Macron says West must be cautious over new Syria rulers
Macron says West must be cautious over new Syria rulers/node/2585430/middle-east
Macron says West must be cautious over new Syria rulers
French President Emmanuel Macron delivers his speech to French ambassadors posted around the world, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025 at the Elysee Palace in Paris. (REUTERS)
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Updated 06 January 2025
AFP
Macron says West must be cautious over new Syria rulers
Updated 06 January 2025
AFP
PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday the West must not be naive about the new authorities in Syria after the ousting of Bashar Assad and promised France would not abandon Kurdish fighters.
“We must regard the regime change in Syria without naivety,” Macron said in a speech to French ambassadors after Islamist-led forces toppled Assad last month, adding France would not abandon “freedom fighters, like the Kurds” who are fighting extremist groups in Syria.
UN asks Israel to immediately halt plan to control Gaza
Australia, Britain also urge Israel to reconsider its decision to take over Gaza City
Updated 4 min 50 sec ago
Agencies
SYDNEY/GENEVA: UN human rights chief Volker Turk on Friday said that “the Israeli Government’s plan for a complete military takeover of the occupied Gaza Strip must be immediately halted.”
“It runs contrary to the ruling of the International Court of Justice that Israel must bring its occupation to an end as soon as possible, to the realization of the agreed two-State solution and to the right of Palestinians to self-determination,” he said in a statement.
Australia earlier urged Israel “not to go down this path,” after Prime Minister Netanyahu said Israel intended to take military control of Gaza.
“Australia calls on Israel to not go down this path, which will only worsen the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza,” Foreign Minister Penny Wong said in a statement on Friday.
Wong said permanent forced displacement was a violation of international law and repeated calls for a ceasefire, aid to flow unimpeded and for militant group Hamas to return the hostages taken in October 2023.
“A two-state solution is the only pathway to secure an enduring peace – a Palestinian state and the State of Israel, living side-by-side in peace and security within internationally-recognized borders,” she added.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday also said Israel’s decision to take control of Gaza City was wrong and urged the government in Jerusalem to reconsider.
“The Israeli Government’s decision to further escalate its offensive in Gaza is wrong, and we urge it to reconsider immediately,” he said in a statement.
“This action will do nothing to bring an end to this conflict or to help secure the release of the hostages. It will only bring more bloodshed.”
Australia has not yet joined Western allies such as the UK, Canada and France in announcing it would recognize Palestinian statehood but has said it would make a decision “at an appropriate time,” while escalating its criticism of Israel’s actions.
Wong’s comments come in response to Netanyahu saying Israel intended to take military control of all of Gaza during an interview with Fox News.
He said Israel wanted to hand over the territory to Arab forces that would govern it, without elaborating on the governance arrangements or which Arab countries could be involved.
After a security cabinet meeting on Friday, Netanyahu’s office confirmed a plan to take over Gaza City had been approved.
A statement said the Israeli Defense Forces would prepare to take control of Gaza City while providing humanitarian aid to the civilian population outside the combat zones.
The Turkish foreign ministry also strongly condemned Israel's decision to take control of gaza, saying every step taken by the "fundamentalist netanyahu government" to continue its genocide and expand its occupation dealt a heavy blow to global peace and security.
Palestinian ex-footballer killed by Israeli forces in Gaza
Former Palestine national team player Suleiman Al-Obeid, known as the “Palestinian Pele,” has been killed by Israeli gunfire in the Gaza Strip, the sport’s local governing body said
Updated 08 August 2025
AFP
JERUSALEM: Former Palestine national team player Suleiman Al-Obeid, known as the “Palestinian Pele,” has been killed by Israeli gunfire in the Gaza Strip, the sport’s local governing body said.
Obeid, 41, was killed Wednesday when Israeli forces “targeted people waiting for humanitarian aid in the southern Gaza Strip,” the Palestinian Football Association (PFA) said in a statement.
With Gaza in the throes of a hunger crisis, the UN rights office said last month that Israeli forces had killed more than 1,300 Palestinians trying to get food aid in the territory since late May.
An ex-star of the Khadamat Al-Shati club in Gaza, Obeid played 24 international matches for team Palestine, the PFA said.
“During his long career, Al-Obeid scored more than 100 goals, making him one of the brightest stars of Palestinian football,” it added.
