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Palestinian Authority Stops Contacts with Tel Aviv After Nablus Operation

Palestinians inspect a house that was demolished during an Israeli army raid in the Old City of Nablus (AFP)
Palestinians inspect a house that was demolished during an Israeli army raid in the Old City of Nablus (AFP)
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Palestinian Authority Stops Contacts with Tel Aviv After Nablus Operation

Palestinians inspect a house that was demolished during an Israeli army raid in the Old City of Nablus (AFP)
Palestinians inspect a house that was demolished during an Israeli army raid in the Old City of Nablus (AFP)

The Palestinian Authority (PA) stopped all contact with Tel Aviv in response to the Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Nablus, which killed 11 Palestinians.

Palestinian sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Authority was dealt a treacherous blow two days after it withdrew the Security Council draft resolution condemning the Israeli settlements.

Under a US-sponsored agreement, Israel also reportedly agreed to temporarily suspend unilateral actions in the occupied West Bank, including army incursions into Palestinian territories.

The sources confirmed that the Palestinian leadership, headed by President Mahmoud Abbas, decided to stop contacts and move immediately to the Security Council to request international protection and suspend the security coordination.

The Secretary of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Hussein al-Sheikh, announced that the Palestinian leadership resorted to the Council to request international protection for the Palestinian people "in light of the continuing crimes of the occupation."

Later, the Palestinian UN ambassador, Riyad Mansour, said consultations have already begun with the head of the Security Council on protecting the Palestinian people.

The Palestinian move came in the wake of the bloody Israeli attack on Nablus, and the approval to construct 3,000 settlement units.

Haaretz said that Israel's Civil Administration's Higher Planning Council advanced on Wednesday plans to build 4,000 housing units in the settlement, the most significant number of units approved in the past two years.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry condemned the Israeli approval of building new settlement units, saying it was an "extension of the occupation's crimes."

It said that the policy of "racist colonialism of the occupation" is based on the gradual and silent annexation of the occupied West Bank.

Israeli officials did not immediately comment on the settlement construction, but military officials said that the understandings regarding the security situation matter are meaningless.

Asked whether this could undermine the understanding and further aggravate the situation ahead of Ramadan, an Israeli military official said the problem is already tense, as it were in 2022. 

He noted that Israel should be prepared for retaliatory attacks in the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza.

He indicated that the army would continue its operations as required and needed, adding that the understandings are unimportant as long as Israeli security is threatened.

Later, Israeli sources acknowledged that the operation in Nablus marked a quick end to the understanding.

The Hebrew channel 12 reported that the Israeli security establishment condemned the Nablus operation.

The Israeli army and police raised their alert level in preparation for a possible violent response to the operation and deployed reserve Border Police units to East Jerusalem.

A senior military official told reporters that the Israeli army expected a possible response to the military operation.

The Israeli military said late Wednesday that Palestinian shooters opened fire from a passing car at a checkpoint in Homesh in the northern West Bank.

Israeli military sources announced that a Palestinian woman was shot after she attempted to stab a security guard at the Ma'ale Adumim settlement in the West Bank. Her injuries were described as "moderate to serious."

The Palestinian territories are experiencing unprecedented anger after the Israeli attack on Nablus.

The national forces announced a general strike in the occupied Palestinian territories in protest against the Israeli raid in Nablus.
 
Shops, schools, and banks remained closed after Palestinian political parties on Wednesday announced a general strike in the cities of Ramallah and Nablus. They called on Palestinians to protest near Israeli army checkpoints.

Meanwhile, Ynet Palestinian affairs analyst Avi Sakharov said that escalation is imminent, noting that an operation in broad daylight in Nablus may have been necessary to prevent an attack, but there is always a price for such operations.

Haaretz military analyst Amos Harel wondered how urgent and necessary this operation was, adding that it risks sparking revenge attacks and rockets from Gaza.

Harel warned it could now trigger revenge attacks from the West Bank and rocket fire from the Gaza Strip.

