عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Arab World

Israel Bombs Gaza as Disagreements with US Simmer

Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli strike in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, Jan. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli strike in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, Jan. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
TT
TT

Israel Bombs Gaza as Disagreements with US Simmer

Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli strike in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, Jan. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli strike in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, Jan. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)

Israel bombarded southern Gaza on Friday after it publicly sparred with its main ally the United States over the possibility of a Palestinian state, the creation of which Washington sees as the only pathway to a lasting peace.
Witnesses reported gunfire and air strikes early on Friday in Khan Yunis, the main city in the south of the Gaza Strip, where Israel says many members and leaders of the Palestinian movement Hamas are hiding.
The Palestinian Red Crescent reported "intense" artillery fire near the Al-Amal hospital, while Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry said 77 people were killed and dozens injured overnight.
The Israeli military said its Givati Brigade was fighting as far south as its troops had reached so far in the campaign.
"The soldiers eliminated dozens of terrorists in close-quarters combat and with the assistance of tank fire and air support," it said.
The United Nations says the war, which began with the unprecedented Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, has displaced roughly 85 percent of Gaza's 2.4 million people.
Many are crowded into shelters where they struggle to get food, water, fuel and medical care. UN agencies say improved aid access is needed urgently as famine and disease loom.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said overnight it had counted 24 cases of hepatitis A and "thousands" of cases of jaundice likely linked to the spread of the viral liver infection.
"The inhumane living conditions -- almost no drinking water, clean toilets or ability to keep the surroundings clean -- will allow hepatitis A to spread further," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X, formerly Twitter, describing the health crisis as "explosive".
Hamas's October 7 attacks resulted in the deaths of about 1,140 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Militants also seized about 250 hostages during the attacks, around 132 of whom Israel says remain in Gaza. At least 27 hostages are believed to have been killed, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
Israel has vowed to "annihilate" Hamas in response and its relentless air and ground offensive has killed at least 24,620 Palestinians, around 70 percent of them women, children and adolescents, according to figures from the Hamas-run health ministry.
"We will not be satisfied with anything less than total victory," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a news conference on Thursday, warning that "victory will take many months".
Total victory meant "the elimination of terrorist leaders, the destruction of Hamas's operational and military capabilities, the return of our hostages to their homes", as well as the demilitarization of Gaza, he said.
A Palestinian state?
Washington supports Israel's campaign in Gaza, but despite otherwise close ties, the two allies publicly aired differences again this week over the way forward.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken used the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to renew his call for a "pathway to a Palestinian state".
But Netanyahu again flatly rejected the suggestion on Thursday.
"Israel must have security control over the entire territory west of the Jordan River," he said. "This is a necessary condition, which contradicts the idea of (Palestinian) sovereignty."
Netanyahu maintained that "a prime minister in Israel should be able to say no, even to our best friends".
Washington believes that the creation and recognition of a viable Palestinian state is necessary to achieve security for Israel.
"We obviously see things differently," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said when asked about Netanyahu's comments.
Responding to Netanyahu's remarks, the official spokesperson for Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, said that without an independent Palestinian state "there will be no security and stability in the region".
"The entire region is on the verge of a volcanic eruption due to the aggressive policies pursued by the Israeli occupation authorities against the Palestinian people and their legitimate rights," Nabil Abu Rudeineh said, according to the official Wafa news agency.
Abbas's Palestinian Authority exercises limited rule in the occupied West Bank, where the Israeli army also carried out raids overnight, notably in Tulkarem.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health has counted at least six deaths in the city since Wednesday.
Houthi attacks
The international community already fears that the war in Gaza could spill over into the wider region, with daily exchanges of fire on the Israeli-Lebanese border, an increase in attacks by Houthi rebels on merchant ships in the waters around Yemen and the subsequent intensification of US strikes there in response.
The Iran-backed Houthis have launched attacks against what they deem Israeli-linked vessels in the vital shipping lanes of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden in support of Palestinians in Gaza.
They have also said US- and British-linked ships were fair game since the two countries launched air strikes against targets in Yemen over the past week.
The Houthis claimed responsibility early on Friday for another attack on a US-owned and operated ship in the Gulf of Aden.
While vowing the rebels would continue such attacks, a senior Houthi official promised safe passage through the Red Sea for Russian and Chinese vessels in an interview published by the Russian outlet Izvestia on Friday.