The midfielder also played for the Al-Amari Youth Center Club in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.
While living there in 2010, Obeid was among six players on the national team from Gaza who were turned back at the Jordanian border for “security reasons” on their way to a friendly in Mauritania.
An Israeli security official said at the time that the players had failed to renew special permits allowing them to play in the West Bank.
“When I heard that we would be forbidden from traveling I was very upset, because any athlete dreams of wearing his national jersey in international forums,” Obeid told AFP in 2010.
“We want to be able to travel freely with our families, just like athletes anywhere else in the world.”
Israel had previously allowed the six players to travel with the team.
Born in Gaza City, Obeid was married and had five children.
Since the start of the Gaza war, triggered by Palestinian militant group Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel, 662 people from the sport and scouting sector have been killed, including 321 in the football community, according to the PFA.
Israel’s offensive has killed at least 61,258 in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
The 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Israeli Security Cabinet approves plan to take over Gaza City in escalation of war
Netanyahu earlier said Israel planned to retake control over the entire territory and eventually hand it off to friendly Arab forces opposed to Hamas
Israel has repeatedly bombarded Gaza City and carried out numerous raids there, only to return to different neighborhoods again and again as militants regrouped
Updated 08 August 2025
AP
TEL AVIV: Israel’s Security Cabinet has approved a plan to take over Gaza City, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said. The decision taken early Friday marks another escalation of Israel’s 22-month offensive launched in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.
The war has already killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, destroyed much of Gaza and pushed the territory of some 2 million Palestinians toward famine.
Ahead of the Security Cabinet meeting, which began Thursday and ran through the night, Netanyahu said Israel planned to retake control over the entire territory and eventually hand it off to friendly Arab forces opposed to Hamas.
The announced plans stop short of that, perhaps reflecting the reservations of Israel’s top general, who reportedly warned that it would endanger the remaining 20 or so living hostages held by Hamas and further strain Israel’s army after nearly two years of regional wars. Many families of hostages are also opposed, fearing further escalation will doom their loved ones.
Israel has repeatedly bombarded Gaza City and carried out numerous raids there, only to return to different neighborhoods again and again as militants regrouped. Today it is one of the few areas of Gaza that hasn’t been turned into an Israeli buffer zone or placed under evacuation orders.
A major ground operation there could displace tens of thousands of people and further disrupt efforts to deliver food to the territory.
It’s unclear how many people reside in the city, which was Gaza’s largest before the war. Hundreds of thousands fled Gaza City under evacuation orders in the opening weeks of the war but many returned during a ceasefire at the start of this year.
Expanding war risks countless lives and could further isolate Israel
Expanding military operations in Gaza would put the lives of countless Palestinians and the roughly 20 remaining Israeli hostages at risk while further isolating Israel internationally. Israel already controls around three quarters of the devastated territory.
Families of hostages held in Gaza fear an escalation could doom their loved ones, and some protested outside the Security Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. Former top Israeli security officials have also come out against the plan, warning of a quagmire with little added military benefit.
An Israeli official had earlier said the Security Cabinet would discuss plans to conquer all or parts of Gaza not yet under Israeli control. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity pending a formal decision, said that whatever is approved would be implemented gradually to increase pressure on Hamas.
Israel’s air and ground war has killed tens of thousands of people in Gaza, displaced most of the population, destroyed vast areas and caused severe and widespread hunger. Palestinians are braced for further misery.
“There is nothing left to occupy,” said Maysaa Al-Heila, who is living in a displacement camp. “There is no Gaza left.”
At least 42 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes and shootings across southern Gaza on Thursday, according to local hospitals.
‘We don’t want to keep it’
Asked in an interview with Fox News ahead of the Security Cabinet meeting if Israel would “take control of all of Gaza,” Netanyahu replied: “We intend to, in order to assure our security, remove Hamas there, enable the population to be free of Gaza.”
“We don’t want to keep it. We want to have a security perimeter,” Netanyahu said in the interview. “We want to hand it over to Arab forces that will govern it properly without threatening us and giving Gazans a good life.”
The Security Cabinet, which would need to approve such a decision, began meeting Thursday evening, according to Israeli media, and it was expected to stretch into the night.
Israel’s military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, warned against occupying Gaza, saying it would endanger the hostages and put further strain on the military after nearly two years of war, according to Israeli media reports.
