Syria’s de facto leader Al-Sharaa congratulates Lebanon’s newly elected president Aoun

Syria’s de facto leader Al-Sharaa congratulates Lebanon’s newly elected president Aoun
Combo image showing Syria's new leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa (L) and Lebanon's newly elected President Joseph Aoun. (AFP photos)
Short Url
Updated 13 January 2025
Follow

Syria’s de facto leader Al-Sharaa congratulates Lebanon’s newly elected president Aoun

Syria’s de facto leader Al-Sharaa congratulates Lebanon’s newly elected president Aoun
  • Call followed talks between Al-Sharaa and Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati in Damascus
  • Al-Sharaa said he hoped Joseph Aoun’s presidency would usher in an era of stability in Lebanon

DAMASCUS: Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa called newly elected Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on the phone and congratulated him for assuming the presidency, Syria’s ruling general command reported on Sunday.

The phone call followed talks between Al-Sharaa and Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who was in the Syrian capital on Saturday with a mission to restore ties between the two neighbors.

Mikati’s visit was the first by a Lebanese head of government to Damascus since the Syrian civil war started in 2011.

Previous Lebanese governments refrained from visits to Syria amid tensions at home over militant group Hezbollah’s support for then ruler Bashar Assad during the conflict.

Syria’s new leader Al-Sharaa said he hoped to turn over a new leaf in relations, days after crisis-hit Lebanon finally elected a president this week following two years of deadlock.

“There will be long-term strategic relations between us and Lebanon. We and Lebanon have great shared interests,” Sharaa said in a joint press conference with Mikati.

It was time to “give the Syrian and Lebanese people a chance to build a positive relationship,” he said, adding he hoped Joseph Aoun’s presidency would usher in an era of stability in Lebanon.

Sharaa said the new Syria would “stay at equal distance from all” in Lebanon, and “try to solve problems through negotiations and dialogue.”

Mikati said ties should be based on “mutual respect, equality and national sovereignty.”

Syria was the dominant power in Lebanon for three decades under the Assad family, with president Hafez Assad intervening in its 1975-1990 civil war and his son Bashar Assad only withdrawing Syria’s troops in 2005 following mass protests triggered by the assassination of Lebanese ex-prime minister Rafic Hariri.

After mending ties with Damascus, his son Saad Hariri was the last Lebanese premier to visit the Syrian capital in 2010 before the civil war.

Taking office on Thursday, Aoun swore he would seize the “historic opportunity to start serious... dialogue with the Syrian state.”

With Hezbollah weakened after two months of full-scale war with Israel late last year and Assad now gone, Syrian and Lebanese leaders seem eager to work to solve long-pending issues.

Among them is the presence of some two million Syrian refugees Lebanon says have sought shelter there since Syria’s war started.

Their return to Syria had become “an urgent matter in the interest of both countries,” Mikati said.
Lebanese authorities have long complained that hosting so many Syrians has become a burden for the tiny Mediterranean country which since 2019 has been wracked by its worst-ever economic crisis.
Mikati also said it was a priority “to draw up the land and sea borders between Lebanon and Syria,” calling for creation of a joint committee to discuss the matter.
Under Assad, Syria repeatedly refused to delimit its borders with its neighbor.
Lebanon has hoped to draw the maritime border so it can begin offshore gas extraction after reaching a similar agreement with Israel in 2022.

The Lebanese premier said both sides had stressed the need for “complete control of (land) borders, especially over illicit border points, to stem smuggling.”
Syria shares a 330-kilometer (205-mile) border with Syria with no official demarcation at several points, making it porous and prone to smuggling.
Syria imposed new restrictions on the entry of Lebanese citizens last week, following what Lebanon’s army said was a border skirmish with unnamed armed Syrians.
Lebanese nationals had previously been allowed into Syria without a visa.
Several foreign dignitaries have headed to Damascus in recent weeks to meet the new leaders, with a delegation from Oman also in town earlier Saturday.
Unlike other Arab Gulf states, Oman never severed diplomatic ties with Assad during the war.
Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani visited Damascus on Friday, while France’s Jean-Noel Barrot and his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock did last week.
Shaibani has visited Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Jordan this month, and said Friday he would head to Europe soon.
Syria’s war has killed more than half a million people and ravaged the country’s economy since starting in 2011 with the brutal crackdown of anti-Assad protests.
 


Netanyahu hails Trump as ‘greatest friend Israel has ever had’

Netanyahu hails Trump as ‘greatest friend Israel has ever had’
Updated 4 sec ago
Follow

Netanyahu hails Trump as ‘greatest friend Israel has ever had’

Netanyahu hails Trump as ‘greatest friend Israel has ever had’

WASHINGTON: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed Donald Trump as the “greatest friend Israel has ever had,” following a meeting between the two leaders at the White House.
“I’ve said this before, I’ll say it again: you are the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House,” Netanyahu told reporters after the meeting in Washington. “And that’s why the people of Israel have such enormous respect for you.”
 

