عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Arab World

Witkoff Says Israel, Hamas Should Benefit from Release of Edan

Relatives and supporters of Israelis held hostage in Gaza since the October 7 attacks by Palestinian militants, lift placards and national flags calling on the US to intervene for their release, in front of the US embassy branch office in Tel Aviv, on May 13, 2025, during the visit to Israel of US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff. (Photo by Jack GUEZ / AFP)
Relatives and supporters of Israelis held hostage in Gaza since the October 7 attacks by Palestinian militants, lift placards and national flags calling on the US to intervene for their release, in front of the US embassy branch office in Tel Aviv, on May 13, 2025, during the visit to Israel of US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff. (Photo by Jack GUEZ / AFP)
TT
TT

Witkoff Says Israel, Hamas Should Benefit from Release of Edan

Relatives and supporters of Israelis held hostage in Gaza since the October 7 attacks by Palestinian militants, lift placards and national flags calling on the US to intervene for their release, in front of the US embassy branch office in Tel Aviv, on May 13, 2025, during the visit to Israel of US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff. (Photo by Jack GUEZ / AFP)
Relatives and supporters of Israelis held hostage in Gaza since the October 7 attacks by Palestinian militants, lift placards and national flags calling on the US to intervene for their release, in front of the US embassy branch office in Tel Aviv, on May 13, 2025, during the visit to Israel of US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff. (Photo by Jack GUEZ / AFP)

The US administration is pressuring Tel Aviv to move toward a deal to end the war in Gaza, according to Hamas officials and to Israeli sources not linked to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

While Steve Witkoff, US special envoy to the Middle East, expressed a preference for a diplomatic resolution for the return of Israeli hostages, Netanyahu said there is “no way” Israel will halt its war in Gaza.

On Monday, Hamas released an Israeli-American soldier, Edan Alexander, who had been held hostage in Gaza for more than 19 months, offering a goodwill gesture toward the Trump administration that could lay the groundwork for a new ceasefire with Israel.

A day later, US special envoy for hostage affairs Adam Boehler and Witkoff met families of Israeli hostages for almost two hours in Tel Aviv.

The Hostages Families Forum, which represents many families of those held in Gaza, said Witkoff told them that “everyone would prefer to see a diplomatic solution,” noting that most captivity survivors have been released through diplomatic means.

In the past few days, the Israeli government backed the so-called Witkoff plan that was proposed by the US envoy before Edan’s release, and which did not center on a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. The plan was rejected by Hamas.

On Tuesday, the Israeli Maariv newspaper citing unnamed senior officials, said the US no longer considers Witkoff’s original proposal the key to a Gaza ceasefire agreement, and is now pushing forward with revised solutions.

Following their meeting with the families of Israeli hostages, Boehler and Witkoff headed to Doha, Qatar, where they will join Trump. Qatar has been a key mediator between Israel and Hamas.

Yedioth Ahronoth said Boehler and Witkoff’s trip to Qatar aims to enter effective negotiations aimed at releasing the hostages and end the war in Gaza.

Maariv said that during a meeting with Netanyahu on Monday, Witkoff reportedly presented a new initiative aimed at creating a pathway toward ending the war.

Officials said this updated vision is based on the idea that a long-term, comprehensive deal could lead to a permanent ceasefire - one that might compel Hamas to show flexibility and accept terms.

In return, the Israeli PM said there is “no way” Israel will halt its war in Gaza.

In comments released by Netanyahu’s office Tuesday from a visit to wounded soldiers the previous day, the prime minister said Israeli forces were just days away from a promised escalation of force and would enter Gaza “with great strength to complete the mission. ... It means destroying Hamas.”

Any ceasefire deal reached would be temporary, the prime minister said. If Hamas were to say they would release more hostages, “we’ll take them, and then we’ll go in. But there will be no way we will stop the war,” Netanyahu said.

“We can make a ceasefire for a certain period of time, but we’re going to the end,” he added.

