Jerusalem: The Israeli military is prepared to withdraw from Lebanese territory and hand over areas to the Lebanese army “within the timeline” set by a US-French-mediated ceasefire agreement, a senior Israeli security official said. Under the ceasefire that took effect November 27, Lebanon’s military was to deploy in the south alongside United Nations peacekeepers as […]
QAMISHLI, Syria: Syria’s semi-autonomous Kurdish administration aims to empty camps in the country’s northeast of thousands of displaced Syrians and Iraqis, including suspected relatives of Daesh group fighters, by the end of the year, an official said. “The autonomous administration is working to empty the camps” of Syrians and Iraqis “in 2025… in coordination with […]
WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will visit Israel and Arab states in mid-February, a State Department official said, making his first to the Middle East after a widely condemned proposal by President Donald Trump to displace Palestinians in Gaza. Rubio will travel to the Munich Security Conference and to Israel, the United Arab […]
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Monday there were “no guarantees” that a fragile ceasefire in Gaza will hold, as he prepares to discuss its future with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu was in Washington for talks with the new Trump administration on a second phase of the truce with Hamas, which has […]
RIYADH: Saudi aid agency KSrelief has continued to provide aid to the people of Syria as part of various humanitarian missions. On Monday, a relief plane — the 14th so far — arrived in Damascus from Riyadh, carrying food, shelter and medical supplies for those facing challenging conditions, reported the Saudi Press Agency. In Harasta town, […]
IRBIL, Iraq: A shooting which officials blamed on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) killed two Iraqi border guards on Friday near the Turkish boundary in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, Iraq’s interior ministry said. The PKK, which has fought a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state, has several positions in Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region, which also […]
DUBAI: Yemen’s Houthi militia have signaled they will limit their attacks in the Red Sea corridor to only Israeli-affiliated ships as a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip took hold. The Houthis made the announcement in an email sent to shippers and others on Sunday. The Houthis separately planned a military statement on Monday, likely about […]
DOHA/CAIRO: Mediator Qatar gave Israel and Hamas a final draft of a deal on Monday to end the war in Gaza, after a midnight “breakthrough” in talks attended by US President-elect Donald Trump’s envoy, an official briefed on the negotiations told Reuters. The official said the text for a ceasefire and release of hostages was […]
BEIT LAHIA, Palestinian Territories: The director of north Gaza’s Kamal Adwan hospital and the territory’s civil defense agency said Israel conducted several strikes on Friday that hit the facility, one of the last functioning health centers in the area. “There was a series of air strikes on the northern and western sides of the hospital, […]
GENEVA: The escalation in fighting in Syria has displaced around 280,000 people in just over a week, the United Nations said on Friday, warning that numbers could swell to 1.5 million. “The figure we have in front of us is 280,000 people since November 27,” Samer AbdelJaber, head of emergency coordination at the UN’s World […]