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Arab World

Lebanon PM Pledges Reconstruction on Visit to Ruined Border Towns

This handout picture released by the Lebanese Government Press Office shows Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam being showered with confetti as he is received by locals during a tour in the heavily-damaged southern village of Dhayra near the border with Israel on February 7, 2026. (Lebanese Government Press Office / AFP)
This handout picture released by the Lebanese Government Press Office shows Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam being showered with confetti as he is received by locals during a tour in the heavily-damaged southern village of Dhayra near the border with Israel on February 7, 2026. (Lebanese Government Press Office / AFP)
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Lebanon PM Pledges Reconstruction on Visit to Ruined Border Towns

This handout picture released by the Lebanese Government Press Office shows Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam being showered with confetti as he is received by locals during a tour in the heavily-damaged southern village of Dhayra near the border with Israel on February 7, 2026. (Lebanese Government Press Office / AFP)
This handout picture released by the Lebanese Government Press Office shows Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam being showered with confetti as he is received by locals during a tour in the heavily-damaged southern village of Dhayra near the border with Israel on February 7, 2026. (Lebanese Government Press Office / AFP)

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam visited heavily damaged towns near the Israeli border on Saturday, pledging reconstruction.

It was his first trip to the southern border area since the army said it finished disarming Hezbollah there, in January.

Swathes of south Lebanon's border areas remain in ruins and largely deserted more than a year after a US-brokered November 2024 ceasefire sought to end hostilities between Israel and the Iran-backed group.

Lebanon's government has committed to disarming Hezbollah, and the army last month said it had completed the first phase of its plan to do so, covering the area between the Litani River and the Israeli border about 30 kilometers (20 miles) further south.

Visiting Tayr Harfa, around three kilometers from the border, and nearby Yarine, Salam said frontier towns and villages had suffered "a true catastrophe".

He vowed authorities would begin key projects including restoring roads, communications networks and water in the two towns.

Locals gathered on the rubble of buildings to greet Salam and the delegation of accompanying officials in nearby Dhayra, some waving Lebanese flags.

In a meeting in Bint Jbeil, further east, with officials including lawmakers from Hezbollah and its ally the Amal movement, Salam said authorities would "rehabilitate 32 kilometers of roads, reconnect the severed communications network, repair water infrastructure" and power lines in the district.

Last year, the World Bank announced it had approved $250 million to support Lebanon's post-war reconstruction, after estimating that it would cost around $11 billion in total.

Salam said funds including from the World Bank would be used for the reconstruction and rehabilitation projects.

The second phase of the government's disarmament plan for Hezbollah concerns the area between the Litani and the Awali rivers, around 40 kilometers south of Beirut.

Israel, which accuses Hezbollah of rearming, has criticized the army's progress as insufficient, while Hezbollah has rejected calls to surrender its weapons.

Despite the truce, Israel has kept up regular strikes on what it usually says are Hezbollah targets and maintains troops in five south Lebanon areas.

Lebanese officials have accused Israel of seeking to prevent reconstruction in the heavily damaged south with repeated strikes on bulldozers, excavators and prefabricated houses.

Visiting French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot on Friday said the reform of Lebanon's banking system needed to precede international funding for reconstruction efforts.

The French diplomat met Lebanon's army chief Rodolphe Haykal on Saturday, the military said.

Arab World

Over 2,200 ISIS Detainees Transferred to Iraq from Syria, Says Iraqi Official

One of the American buses transporting ISIS fighters, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, heads from Syria towards Iraq, in Qamishli, Syria, February 7, 2026. (Reuters)
One of the American buses transporting ISIS fighters, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, heads from Syria towards Iraq, in Qamishli, Syria, February 7, 2026. (Reuters)
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Over 2,200 ISIS Detainees Transferred to Iraq from Syria, Says Iraqi Official

One of the American buses transporting ISIS fighters, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, heads from Syria towards Iraq, in Qamishli, Syria, February 7, 2026. (Reuters)
One of the American buses transporting ISIS fighters, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, heads from Syria towards Iraq, in Qamishli, Syria, February 7, 2026. (Reuters)

Iraq has so far received 2,225 ISIS group detainees, whom the US military began transferring from Syria last month, an Iraqi official told AFP on Saturday.

