Türkiye in Talks with Russia About Using Syrian Airspace in Potential Operation

Turkish F-16 jets at Türkiye's Incirlik air base - Reuters
Turkish F-16 jets at Türkiye's Incirlik air base - Reuters
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Türkiye in Talks with Russia About Using Syrian Airspace in Potential Operation

Turkish F-16 jets at Türkiye's Incirlik air base - Reuters
Turkish F-16 jets at Türkiye's Incirlik air base - Reuters

Türkiye is in talks with Russia to use the airspace above northern Syria for a potential cross-border operation against the Syrian Kurdish YPG, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said on Saturday.

Türkiye has carried out several incursions into northern Syria against the YPG and has been threatening a new incursion for months. It stepped up preparations last month after a deadly bomb attack in Istanbul it blamed on Kurdish militants.

The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group and the US-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), spearheaded by the YPG, have denied involvement in the bombing of the busy pedestrian avenue.

Türkiye launched air strikes against YPG targets in November and President Tayyip Erdogan signaled a possible ground offensive.

Speaking to reporters on Saturday, Akar said Ankara was in talks with Moscow, which supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces, about the operation.



Fears for Gaza Hospitals as Fuel and Aid Run Low

The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said Friday that hospitals have only two days' fuel left before they must restrict services, after the UN warned aid delivery to the war-devastated territory is being crippled. - AFP
The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said Friday that hospitals have only two days' fuel left before they must restrict services, after the UN warned aid delivery to the war-devastated territory is being crippled. - AFP
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Fears for Gaza Hospitals as Fuel and Aid Run Low

The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said Friday that hospitals have only two days' fuel left before they must restrict services, after the UN warned aid delivery to the war-devastated territory is being crippled. - AFP
The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said Friday that hospitals have only two days' fuel left before they must restrict services, after the UN warned aid delivery to the war-devastated territory is being crippled. - AFP

The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said Friday that hospitals have only two days' fuel left before they must restrict services, after the UN warned aid delivery to the war-devastated territory is being crippled.

The warning came a day after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant more than a year into the Gaza war.

The United Nations and others have repeatedly decried humanitarian conditions, particularly in northern Gaza, where Israel said Friday it had killed two commanders involved in Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack that triggered the war.

Gaza medics said an overnight Israeli raid on the cities of Beit Lahia and nearby Jabalia resulted in dozens killed or missing.

Marwan al-Hams, director of Gaza's field hospitals, told reporters all hospitals in the Palestinian territory "will stop working or reduce their services within 48 hours due to the occupation's (Israel's) obstruction of fuel entry".

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was "deeply concerned about the safety and well-being of 80 patients, including 8 in the intensive care unit" at Kamal Adwan hospital, one of just two partly operating in northern Gaza.

Kamal Adwan director Hossam Abu Safia told AFP it was "deliberately hit by Israeli shelling for the second day" Friday and that "one doctor and some patients were injured".

Late Thursday, the UN's humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, Muhannad Hadi, said: "The delivery of critical aid across Gaza, including food, water, fuel and medical supplies, is grinding to a halt."

He said that for more than six weeks, Israeli authorities "have been banning commercial imports" while "a surge in armed looting" has hit aid convoys.

Issuing the warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, the Hague-based ICC said there were "reasonable grounds" to believe they bore "criminal responsibility" for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare, and crimes against humanity including over "the lack of food, water, electricity and fuel, and specific medical supplies".

At least 44,056 people have been killed in Gaza during more than 13 months of war, most of them civilians, according to figures from Gaza's health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.