ISTANBUL: Turkey has ramped up its rhetoric to threaten an imminent cross-border incursion against Kurdish militia in Syria but the attitude of Russia and to a lesser extent the US will determine the nature of the operation, analysts say.
The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia controls key northern Syrian towns including Manbij and Afrin, and is an ally of the US but Ankara accuses the group of being a terror organization.
Tensions have risen to a new peak in the last days after the US announced plans for a new 30,000-strong border security force in northern Syria that would be composed partly of YPG fighters.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to destroy the force, describing it as an “army of terror.”
“The preparations have been completed, the operation could start at any moment,” Erdogan said this week, as the Turkish army sent dozens of military vehicles and hundreds of additional personnel to the border area.
Yet executing the operation on the ground — especially against a well-populated urban center such as Afrin — could prove much harder than making threats in fiery language.
Crucial will be the attitude of Russia, which has worked increasingly closely with Turkey on Syria in the last year but has a military presence in the area where it cooperates with the YPG.
“Can Ankara dare to attack Afrin without getting a green light from Russia? It’s a sure ‘no’ for me,” said Metin Gurcan, security analyst at Istanbul Policy Center and Al Monitor columnist.
He said that despite the increasingly inflammatory language from Erdogan, a full operation would require that Russia open Afrin’s air space to Turkey and withdraw its soldiers from the area.
Tensions between Moscow and Ankara have grown in the last days as Russia seeks wide attendance at a peace conference on Syria at the end of the month. But Turkey insists it will not attend if the YPG is there.
In a potentially decisive meeting, Turkey’s Army Chief Gen. Hulusi Akar and spy supremo Hakan Fidan held talks in Moscow on Thursday with Russian counterparts on Syria.
“The only external power that can stop an invasion at this point is Russia,” said Aaron Stein, resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center.
He said Erdogan had threatened incursions inside Syria “once a week, every week” for the past year since the Euphrates Shield incursion Turkey launched in August 2016, which ended the following spring.
“What makes this different is that the rhetoric is far more specific, pointed and hostile toward the US. I assume that he will carry out his threat, but the scale of the operation is still an unanswered question,” he said.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu insisted Thursday that Russia would not oppose an Afrin operation, saying that Ankara needed to coordinate with Moscow to ensure its military observers on the ground were not harmed.
Aaron Lund, a fellow with The Century Foundation, said that “it would be hard for Erdogan to back down at this point” following such “loud and persistent” threats.
He said if the operation turned into full-out combat, much of the actual fighting would be done by Turkey-backed Syrian rebel forces like in the Euphrates Shield operation.
But he added that Afrin has tough terrain and was well fortified while the “YPG is a disciplined and effective force.”
Moreover, any Turkish intervention may not find the warmest of receptions in Washington, which has closely cooperated with the YPG as its main ally on the ground in the fight against the Islamic State extremist group.
Yet Afrin — which lies to the west of the main Kurdish zone of influence in Syria — may not be a prime concern of Washington which is more interested in the Kurdish-controlled areas stretching east to the Iraqi border.
“As far as I can tell, the Americans do not view Afrin as being their problem,” said Lund, saying the American military was in Syria on a “fairly narrow counter-terrorism mandate.”
“That said, they must be worried that this could create trouble for them” especially if Turkey fired on YPG-controlled areas to the east with a US presence, he said.
Stein said there was a “recognition in Washington that this is a Turkish show” and “little to be done to dissuade Erdogan” if he chooses to go ahead with the incursion.
Turkey faces diplomatic minefield over new Syria operation
Turkey faces diplomatic minefield over new Syria operation
UN atomic watchdog chief due in Iran as concern grows over nuclear activity
- Visit comes at a time of heightened regional tensions and with IAEA criticizing Iran for lack of cooperation on inspections and other outstanding issues
TEHRAN: UN atomic watchdog chief Rafael Grossi is set to arrive in Iran on Monday, where he is expected to speak at a conference and meet officials for talks on Tehran’s nuclear program.
The visit comes at a time of heightened regional tensions and with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) criticizing Iran for lack of cooperation on inspections and other outstanding issues.
Grossi, head of the IAEA, is expected to deliver a speech at Iran’s first International Conference on Nuclear Science and Technology.
The three-day event, which starts on Monday, is being held in Isfahan province, home to the Natanz uranium enrichment plant and where strikes attributed to Israel hit last month.
The IAEA and Iranian officials reported “no damage” to nuclear facilities after the reported attack on Isfahan, widely seen as Israel’s response to Iran’s first-ever direct attack on its arch foe days earlier, which itself was a retaliation for a deadly strike on Tehran’s Damascus consulate.