 


Leaders ‘should respect’ wishes of Palestinians to stay in Gaza: Palestinian UN envoy

Leaders ‘should respect’ wishes of Palestinians to stay in Gaza: Palestinian UN envoy
Updated 46 min 21 sec ago
Follow

Leaders ‘should respect’ wishes of Palestinians to stay in Gaza: Palestinian UN envoy

Leaders ‘should respect’ wishes of Palestinians to stay in Gaza: Palestinian UN envoy
  • For those who want to send them to a happy, nice place, let them go back to their original homes inside Israel, there are nice places there, and they will be happy to return to these places”

UNITED NATIONS, United States: World leaders and people should respect Palestinians’ desire to remain in Gaza, the Palestinian envoy to the United Nations said Tuesday, after US President Donald Trump said he believed people from the territory should be resettled elsewhere “permanently.”
“Our homeland is our homeland, if part of it is destroyed, the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian people selected the choice to return to it,” said Riyad Mansour. “And I think that leaders and people should respect the wishes of the Palestinian people.”
On Tuesday, Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, with the US leader saying he believed Palestinians should leave Gaza after an Israeli offensive that has devastated the territory and left most of it reduced to rubble.
Speaking ahead of the meeting, Trump said he wanted a solution that saw “a beautiful area to resettle people permanently in nice homes where they can be happy.”
At the United Nations, Mansour did not name Trump but appeared to reject the US president’s proposal.
“Our country and our home is” the Gaza Strip, “it’s part of Palestine,” he said. “We have no home. For those who want to send them to a happy, nice place, let them go back to their original homes inside Israel, there are nice places there, and they will be happy to return to these places.”
The war in Gaza erupted after Palestinian armed group Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack, which resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory response has killed at least 47,518 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN considers these figures as reliable.
The UN says more than 1.9 million people — or 90 percent of Gaza’s population — have been displaced by Israel’s offensive, with the bombing campaign having leveled most structures in the territory, including schools, hospitals and basic civil infrastructure.
The start of a ceasefire deal, which included the release of hostages held by Hamas and prisoners held by Israel, on January 19 saw Palestinians rejoice, with many returning to homes that no longer stood.
“In two days, in a span of a few hours, 400,000 Palestinians walking returned to the northern part of the Gaza Strip,” said UN envoy Mansour.
“I think that we should be respecting the selections and the wishes of the Palestinian people, and the Palestinian people at the end will make the determination, their determination.”
 

 


Palestinians will be removed from Gaza and the US will own it: Trump

Palestinians will be removed from Gaza and the US will own it: Trump
Updated 6 min 12 sec ago
Follow

