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Netanyahu Says Israel Preparing for Scenarios in Other Areas than Gaza

HANDOUT - 11 April 2024, Israel, Rehovot: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the Tel Nof Airbase. Photo: Kobi Gideon/GPO/dpa
HANDOUT - 11 April 2024, Israel, Rehovot: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the Tel Nof Airbase. Photo: Kobi Gideon/GPO/dpa
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Netanyahu Says Israel Preparing for Scenarios in Other Areas than Gaza

HANDOUT - 11 April 2024, Israel, Rehovot: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the Tel Nof Airbase. Photo: Kobi Gideon/GPO/dpa
HANDOUT - 11 April 2024, Israel, Rehovot: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the Tel Nof Airbase. Photo: Kobi Gideon/GPO/dpa

Israel is keeping up its war in Gaza but is also preparing for scenarios in other areas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday.
"Whoever harms us, we will harm them. We are prepared to meet all of the security needs of the State of Israel, both defensively and offensively," he said in comments released by his office following a visit to the Tel Nof air force base in southern Israel.
Israel has been bracing for possible Iranian retaliation for the killing of a senior general and six other Iranian officers in an airstrike on the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus on April 1. Israel has not said it was responsible but Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, said on Wednesday Israel "must be punished and it shall be" for the attack.
Netanyahu made his comments as Israeli troops and warplanes started an operation in central Gaza overnight which the military said was aimed at destroying infrastructure of armed Palestinian groups.
Most Israeli troops have been pulled out of Gaza, in preparation for an assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians are sheltering, but fighting has continued in various areas of the enclave.
Israeli military strikes killed 63 Palestinians and wounded 45 others in the past 24 hours, the Gaza Health Ministry said.
At least 33,545 Palestinians have now been killed since the Israeli offensive began, the ministry said, with most of the 2.3 million population displaced and much of the enclave laid to waste.

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PKK Would Leave Syria if Kurdish Forces Keep Leadership Role, Official Says

Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters are pictured in Sinjar, northwest Iraq, on March 11, 2015. Asmaa Waguih/Reuters
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters are pictured in Sinjar, northwest Iraq, on March 11, 2015. Asmaa Waguih/Reuters
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PKK Would Leave Syria if Kurdish Forces Keep Leadership Role, Official Says

Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters are pictured in Sinjar, northwest Iraq, on March 11, 2015. Asmaa Waguih/Reuters
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters are pictured in Sinjar, northwest Iraq, on March 11, 2015. Asmaa Waguih/Reuters

An official with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) said on Thursday the militant group would agree to leave northeastern Syria if the US-allied Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) maintains a significant joint leadership role there.
"Any initiative resulting in the governance of northeastern Syria under the control of the SDF, or in which they have a significant role in joint leadership, will lead us to agree to leave the region," the official at the group's political office in northern Iraq said.
The PKK is considered a terrorist group by Türkiye, the United States and Europe. It has fought a separatist insurgency against the Turkish state for 40 years and more than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
After the ousting of president Bashar Al-Assad in Damascus last month, Ankara has threatened to crush the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which is a part of the SDF that it says is an extension of the PKK.
Ankara has said the SDF must be disbanded and all senior PKK members ousted from Syria or it will strike, prompting negotiations over the future of the SDF, which is the main US ally in the fight against ISIS in northeastern Syria.
Washington has called for a "managed transition" for its Kurdish allies and the SDF commander has said any PKK members would leave Syria if Türkiye agrees a ceasefire.
In a written statement, the PKK official said that if the group leaves Syria it would continue monitoring from afar and will act against Turkish forces or moves as needed.
"The future of Syria will be determined after the 20th of this month, once Trump assumes power," the official said, referring to US President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration on Monday.