During his visit, Grossi is expected to meet with Iranian officials including the Islamic republic’s nuclear chief Mohammad Eslami.
On Wednesday Eslami, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said he was “sure that these negotiations will further help clear ambiguities, and we will be able to strengthen our relations with the agency.”
Iran in recent years has deactivated IAEA monitoring devices at nuclear facilities and barred inspectors, according to the UN agency.
Grossi last visited Iran in March 2023 and met with top officials including President Ebrahim Raisi.
Iran has suspended its compliance with caps on nuclear activities set by a landmark 2015 deal with major powers after the United States in 2018 unilaterally withdrew from the agreement and reimposed sweeping sanctions.
Tensions between Iran and the IAEA have repeatedly flared since the deal fell apart, while EU-mediated efforts have so far failed both to bring Washington back on board and to get Tehran to again comply with the terms of the accord.
Last year, Iran slowed down the pace of its uranium enrichment, which was seen as a goodwill gesture while informal talks began with the United States.
But the Vienna-based UN nuclear agency said Iran accelerated the production of 60-percent enriched uranium in late 2023.
Enrichment levels of around 90 percent are required for military use.
Tehran has consistently denied any ambition to develop nuclear weapons, insisting that its atomic activities were entirely peaceful.
In February, the IAEA said in a confidential report seen by AFP that Iran’s estimated stockpile of enriched uranium had reached 27 times the limit set out in the 2015 accord.
On Sunday, the Iranian official news agency IRNA said Grossi’s visit provides “an opportunity for the two sides to share their concerns,” especially with regard to the IAEA’s inspectors.
Iran in September withdrew the accreditation of several inspectors, a move described at the time by the UN agency as “extreme and unjustified.”
Tehran, however, said its decision was a consequence of “political abuses” by the United States, France, Germany and Britain.
Eslami said the IAEA has “more than 130 inspectors” working in Iran, insisting Tehran remains committed to cooperating with the nuclear watchdog.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah says fired dozens of rockets at Israeli base
- The Israeli army said its warplanes “struck a Hezbollah military structure... deep inside Lebanon,”
The Iran-backed Hezbollah group said it fired “dozens of Katyusha rockets” at an Israeli base in the occupied Golan Heights on Monday in retaliation for a strike in Lebanon’s east.
Earlier, Lebanese official media said three people had been wounded in an Israeli strike early Monday in the country’s east, with the Israeli army saying it had struck a Hezbollah “military compound.”
Hezbollah fighters launched “dozens of Katyusha rockets” targeting “the headquarters of the Golan Division... at Nafah base,” the group said in a statement, saying it was “in response to the enemy’s attack targeting the Bekaa region.”
Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah have exchanged regular cross-border fire since Palestinian militant group Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on southern Israel sparked war in the Gaza Strip.
In recent weeks Hamas-ally Hezbollah has stepped up its attacks on northern Israel, and the Israeli military has struck deeper into Lebanese territory.
“Enemy warplanes launched a strike at around 1:30 am this morning on a factory in Sifri, wounding three civilians and destroying the building,” Lebanon’s official National News Agency said.
Sifri is located in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, near the city of Baalbek, around 80 kilometers from the Israel-Lebanon frontier.
The Israeli army said its warplanes “struck a Hezbollah military structure... deep inside Lebanon,” referring to the location as “Safri.”
Last month, a building in Sifri was targeted in an Israeli raid, according to a source close to Hezbollah, while the Israeli army said it had targeted Hezbollah sites in Lebanon’s east.
East Lebanon’s Baalbek area is a Hezbollah stronghold and has been repeatedly struck by Israel in recent weeks.
On Sunday official media in Lebanon said an Israeli strike on a southern village killed four family members, with Hezbollah announcing retaliatory fire by dozens of rockets toward Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel.
The intensifying exchanges have stoked fears of all-out conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which went to war in 2006.
In Lebanon, at least 390 people have been killed in nearly seven months of cross-border violence, mostly militants but also more than 70 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
Israel says 11 soldiers and nine civilians have been killed on its side of the border.
Tens of thousands of people have been displaced on both sides.
Israel attacks Rafah after Hamas claims responsibility for deadly rocket attack
- Hamas claims attack on Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza that Israel says killed three soldiers
- Sunday's attack on the crossing came as hopes dimmed for ceasefire talks underway in Cairo
CAIRO: Three Israeli soldiers were killed in a rocket attack claimed by Hamas armed wing, near the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, where Palestinian health officials said at least 19 people were killed by Israeli fire on Sunday.
Hamas's armed wing claimed responsibility on Sunday for an attack on the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza that Israel said killed three of its soldiers.
Israel's military said 10 projectiles were launched from Rafah in southern Gaza towards the area of the crossing, which it said was now closed to aid trucks going into the coastal enclave. Other crossings remained open.
