BEIRUT: More than 150,000 civilians have fled the city of Afrin in northern Syria since Wednesday evening to escape a Turkish-led military offensive against a Kurdish militia, a war monitor said.
"There was fierce fighting throughout the night on the northern outskirts of the city as the Turkish forces and their Syrian allies tried to break into the city," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Saturday.
Turkey and its Syrian Arab rebel allies have waged a nearly two-month offensive on the Afrin enclave, which is held by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG).
Earlier this week, they largely surrounded the enclave's sole city, which was home to some 350,000 people, including people displaced from other parts of the enclave already overrun.
A single escape route remains open to the south to territory still held by the YPG or controlled by the Damascus government.
"Civilians are fleeing through the southern corridor," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
Afrin has come under heavy air and artillery bombardment by the Turkish army.
A Turkish air strike killed 11 civilians trying to flee Afrin in northern Syria on Saturday, a monitor said, as Turkey-led forces pressed an assault on the outskirts of the Kurdish-majority city.
Ankara has repeatedly said it takes the "utmost care" to avoid civilian casualties.
More than 150,000 flee Syria’s Afrin since Wednesday evening: monitor
More than 150,000 flee Syria’s Afrin since Wednesday evening: monitor
Israel defense minister vows to stay in Gaza, establish outposts
- His remarks, reported across Israeli media, come as a fragile US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas holds in Gaza
JERUSALEM: Defense Minister Israel Katz on Tuesday vowed Israel will remain in Gaza and pledged to establish outposts in the north of the Palestinian territory, according to a video of a speech published by Israeli media.
His remarks, reported across Israeli media, come as a fragile US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas holds in Gaza.
Mediators are pressing for the implementation of the next phases of the truce, which would involve an Israeli withdrawal from the territory.
Speaking at an event in the Israeli settlement of Beit El in the occupied West Bank, Katz said: “We are deep inside Gaza, and we will never leave Gaza — there will be no such thing.”
“We are there to protect, to prevent what happened (from happening again),” he added, according to a video published by Israeli news site Ynet.
Katz also vowed to establish outposts in the north of Gaza in place of settlements that had been evacuated during Israel’s unilateral disengagement from the territory in 2005.
“When the time comes, God willing, we will establish in northern Gaza, Nahal outposts in place of the communities that were uprooted,” Katz said, referring to military-agricultural settlements set up by Israeli soldiers.
“We will do this in the right way and at the appropriate time.”
Katz’s remarks were slammed by former minister and chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, who accused the government of “acting against the broad national consensus, during a critical period for Israel’s national security.”
“While the government votes with one hand in favor of the Trump plan, with the other hand it sells fables about isolated settlement nuclei in the (Gaza) Strip,” he wrote on X, referring to the Gaza peace plan brokered by US President Donald Trump.
The next phases of Trump’s plan would involve an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the establishment of an interim authority to govern the territory in place of Hamas and the deployment of an international stabilization force.
It also envisages the demilitarization of Gaza, including the disarmament of Hamas, which the group has refused.
On Thursday, several Israelis entered the Gaza Strip in defiance of army orders and held a symbolic flag-raising ceremony to call for the reoccupation and resettlement of the Palestinian territory.
