A wounded Palestinian woman is taken to Al Aqsa Hospital following an Israeli airstrike on the Al Bureij refugee camp, Deir Al Balah town, central Gaza Strip, 4 January. (Photo: Mohammed Saber / EPA-EFE) 
US President Joe Biden’s administration has notified Congress of a proposed $8-billion arms sale to Israel, said two US officials, with Washington maintaining support for its ally whose war in Gaza has killed tens of thousands.
Syria’s new Islamist rulers said on Sunday that US sanctions on Syria were an obstacle to the war-torn country’s rapid recovery and urged Washington to lift them during a visit by Syrian officials to Qatar.
Israeli airstrikes kill 14 in Gaza, while mediators strive for truce deal
Israeli airstrikes killed at least 14 Palestinians in three separate attacks in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, taking the weekend death toll to 102, said Palestinian medics, as US and Arab mediators stepped up efforts to conclude a ceasefire deal.
Health officials said an Israeli airstrike killed five people in a house in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, while another airstrike killed four others in Jabalia on the northern edge of the enclave, where Israeli forces have been operating for three months.
Later on Sunday, an Israeli airstrike hit a police station in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, killing five people, said medics. It wasn’t immediately clear if all the dead were policemen.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on Sunday’s strikes.
Earlier on Sunday, the health ministry of Hamas-run Gaza said Israeli strikes across the territory had killed at least 88 Palestinians and wounded more than 200 others in the past 24 hours.
In Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, relatives and neighbours rushed to the Zuhd family’s house, which was struck by an Israeli airstrike late on Saturday, killing seven people, said medics. The search continued on Sunday morning for four others believed to be trapped under the rubble.
“Three young men, the son’s wife, and three children are still here. We retrieved this cousin of mine. Another cousin has been martyred and is now in the hospital. Approximately 11 people have been martyred here,” Ammar Zuhd, a relative, told Reuters.
The Israeli military said in a statement on Sunday that its forces had attacked more than 100 targets across Gaza over the weekend, killing dozens of Hamas militants. It said it had also destroyed rocket launching sites that had been used to wage rocket attacks on Israel in recent days.
A renewed push is under way to reach a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas, and return Israeli hostages who were taken to Gaza, before US President-elect Donald Trump takes office on 20 January.
Israeli negotiators were dispatched on Friday to resume talks in Doha brokered by Qatari and Egyptian mediators, while US President Joe Biden’s administration, which is helping to mediate, urged Hamas to agree to a deal.
Hamas said it was committed to reaching an agreement as soon as possible, but it was unclear how close the two sides were.
Israel launched its assault on Gaza in response to the 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas militants on communities in southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s military campaign, with the stated goal of eradicating Hamas, has levelled swathes of the enclave, driving most people from their homes, and has killed 45,805 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry.
US plans $8bn arms sale to Israel
Biden’s administration has notified Congress of a proposed $8-billion arms sale to Israel, said two US officials, with Washington maintaining support for its ally whose war in Gaza has killed tens of thousands.
The deal would need approval from House of Representatives and Senate committees and includes munitions for fighter jets and attack helicopters as well as artillery shells. The package also includes small-diameter bombs and warheads, according to the sources.
One source familiar with the package said Biden had been clear that Israel had a right to defend its citizens “consistent with international law and international humanitarian law” and that the US would continue to provide the capabilities necessary for Israel’s defence.
Some of the munitions deliveries could be furnished through current US stock, while the majority would take up to several years to deliver, said the source.
The package includes AIM-120C-8 air-to-air missiles to defend against drones and other airborne threats, 155mm artillery shells, Hellfire AGM-114 missiles and $6.75-billion in other bombs and guidance systems, said one of the US officials.
Protesters have for months demanded an arms embargo against Israel, but US policy has largely remained unchanged. In August, the US approved the sale of $20-billion in fighter jets and other military equipment to Israel.
The Biden administration says it is helping its ally defend against Iran-backed militant groups like Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.
Facing international criticism, Washington has stood by Israel during its assault on Gaza that has displaced nearly all of Gaza’s 2.3 million population, caused a hunger crisis and led to genocide accusations that Israel denies.
Syria’s new Islamist rulers urge US to lift sanctions
Syria’s new Islamist rulers said on Sunday that US sanctions on Syria were an obstacle to the war-torn country’s rapid recovery and urged Washington to lift them during a visit by Syrian officials to Qatar.
“These sanctions constitute a barrier and an obstacle to the rapid recovery and development of the Syrian people who await services and partnerships from other countries,” Syria’s foreign minister, Asaad Hassan al-Shibani, told reporters after meeting with Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, who also serves as foreign minister.
“We reiterate our calls for the United States to lift these sanctions, which have now become against the Syrian people rather than what they previously were: imposed sanctions on the Assad regime,” he said.
Shibani, on his second foreign trip less than a month after former President Bashar al-Assad was ousted by rebels on 8 December, said that Qatar would be a partner in the new phase in Syria.
Doha had not normalised ties with Assad over his government’s violent response to 2011 protests and backed the Syrian opposition instead.