Hamas' armed wing said it fired rockets at an Israeli army base by the crossing, but did not confirm where it fired them from. Hamas media quoted a source close to the group as saying the commercial crossing was not the target.
More than a million Palestinians are sheltering in Rafah, near the border with Egypt.
Shortly after the Hamas attack, an Israeli airstrike hit a house in Rafah killing three people and wounding several others, Palestinian medics said.
The Israeli military confirmed the counter-strike, saying it struck the launcher from which the Hamas projectiles were fired, as well as a nearby "military structure".
"The launches carried out by Hamas adjacent to the Rafah Crossing ... are a clear example of the terrorist organisation's systematic exploitation of humanitarian facilities and spaces, and their continued use of the Gazan civilian population as human shields," it said.
Hamas denies it uses civilians as human shields.
Just before midnight, an Israeli air strike killed nine Palestinians, including a baby, in another house in Rafah, Gaza health officials said. They said the new strike increased the death toll on Sunday to at least 19 people.
Israel has vowed to enter the southern Gaza city and flush out Hamas forces there, but has faced mounting pressure to hold fire as the operation could derail fragile humanitarian efforts in Gaza and endanger many more lives.
Sunday's attack on the crossing came as hopes dimmed for ceasefire talks under way in Cairo.
The war began after Hamas stunned Israel with a cross-border raid on Oct. 7 in which 1,200 people were killed and 252 hostages taken, according to Israeli tallies.
More than 34,600 Palestinians have been killed, 29 of them in the past 24 hours, and more than 77,000 have been wounded in Israel's assault, according to Gaza's health ministry.
Israel begins evacuating part of Rafah, Hamas decries ‘dangerous escalation’
- Witnesses say the areas in and around Rafah to which Israel wants to move people are already crowded and there is almost no room for more tents to be added
RAFAH, Gaza Strip: Israel told Palestinians to evacuate parts of Rafah on Monday in what appeared to be preparation for a long-threatened assault on Hamas holdouts in the southern Gaza Strip city where more than a million war-displaced people have been sheltering.
Instructed by Arabic text messages, telephone calls, and flyers to move to what the Israeli military called an “expanded humanitarian zone” 20km away, some Palestinian families lumbered out under chilly spring rain, witnesses said.
A senior official of Hamas, the militant Palestinian group that governs Gaza, said the evacuation order was a “dangerous escalation that will have consequences.”
“The US administration, alongside the occupation, bears responsibility for this terrorism,” the official, Sami Abu Zuhri, said, referring to Israel’s alliance with Washington.
Israel’s military said it had begun encouraging residents of Rafah to evacuate in a “limited scope” operation. It gave no specific reasons, nor did it say if any offensive action might follow.
“It has been raining heavily and we don’t know where to go. I have been worried that this day may come, I have now to see where I can take my family,” one refugee in Rafah, Abu Raed, said via a chat app.
Witnesses said the areas in and around Rafah to which Israel wants to move people are already crowded and there is almost no room for more tents to be added.
An Israeli offensive in Rafah “would be devastating for 1.4 million people” sheltering there, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said on X, adding it would keep a presence in Rafah as long as possible to provide aid.
Seven months into its war against Hamas, Israel has been threatening to launch incursions in Rafah, which it says harbors thousands of Hamas fighters and potentially dozens of hostages. Victory is impossible without taking Rafah, it says.
The prospect of a high-casualty operation worries Western powers and neighboring Egypt, which is trying to mediate a new round of truce talks between Israel and Hamas under which the Palestinian Islamist group might free some hostages.
RIFT
The Rafah plan has opened an unusually public rift between Israel and Washington. Speaking to his UScounterpart, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant linked Monday’s operation to the deadlock in indirect diplomacy, which he blamed on Hamas.
“During their discussion, Gallant discussed the efforts undertaken to achieve the release of hostages and indicated that at this stage, Hamas refuses the frameworks at hand,” the Israeli Defense Ministry said in a statement.
“Gallant emphasized that military action is required, including in the area of Rafah, at the lack of an alternative,” it added
An Israeli broadcaster, Army Radio, said evacuations were focused on a few peripheral districts of Rafah, from which evacuees would be directed to tent cities in nearby Khan Younis and Al Muwassi.
Many residents in Rafah said they had received telephone calls to evacuate their homes in the targeted area, in line with the army announcement.
In an overnight aerial attack on Rafah, Israeli planes hit 10 houses, killing 20 people and wounding several, medical officials said.
Three Israeli soldiers were killed on Sunday in a Hamas rocket attack near Rafah, at the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza, while Palestinian health officials said at least 19 people were killed by Israeli fire.
