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Scores Killed in Overnight Strikes as Hamas Weighs Gaza Truce Proposal

Concerns over a potential Israeli ground incursion into Rafah have mounted in recent days. Mohammed ABED / AFP
Concerns over a potential Israeli ground incursion into Rafah have mounted in recent days. Mohammed ABED / AFP
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Scores Killed in Overnight Strikes as Hamas Weighs Gaza Truce Proposal

Concerns over a potential Israeli ground incursion into Rafah have mounted in recent days. Mohammed ABED / AFP
Concerns over a potential Israeli ground incursion into Rafah have mounted in recent days. Mohammed ABED / AFP

Scores were reported killed in overnight strikes across the Gaza Strip on Sunday, after Hamas said it needed more time to consider a proposal that would halt its war with Israel in the besieged Palestinian territory.
Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry said early Sunday that at least 92 people had been killed overnight, including in what the group's media office said was an Israeli bombardment of a kindergarten in Rafah where displaced people were sheltering, AFP reported.
Concerns over a potential Israeli ground incursion into the southern border city have mounted in recent days, with hundreds of thousands of displaced seeking refuge from the fighting there in makeshift shelters and encampments.
Many made the journey from even harder-hit areas after being told the city was a safe zone, but strikes have continued there as well, with mourners gathering outside a local hospital Saturday to pray for the dead after another bombardment.
"The children were just sleeping and suddenly the bombardment happened. The bedroom fell on my children. God took one of my children and three escaped death," Ahmad Bassam al-Jamal told AFP, his voice breaking. "My child now is a martyr in heaven."
The city that had been home to 200,000 people now hosts more than half of Gaza's population, the United Nations said.
A representative of the UN humanitarian agency OCHA has called Rafah "a pressure cooker of despair", expressing concern for what might happen next.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant warned on Thursday that the military -- which began its ground invasion in the territory's north and has gradually advanced south -- "will also reach Rafah".
Civilians who fled to the city have been pushed up against the border with Egypt, trying to avoid areas exposed to bombardment and fighting in nearby Khan Yunis.
"We are exhausted," said displaced Gazan Mahmud Abu al-Shaar, urging "a ceasefire so that we can return to our homes".
Push for a deal
International mediators are making a full-court press to seal a proposed truce deal thrashed out last week in Paris.
But a top Hamas official in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan, said on Saturday that the proposed framework was missing some details.
Hamas needed more time to "announce our position", Hamdan said, "based on... our desire to put an end as quickly as possible to the aggression that our people suffer".
The war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Hamas also seized around 250 hostages, and Israel says 132 remain in Gaza, including at least 27 believed to have been killed.
Vowing to eliminate Hamas, Israel launched a massive military offensive that has killed at least 27,238 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-ruled territory's health ministry.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will make his fifth crisis visit to the Middle East in the coming days to push for the truce proposal, the State Department has said, and French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne is also making a pass through the region, according to a spokesman.
A Hamas source has said the proposal involves an initial six-week pause that would see more aid delivered into Gaza and exchanges of some Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.
Hamas's leader Ismail Haniyeh has said any ceasefire must lead to "a full withdrawal" of Israeli troops from Gaza.
Domestic pressure
The Israeli government's inability to secure the hostages' release, as well as the intelligence failures that allowed the October 7 attacks to happen in the first place, have led to harsh criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government.
Hundreds rallied on Saturday night in Tel Aviv at protests calling for early elections and to demand action to free the remaining hostages.
Demonstrations were also held in the northern Israeli port of Haifa and near Netanyahu's Jerusalem residence.
In Tel Aviv, anti-government protester Michal Hadas told AFP that dragging out the conflict only served the interests of government officials, "because as long as the war continues there will be no election".
At the rally for hostages' families, Carmit Palty Katzir, sister of captive Elad Katzir, called for swifter action.
"Every second a deal is not closed, the price goes up. The number of hostages who won't return alive goes up. The number of soldiers risking their lives without a clear plan for the day after goes up," she said.
Fresh Yemen strikes
The war has sent regional tensions soaring, with a surge in attacks by Iran-backed groups in solidarity with Gaza triggering counterattacks by key Israel ally the United States.
The United States and its coalition partner Britain said they struck dozens of targets in Yemen on Saturday night in response to repeated attacks on shipping by Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
US forces also struck an additional anti-ship missile in Yemen on Sunday morning that the US Central Command said was ready to be launched towards the Red Sea.
The joint air raids came after a separate wave of unilateral American strikes against Iran-linked targets in Iraq and Syria that were carried out in response to the killing of three US soldiers in Jordan on January 28.
The Israeli army, meanwhile, said on Saturday that it had struck more than 3,400 Hezbollah militant targets across southern Lebanon since the start of
the war, as well as more than 50 targets linked to the Iran-backed Hamas allies in Syria.