Most Viewed

 
 
Arab World

Brother Details to Asharq Al-Awsat Luring, Disappearance of Lebanese Retired Officer

Abdul Salam Shukr speaks to Asharq Al-Awsat from Nabi Sheet. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Abdul Salam Shukr speaks to Asharq Al-Awsat from Nabi Sheet. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
TT
TT

Brother Details to Asharq Al-Awsat Luring, Disappearance of Lebanese Retired Officer

Abdul Salam Shukr speaks to Asharq Al-Awsat from Nabi Sheet. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Abdul Salam Shukr speaks to Asharq Al-Awsat from Nabi Sheet. (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Shock still grips the family of retired Lebanese General Security captain Ahmed Shukr, who was abducted days ago, as Lebanese security and judicial assessments increasingly point to Israeli intelligence as being behind his disappearance, over suspected links to the 1986 vanishing of Israeli airman Ron Arad in southern Lebanon.

His brother, Abdul Salam Shukr, told Asharq Al-Awsat the story began when a Lebanese expatriate living in Kinshasa, identified as A.M., contacted Ahmed and asked to rent his apartment in the Choueifat area, south of Beirut.

The two agreed months ago, and the man paid $500 in rent.

The expatriate made repeated visits to Lebanon and met Shukr at his home during one of them. He later contacted the retired officer to say that a wealthy African investor named Salim Kassab, later found to be a fake name, was interested in purchasing a plot of land in the eastern city of Zahle and needed his assistance.

Abdul Salam said the expatriate inspected the land, then called two weeks after leaving Lebanon to say the investor had agreed to buy it and would visit the country. He asked Ahmed to meet him at the site at 4:30 p.m. on the day of the abduction.

He said the expatriate insisted on the timing because it suited the buyer, despite Ahmed’s objections that darkness would have fallen by then, and the land’s features would not be visible. The expatriate later apologized for not attending, claiming he had broken his foot, and said the investor would visit the site alone with Ahmed.

At the time of the meeting, Ahmed disappeared.

“We know nothing about him except what we have heard through security and judicial leaks,” Abdul Salam said. He added that the abductors had rented a house in Zahle and erased all traces from it after kidnapping Ahmed.

Surveillance cameras tracked the vehicle as it headed toward the town of Souireh in the western Bekaa, where the trail then vanished. Souireh was previously used as a smuggling route from southwestern Damascus into Lebanon.

Loyalty to the state

“My brother served 40 years in the military establishment. His loyalty was only to the state and its institutions. He never belonged to any party,” Abdul Salam said. “We are a family that does not engage in politics.”

Ahmed was lured last week in a carefully planned operation that began in his hometown of Nabi Sheet in the northern Bekaa, before he went missing at a point very close to the city of Zahle.

Family members and residents have been gathering at the home of Nabi Sheet’s mukhtar, Abbas Shukr, to voice their protest and condemnation of the abduction.

The family said Ahmed Shukr retired nine years ago after serving for four decades in the General Security, during which he held several posts, including the Masnaa border crossing with Syria and the Qaa crossing in northeastern Lebanon.

“My brother joined the military in 1979, which means he was an ‘officer of the state’ when Arad disappeared in 1986,” Abdul Salam told Asharq Awsat. “An officer of the state does not belong to parties.”

He rejected attempts to link the family by kinship to Fuad Shukr, a Hezbollah leader killed by Israel in July 2024 in Beirut’s southern suburbs, saying no one in the town even knew him.

“He left the town in the early 1980s and never returned. He was distant even from his relatives,” he said, adding that since retiring, his brother “never left the Bekaa. He stayed at home and played cards with friends at night.”