Palestinians will be removed from Gaza and the US will own it: Trump

Palestinians will be removed from Gaza and the US will own it: Trump

WASHINGTON/RIYADH: President Donald Trump said that the US will own the Gaza Strip after the Palestinians that live there are moved to other countries.
Trump made the provocative comments at the start of his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, where the two leaders are expected to discuss the fragile ceasefire and hostage deal in the Israeli-Hamas conflict.
“I don’t think people should be going back,” Trump said. “You can’t live in Gaza right now. I think we need another location. I think it should be a location that’s going to make people happy.”
Trump’s comments came as he and top advisers made the case that a three-to-five-year timeline for reconstruction of the war-torn territory, as laid out in a temporary truce agreement, is not viable.
The president has previously called on Egypt and Jordan to resettle Gazans. Both countries have flatly rejected such proposals.
But Trump said he believes both countries— as well as other countries which he did not name— will ultimately agree to take in Palestinians.
“You look over the decades, it’s all death in Gaza,” Trump said. “This has been happening for years. It’s all death. If we can get a beautiful area to resettle people, permanently, in nice homes where they can be happy and not be shot and not be killed and not be knifed to death like what’s happening in Gaza.”
The White House’s focus on the future of Gaza’s more than 2 million residents comes as the nascent truce between Israel and Hamas hangs in the balance.
Netanyahu is facing competing pressure from his right-wing coalition to end a temporary truce against Hamas militants in Gaza and from war-weary Israelis who want the remaining hostages home and for the 15-month conflict to end.
The leaders said their talks would cover a long-sought Israel-Saudi Arabia normalization deal and shared concerns about Iran’s nuclear program, as well the second phase of the hostage deal.
Trump continues to press for relocating Palestinians from Gaza even after both Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Jordanian King Abdullah II last publicly dismissed the idea.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, the Palestinian Authority and the Arab League also joined Egypt and Jordan in rejecting plans to move Palestinians out of their territories in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Yet Trump may be betting he can persuade Egypt and Jordan to come around to accept displaced Palestinians because of the significant aid that the US provides Cairo and Amman. Hard-line right-wing members of Netanyahu’s government have embraced the call to move displaced Palestinians out of Gaza.
“To me, it is unfair to explain to Palestinians that they might be back in five years,” Trump’s Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff, told reporters. “That’s just preposterous.”
Trump also signaled that he may be reconsidering an independent Palestinian state as part of a broader two-state solution to the decades-long Israel-Palestinian conflict. “Well, a lot of plans change with time,” he told reporters when asked if he was still committed to a plan like the one he laid out in 2020 that called for a Palestinian state.
“A lot of death has occurred since I left and now came back,” Trump said. “Now we are faced with a situation that’s different — in some ways better and in some ways worse. But we are faced with a very complex and difficult situation that we’ll solve.”
Netanyahu’s arrival in Washington for the first foreign leader visit of Trump’s second term comes as the prime minister’s popular support is lagging.
The prime minister is in the middle of weekslong testimony in an ongoing corruption trial that centers on allegations he exchanged favors with media moguls and wealthy associates. He has decried the accusations and said he is the victim of a “witch hunt.”
Being seen with Trump, who is popular in Israel, could help distract the public from the trial and boost Netanyahu’s standing.
“We have the right leader of Israel who’s done a great job,” Trump said of Netanyahu.
Netanyahu also praised Trump’s leadership in sealing the hostage and ceasefire deal, which went into effect the day before Trump took office. “I’ll just tell you, I am happy they are here,” Netanyahu said of Trump and his administration.
It’s Netanyahu’s first travel outside Israel since the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants in November for him, his former defense minister and Hamas’ slain military chief, accusing them of crimes against humanity during the war in Gaza. The US does not recognize the ICC’s authority over its citizens or territory.
Netanyahu met with White House national security adviser Mike Waltz and Witkoff on Monday to begin the daunting work of brokering the next phase of a ceasefire agreement.
Netanyahu said in a statement that the meeting with Witkoff and Waltz was “positive and friendly.”
The Israeli leader said he would send a delegation to Qatar to continue indirect talks with Hamas that are being mediated by the Gulf Arab country, the first confirmation that those negotiations would continue. Netanyahu also said he would convene his security Cabinet to discuss Israel’s demands for the next phase of the ceasefire when he returns to Israel at the end of the week.
Witkoff, meanwhile, said he plans to meet with Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, in Florida on Thursday to discuss the next phase in the ceasefire. Qatar and Egypt have served as key intermediaries with Hamas throughout the conflict.
Netanyahu is under intense pressure from hard-right members of his governing coalition to abandon the ceasefire and resume fighting in Gaza to eliminate Hamas. Bezalel Smotrich, one of Netanyahu’s key partners, vows to topple the government if the war isn’t relaunched, a step that could lead to early elections.
Hamas, which has reasserted control over Gaza since the ceasefire began last month, has said it will not release hostages in the second phase without an end to the war and Israeli forces’ full withdrawal. Netanyahu, meanwhile, maintains that Israel is committed to victory over Hamas and the return of all hostages captured in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack that triggered the war.
Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan is among the hostages, called on Trump to use American leverage to keep Netanyahu committed to the agreement.
Matan, 24, is among those who are expected to be included in the second phase of the deal, when all remaining living hostages — including men under the age of 50 and male soldiers — are to be exchanged for a yet-to-be-determined number of Palestinian prisoners. The second phase is also expected to include the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.
“I want President Trump to know there are certain extreme elements from within Israel who are trying to torpedo his vision,” said Zangauker, who traveled to Washington from Israel to join a planned Tuesday rally outside the White House. “We are representative of the vast, vast majority of Israel. The ultra-extremists are blackmailing the prime minister to do their bidding.”
The prime minister is also expected use the visit to press Trump to take decisive action on Iran. Tehran has faced a series of military setbacks, including Israeli forces significantly degrading Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon as well as an operation that decimated Iran’s air defenses. The moment, Netanyahu believes, has created a window to decisively address Tehran’s nuclear program.
Ahead of his meeting with Netanyahu, Trump signed an executive order that he said would increase economic pressure on Iran.
“We’re not going to allow them to have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said.


