“The whole village is returning, we will set up tents and sit on the ground” if need be, he said.
Others were going south to look for the bodies of their relatives under the rubble.
Among them was Samira Jumaa, who arrived in the early hours to look for her brother, a Hezbollah fighter killed in Kfar Kila with others five months ago.
“We have not heard of them until now. We are certain they were martyred,” she said.
“I’ve come to see my brother and embrace the land where my brother and his comrades fought,” she added.
Hezbollah strongholds in south and east Lebanon, as well as in south Beirut, suffered heavy destruction during the hostilities, initiated by Hezbollah in support of ally Hamas during the Gaza war.
Under the ceasefire, Lebanon’s military was to deploy alongside United Nations peacekeepers as the Israeli army withdrew from the south over an initial 60-day period that was later extended to February 18.
Hezbollah was to pull back north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border, and dismantle remaining military infrastructure there.
Since the cross-border hostilities began in October 2023, more than 4,000 people have been killed in Lebanon, according to the health ministry.
On the Israeli side of the border, 78 people including soldiers have been killed, according to an AFP tally based on official figures, with an additional 56 troops killed in southern Lebanon during the ground offensive.
Around 60 people have reportedly been killed in Lebanon since the truce began, two dozen of them on January 26 as residents tried to return to border towns on the initial withdrawal deadline.

Villagers in southern Lebanon prepare to return home as Israeli army withdraws under ceasefire deal

Villagers in southern Lebanon prepare to return home as Israeli army withdraws under ceasefire deal
Updated 18 February 2025
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Villagers in southern Lebanon prepare to return home as Israeli army withdraws under ceasefire deal

Villagers in southern Lebanon prepare to return home as Israeli army withdraws under ceasefire deal
  • Most of the villages waited by the roadside for permission to go and check on their homes but some pushed aside the roadblocks to march in
  • In the border village of Kfar Kila, people were stunned by the amount of destruction, with entire sections of houses wiped out

DEIR MIMAS, Lebanon: Israeli forces withdrew Tuesday from border villages in southern Lebanon under a deadline spelled out in a US-brokered ceasefire agreement that ended the latest Israel-Hezbollah war, but stayed put in five strategic overlook locations inside Lebanon.
Top Lebanese leaders denounced the continued presence of the Israel troops as an occupation and a violation of the deal, maintaining that Israel was required to make a full withdrawal by Tuesday. The troops’ presence is also a sore point with the militant Hezbollah group, which has demanded action from the authorities.
Lebanese soldiers moved into the areas from where the Israeli troops pulled out and began clearing roadblocks set up by Israeli forces and checking for unexploded ordnance. They blocked the main road leading to the villages, preventing anyone from entering while the military was looking for any explosives left behind.
Most of the villages waited by the roadside for permission to go and check on their homes but some pushed aside the roadblocks to march in. Elsewhere, the army allowed the residents to enter.
Many of their houses were demolished during the more than year-long conflict or in the two months after November’s ceasefire agreement, when Israeli forces were still occupying the area.
In the border village of Kfar Kila, people were stunned by the amount of destruction, with entire sections of houses wiped out.
“What I’m seeing is beyond belief. I am in a state of shock,” said Khodo Suleiman, a construction contractor, pointing to his destroyed home on a hilltop.
“There are no homes, no plants, nothing left,” said Suleiman, who had last been in Kfar Kila six months ago. “I am feeling a mixture of happiness and pain.”
In the main village square, Lebanese troops deployed as a military bulldozer removed rubble from the street.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the Israeli army “will stay in a buffer zone in Lebanon in five control posts” to guard against any ceasefire violations by Hezbollah. He also said the army had erected new posts on the Israeli side of the border and sent reinforcements there.
“We are determined to provide full security to every northern community,” Katz said.
However, Lebanon’s three top officials — the country’s president, prime minister and parliament speaker — in a joint statement said that Israel’s continued presence at the five locaions was in violation of the ceasefire agreement. They called on the UN Security Council to take action to force a complete Israeli withdrawal.
“The continued Israeli presence in any inch of Lebanese territory is an occupation, with all the legal consequences that result from that according to international legitimacy,” the statement said.
The Israeli troop presence was also criticized in a joint statement by the UN special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, and the head of the UN peacekeeping force in the country, Lt. Gen. Aroldo Lázaro.
The two, however, warned that this should not “overshadow the tangible progress that has been made” since the ceasefire agreement.
Near the Lebanese villages of Deir Mimas and Kfar Kila, hundreds of villagers were gathered early on Tuesday morning as an Israeli drone flew overhead.
Atef Arabi, who had been waiting with his wife and two daughters before sunrise, was eager to see what’s left of his home in Kfar Kila.
“I am very happy I am going back even if I find my home destroyed,” said the 36-year-old car mechanic. “If I find my house destroyed I will rebuild it.”
Later on Tuesday, Kfar Kila’s mayor Hassan Sheet told The Associated Press that 90 percent of the village homes are completely destroyed while the remaining 10 percent are damaged. “There are no homes nor buildings standing,” he said, adding that rebuilding will start from scratch.
The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah began firing rockets across the border on Oct. 8, 2023, one day after a deadly Hamas-led incursion into southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza. Israel responded with shelling and airstrikes in Lebanon, and the two sides became locked in an escalating conflict that became a full-blown war last September.
More than 4,000 people were killed in Lebanon and more than 1 million were displaced at the height of the conflict, more than 100,000 of whom have not been able to return home. On the Israeli side, dozens of people were killed and some 60,000 are displaced.
Hussein Fares left Kfar Kila in October 2023 for the southern city of Nabatiyeh. When the fighting intensified in September he moved with his family to the city of Sidon where they were given a room in a school housing displaced people.
Kfar Kila saw intense fighting and Israeli troops later detonated many of its homes.
“I have been waiting for a year and the half to return,” said Fares who has a pickup truck and works as a laborer. He said he understands that the reconstruction process will take time.
“I have been counting the seconds for this day,” he said.