Most Viewed

 
 
Arab World

Israeli Minister Calls West Bank Measures ‘De Facto Sovereignty,’ Says No Future Palestinian State

Palestinian boys look out over the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Hebron from a rooftop on February 9, 2026. (AFP)
Palestinian boys look out over the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Hebron from a rooftop on February 9, 2026. (AFP)
TT
TT

Israeli Minister Calls West Bank Measures ‘De Facto Sovereignty,’ Says No Future Palestinian State

Palestinian boys look out over the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Hebron from a rooftop on February 9, 2026. (AFP)
Palestinian boys look out over the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Hebron from a rooftop on February 9, 2026. (AFP)

A top Israeli official said Tuesday that measures adopted by the government that deepen Israeli control in the occupied West Bank amounted to implementing “de facto sovereignty,” using language that mirrors critics' warnings about the intent behind the moves.

The steps “actually establish a fact on the ground that there will not be a Palestinian state,” Energy Minister Eli Cohen told Israel’s Army Radio.

Palestinians, Arab countries and human rights groups have called the moves announced Sunday an annexation of the territory, home to roughly 3.4 million Palestinians who seek it for a future state.

Cohen’s comments followed similar remarks by other members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defense Minister Israel Katz.

The moves — and Israeli officials’ own descriptions of them — put the country at odds with both regional allies and previous statements from US President Donald Trump. Netanyahu has traveled to Washington to meet with him later this week.

Last year, Trump said he won’t allow Israel to annex the West Bank. The US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that aimed to stop the war in Gaza also acknowledged Palestinian aspirations for statehood.

Widespread condemnation

The measures further erode the Palestinian Authority’s limited powers, and it’s unclear the extent to which it can oppose them.

Still, Hussein Al Sheikh, the Palestinian Authority’s deputy president, said on Tuesday "the Palestinian leadership called on all civil and security institutions in the State of Palestine" to reject them.

In a post on X on Tuesday, he said the Israeli steps “contradict international law and the agreements signed with the Palestine Liberation Organization."

A group of eight Arab and Muslim-majority countries expressed their “absolute rejection” of the measures, calling them in a joint statement Monday illegal and warning they would “fuel violence and conflict in the region.”

Israel’s pledge not to annex the West Bank is embedded in its diplomatic agreements with some of those countries.

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he was “gravely concerned” by the measures.

“They are driving us further and further away from a two-State solution and from the ability of the Palestinian authority and the Palestinian people to control their own destiny," his spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric, said on Monday.

What the measures mean

The measures, approved by Netanyahu's Security Cabinet on Sunday, expand Israel’s enforcement authority over land use and planning in areas run by the Palestinian Authority, making it easier for Jewish settlers to force Palestinians to give up land.

Smotrich and Katz on Sunday said they would lift long-standing restrictions on land sales to Israeli Jews in the West Bank, shift some control over sensitive holy sites — including Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque, also known as the Tomb of the Patriarchs — and declassify land registry records to ease property acquisitions.

They also revive a government committee empowered to make what officials described as “proactive” land purchases in the territory, a step intended to reserve land for future settlement expansion.

Taken together, the moves add an official stamp to Israel’s accelerating expansion and would override parts of decades-old agreements that split the West Bank between areas under Israeli control and areas where the Palestinian Authority exercises limited autonomy.

Israel has increasingly legalized settler outposts built on land Palestinians say documents show they have long owned, evicted Palestinian communities from areas declared “military zones” and villages near archaeological sites it has reclassified as “national parks.”

More than 700,000 Israelis live in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel in 1967 and sought by the Palestinians for an independent state along with the Gaza Strip.

Palestinians are not permitted to sell land privately to Israelis. Settlers can buy homes on land controlled by Israel’s government.

The international community overwhelmingly considers Israeli settlement construction to be illegal and an obstacle to peace.

“These decisions constitute a direct violation of the international agreements to which Israel is committed and are steps toward the annexation of Areas A and B,” anti-settlement watchdog group Peace Now said on Sunday, referring to parts of the West Bank where the Palestinian Authority exercised some autonomy.

Arab World

Over 4,500 ISIS Detainees Brought to Iraq from Syria, Says Official

Vehicles transporting ISIS detainees by the US military, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, head from Syria towards Iraq, in Qamishli, Syria, February 8, 2026. (Reuters)
Vehicles transporting ISIS detainees by the US military, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, head from Syria towards Iraq, in Qamishli, Syria, February 8, 2026. (Reuters)
TT
TT

Over 4,500 ISIS Detainees Brought to Iraq from Syria, Says Official

Vehicles transporting ISIS detainees by the US military, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, head from Syria towards Iraq, in Qamishli, Syria, February 8, 2026. (Reuters)
Vehicles transporting ISIS detainees by the US military, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, head from Syria towards Iraq, in Qamishli, Syria, February 8, 2026. (Reuters)

More than 4,500 suspected extremists have been transferred from Syria to Iraq as part of a US operation to relocate ISIS group detainees, an Iraqi official told AFP on Tuesday.