Assad-era minister turns himself in to new Syria authorities

Assad-era minister turns himself in to new Syria authorities
Updated 05 February 2025
Follow

Assad-era minister turns himself in to new Syria authorities

Assad-era minister turns himself in to new Syria authorities
  • Mohammed Al-Shaar was an nterior minister from 2011 to 2018 at the height of Syria’s civil war
  • He was the target of EU sanctions for involvement in 'violence against demonstrators'

DAMASCUS: A former minister under ousted Syrian president Bashar Assad has turned himself in, the interior ministry said Tuesday, making him one of the highest-profile figures captured by the new authorities.
“The minister of interior in the government of the defunct regime, Mohammed Al-Shaar, surrendered himself to the General Security Department,” an interior ministry statement said.
Shaar, the target of US and EU sanctions, was interior minister from 2011 to 2018 at the height of Syria’s 13-year civil war.
The security forces of the new authorities, which toppled the Assad government late last year, had been looking for Shaar and “raided sites where he had been hiding in the past few days,” the interior ministry said.
Since 2011, Shaar has been under European Union sanctions for involvement in “violence against demonstrators” who took to the streets that year to demand democracy.
The government’s brutal crackdown on the peaceful protests sparked a complex civil war that has killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions.
Shaar was also among top officials, including Assad, who were slapped with US sanctions in 2011.
In 2012, a Lebanese lawyer filed a lawsuit against Shaar, accusing him of having ordered hundreds of killings in Tripoli in 1986 when he was in charge of security in the northern Lebanon port city.
Also in 2012, Shaar survived two bomb attacks.
In December, he sustained light wounds to the shoulder after a deadly suicide bombing at the ministry, a Syrian security source told AFP at the time.
That attack was claimed by Al-Nusra Front, the jihadist precursor of the Islamist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham group which led the lightning rebel offensive that toppled Assad on December 8.
And in July 2012, Shaar narrowly escaped death in a bombing that killed four senior security officials including the defense minister and Assad’s brother-in-law, Assef Shawkat.
Assad himself has fled to Russia, an ally of his defunct government, and some former officials in his administration are also believed to have left Syria.


Jewish population in West Bank keeps rising. Settlers hope Trump will accelerate growth

A general view of the West Bank Jewish settlement of Efrat ,Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024. (AP)
A general view of the West Bank Jewish settlement of Efrat ,Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024. (AP)
Updated 04 February 2025
Follow

Jewish population in West Bank keeps rising. Settlers hope Trump will accelerate growth

A general view of the West Bank Jewish settlement of Efrat ,Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024. (AP)
  • Gordon’s group projects the Jewish population in the West Bank will surpass 600,000 by 2030. There are roughly 3 million Palestinians living in the West Bank

BEIT EL, West Bank: The Jewish population in the West Bank grew at twice the rate of the general Israeli population last year, according to an advocacy group that hopes the Trump administration will support policies that help accelerate the growth of settlements in the occupied territory.
The West Bank’s Jewish-settler population rose by roughly 2.3 percent — over 12,000 people — last year, reaching 529,450, according to a report by West Bank Jewish Population Stats.
That was a slight dip from the 2.9 percent growth rate in 2023, but roughly double the 1.1 percent population growth rate inside Israel proper.
The number of Jewish settlers in the West Bank could grow “much higher” under the administration of US President Donald Trump, Baruch Gordon, the director of the group that publishes the data, said Tuesday.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war and has built about 130 settlements and dozens of settlement outposts in a bid to cement its control over the territory. The Palestinians seek the area as the heartland of a future state and say the presence of settlements makes independence impossible.
Nearly all of the international community, including the former Biden administration, opposes the settlements as obstacles to peace.
The International Court of Justice ruled in July that the occupation of the West Bank was illegal and said that it violated Palestinians’ right to self-determination. It said Israeli policy in the territories constituted “systemic discrimination” based on religion, race or ethnic origin, and that Israel had already effectively annexed large parts of the territory.
During his first term, Trump broke with the international community and years of American policy. He developed close ties with settler leaders and presented a peace plan that would allow Israel to annex large parts of the West Bank and keep all of its settlements.
That track record has raised hopes among Israel’s settlers that they could be entering a new period of rapid growth. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition is dominated by settler supporters and he has placed a prominent settler leader, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, in charge of settlement planning.
“I think you’re going to see an explosion of the construction here,” Gordon said.
Gordon’s group projects the Jewish population in the West Bank will surpass 600,000 by 2030. There are roughly 3 million Palestinians living in the West Bank.
The report does not include east Jerusalem, where it estimates 340,000 Jewish settlers live. Israel says these settlers are residents of neighborhoods of its capital, while the international community considers these areas to be settlements.
Inside the gated settlement of Beit El, on a hilltop abutting several Palestinian villages in the central West Bank, construction is continuing apace. It’s a rapidly developing community, where high-rise luxury condominiums finished last year can now house 300 families and construction workers are working on a new dormitory for a Jewish seminary.
Settlers like Gordon say Israel must keep the territory for security and spiritual reasons. “This is our biblical heartland,” he says.
But critics say the settlement expansion is a recipe for continued conflict. The military last month launched a large-scale operation in the northern West Bank last month, in part as a response to militant attacks on settlements.
The United Nations says over 800 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7, 2023, triggered Israel’s war in Gaza. It also has reported a jump in settler attacks on Palestinians.
Israel says its military offensives are aimed at militants, but stone throwers and uninvolved civilians have also been killed in the crackdown.