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Arab World

War crimes committed in Sudan's El-Fasher: UN report

Remnants of a shell that targeted the refugee center, in El Fasher, Sudan, October 7, 2025. REUTERS/Mohyaldeen M Abdallah
Remnants of a shell that targeted the refugee center, in El Fasher, Sudan, October 7, 2025. REUTERS/Mohyaldeen M Abdallah
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War crimes committed in Sudan's El-Fasher: UN report

Remnants of a shell that targeted the refugee center, in El Fasher, Sudan, October 7, 2025. REUTERS/Mohyaldeen M Abdallah
Remnants of a shell that targeted the refugee center, in El Fasher, Sudan, October 7, 2025. REUTERS/Mohyaldeen M Abdallah

The UN rights office on Friday accused Sudan's Rapid Support Forces of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during the capture of El-Fasher, saying some 6,000 were killed in just three days.

Since April 2023, the conflict between Sudan's army and the RSF has killed tens of thousands, displaced 11 million and triggered what the UN calls one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.

During its final offensive in October, the RSF unleashed "a wave of intense violence... shocking in its scale and brutality" and amounting to war crimes and possible crimes against humanity, said a report from the UN Human Rights Office, AFP reported.

The report said the RSF and allied Arab militia carried out widespread attacks, including mass killings and summary executions, sexual violence, abductions for ransom, torture and ill-treatment, detention, disappearances, pillage and the use of children in hostilities.

In many cases, these were directed against civilians and people outside combat based on their ethnicity or perceived affiliation, it said.

Based on interviews with over 140 victims and witnesses conducted in Sudan and eastern Chad in late 2025, the Human Rights Office said it documented more than 6,000 killings in the first three days of the RSF offensive.

It said that of those, at least 4,400 people were killed within El-Fasher and over 1,600 others were killed as they fled along exit routes.

"The actual scale of the death toll during the week-long offensive is undoubtedly significantly higher," the office said.

The report voiced serious concerns over the fate of thousands of missing people.

"The unprecedented scale and brutality of the violence meted out during the offensive deeply compounded the horrific violations the residents of El-Fasher had already been subjected to during the long months of siege, constant hostilities and bombardment," said UN rights chief Volker Turk.

He said persistent impunity was fuelling the violence.

"There must be credible and impartial investigations to establish criminal responsibility, including of commanders and other superiors," Turk said.

"These must lead to meaningful accountability for perpetrators of exceptionally serious crimes, through all available means."

Arab World

US Military Completes Transfer of 5,700 ISIS Detainees from Syria to Iraq

US military vehicles move ahead of buses transporting ISIS detainees from Syria to Iraq, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, in Qamishli, Syria. REUTERS/Orhan Qereman
US military vehicles move ahead of buses transporting ISIS detainees from Syria to Iraq, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, in Qamishli, Syria. REUTERS/Orhan Qereman
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US Military Completes Transfer of 5,700 ISIS Detainees from Syria to Iraq

US military vehicles move ahead of buses transporting ISIS detainees from Syria to Iraq, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, in Qamishli, Syria. REUTERS/Orhan Qereman
US military vehicles move ahead of buses transporting ISIS detainees from Syria to Iraq, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, in Qamishli, Syria. REUTERS/Orhan Qereman

The US military has completed the transfer of thousands of ISIS group detainees from Syria to Iraq, where they are expected to stand trial in the future, the US Central Command said Friday. 

CENTCOM said that the transfer that began on Jan. 21 saw US forces transporting more than 5,700 adult male ISIS suspects from detention facilities in Syria to Iraqi custody. 

The prisoners were transferred to Iraq at the request of Baghdad — a move welcomed by the US-led coalition that had for years fought against ISIS. 

“We appreciate Iraq’s leadership and recognition that transferring the detainees is essential to regional security,” said Adm. Brad Cooper, CENTCOM commander. 

Iraq's National Center for International Judicial Cooperation said a total of 5,704 suspects from 61 countries who were affiliated with ISIS were transferred from prisons in Syria. 

The Center said most of the suspects were Syrian or Iraqi, though there were other foreign nationals from Europe as well as Australia, Canada and the United States, among other countries. 

Over the past three weeks, the US military escorted the detainees from prisons in northeastern Syria run by the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, to Baghdad. 

