Israel Says It Arrested 2,500 Palestinians in Gaza in 2024

Displaced Palestinians rush to take shelter during a storm at a makeshift camp in Gaza City on December 31, 2024, amid the continuing war between Israel and the Hamas group. (AFP)
Displaced Palestinians rush to take shelter during a storm at a makeshift camp in Gaza City on December 31, 2024, amid the continuing war between Israel and the Hamas group. (AFP)
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Israel Says It Arrested 2,500 Palestinians in Gaza in 2024

Displaced Palestinians rush to take shelter during a storm at a makeshift camp in Gaza City on December 31, 2024, amid the continuing war between Israel and the Hamas group. (AFP)
Displaced Palestinians rush to take shelter during a storm at a makeshift camp in Gaza City on December 31, 2024, amid the continuing war between Israel and the Hamas group. (AFP)

Israel’s Shin Bet security service said it had arrested around 2,500 Palestinians in Gaza during 2024, of which 650 were interrogated.

The agency said, without providing evidence, that the interrogations enabled Israel to retrieve nine bodies of hostages who were kidnapped and taken to Gaza during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

Additionally, 27 Israelis were indicted for spying for Iran, a nearly four-fold increase from 2023, it said. The Shin Bet released the figures in their year-end review of operations during the calendar year.

In the occupied West Bank, 3,682 Palestinians were arrested on suspicion of involvement in “terror activities,” the Shin Bet said.

Last year, Israel arrested more than 4,000 Palestinians in the West Bank between October to December, according to the UN.

The UN Human Rights Office issued a report this summer saying Palestinians detained by Israeli authorities since the Oct. 7 attacks faced waterboarding, sleep deprivation, electric shocks, dogs set on them and other forms of torture and mistreatment. Israel’s prison authorities previously said that all Palestinian prisoners are treated according to Israeli and international law.



Italy’s Foreign Minister Heads to Syria to Encourage Post-Assad Transition

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani speaks to the media a he arrives for a meeting at Rome’s Villa Madama, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025 on the situation in Syria after the collapse of the Assad regime. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini (Andrew Medichini/AP POOL)
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani speaks to the media a he arrives for a meeting at Rome’s Villa Madama, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025 on the situation in Syria after the collapse of the Assad regime. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini (Andrew Medichini/AP POOL)
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Italy’s Foreign Minister Heads to Syria to Encourage Post-Assad Transition

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani speaks to the media a he arrives for a meeting at Rome’s Villa Madama, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025 on the situation in Syria after the collapse of the Assad regime. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini (Andrew Medichini/AP POOL)
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani speaks to the media a he arrives for a meeting at Rome’s Villa Madama, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025 on the situation in Syria after the collapse of the Assad regime. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini (Andrew Medichini/AP POOL)

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said he would travel to Syria on Friday to encourage the country's transition following the ouster of President Bashar Assad by insurgents, and appealed on Europe to review its sanctions on Damascus now that the political situation has changed.
Tajani presided over a meeting in Rome on Thursday of foreign ministry officials from five countries, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the United States.
The aim, he said, is to coordinate the various post-Assad initiatives, with Italy prepared to make proposals on private investments in health care for the Syrian population.
Going into the meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and their European counterparts, Tajani said it was critical that all Syrians be recognized with equal rights. It was a reference to concerns about the rights of Christians and other minorities under Syria’s new de facto authorities of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HT.
“The first messages from Damascus have been positive. That’s why I’m going there tomorrow, to encourage this new phase that will help stabilize the international situation,” Tajani said.
Speaking to reporters, he said the European Union should discuss possible changes to its sanctions on Syria. “It’s an issue that should be discussed because Assad isn’t there anymore, it’s a new situation, and I think that the encouraging signals that are arriving should be further encouraged,” he said.
Syria has been under deeply isolating sanctions by the US, the European Union and others for years as a result of Assad’s brutal response to what began as peaceful anti-government protests in 2011 and spiraled into civil war.
HTS led a lightning insurgency that ousted Assad on Dec. 8 and ended his family’s decades-long rule. From 2011 until Assad’s downfall, Syria’s uprising and civil war killed an estimated 500,000 people.
The US has gradually lifted some penalties since Assad departed Syria for protection in Russia. The Biden administration in December decided to drop a $10 million bounty it had offered for the capture of a Syrian opposition leader whose forces led the ouster of Assad last month.
Syria’s new leaders also have been urged to respect the rights of minorities and women. Many Syrian Christians, who made up 10% of the population before Syria’s civil war, either fled the country or supported Assad out of fear of insurgents.