عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Arab World

Israeli Military Calls up Reservists as Uncertainty Over Gaza Ceasefire Builds 

Youths walk past a destroyed secondary school in the north of Gaza City on February 10, 2025 amid the current ceasefire deal in the war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
Youths walk past a destroyed secondary school in the north of Gaza City on February 10, 2025 amid the current ceasefire deal in the war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
TT
TT

Israeli Military Calls up Reservists as Uncertainty Over Gaza Ceasefire Builds 

Youths walk past a destroyed secondary school in the north of Gaza City on February 10, 2025 amid the current ceasefire deal in the war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
Youths walk past a destroyed secondary school in the north of Gaza City on February 10, 2025 amid the current ceasefire deal in the war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)

Israel's military has called up reservists in preparation for a possible resumption of fighting in Gaza if Hamas fails to meet a Saturday deadline to release more Israeli hostages and a nearly month-old ceasefire breaks down.

Under the ceasefire deal in force since January 19, the Palestinian group agreed to free three more hostages on Saturday. But it said this week it was suspending the handover because of what it said were Israeli violations of the terms.

US President Donald Trump responded by saying all hostages must be freed by noon on Saturday or he would "let hell break out". Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Tuesday that Israel would resume "intense fighting" if Hamas did not meet the deadline, but did not say how many hostages should be freed.

The standoff threatens to reignite a conflict that has devastated the Gaza Strip, internally displaced most of its people and caused shortages of food, running water and shelter, and pushed the Middle East to the brink of a wider regional war.

Israeli officials said government ministers had endorsed Trump's threat to "cancel" the ceasefire unless all the remaining Israeli hostages are released on Saturday.

Hamas has said it remains committed to the agreement but has not agreed to release the hostages on Saturday.

A Palestinian official close to the talks said mediators had stepped up their intervention "to prevent things sliding into a real crisis."

"Things are not yet clear, but there is a big intervention from the side of the mediators with both sides in an attempt to resolve the impasse and ensure no pauses in the ceasefire agreement," said the official, who asked not to be identified.

Asked for comment on where things stand, another Hamas official told Reuters, without giving details: "Contacts are under way."

The Gaza war was triggered by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which at least 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 were taken as hostages into Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

In response, Israel began a military offensive against Hamas that has laid waste the coastal enclave and killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials.

FEARS OF REGIONAL INSTABILITY

So far, Hamas has released 16 Israeli hostages from an initial group of 33 children, women and older men to be exchanged for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees in the first stage of a multi-phase ceasefire deal. In addition, it has also returned five Thai hostages in an unscheduled release.

Negotiations on a second phase of the agreement, which mediators had hoped would include agreement on the release of the remaining hostages as well as the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, were supposed to be under way in Doha but an Israeli team returned home on Monday, two days after arriving.

The threat to cancel a 42-day ceasefire that formed the basis on the agreement has drawn thousands of Israeli protesters to the streets this week, calling on the government to continue with the deal to bring the remaining hostages back.

A plan announced by Trump to take over Gaza, move out its more than 2 million Palestinian inhabitants and redevelop it into an international beach resort could also fuel regional instability, senior Arab officials said on Wednesday.

Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit told the World Government Summit in Dubai that if Trump pressed ahead with his vision for Gaza, he would lead the Middle East into a new cycle of crises with a "damaging effect on peace and stability."

Palestinians fear a repeat of the "Nakba", or catastrophe, when nearly 800,000 people fled or were driven out during the 1948 war that led to the creation of Israel. Trump has said they would have no right to return. Jasem al-Budaiwi, Secretary-General of the Cooperation Council, called on Trump to remember the strong ties between the region and Washington.

"But there has to be give and take, he says his opinion and Arab world should say theirs; what he is saying won’t be accepted by the Arab world," he said.

Trump has said the Palestinians in Gaza could settle in countries such as Jordan, which already has a huge Palestinian population, and Egypt, the Arab world's most populous state. Both have rejected the proposal.

Egypt will host an emergency Arab summit on February 27 to discuss "serious" developments for Palestinians.

Aboul Gheit said the idea of the Arab Peace Initiative floated in 2002, in which Arab nations offered Israel normalized ties in return for a statehood deal with the Palestinians and full Israeli withdrawal from territory captured in 1967, would be reintroduced.

Trump's plan has upended decades of US policy that endorsed a two-state solution in which Israel and a Palestinian state would coexist.

Most Viewed

 
 
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)
TT
TT

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)
TT
TT

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)
TT
TT

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.