The transfers have helped calm fears that the recent rounds of fighting in Syria between government forces and the SDF would allow the ISIS prisoners to flee from detention camps there and join militant sleeper cells that are still carrying out attacks in both Iraq and Syria. 

Iraq is looking to put on trial some of the thousands of the ISIS detainees who were held for years in Syria without charges or access to the judicial system. 

When ISIS declared a self-proclaimed territory in large parts of Syria and Iraq that the militant group seized in 2014, it attracted extremists from around the world. 

From the caliphate, the extremists plotted attacks around the world that left hundreds dead from Europe to Arab countries and Asia. 

“The successful execution of this orderly and secure transfer operation will help prevent an ISIS resurgence in Syria,” said US Army Maj. Gen. Kevin Lambert, commander of the Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve, that led the mission planning, coordination, and execution. 

Iraq is in talks with other countries including Arab and Muslim states to repatriate ISIS prisoners, its foreign minister said. 

Speaking in an interview with Reuters on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, Fuad Hussein said Baghdad would need financial aid to deal with the influx and was worried about a rise in ISIS activity just over the border in Syria. 

Arab World

Floods Wreak Havoc in Morocco Farmlands after Severe Drought

Farmers in the North African kingdom have for the past few years endured severe drought © - / AFP
Farmers in the North African kingdom have for the past few years endured severe drought © - / AFP
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Floods Wreak Havoc in Morocco Farmlands after Severe Drought

Farmers in the North African kingdom have for the past few years endured severe drought © - / AFP
Farmers in the North African kingdom have for the past few years endured severe drought © - / AFP

In the Moroccan village of Ouled Salama, 63-year-old farmer Mohamed Reouani waded through his crops, now submerged by floodwaters after days of heavy downpours.

Farmers in the North African kingdom have for the past few years endured severe drought.

But floods have now swamped more than 100,000 hectares of land, wiping out key crops and forcing farmers in the country's northwest to flee with their livestock, AFP reported.

"I have about four or five hectares" of crops, Reouani said. "All of it is gone now."

"Still, praise be to God for this blessing," he added while looking around at the water.

Morocco, where agriculture employs about a third of the working-age population, has seen seven consecutive years of drought.

As of December, its dams were only around 30 percent full on average, and farmers have largely relied on rainwater for irrigation.

Now their average filling rate stands at nearly 70 percent after they received about 8.8 billion cubic metres of water in the last month -- compared to just 9 billion over the previous two years combined.

- 'Took everything' -

Many like Reouani had at first rejoiced at the downpours.

But the rain eventually swelled into a heavy storm that displaced over 180,000 people as of Wednesday and killed four so far.

In his village, the water level climbed nearly two metres, Reouani said. Some homes still stand isolated by floodwater.

Elsewhere, residents were seen stranded on rooftops before being rescued in small boats.

Others were taken away by helicopter as roads were cut off by flooding.

Authorities have set up camps of small tents, including near the city of Kenitra, to shelter evacuees and their livestock.

"We have no grain left" to feed the animals, one evacuee, Ibrahim Bernous, 32, told AFP at a camp. "The water took everything."

Bernous, like many, now depends on animal feed distributed by the authorities, according to Mustapha Ait Bella, an official at the agriculture ministry.

At the camps, displaced families make do with little while waiting to return home.

"The problem is what happens after we return," said Chergui al-Alja, 42. "We have no grain left to feed our livestock, and they are our main source of income."

- Five percent growth -

On Thursday, the government announced a relief plan of some $330 million to provide aid to the hardest-hit regions.

A tenth of that sum was earmarked for farmers and livestock breeders.

Rachid Benali, head of the Moroccan Confederation of Agriculture and Rural Development, told AFP farming was "among the sectors most affected by the floods".

But he said "a more accurate damage assessment was pending once waters recede".

Benali added that sugar beet, citrus and vegetable farms had also been devastated by flooding.

Agriculture accounts for about 12 percent of Morocco's overall economy.

The International Monetary Fund anticipates that the massive rainfall will help the economy grow by nearly five percent.

Authorities are betting on expanded irrigation and seawater desalination to help the sector withstand increasingly volatile climate swings.

While Morocco is no stranger to extreme weather events, scientists say climate change driven by human activity has made phenomena like droughts and floods more frequent and intense.

Last December, flash floods killed 37 people in Safi, in Morocco's deadliest weather-related disaster in the past decade.

Neighbouring Algeria and Tunisia have also experienced severe weather and deadly flooding in recent weeks.

Further north, Portugal and Spain have faced fresh storms and torrential rain.