Israeli Forces Storm Shelters, Detain Men, as North Gaza Raid Deepens

Palestinians carry their belongings as they flee areas north of Gaza City in the northern Gaza Strip on October 12, 2024. In recent days, the military has launched an intense ground and air assault in northern Gaza, particularly in and around the city of Jabalia. (AFP)
Palestinians carry their belongings as they flee areas north of Gaza City in the northern Gaza Strip on October 12, 2024. In recent days, the military has launched an intense ground and air assault in northern Gaza, particularly in and around the city of Jabalia. (AFP)
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Israeli Forces Storm Shelters, Detain Men, as North Gaza Raid Deepens

Palestinians carry their belongings as they flee areas north of Gaza City in the northern Gaza Strip on October 12, 2024. In recent days, the military has launched an intense ground and air assault in northern Gaza, particularly in and around the city of Jabalia. (AFP)
Palestinians carry their belongings as they flee areas north of Gaza City in the northern Gaza Strip on October 12, 2024. In recent days, the military has launched an intense ground and air assault in northern Gaza, particularly in and around the city of Jabalia. (AFP)

Israeli forces blew up homes and besieged schools and shelters for displaced people on Monday as they deepened their operations in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, residents and medics said.

They also rounded up men and ordered women to leave the camp, they said.

Medics at the Indonesian Hospital told Reuters that Israeli troops stormed a school and detained the men before setting the facility ablaze. The fire reached the hospital generators and caused a power outage, they added.

Health officials said they refused orders by the Israeli army, which began a new incursion into the north of the Palestinian territory over two weeks ago, to evacuate the three hospitals in the area or leave the patients unattended.

Troops remained outside the hospital but did not enter, they said. Medics at a second hospital, Kamal Adwan, reported heavy Israeli fire near the hospital at night.

"The army is burning the schools next to the hospital, and no one can enter or leave the hospital," said one nurse at the Indonesian Hospital, who asked not to be named.

Palestinian health officials said 18 people had been killed in Jabalia and eight elsewhere in Gaza in Israeli strikes.

The Israeli military said troops were continuing ground operations across the Gaza Strip. It said in a statement that over the past day, troops had dismantled militant infrastructure and tunnel shafts and killed fighters in the Jabalia area. It did not comment on the immediate situation regarding the hospitals and camps.

Israel has intensified its campaigns both in Gaza and Lebanon days after the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar raised hopes of an opening for ceasefire talks to end more than a year of conflict.

Israel has vowed to eradicate the Hamas movement who formerly controlled Gaza, but in doing so has laid waste to much of the territory and killed tens of thousands of people. More than 1.9 million people have been left homeless amid a humanitarian crisis.

RUNNING OUT

Hadeel Obeid, a supervisor nurse at the Indonesian hospital, where 32 patients are currently being treated, said they were running out of medical supplies.

"Sterile gauze is going to finish and there are no medications to give them," she told Reuters via a chat app.

Obeid said the water supply has been cut off and there was food for the fourth consecutive day. She appealed to international organizations to take action to save the wounded.

The United Nations said it had been unable to reach the three hospitals in northern Gaza. It demanded access to allow aid into northern Gaza areas.

The UN Human Rights Office said it was "increasingly concerned that the manner in which the Israeli military is conducting hostilities in North Gaza, along with unlawful interference with humanitarian assistance and orders that are leading to forced displacement, may be causing the destruction of the Palestinian population in Gaza's northernmost governate through death and displacement".

Israel says it is getting large quantities of humanitarian supplies into Gaza with land deliveries and airdrops. It also says it has facilitated the evacuation of patients from the Kamal Adwan Hospital.

Palestinians say no aid entered northern Gaza areas where the operation is active.

Residents and medics said Israeli forces had tightened their siege on Jabalia, the largest of the enclave's eight historic refugee camps, which it encircled by sending tanks to the nearby towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya and issuing evacuation orders to residents.

"We are facing death by bombs, by thirst and hunger," said Raed, a resident of Jabalia camp. "Jabalia is being wiped out and there is no witness to the crime, the world is blinding its eyes,"

Israeli officials said evacuation orders were aimed at separating Hamas fighters from civilians and denied there was any systematic plan to clear civilians out of Jabalia or other northern areas. It said forces operating in northern Gaza killed scores of Hamas gunmen and dismantled infrastructure

Hamas accused Israel of carrying out acts of "genocide and ethnic cleansing" against the people of northern Gaza to force them to leave.

The Hamas armed wing said fighters attacked forces there with anti-tank rockets and mortar fire, and detonated already planted bombs against troops inside tanks and stationed in houses.

Elsewhere in the enclave, Israeli strikes killed at least five people in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip and four in two separate strikes in Gaza City, medics said.

Sinwar was one of the masterminds of the Oct. 7, 2003, cross-border attack on Israeli communities that killed around 1,200 people, with another 253 taken back to Gaza as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's subsequent war has devastated Gaza, killing more than 42,500 Palestinians, with another 10,000 uncounted dead thought to lie under the rubble, Gaza health authorities say.



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.


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".


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.