Middle East latest: Israeli military orders another Gaza evacuation ahead of an offensive
The Israeli army ordered another evacuation in central Gaza on Wednesday ahead of an offensive in the area, even as Israel and the militant group Hamas appeared to move closer to a ceasefire during the 14-month war.
“This is a forewarning ahead of an offensive,” Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee posted on
He asked residents to move to a ‘humanitarian zone’ in the Muwasi area. Israeli media regularly issued evacuation orders for various parts of Gaza throughout the war, displacing more than 90% of the population, most of them multiple times.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said he will meet with US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Adam Boehler at his home in Jerusalem on Wednesday. Boehler, a former aide to Jared Kushner, met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this week.
Talks on a ceasefire and the release of hostages have restarted after a months-long hiatus. The deal on the table includes a six-week pause in the fighting, under which Hamas would release 30 hostages, including three of four Israeli-American citizens, in exchange for Israel’s release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Trump has said he wants a quick end to the war.
According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, Israeli bombings and offensives in Gaza have killed more than 45,000 Palestinians in the past 14 months. The ministry’s count does not distinguish between fighters and civilians but says more than half of the dead were women and children.
Israel launched its campaign in retaliation for Hamas’ October 2023 attack on southern Israel, in which militants killed about 1,200 people and kidnapped 250 others, about 100 of whom remain in captivity.
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Here’s the latest:
JERUSALEM – Hundreds of Israeli students walked out of school on Wednesday to call for an immediate deal for the release of the remaining hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, as there appears to be progress in ceasefire talks.
From Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, students headed to central intersections, blocking roads and holding signs with the faces of prisoners left behind in Gaza after 14 months of war.
There are a hundred hostages in Gaza, a third of whom the Israeli government says are dead. Hamas militants dragged them into Gaza during their October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the war.
At the high school in central Israel attended by hostages Naama Levy and Guy Illouz, who the Israeli military says were killed in the Oct. 7 attack, students packed the hall with signs reading “Bring them home now’.
In Tel Aviv, high school students chanted, “Their time is up.” There is a deal on the table.”
TEL AVIV, Israel — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the stand Wednesday on the fourth day of testimony in his corruption trials, saying the charges against him are “idiotic.”
Netanyahu, the first sitting Israeli leader to take the stand as a defendant, is on trial on charges of fraud, breach of trust and taking bribes in the country. three separate cases.
Netanyahu was scheduled to testify on Tuesday, but that was canceled after he requested a postponement for “security reasons.”
Netanyahu toured the summit of Mount Hermon, part of the Syrian buffer zone that Israeli forces seized after President Bashar Assad was ousted by rebels last week. It appeared to be the first time an Israeli leader had entered this far into Syria.
The testimony, which will take place six hours a day, three days a week for several weeks, will take up a significant portion of Netanyahu’s working hours, prompting critics to question whether he can competently govern a country embroiled in a war on one front. mitigating the fallout of a second, and keeping an eye on other potential regional threats, including that of Iran.
DAMASCUS, Syria — Damascus airport reopened Wednesday for the first time since the fall of Bashar Assad’s government, with the first civilian plane taking off from Damascus and landing in the northern city of Aleppo.
The airport is currently only open to domestic flights, but Syrian airspace is open to international traffic.
Airport officials have not yet specified when international flights will resume at Damascus airport, but Saad Khair Bec, technical supervisor, called Wednesday’s reopening “an important day in the life of the Syrian people … after the fall of the formerly impoverished regime. ”
State institutions have gradually returned to work in recent days, including the main port in the coastal city of Latakia.
GENEVA – The head of the U.N. migration agency said she was reassured by assurances she heard from Syria’s new interim government at meetings in Damascus, as the country tries to rebuild after more than half a century of rule under the Assad family.
Amy Pope, director general of the International Organization for Migration, said in a telephone interview Wednesday that Syria’s new leaders “recognize that the task ahead of them is enormous and that they need the support of the international community.”
IOM estimates that around 100,000 people – many searching for their former homes – have entered Syria from neighboring countries since December 8, the day former President Bashar Assad fled the country as opposition fighters swarmed the capital.
“We are also seeing approximately 85,000 people entering Lebanon through established border crossing points,” she said. “It is a rough figure: there are certainly people who cross informally and so they are not counted.”
Most of those who appear to be leaving are Shiite Muslims, she said. The armed groups that took control of Syria are mainly from the country’s majority Sunni Muslim community Hayat Tahrir al-Shamthe terrorist-appointed group that led the coalition of armed opposition groups that ousted Assad from power and took asylum in Russia.
“There is no doubt in my mind that right now they are looking for ways to make this work, to be more inclusive, to build partnerships within the international community, to build partnerships with other governments,” said Pope on the interim government. . “The question is whether they can make that happen.”
IOM said Pope was one of the first U.N. agency heads to visit Syria since Assad’s ouster, and that she met on Tuesday with unnamed members of the transitional government, as well as U.N. officials and advocacy groups.
She reaffirmed the IOM’s commitment to Syria. The organization has been providing assistance to people in the country since 2014 and is seeking $30 million in emergency relief funding over the next four months to help nearly 685,000 people in the northwest of the country.