The detainees are among around 7,000 suspects the US military began transferring last month after Syrian government forces captured Kurdish-held territory where they had been held by Kurdish fighters.

They include Syrians, Iraqis and Europeans, among other nationalities.

Saad Maan, a spokesperson for the Iraqi government's security information unit, told AFP that 4,583 detainees had been brought to Iraq so far.

ISIS swept across swathes of Syria and Iraq in 2014 where it committed massacres. Backed by US-led forces, Iraq proclaimed the defeat of ISIS in 2017, while in neighboring Syria the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces ultimately beat back the group two years later.

The SDF went on to jail thousands of suspected extremists and detain tens of thousands of their relatives in camps.

In Iraq, where many prisons are packed with ISIS suspects, courts have handed down hundreds of death sentences and life terms to those convicted of terrorism offences, including many foreign fighters.

This month Iraq's judiciary said it had begun investigations into detainees transferred from Syria.

Arab World

UN Force to Withdraw Most Troops from Lebanon by Mid-2027

An Italian UN peacekeeper soldier stands guard at a road that links to a United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon (UNIFIL) base, in Naqoura town, Lebanon, on May 4, 2021. (AP)
An Italian UN peacekeeper soldier stands guard at a road that links to a United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon (UNIFIL) base, in Naqoura town, Lebanon, on May 4, 2021. (AP)
TT
TT

UN Force to Withdraw Most Troops from Lebanon by Mid-2027

An Italian UN peacekeeper soldier stands guard at a road that links to a United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon (UNIFIL) base, in Naqoura town, Lebanon, on May 4, 2021. (AP)
An Italian UN peacekeeper soldier stands guard at a road that links to a United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon (UNIFIL) base, in Naqoura town, Lebanon, on May 4, 2021. (AP)

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon plans to withdraw most of its troops by mid 2027, its spokesperson told AFP on Tuesday, after the peacekeepers' mandate expires this year.

UNIFIL has acted as a buffer between Israel and Lebanon for decades and has been assisting the Lebanese army as it dismantles Hezbollah infrastructure near the Israeli border after a recent war between Israel and the Iran-backed group.

Under pressure from the United States and Israel, the UN Security Council voted last year to end the force's mandate on December 31, 2026, with an "orderly and safe drawdown and withdrawal" within one year.

Spokesperson Kandice Ardiel, said that "UNIFIL is planning to draw down and withdraw all, or substantially all, uniformed personnel by mid-year 2027", completing the pullout by year end.

After UNIFIL operations cease on December 31 this year, she said that "we begin the process of sending UNIFIL personnel and equipment home and transferring our UN positions to the Lebanese authorities".

During the withdrawal, the force will only be authorized to perform limited tasks such as protecting UN personnel and bases and overseeing a safe departure.

Despite a November 2024 ceasefire that sought to end more than a year of hostilities with Hezbollah, Israel has kept up regular strikes on Lebanon, mainly saying it is targeting Hezbollah, and has maintained troops in five border areas.

UNIFIL patrols near the border and monitors violations of a UN resolution that ended a 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah and which forms the basis of the current ceasefire.

It has repeatedly reported Israeli fire at or near its personnel since the truce.

Ardiel said UNIFIL had reduced the number of peacekeepers in south Lebanon by almost 2,000 in recent months, "with a couple hundred more set to leave by May".

The force now counts some 7,500 peacekeepers from 48 countries.

She said the reduction was "a direct result" of a UN-wide financial crisis "and the cost-saving measures all missions have been forced to implement", and unrelated to the end of the force's mandate.

Lebanese authorities want a continued international troop presence in the south after UNIFIL's exit, even if its numbers are limited, and have been urging European countries to stay.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said in Beirut this month that Lebanon's army should replace the force when the peacekeepers withdraw.

Italy has said it intends to keep a military presence in Lebanon after UNIFIL leaves.