Over 200 killed in three-day Sudan paramilitary assault: lawyers

Over 200 killed in three-day Sudan paramilitary assault: lawyers
Updated 18 February 2025
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Over 200 killed in three-day Sudan paramilitary assault: lawyers

Over 200 killed in three-day Sudan paramilitary assault: lawyers
  • The Emergency Lawyers group, which documents rights abuses, said RSF attacked unarmed civilians in the villages of Al-Kadaris and Al-Khelwat
  • The lawyer group said some residents were shot at while attempting to flee across the Nile River

PORT SUDAN: Sudanese paramilitaries have killed more than 200 people, including women and children, in a three-day assault on villages in the country’s south, a lawyer group monitoring the war said Tuesday.
The Emergency Lawyers group, which documents rights abuses, said the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces attacked unarmed civilians in the villages of Al-Kadaris and Al-Khelwat, in White Nile state.
The RSF carried out “executions, kidnappings, enforced disappearances and property looting” during the assault since Saturday, which also left hundreds wounded or missing, it said.
The lawyer group said some residents were shot at while attempting to flee across the Nile River. Some drowned in the process, with the lawyers calling the attack an act of “genocide.”
Sudan’s army-aligned foreign ministry said the death toll from the RSF attacks so far was 433 civilians, including babies. It called the assault a “horrible massacre.”
Both the army and the RSF have been accused of war crimes, but the paramilitaries have been specifically notorious for committing ethnic cleansing and systematic sexual violence.
The war has killed tens of thousands, displaced over 12 million and created what the International Rescue Committee has called the “biggest humanitarian crisis ever recorded.”
White Nile state is currently divided by the warring parties.
The army controls southern parts, including the state capital, Rabak, as well as two major cities and a key military base.
The RSF meanwhile holds northern parts of the state, bordering the capital Khartoum, which include several villages and towns and where the latest attacks took place.
Witnesses from the two villages, about 90 kilometers (55 miles) south of Khartoum, said thousands of residents fled their homes, crossing to the western bank of the Nile following RSF shelling.
A medical source speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity for their safety on Monday said some bodies were lying in the streets while others were killed inside their homes with no one able to reach them.
Fighting has intensified in recent weeks as the army advances in its bid to reclaim full control of the capital from paramilitaries.
The UN’s children agency, UNICEF, said on Sunday that those trapped in areas and around the fighting in Khartoum had reported indiscriminate shooting, looting, and forced displacement, as well as alarming accounts of families being separated, children missing, detained or abducted and sexual violence.
Many children, it added, showed signs of distress having witnessed the events around them.
“This is a living nightmare for children, and it must end,” said Sheldon Yett, UNICEF representative for Sudan.
Elsewhere, RSF shelling and gunfire shook the streets this week in a famine-hit camp near North Darfur’s besieged capital El-Fasher in the country’s west.
Hundreds of families fled the violence to neighboring towns with civilians saying that they were robbed and attacked on the roads.
The Zamzam camp, home to between 500,000 and a million people according to aid groups, was the first place famine was declared in Sudan last August under a UN-backed assessment.