Hamas-led militants abducted 251 people and killed around 1,200 in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war. Most of the hostages have been released in ceasefires or other deals but 50 remain inside Gaza, around 20 of them believed by Israel to be alive.
Almost two dozen relatives of hostages set sail from southern Israel toward the maritime border with Gaza on Thursday, where they broadcast messages from loudspeakers.
Yehuda Cohen, the father of Nimrod Cohen, an Israeli soldier held in Gaza, said from the boat that Netanyahu is prolonging the war to satisfy extremists in his governing coalition. Netanyahu’s far-right allies want to escalate the war, relocate most of Gaza’s population to other countries and reestablish Jewish settlements that were dismantled in 2005.
“Netanyahu is working only for himself,” Cohen said.
Palestinians killed and wounded as they seek food
Israel’s military offensive has killed over 61,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters or civilians. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals who keep and share detailed records.
The United Nations and independent experts view the ministry’s figures as the most reliable estimate of casualties. Israel has disputed them without offering a toll of its own.
Of the 42 people killed on Thursday, at least 13 were seeking aid in an Israeli military zone in southern Gaza where UN aid convoys are regularly overwhelmed by looters and desperate crowds. Another two were killed on roads leading to nearby sites run by the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an American contractor, according to Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies.
GHF said there were no violent incidents at or near its sites on Thursday. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. The military zone, known as the Morag Corridor, is off limits to independent media.
Hundreds of people have been killed in recent weeks while heading to GHF sites and in chaotic scenes around UN convoys, most of which are overwhelmed by looters and crowds of hungry people. The UN human rights office, witnesses and health officials say Israeli forces have regularly opened fire toward the crowds going back to May, when Israel lifted a complete 2 1/2 month blockade.
The military says it has only fired warning shots when crowds approach its forces. GHF says its armed contractors have only used pepper spray or fired into the air on some occasions to prevent deadly stampedes. Israel and GHF face mounting criticism
Doctors Without Borders, a medical charity known by its French acronym MSF, published a blistering report denouncing the GHF distribution system. “This is not aid. It is orchestrated killing, ” it said.
MSF runs two health centers very close to GHF sites in southern Gaza and said it had treated 1,380 people injured near the sites between June 7 and July 20, including 28 people who were dead upon arrival. Of those, at least 147 had suffered gunshot wounds — including at least 41 children.
MSF said hundreds more suffered physical assault injuries from chaotic scrambles for food at the sites, including head injuries, suffocation, and multiple patients with severely aggravated eyes after being sprayed at close range with pepper spray. It said the cases it saw were only a fraction of the overall casualties connected to GHF sites; a nearby Red Cross field hospital has independently reported receiving thousands of people wounded by gunshots as they sought aid.
“The level of mismanagement, chaos and violence at GHF distribution sites amounts to either reckless negligence or a deliberately designed death trap,” the report said.
GHF said the “accusations are both false and disgraceful” and accused MSF of “amplifying a disinformation campaign” orchestrated by Hamas.
The US and Israel helped set up the GHF system as an alternative to the UN-run aid delivery system that has sustained Gaza for decades, accusing Hamas of siphoning off assistance. The UN denies any mass diversion by Hamas. It accuses GHF of forcing Palestinians to risk their lives to get food and say it advances Israel’s plans for further mass displacement.
Israeli minister vows ‘return’ to evacuated West Bank settlement
Updated 08 August 2025
AFP
SANUR, Palestinian Territories: An Israeli minister has announced plans to rebuild Sa-Nur, a settlement in the occupied West Bank that was evacuated two decades ago, as the far right spearheads a major settlement expansion push.
Sa-Nur’s settlers were evicted in 2005 as part of Israel’s so-called disengagement policy that also saw the country withdraw troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip.
Many in the Israeli settler movement have since called to return to Sa-Nur and other evacuated settlements in the northern West Bank.
During a visit to the area on Thursday, accompanied by families who claim they are preparing to move there, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich stated that “we are correcting the mistake of the expulsion” in 2005.
“Even back then, we knew that ... we would one day return to all the places we were driven out of,” said the far-right minister who lives in a settlement. “That applies to Gaza, and it’s even more true here.”
The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority issued a strong condemnation for Thursday’s visit, which it regards as part of Israel’s “plans to entrench the gradual annexation of the West Bank, posing a direct threat to the possibility of implementing the two-state solution.”