Sunday’s crossing attack came as hopes dimmed for ceasefire talks in Cairo, with Hamas reiterating its demand for an end to the war in exchange for the freeing of hostages, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flatly ruling that out.
“Our just war in Gaza continues with the exact same goals: the release of all hostages and the defeat of Hamas,” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on Monday on X, blaming the Palestinian group for the lack of progress in the Cairo talks.
The war began after Hamas stunned Israel with a cross-border raid on Oct. 7 in which 1,200 people were killed and 252 hostages taken, according to Israeli tallies.
More than 34,600 Palestinians have been killed, 29 of them in the past 24 hours, and more than 77,000 have been wounded in Israel’s assault, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
On Sunday, a top UN official accused Israel of continuing to deny the United Nations humanitarian access in the Gaza Strip, where the UN food chief warned a “full-blown famine” has taken hold in the north of the enclave of 2.3 million people.
While not a formal declaration, World Food Programme Executive Director Cindy McCain said, in an NBC News interview broadcast on Sunday, that based on the “horror” on the ground: “There is famine, full-blown famine, in the north, and it’s moving its way south.”
Netanyahu uses Holocaust ceremony to brush off international pressure against Gaza offensive
- The ceremony ushered in Israel’s first Holocaust remembrance day since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that sparked the war, imbuing the already somber day with additional meaning
JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday rejected international pressure to halt the war in Gaza in a fiery speech marking the country’s annual Holocaust memorial day, declaring: “If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone.”
The message, delivered in a setting that typically avoids politics, was aimed at the growing chorus of world leaders who have criticized the heavy toll caused by Israel’s military offensive against Hamas militants and have urged the sides to agree to a ceasefire.
Netanyahu has said he is open to a deal that would pause nearly seven months of fighting and bring home hostages held by Hamas. But he also says he remains committed to an invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, despite widespread international opposition because of the more than 1 million civilians huddled there.
“I say to the leaders of the world: No amount of pressure, no decision by any international forum will stop Israel from defending itself,” he said, speaking in English. “Never again is now.”
Yom Hashoah, the day Israel observes as a memorial for the 6 million Jews killed by Nazi Germany and its allies in the Holocaust, is one of the most solemn dates on the country’s calendar. Speeches at the ceremony generally avoid politics, though Netanyahu in recent years has used the occasion to lash out at Israel’s archenemy Iran.
The ceremony ushered in Israel’s first Holocaust remembrance day since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that sparked the war, imbuing the already somber day with additional meaning.
Hamas militants killed some 1,200 people in the attack, making it the deadliest violence against Jews since the Holocaust.
Israel responded with an air and ground offensive in Gaza, where the death toll has soared to more than 34,500 people, according to local health officials, and about 80 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are displaced. The death and destruction has prompted South Africa to file a genocide case against Israel in the UN’s world court. Israel strongly rejects the charges.
On Sunday, Netanyahu attacked those accusing Israel of carrying out a genocide against the Palestinians, claiming that Israel was doing everything possible to ensure the entry of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.
The 24-hour memorial period began after sundown on Sunday with a ceremony at Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust memorial, in Jerusalem.
There are approximately 245,000 living Holocaust survivors around the world, according to the Claims Conference, an organization that negotiates for material compensation for Holocaust survivors. Approximately half of the survivors live in Israel.
On Sunday, Tel Aviv University and the Anti-Defamation League released an annual Antisemitism Worldwide Report for 2023, which found a sharp increase in antisemitic attacks globally.
It said the number of antisemitic incidents in the United States doubled, from 3,697 in 2022 to 7,523 in 2023.
While most of these incidents occurred after the war erupted in October, the number of antisemitic incidents, which include vandalism, harassment, assault, and bomb threats, from January to September was already significantly higher than the previous year.
The report found an average of three bomb threats per day at synagogues and Jewish institutions in the US, more than 10 times the number in 2022.
Other countries tracked similar rises in antisemitic incidents. In France, the number nearly quadrupled, from 436 in 2022 to 1,676 in 2023, while it more than doubled in the United Kingdom and Canada.
“In the aftermath of the October 7 war crimes committed by Hamas, the world has seen the worst wave of antisemitic incidents since the end of the Second World War,” the report stated.
Netanyahu also compared the recent wave of protests on American campuses to German universities in the 1930s, in the runup to the Holocaust. He condemned the “explosion of a volcano of antisemitism spitting out boiling lava of lies against us around the world.”
Nearly 2,500 students have been arrested in a wave of protests at US college campuses, while there have been smaller protests in other countries, including France. Protesters reject antisemitism accusations and say they are criticizing Israel. Campuses and the federal government are struggling to define exactly where political speech crosses into antisemitism.
