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Recognition of Palestinian State Brings No Relief for Exhausted Gazans 

Displaced Palestinians, fleeing northern Gaza due to an Israeli military operation, move southward after Israeli forces ordered residents of Gaza City to evacuate to the south, in the central Gaza Strip, September 23, 2025. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinians, fleeing northern Gaza due to an Israeli military operation, move southward after Israeli forces ordered residents of Gaza City to evacuate to the south, in the central Gaza Strip, September 23, 2025. (Reuters)
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Recognition of Palestinian State Brings No Relief for Exhausted Gazans 

Displaced Palestinians, fleeing northern Gaza due to an Israeli military operation, move southward after Israeli forces ordered residents of Gaza City to evacuate to the south, in the central Gaza Strip, September 23, 2025. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinians, fleeing northern Gaza due to an Israeli military operation, move southward after Israeli forces ordered residents of Gaza City to evacuate to the south, in the central Gaza Strip, September 23, 2025. (Reuters)

Israel's military pushed deeper towards the most populated areas of Gaza City on Tuesday, a painful reminder for Gazans that Western powers' recognition of a Palestinian state does not mean an end to the horrors of war as tanks approach.

Israel pressed on with its Gaza offensive a day after dozens of world leaders gathered at the United Nations to embrace a Palestinian state, a landmark diplomatic shift after nearly two years of war that faces resistance from Israel and its close ally the United States.

Local health authorities said Israeli fire on Tuesday killed at least 22 people across the Gaza Strip, 18 of them in Gaza City, and the Gaza health ministry said hospitals in the enclave would run out of fuel in the coming few days, endangering lives.

EXPLOSIONS DESTROY HOMES AND ROADS IN GAZA

"We are not steadfast, we are helpless. We don’t have money to leave to the south and we don’t have guarantees if we do the Israelis will not bomb us, so we are staying," Huda, a mother of two from Gaza City, told Reuters via a chat app.

"The children tremble all the time from the sounds of explosions, we do too, they are wiping out a city that is thousands of years old and the world is celebrating a symbolic recognition of a state that won’t stop our killing."

Israeli forces detonated explosive-laden vehicles in the suburbs of Sabra and Tel Al-Hawa as tanks made a big push towards the western side of Gaza City. Residents said the explosions destroyed dozens of homes and roads.

Three hospitals were taken out of operation on Monday as Israeli forces advanced, further weakening the health system and depriving residents of medical care, local authorities said.

President Emmanuel Macron announced that France recognized Palestinian statehood at a meeting he convened with Saudi Arabia on Monday - a milestone that appeared unlikely to change much on the ground. Israel has said such moves will undermine prospects for a peaceful end to the conflict.

TWO-STATE SOLUTION

The two-state solution was the bedrock of the US-backed peace process ushered in by the 1993 Oslo Accords, but the process has all but died.

The Israeli government has declared there will be no Palestinian state as it fights the Hamas group in Gaza following the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people.

Israel has drawn global condemnation over its military conduct in Gaza, where more than 65,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to local health authorities.

Despite this, Israel has begun a ground assault on Gaza City with few prospects for a ceasefire, and wants Hamas to hand over the last hostages it seized in the 2023 attack on Israel.

Gaza City is the capital of the Gaza Strip and used to house Hamas’ most powerful battalions before the war.

"Are we now being killed as the citizens of the state of Palestine? Is that what happened?” said Abu Mustafa, hours after he fled his Gaza City home because Israeli tanks were close.

"Those countries who suddenly remembered Palestine was occupied forgot that Gaza is being wiped out. We want the war to end, we want our slaughter to end, that's what we need now, not declarations."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed the criticism of the military campaign and said the war will not stop until Hamas is eliminated. But he has not produced a plan for Gaza, much of which has been reduced to rubble, after the war ends.

TRUMP TO ADDRESS UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY

US President Donald Trump will meet leaders and officials from multiple Muslim-majority countries on Tuesday and discuss the situation in Gaza, which faces a humanitarian crisis including widespread hunger.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday Trump would hold a multilateral meeting with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Türkiye, Indonesia and Pakistan.

Axios said Trump would present the group with a proposal for peace and post-war governance in Gaza.

In February, Trump proposed a US takeover of Gaza and a permanent displacement of Palestinians from there. It was vehemently rejected by Arab countries and labelled as an "ethnic cleansing" proposal by rights experts and the UN Forcible displacement is illegal under international law.

Trump will address the UN General Assembly on Tuesday.

Mohammed Al-Bayari, a 36-year-old father of six, had little time to think about global diplomacy as he and his children pulled a cart with their meager belongings uphill in Gaza during a 14-hour search for somewhere safe for the family.

"Every 10 to 15 minutes I need to rest for half an hour," he said.

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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.