GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: The Palestinian cabinet met in Gaza on Tuesday for the first time since 2014 in a further step toward the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority (PA) retaking control of the territory.
In an opening speech, Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah renewed his pledge to end a decade-long split between the Islamist Hamas movement that controls Gaza and his West Bank-based government.
“We are here to turn the page on division, restore the national project to its correct direction and establish the (Palestinian) state,” he said.
The session took place at the official Gaza residence of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in the cabinet office, hung with portraits of Abbas and historic Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
It was the first meeting of the cabinet in Gaza since November 2014, although Hamdallah visited a year later without his ministers.
Hamas ousted the PA from Gaza after bloody street fighting in 2007, but finally agreed last month to its return, under pressure from the territory’s powerful neighbor Egypt.
A visiting Egyptian official told AFP that his country’s intelligence chief, Khaled Fawzi, was expected to meet Hamas leader Ismail Haniya in Gaza later on Thursday.
UN Middle East envoy Nickolay Mladenov said on Monday that he was “carefully optimistic” about the reconciliation talks.
“If the region stays engaged, if Egypt’s role continues and if the political parties themselves continue to show the willingness they are currently showing to work with us on this process, then it can succeed,” he told AFP.
Palestinian government meets in Gaza for first time since 2014
Palestinian government meets in Gaza for first time since 2014
US forces withdraw from Syria’s Al-Tanf base: Syrian military sources
- The Americans had been moving equipment out of Al-Tanf base for the past 15 days, one source told AFP
- Following the withdrawal from Al-Tanf, US troops are mainly now based at the Qasrak base in Hasakah
DAMASCUS: US forces have withdrawn to Jordan from Syria’s Al-Tanf base, where they had been deployed as part of the international coalition against the Daesh group, two Syrian military sources told AFP on Wednesday.
One source said “the American forces withdrew entirely from Al-Tanf base today” and decamped to another in Jordan, adding Syrian forces were being deployed to replace them.
A second source confirmed the withdrawal, adding the Americans had been moving equipment out for the past 15 days.
The second source said the US troops would “continue to coordinate with the base in Al-Tanf from Jordan.”
During the Syrian civil war and the fight against Daesh group, US forces were deployed in the country’s Kurdish-controlled northeast and at Al-Tanf, near the borders with Jordan and Iraq.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) had been a major partner of the anti-Daesh coalition, and were instrumental in the group’s territorial defeat in Syria in 2019.
However, after the fall of longtime ruler Bashar Assad over a year ago, the United States has drawn closer to the new government in Damascus, recently declaring that the need for its alliance with the Kurds had largely passed.
Syria agreed to join the anti-Daesh coalition when President Ahmed Al-Sharaa visited the White House in November.
As Al-Sharaa’s authorities seek to extend their control over all of Syria, the Kurds have come under pressure to integrate their forces and de facto autonomous administration into the state, striking an agreement to do so last month after losing territory to advancing government troops.
Since then, the US has been conducting an operation to transfer around 7,000 suspected jihadists from Syria — where many were being held in detention facilities by Kurdish fighters — to neighboring Iraq.
Following the withdrawal from Al-Tanf and the government’s advances in the northeast, US troops are mainly now based at the Qasrak base in Hasakah.
Despite Daesh’s territorial defeat, the group remains active.
It was blamed for a December attack in Palmyra in which a lone gunman opened fire on American personnel, killing two US soldiers and a US civilian.
Washington later conducted retaliatory strikes on Daesh targets in Syria.