Israel confirms planned handover of six living Gaza hostages, four bodies this week

Family and supporters of hostages protest to mark the 500 days since Oct. 7, 2023.
Family and supporters of hostages protest to mark the 500 days since Oct. 7, 2023.
Updated 18 February 2025
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Israel confirms planned handover of six living Gaza hostages, four bodies this week

Family and supporters of hostages protest to mark the 500 days since Oct. 7, 2023.
  • Four hostage bodies would be returned to Israel on Thursday, ahead of four others next week

JERUSALEM: Israel said Tuesday it expects the bodies of four hostages held in Gaza to be returned on Thursday, ahead of the release of six living captives on Saturday, confirming an earlier announcement from Hamas.
During indirect negotiations in Cairo between Israel and the Palestinian militant group, “agreements were reached according to which the six living hostages (due for release under) the first phase will be released on Saturday,” said a statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, referring to the truce agreement that went into effect last month.

It added that four hostage bodies would be returned to Israel on Thursday, ahead of four others next week.


Zelensky meets Turkiye’s Erdogan amid US shift on Ukraine

Zelensky meets Turkiye’s Erdogan amid US shift on Ukraine
Updated 18 February 2025
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Zelensky meets Turkiye’s Erdogan amid US shift on Ukraine

Zelensky meets Turkiye’s Erdogan amid US shift on Ukraine
  • Volodymyr Zelensky flew into the Turkish capital from the UAE late on Monday
  • Kyiv seeks to shore up its position in response to US-Russia talks

ISTANBUL: Turkiye’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in Ankara on Tuesday, as Kyiv seeks to shore up its position in response to US-Russia talks.
Zelensky flew into the Turkish capital from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) late on Monday, saying on Telegram he would discuss prisoner exchanges and other issues with Erdogan.
The talks at Erdogan’s presidential palace, which began around 1115 GMT, came several hours after top US and Russian diplomats met in Saudi for their first high-level talks since Moscow invaded Ukraine nearly three years ago.
Zelensky, who last visited Turkiye in March 2024, is himself due in Riyadh for a visit on Wednesday.
Top Erdogan aide Fahrettin Altun on Monday said the pair would discuss how to “further strengthen cooperation” between their two nations.
NATO member Turkiye has sought to maintain good relations with its warring Black Sea neighbors, with Erdogan pitching himself as a key go-between and possible peacemaker between the two.
Ankara has provided drones for Ukraine but shied away from Western-led sanctions on Moscow.
Alongside Saudi and the UAE, Turkiye has played a role in brokering several prisoner swap deals between Russia and Ukraine which have seen hundreds of prisoners returning home despite the ongoing conflict.
Earlier on Tuesday, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met in Riyadh with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio as part of what the Kremlin says is a bid to re-open ties with Washington.
US and Russian officials are eyeing a summit between their two leaders, with Europe and Kyiv worried they will try to end the war in Ukraine without them.