UN Security Council Extends Talks on Cross-border Aid to Syria

The UN Security Council meets in New York, in January 2020 - AFP
The UN Security Council meets in New York, in January 2020 - AFP
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UN Security Council Extends Talks on Cross-border Aid to Syria

The UN Security Council meets in New York, in January 2020 - AFP
The UN Security Council meets in New York, in January 2020 - AFP

The United Nations Security Council will continue negotiating Friday on extending authorization of aid transfers across Syria's border, one day after a scheduled vote was scrapped following disagreement between Russia and the West.

Moscow is seeking a six-month extension, with the possibility to renew, while Western nations want a full year for the transfers, which are being conducted without approval from Damascus.

According to AFP, a vote had been set for Thursday to extend approval of the aid deliveries across the Syrian-Turkish border at Bab al-Hawa, the authorization for which has been in effect since 2014 and is set to expire Sunday.

Norway and Ireland, two non-permanent members of the 15-country Council, produced a new text Thursday evening, which would provide for a six-month extension until mid-January 2023, and then an additional six-month extension "unless the Council decides otherwise."

The extension would also be conditional on a "substantive report" by the secretary-general, including on the operation's transparency, progress on channeling aid across the front line, and progress on meeting humanitarian needs.

Uncertainty remained as to whether the proposal would suit Russia and whether a vote would be possible on Friday.

Nearly 10,000 trucks loaded with humanitarian aid passed through Bab al-Hawa last year, bound for the opposition-held Idlib region in northwestern Syria. It is the only crossing through which aid can be brought into Idlib without navigating areas controlled by Syrian government forces.

Moscow, which holds veto power on the Security Council and is an ally of Damascus, has curtailed a number of Western-backed measures in recent years.

It views the authorization as a violation of Syria's sovereignty, and believes the delivery of aid to the northwest region should only be carried out from Damascus across the front line.

Russia had hinted in recent months that it would oppose an extension, having already forced a reduction in the number of allowed border crossings.

However its latest draft proposal submitted Thursday, which competes with that of Norway and Ireland, proposes extending the aid by six months, with the potential for the Council to decide in January upon another six months.

Western nations have deemed the text unacceptable, as there is no guarantee of an extension at the start of the new year.

The latest competing texts do however call for "further initiatives to broaden the humanitarian activities in Syria," including in water, sanitation, health, education and shelter.

In recent weeks, dozens of NGOs and several senior UN officials have lobbied Security Council members for the yearlong cross-border aid clearance.



Israel Says Gazans Can Return Home as More Hostage Releases Agreed

Displaced Palestinians warm themselves by a fire as they wait to return to their homes in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, Sunday, Jan. 26, 2025, days after the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas came into effect. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Displaced Palestinians warm themselves by a fire as they wait to return to their homes in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, Sunday, Jan. 26, 2025, days after the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas came into effect. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
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Israel Says Gazans Can Return Home as More Hostage Releases Agreed

Displaced Palestinians warm themselves by a fire as they wait to return to their homes in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, Sunday, Jan. 26, 2025, days after the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas came into effect. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Displaced Palestinians warm themselves by a fire as they wait to return to their homes in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, Sunday, Jan. 26, 2025, days after the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas came into effect. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Israel said Palestinians could begin returning to the north of the war-battered Gaza Strip on Monday after a deal was reached with Hamas for the release of another six hostages, according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office.

The breakthrough preserves a fragile ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, which has devastated the Gaza Strip and displaced nearly all its residents, paving the way for more hostage-prisoner swaps under a deal aimed at ending the more than 15-month conflict.

Israel had been preventing vast crowds of Palestinians from using a coastal road to return to northern Gaza, accusing Hamas of violating the truce agreement by failing to release civilian women hostages.

"Hamas has backtracked and will carry out an additional phase of releasing hostages this Thursday," Netanyahu's office said in a statement, adding that three hostages would be released that day, with another three captives set for release on Saturday, reported AFP.

Palestinian leaders meanwhile slammed a plan floated by US President Donald Trump to "clean out" Gaza, vowing to resist any effort to forcibly displace residents of the war-battered territory.

Trump said Gaza had become a "demolition site", adding he had spoken to Jordan's King Abdullah II about moving Palestinians out.

"I'd like Egypt to take people. And I'd like Jordan to take people," Trump told reporters.

Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, who is based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, "expressed strong rejection and condemnation of any projects" aimed at displacing Palestinians from Gaza, his office said.

Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas's political bureau, told AFP that Palestinians would "foil such projects", as they have done to similar plans "for displacement and alternative homelands over the decades".

Islamic Jihad, which has fought alongside Hamas in Gaza, called Trump's idea "deplorable".

For Palestinians, any attempt to move them from Gaza would evoke dark memories of what the Arab world calls the "Nakba", or catastrophe -- the mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel's creation in 1948.

"We say to Trump and the whole world: we will not leave Palestine or Gaza, no matter what happens," said displaced Gaza resident Rashad al-Naji.

Jordan, Egypt reject displacement

Trump floated the idea to reporters Saturday aboard Air Force One: "You're talking about probably a million and half people, and we just clean out that whole thing."

Moving Gaza's roughly 2.4 million inhabitants could be done "temporarily or could be long term", he said.

Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich -- who opposed the truce deal and has voiced support for re-establishing Israeli settlements in Gaza -- called Trump's suggestion of "a great idea".

The Arab League rejected the idea, warning against "attempts to uproot the Palestinian people from their land".

"The forced displacement and eviction of people from their land can only be called ethnic cleansing", the league said in a statement.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said "our rejection of the displacement of Palestinians is firm and will not change. Jordan is for Jordanians and Palestine is for Palestinians."

Egypt's foreign ministry said it rejected any infringement of Palestinians' "inalienable rights".

In Gaza, cars and carts loaded with belongings jammed a road near the Netzarim Corridor that Israel has blocked, preventing the expected return of hundreds of thousands of people to northern Gaza.

Israel had said it would prevent Palestinians' passage until the release of Arbel Yehud, a civilian woman hostage. She is among those slated for return on Thursday, according to Netanyahu's office.

Hamas said that blocking returns to the north also amounted to a truce violation, adding it had provided "all the necessary guarantees" for Yehud's release.

Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee said Monday that residents would be allowed to return on foot starting at 07:00 am (0500 GMT) and by car at 9:00 am.

'Dire' humanitarian situation

During the first phase of the Gaza truce, 33 hostages are supposed to be freed in staggered releases over six weeks in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.

The most recent swap saw four Israeli women hostages, all soldiers, and 200 prisoners, nearly all Palestinian, released Saturday -- the second such exchange during the fragile truce entering its second week.

Dani Miran, whose hostage son Omri is not slated for release during the first phase, demonstrated outside Netanyahu's office in Jerusalem on Sunday.

"We want the agreement to continue and for them to bring our children back as quickly as possible -- and all at once," he said.

The truce has brought a surge of food, fuel, medicines and other aid into rubble-strewn Gaza, but the UN says "the humanitarian situation remains dire".

The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 47,306 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.