Shibani, who was joined by Syrian Defence Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra and Head of Intelligence Anas Khattab, met with other senior Qatari officials including Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Mohammed Al-Khulaifi.
Shibani presented the Qataris a clear roadmap for the near future in Syria and steps that would be taken by the new Syrian administration, Al-Khulaifi told reporters after the meeting.
“We are working together to prevent any foreign interference in Syrian affairs,” added Al-Khulaifi.
Shibani said the roadmap was meant to “rebuild our country, restore its Arab and foreign relations, enable the Syrian people to obtain their civil and basic rights and present a government that the Syrian people feel represents them and all their components.”
Palestinian killed by Israeli forces in West Bank
A Palestinian man was shot dead by Israeli forces during a raid in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, said the Palestinian Fatah party in a statement.
The Israeli military said its forces eliminated an armed militant and “confiscated four weapons, thousands of shekels in terrorist funds, and dismantled an explosives manufacturing laboratory”.
Palestinian media said Israeli forces opened fire on the home of a 37-year-old man in a town south of the West Bank city of Jenin. The body was being held by Israel, said the report.
Jenin, in the northern West Bank, has been a centre for Palestinian militant groups for decades and armed factions have resisted repeated attempts to dislodge them by the Israeli military.
Hundreds of Palestinians and dozens of Israelis have been killed in the West Bank since the 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas militants on southern Israel triggered the war in Gaza and a wider conflict on several fronts.
Israel defends Gaza hospital raid, UN rights chief says explanation is vague
Israel on Friday defended its raid on a north Gaza hospital last week while the UN human rights chief called the justification unsubstantiated and the World Health Organization urged Israel to release the hospital’s director from detention.
Israel’s UN ambassador in Geneva, Daniel Meron, posted on social media a letter he sent on Friday to the WHO and Volker Turk, the UN human rights official. It said the raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital a week ago was “triggered by irrefutable evidence” that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants were using the hospital.
He said Israeli forces had taken “extraordinary measures to protect civilian life while acting on credible intelligence”.
Turk told the UN Security Council on Friday that Israel did not “substantiate many of these claims, which are often vague and broad. In some cases, they appear to be contradicted by publicly available information.
“I am calling for independent, thorough and transparent investigations into all Israeli attacks on hospitals, healthcare infrastructure and medical personnel, as well as the alleged misuse of such facilities.”
Israel’s deputy UN ambassador, Jonathan Miller, said more than “240 terrorists were apprehended, including 15 who participated in the 7 October massacre” in southern Israel in 2023. The hospital’s director, Hussam Abu Safiya, was also detained in the raid.
“We suspect him of being a Hamas operative as hundreds of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists were hiding inside the Kamal Adwan Hospital under his management. He is currently being investigated by Israeli security forces,” said Miller.
The WHO is deeply concerned about Abu Safiya, said WHO representative Richard Peeperkorn, adding: “We have lost contact with him since and call for his immediate release.”
Syria restricts entry of Lebanese via joint border
Syria’s new administration has imposed restrictions on Lebanese crossing their shared border into Syria, said a Lebanese security official and a Syrian official on Friday.
The restrictions, which come as Lebanon is seeking better ties with its neighbour under the new rulers, mean Lebanese who do not have a residency or family inside Syria will not be able to cross, said the Lebanese security official, though he noted that some exceptions were being made for those with other business inside Syria.
The Lebanese official described the measures as “temporary” and said they were the result of a dispute between the two sides over the apparent mistreatment by Lebanese authorities of Syrians entering or leaving Lebanon.
Lebanon’s interior minister, who oversees border crossings, could not be reached for comment.
The Lebanese army separately said that five soldiers were wounded in clashes that broke out between soldiers and unidentified Syrians as the army tried to shut down an illegal border crossing near Baalbeck in Lebanon’s northeast.
There are thought to be dozens of informal crossings along the porous, rugged 370km border between the two countries.
Lebanon has said it is looking forward to having the best neighbourly relations with Syria after rebels forced Assad from power, opening a new chapter after ties that have often been fraught since the two countries became independent states in the 1940s.
The Iran-backed Lebanese Shi’ite Islamist group Hezbollah played a major part in propping up Assad during Syria’s civil war, fighting the Sunni Islamist insurgents who finally toppled him last month and appointed the new Damascus administration.
Before that, the Syrian state led by the Assad dynasty dominated Lebanon for 15 years after the end of the Lebanese 1975-90 civil war, effectively controlling Lebanese politics until 2005 — an influence many Lebanese opposed, though others supported Syria’s role.
The assassination of Lebanese former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri in Beirut in 2005 prompted mass protests in Lebanon and Western pressure that forced Syria’s withdrawal from its neighbour.
An initial international probe implicated senior Syrian and Lebanese figures in the killing.
While Syria denied involvement, former Syrian Vice-President Abdel-Halim Khaddam said Assad had threatened Hariri months earlier — an accusation Assad denied.
Fifteen years later, a UN-backed court convicted three Hezbollah members in absentia over the assassination. Hezbollah denies any role. DM
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