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Israel Pounds Gaza ahead of UN Truce Vote

This picture taken from Rafah shows smoke billowing over Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip during Israeli bombardment on February 20, 2024, amid continuing battles between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas. (Photo by MOHAMMED ABED / AFP)
This picture taken from Rafah shows smoke billowing over Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip during Israeli bombardment on February 20, 2024, amid continuing battles between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas. (Photo by MOHAMMED ABED / AFP)
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Israel Pounds Gaza ahead of UN Truce Vote

This picture taken from Rafah shows smoke billowing over Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip during Israeli bombardment on February 20, 2024, amid continuing battles between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas. (Photo by MOHAMMED ABED / AFP)
This picture taken from Rafah shows smoke billowing over Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip during Israeli bombardment on February 20, 2024, amid continuing battles between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas. (Photo by MOHAMMED ABED / AFP)

Israel hit Gaza with new air strikes on Tuesday as world powers grappled with how to broker a ceasefire ahead of a UN Security Council vote.
The United Nations sounded the alarm over the humanitarian situation in the besieged territory, warning that food shortages could lead to an "explosion" of preventable child deaths, AFP said.
Four months of relentless fighting have flattened much of the Palestinian territory, pushed 2.2 million people to the brink of famine and displaced three-quarters of the population, according to UN estimates.
"How many of us have to die... to stop these crimes?" Ahmad Moghrabi, said a Palestinian doctor in southern Gaza's main city, Khan Yunis.
"Where is the humanity?"
Global powers trying to navigate a way out of the spiraling crisis have so far come up short, with a push later Tuesday for a UN ceasefire resolution facing an expected US veto.
After months of struggling for a united response, all EU members except Hungary called Monday for an "immediate humanitarian pause".
They also urged Israel not to invade Gaza's southernmost city Rafah, where nearly 1.5 million Palestinians are sheltering.
The city, the last untouched by Israeli ground troops, is also the main entry point for desperately needed relief supplies via neighboring Egypt.
Israel's strikes on the city are hampering humanitarian operations, while the food supply is disrupted by regular border closures, according to the UN's agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
The scarcity of food and water has left children and women across the strip suffering a steep rise in malnutrition, the United Nations children's fund warned Monday.
One-in-six children in northern Gaza are now acutely malnourished, UNICEF said, a situation poised to "compound the already unbearable level of child deaths".
- 'Flat out reject this'-
Despite repeated calls to spare Rafah, Israel has set a Ramadan deadline for a ground incursion, should Hamas group not free scores of Israeli hostages held since the October 7 attacks by then.
"If by Ramadan the hostages are not home, the fighting will continue everywhere to include the Rafah area," said war cabinet member Benny Gantz.
The Muslim holy month is expected to start around March 10.
International mediators have been scrambling to avert the assault and its feared mass civilian casualties.
At the United Nations Security Council, two rivaling ceasefire proposals have been put forward.
The first, drafted by Algeria, demands an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and "unconditional release of all hostages".
It met swift opposition from key Israel backer the United States, which tabled an alternative draft.
That text, seen by AFP on Monday, emphasizes "support for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza as soon as practicable".
It also expresses concern for Rafah, warning that a major ground offensive "would result in further harm to civilians" and displacement.
According to a diplomatic source, this draft stands little chance of being adopted as written, and risks a Russian veto.
While Washington has pressed a truce-for-hostages deal, weeks of talks involving US, Egyptian and Qatari mediators have failed to reach an agreement.
Hamas has threatened to walk away from negotiations unless more aid gets into Gaza, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected Hamas's demands as "delusional".
He vehemently opposed calls for negotiations to include recognition of a Palestinian state.
"We flat out reject this," he said in a video statement on Monday, saying it would "endanger the existence” of Israel.
Over the weekend, Israeli protesters attempted to block aid trucks at the Egypt-Gaza border to escalate pressure for the release of hostages.
In Jerusalem, protesters marched to Netanyahu's house, accusing him of abandoning the hostages.
"There is no other way to get these people back without a deal," said protester Eli Osheroff.
Dying of hunger or bombing
The war started when Hamas launched its unprecedented attack on October 7 that left about 1,160 people dead in southern Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli figures.
Hamas also took about 250 hostages -- 130 of whom remain in Gaza, including 30 presumed dead, according to Israel.
Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed at least 29,092 people, mostly women and children, according to the latest count by the territory's health ministry.
For weeks, Israel has concentrated its military operations in Khan Yunis, the hometown of Hamas's leader in the territory Yahya Sinwar, the alleged architect of the October 7 attack.
Early Tuesday, witnesses said overnight air strikes and fighting had mostly hit Khan Yunis and the east of Gaza City.
"Missiles are falling on us. How much more can a human can deal with that?" said Ayman Abu Shammali after his wife and daughter were killed in a strike Zawayda, in central Gaza.
"People in the north are dying from hunger while we here (are) dying from bombing."
Israel said the claims were "despicable and unfounded".

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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.