The family home remains in a state of disbelief, a scene that has persisted since his disappearance last week. The case only began to move officially after Vice President of the Supreme Islamic Shiite Council Sheikh Ali al Khatib contacted Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Interior Minister Ahmed al-Hajjar, according to Abdul Salam.

He said Aoun pledged to instruct security and judicial authorities to expand the investigation and uncover the circumstances surrounding the incident. Officials from the Amal Movement were also in constant contact with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who is head of the movement, to follow up on the case.

Mystery remains

“We demand that the judiciary and security agencies confirm or deny the leak about an alleged link to Ron Arad’s disappearance,” Abdul Salam said.

“That leak does not concern us. What matters is what the security agencies say, including General Security, where Ahmed served, and the Information Branch of the Internal Security Forces, which is leading the investigation.”

He said the key to the mystery lies with A.M., a native of the southern town of Qana who lives in Kinshasa and has been evading the family’s calls.

“The Lebanese state must ask Interpol to arrest him and bring him to Lebanon for questioning,” he urged, adding that the man no longer answers his phone and that all available information about him, including video clips, is now in the hands of security agencies.

Abdul Salam said the family believes the expatriate coordinated the plot with Israel’s Mossad, guiding them to this point and enabling an operation carried out with precision and professionalism.

He said Lebanese security agencies told the family the abductors left no fingerprints, neither at the Zahle property nor at the Choueifat apartment, and that no evidence has been found. The kidnappers’ vehicle also remains unidentified.

Arab World

UK, Canada, Germany and Others Condemn Israel’s West Bank Settlement Plan

A Palestinian woman walks past the Israeli settlement of Har Homa, southeast of Jerusalem, on November 21, 2025. (AFP)
A Palestinian woman walks past the Israeli settlement of Har Homa, southeast of Jerusalem, on November 21, 2025. (AFP)
TT
TT

UK, Canada, Germany and Others Condemn Israel’s West Bank Settlement Plan

A Palestinian woman walks past the Israeli settlement of Har Homa, southeast of Jerusalem, on November 21, 2025. (AFP)
A Palestinian woman walks past the Israeli settlement of Har Homa, southeast of Jerusalem, on November 21, 2025. (AFP)

Countries including Britain, Canada and Germany and others on Wednesday condemned the Israeli security cabinet's approval of 19 new settlements in the occupied West ‌Bank, saying ‌they violated ‌international ⁠law and risked ‌fueling instability.

"We call on Israel to reverse this decision, as well as the expansion of ⁠settlements," said a joint ‌statement released ‍by Britain, ‍which also included ‍Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway and Spain.

"We recall that such unilateral actions, as ⁠part of a wider intensification of the settlement policies in the West Bank, not only violate international law but also risk fueling instability," the statement ‌added.

Arab World

Syria State Media Says 3 Dead in Clashes in Latakia Province

A large Syrian flag flutters above Tishreen Park in Damascus, June 4, 2025. (AFP)
A large Syrian flag flutters above Tishreen Park in Damascus, June 4, 2025. (AFP)
TT
TT

Syria State Media Says 3 Dead in Clashes in Latakia Province

A large Syrian flag flutters above Tishreen Park in Damascus, June 4, 2025. (AFP)
A large Syrian flag flutters above Tishreen Park in Damascus, June 4, 2025. (AFP)

Syrian state media said three people were killed Wednesday in clashes with security forces in coastal Latakia province, the heartland of the country's Alawite minority community.

"Three members of remnants of the former regime were killed after clashes with internal security forces" outside the city of Jableh, state television said.

State news agency SANA had earlier reported "clashes with a group of wanted outlaws" in the area, and said an unspecified number of security personnel were wounded.

Since last December's ousting of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad, himself an Alawite, Syria's new authorities have frequently reported security operations against remnants of his government.

Syria's coastal areas saw the killing of Alawite civilians in March, with authorities accusing armed Assad supporters of sparking the violence by attacking security forces.

A national commission of inquiry said at least 1,426 members of the minority community were killed at the time.

Last month, thousands of people demonstrated on the Alawite coast in protest of fresh attacks targeting their community.