In a statement, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said the push “to revive settlements that were evacuated 20 years ago” would lead to further confiscation of Palestinian lands. Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, are illegal under international law and seen by the international community as a major obstacle to lasting peace, undermining the territorial integrity of any future Palestinian state.
In May, Israel announced the creation of 22 settlements, including Sa-Nur and Homesh — two of the four northern West Bank settlements that were evacuated in 2005.
Israeli NGO Peace Now, which monitors settlement activity in the West Bank, said some of the 22 settlements the government announced as new had in fact already existed on the ground.
Some are neighborhoods that were upgraded to independent settlements, and others are unrecognized outposts given formal status under Israeli law, according to Peace New.
The West Bank is home to some three million Palestinians as well as about 500,000 Israeli settlers.
Settlement expansion in the West Bank has continued under all Israeli governments since 1967, but it has intensified significantly under the current government alongside the displacement of Palestinian farming communities, particularly since the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023.
From aboard a Jordanian Air Force jet dropping aid over Gaza, Arab News witnesses devastation firsthand
Our reporter flew aboard a Jordanian C-130 aircraft as it dropped food and medical supplies over Gaza amid the enclave’s unfolding famine
Exclusive report sheds light on the logistical, political, and moral challenges of delivering lifesaving aid to Palestinians under siege
Updated 54 min 54 sec ago
Sherouk Zakaria
AMMAN: Gaza’s beachfront was once a lifeline for Palestinians — a place where cafes bustled, fishermen hauled in their catch, and people living under a 17-year siege could cling to a fragile sense of normalcy.
Today, the view from high overhead aboard a Royal Jordanian Air Force flight dropping aid onto the war-ravaged enclave shows that little of this once-vibrant seaside community now remains.
Nearly two years of intense Israeli bombardment have left Gaza in ruins. Many blocks are filled with crumbling buildings and piles of ash-gray rubble, while other neighborhoods have been erased entirely, leaving behind empty voids.
Along the shoreline, tents are now scattered where homes once stood, sheltering families displaced by the fighting.
A view of the massive tent colony housing displaced people in the Mawasi area in Khan Yunis, the southern Gaza Strip, on August 7, 2025. (AFP)
Arab News joined one of the near-daily humanitarian flights, which the Jordanian Armed Forces resumed on July 27 in coordination with several countries, to drop aid over Gaza in response to reports of rising starvation.
From the air, people and cars could be seen moving through the rubble-strewn streets below — a stark glimpse of how Palestinians continue to navigate daily life amid devastation with little to no access to food, water, shelter, or medicine.
Despite the routine humanitarian missions, crew members say comprehending the view from above never gets any easier.
“It’s heartbreaking,” one crew member told Arab News as he helped load the C-130 military aircraft set to depart from King Abdullah II Air Base near Zarqa. “It hits us the same way every day. Seeing the destruction in real life is nothing like watching it on TV, especially when you see the people on the ground.”
Jordanian air force personnel preparing to load a C-130 aircraft with humanitarian supplies. (AN photo by Sherbel Dissi)
Flying over Gaza after about nine months of suspended operations showed just how much the destruction has worsened since the first round of airdrops last year, he said.
On Wednesday, seven aircraft — two from Jordan, two from Germany, and one each from the UAE, France, and Belgium — took off from the air base in Amman, dropping 54 tons of medical supplies, food, and baby formula over Gaza from an altitude of about 2,500 feet.
Humanitarian organizations say airdrops offer only a tiny fraction of what is needed to sustain the 2.2 million people in Gaza, where the UN warned of an “unfolding famine.”
The situation in Gaza deteriorated after Israel blocked all aid shipments for two and a half months following the collapse of a six-week ceasefire in March. Since it eased the blockade in late May, Israel has allowed in a trickle of UN aid trucks — about 70 a day on average, according to official Israeli figures.
Palestinians rush to collect humanitarian aid airdropped by parachutes into Deir Al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, on Aug. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
That is far below the 500 to 600 trucks a day that UN agencies say are needed. The aid, which was dropped on Wednesday, is equivalent to less than three.
While military officials confirmed that the aid provided through airdrops is insufficient, they believe what they are doing is making a difference.
