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Israel Says Killed Spokesman for Hamas Armed Wing

Abu Obeida (R), spokesman for the armed wing of Hamas, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, delivers a statement in Gaza City late on July 8, 2015. (AFP)
Abu Obeida (R), spokesman for the armed wing of Hamas, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, delivers a statement in Gaza City late on July 8, 2015. (AFP)
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Israel Says Killed Spokesman for Hamas Armed Wing

Abu Obeida (R), spokesman for the armed wing of Hamas, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, delivers a statement in Gaza City late on July 8, 2015. (AFP)
Abu Obeida (R), spokesman for the armed wing of Hamas, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, delivers a statement in Gaza City late on July 8, 2015. (AFP)

Israel said Sunday its forces had killed the spokesman of Hamas's armed wing in a strike on Gaza a day earlier, the latest fatality in the group's senior ranks in the nearly two-year war.

"Hamas terror spokesperson Abu Obeida was eliminated in Gaza," Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a post on X, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier said he had been targeted in a strike.

Israel has decimated Hamas's leadership during 23 months of devastating fighting in the Gaza Strip, saying it seeks to eradicate the armed group and return hostages seized by Palestinian fighters in their October 7, 2023 attack that sparked the war.

On the ground, as the sun rose on Sunday, smoke drifted into the sky above Gaza City and residents came to inspect the damage at a tent, crumpled in a strike, with bloodstained blankets strewn in the rubble.

Ashraf Abu Amsha, a displaced Palestinian sheltering in the area, said that "horror, fear, destruction, and fire erupted in all the tents."

Israeli forces have been preparing for an offensive to seize Gaza City, the largest urban center in the Palestinian territory, intensifying bombardments in the area in recent days and warning of imminent evacuation.

Hamas meanwhile has not commented on the killing of Abu Obeida, whose real name according to the Israeli military is Hudaifa al-Kahlut.

Since the war began, he had issued dozens of televised speeches, always appearing in military fatigues and a red keffiyeh scarf to obscure his face, and published audio messages, press releases and social media posts.

Iman Rajab, who lives in the displacement camp near Gaza City that residents said was hit by Israel overnight, told AFP that "we are now afraid of the night and of sleeping in our tents."

"We pray to God for the war to end because we are very tired from the displacement, the fear and the hunger," said Rajab.

The vast majority of the Gaza Strip's more than two million residents have been displaced at least once during the war.

The UN estimates that nearly a million people currently live in Gaza City and its surroundings, where famine has been declared.

Gaza's civil defense agency said Israeli strikes and gunfire across the territory on Sunday killed at least 24 people, 15 of whom near aid distribution sites.

Asked for comment by AFP, the Israeli military requested coordinates to look into the agency's reports.

Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defense agency or the Israeli military.

Israel's killing of Abu Obeida is the latest in a string of attacks targeting senior Hamas figures, including leader Yahya Sinwar who was accused by Israel of masterminding the 2023 attack.

Israeli operations have also killed Hamas's political chief Ismail Haniyeh, the head of its armed wing Mohammed Deif, and other commanders and political figures, considerably weakening the movement.

Earlier on Sunday, Hamas confirmed the death of Mohammed Sinwar, the group's presumed leader in Gaza, more than three months after Israel said it had killed him in an air strike.

Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 63,459 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the United Nations considers reliable.

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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.