They are among up to 7,000 ISIS detainees whose transfer from Syria to Iraq the US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced last month, in a move it said was aimed at "ensuring that the terrorists remain in secure detention facilities".

Previously, they had been held in prisons and camps administered by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeast Syria.

The announcement of the transfer plan last month came after US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack declared that the SDF's role in confronting ISIS had come to an end.

Saad Maan, head of the security information cell attached to the Iraqi prime minister's office, told AFP on Saturday that "Iraq has received 2,225 terrorists from the Syrian side by land and air, in coordination with the international coalition", which Washington has led since 2014 to fight IS.

He said they are being held in "strict, regular detention centers".

A Kurdish military source confirmed to AFP the "continued transfer of ISIS detainees from Syria to Iraq under the protection of the international coalition".

On Saturday, an AFP photographer near the Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli in northeastern Syria saw a US military convoy and 11 buses with tinted windows.

- Iraq calls for repatriation -

ISIS seized swathes of northern and western Iraq starting in 2014, until Iraqi forces, backed by the international coalition, managed to defeat it in 2017.

Iraq is still recovering from the severe abuses committed by the extremists.

In recent years, Iraqi courts have issued death and life sentences against those convicted of terrorism offences.

Thousands of Iraqis and foreign nationals convicted of membership in the group are incarcerated in Iraqi prisons.

On Monday, the Iraqi judiciary announced it had begun investigative procedures involving 1,387 detainees it received as part of the US military's operation.

In a statement to the Iraqi News Agency on Saturday, Maan said "the established principle is to try all those involved in crimes against Iraqis and those belonging to the terrorist ISIS organization before the competent Iraqi courts".

Among the detainees being transferred to Iraq are Syrians, Iraqis, Europeans and holders of other nationalities, according to Iraqi security sources.

Iraq is calling on the concerned countries to repatriate their citizens and ensure their prosecution.

Maan noted that "the process of handing over the terrorists to their countries will begin once the legal requirements are completed".

Arab World

Drone Attack by RSF in Sudan Kills 24, Including 8 Children, Doctors’ Group Says

Displaced Sudanese wait to receive humanitarian aid at the Abu al-Naga displacement camp in the Gedaref State, some 420km east of the capital Khartoum on February 6, 2026. (AFP)
Displaced Sudanese wait to receive humanitarian aid at the Abu al-Naga displacement camp in the Gedaref State, some 420km east of the capital Khartoum on February 6, 2026. (AFP)
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Drone Attack by RSF in Sudan Kills 24, Including 8 Children, Doctors’ Group Says

Displaced Sudanese wait to receive humanitarian aid at the Abu al-Naga displacement camp in the Gedaref State, some 420km east of the capital Khartoum on February 6, 2026. (AFP)
Displaced Sudanese wait to receive humanitarian aid at the Abu al-Naga displacement camp in the Gedaref State, some 420km east of the capital Khartoum on February 6, 2026. (AFP)

A drone attack by a notorious paramilitary group hit a vehicle carrying displaced families in central Sudan Saturday, killing at least 24 people, including eight children, a doctors’ group said.

The attack by the Rapid Support Forces occurred close to the city of Rahad in North Kordofan province, said the Sudan Doctors Network, which tracks the country’s ongoing war.

The vehicle transported displaced people who fled fighting in the Dubeiker area of North Kordofan, the doctors’ group said in a statement. Among the dead children were two infants, the group said.

The doctors’ group urged the international community and rights organizations to “take immediate action to protect civilians and hold the RSF leadership directly accountable for these violations.”

There was no immediate comment from the RSF, which has been at war against the Sudanese military for control of the country for about three years.

Sudan plunged into chaos in April 2023 when a power struggle between the military and the RSF exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere in the country.

The devastating war has killed more than 40,000 people, according to UN figures, but aid groups say that is an undercount and the true number could be many times higher.

It created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis with over 14 million people forced to flee their homes. It fueled disease outbreaks and pushed parts of the country into famine.