“We are proud that we are able to support with whatever we can. It’s our humanitarian duty,” one crew member told Arab News.
A ground operations supervisor said Jordan’s role in leading international aid efforts fills him with pride.
“Our teams work around the clock, and we are proud of the tremendous effort being made on the ground,” he told Arab News. “We feel like we are doing something, regardless how minimal, to help people living in heartbreaking conditions.”
Humanitarian aid is airdropped to Palestinians over Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, . (AP Photo)
Since the airdrops resumed, 379 tons of aid have been delivered, according to military data. So far, the Jordanian Armed Forces has carried out 142 missions, in addition to 299 joint airdrops conducted in coordination with Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, and Spain.
Israel began allowing airdrops in response to growing international pressure over the worsening hunger crisis in Gaza. The measures include daily 10-hour pauses in fighting across three densely populated areas — Deir Al-Balah, Gaza City, and Al-Mawasi — along with the opening of limited humanitarian corridors to allow UN aid convoys into the strip.
Despite these efforts, people in Gaza are continuing to succumb to starvation. According to local authorities, 188 Palestinians, including 94 children, have died from hunger since the war began on Oct. 7, 2023.
Palestinian women search the sand for legumes or rice in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip during an airdrop mission above the Israel-besieged Palestinian territory on August 5, 2025. (AFP)
Israel denies there is starvation in Gaza, instead blaming any shortages on Hamas for allegedly stealing aid or on the UN for distribution failures. On July 28, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted on X: “There is no policy of starvation in Gaza. There is no starvation in Gaza.”
The hunger crisis is worsened by the deadly conditions surrounding aid distribution through four centers operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a US and Israeli-backed logistics startup.
Palestinian woman Sally Muzhed, 38, displaced from Deir al-Balah, poses for a picture holding a plate with eggplant, her only food for the day, amid severe food shortages in the Gaza Strip, in Deir al-Balah. (AP)
Since their establishment in May, more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed while trying to access aid, according to UN estimates. The foundation has repeatedly denied these accusations.
Israel is now facing renewed pressure to fully reopen land crossings and allow uninterrupted aid convoys to enter, as humanitarian groups stress that airdrops, while better than nothing, are no substitute for coordinated, large-scale deliveries by land.
With no precision or coordination, airdrops tend to end up in the hands of whoever reaches them first rather than the most needy. Aid groups say airdrops can also pose a threat to life, landing on civilians or causing stampedes as desperate people rush to collect relief.
Palestinians rush to the scene as aid pallets are parachuted after being dropped from a military plane over Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip during an airdrop mission above the Israel-besieged Palestinian territory on August 5, 2025. (AFP)
However, a military official told Arab News the airdrops have the added advantage of reaching areas that are now inaccessible by road.
“Some neighborhoods are flattened to the ground. The road infrastructure in Gaza is destroyed. Therefore, we can reach areas that lorries cannot,” the official said.
Flights are carried out with international missions to drop the aid at designated points across northern, central, and southern Gaza.
On the Jordanian flight, each pallet was packed, sealed, and divided into half-ton units. Each box was packed with a mix of aid — including food, medicine, and baby formula — to meet the diverse needs of the people it would reach.
Combo image showing tons of humanitarian goods being loaded onto a Royal Jordanian Air Force cargo plane on Aug. 7, 2025, to be air dropped in Gaza. (AN photos by Sherbel Dissi)
Asked how long the air drops are likely to continue, a senior army official told Arab News: “As long as we have the capability.”
After takeoff at 11 a.m., the air force crew shouted instructions over the deafening roar of the C-130 aircraft, coordinating with the pilot and with each other through headphones.
At noon, Gaza’s landscape came into view along the wide stretch of shoreline. The journalists on board, who have long been barred from entering Gaza to report from the ground, were instructed not to photograph the devastation below.
Ten minutes later, the plane descended to a lower altitude. The rear doors opened to reveal the vast, ravaged landscape. A countdown began before eight pallets, each weighing a ton, were released in two batches, parachuting into the unknown over Gaza.
“This is for you, Gaza. May God help you,” one crew member murmured, embracing his colleague as the aid disappeared from view.
Then the doors closed. The aircraft turned back toward Amman, leaving behind only questions. Who would reach the aid first? Who would carry a box of food or medicine home to their family? Who would be left to wait for the next drop? Would another drop arrive?
