CAIRO: Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi told Israel's new leader on Monday it was important to follow through on Egypt-backed efforts to rebuild the Gaza Strip following last month's fighting there, the Egyptian presidency said.
In his first phone call with Naftali Bennett since Bennett took office two weeks ago, Sisi stressed Egypt's support for efforts to reach a fair and permanent solution between the Palestinians and Israelis, Egypt's presidency said.
Sisi stressed the importance of supporting an Egyptian drive to help rebuild the Gaza Strip after last month's fighting between Israel and the Hamas Islamist group which controls it.
A statement from Bennett's office said the Israeli leader had thanked Egypt for its role in brokering the ceasefire that ended the fighting, and its mediation in helping find Israelis missing or captured in Gaza. The two leaders would work towards meeting soon.
Egypt and Qatar have pledged $500 million each for reconstruction in the Palestinian enclave, where two-thirds of 2 million residents rely on aid.
Israel says that can proceed only if headway is made in efforts to recover two soldiers missing in action in a 2014 Gaza war as well as two civilians who slipped separately into the enclave. Hamas rejects any link between reconstruction and finding missing persons.
The Gaza government says 2,200 homes were destroyed and 37,000 damaged by Israeli shelling during 11 days of cross-border exchanges. Israel and Egypt jointly maintain a security blockade, restricting imports and exports from Gaza.
Sisi stresses effort to rebuild Gaza in first call with Bennett
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Sisi stresses effort to rebuild Gaza in first call with Bennett
Kurds in Turkiye protest over Syria Aleppo offensive
- Several hundred people gathered in Diyarbakir while hundreds more joined a protest in Istanbul
- In the capital, Ankara, DEM lawmakers protested in front of the Turkish parliament
DIYARBAKIR, Turkiye: Protesters rallied for a second day in Turkiye’s main cities on Thursday to demand an end to a deadly Syrian army offensive against Kurdish fighters in Aleppo, an AFP correspondent said.
Several hundred people gathered in Diyarbakir, southeastern Turkiye’s main Kurdish-majority city, while hundreds more joined a protest in Istanbul that was roughly broken up by riot police who arrested around 25 people, the pro-Kurdish DEM party said.
In the capital, Ankara, DEM lawmakers protested in front of the Turkish parliament, denouncing the targeting of Kurds in Aleppo as a crime against humanity.
The protesters demanded an end to the operation by Syrian government forces against the Kurdish-led SDF force in Aleppo, where at least 21 people have been killed in three days of violent clashes.
It was the worst violence in the northwestern city since Syria’s Islamist authorities took power a year ago. The fighting erupted as both sides struggled to implement a March agreement to integrate autonomous Kurdish institutions into the new Syrian state.
In Istanbul, hundreds of protesters waving flags braved heavy rain near Galata Tower to denounce the Aleppo operation under the watchful eye of hundreds of riot police, an AFP correspondent said.
But some of the slogans drew a sharp warning from the police, who moved to roughly break up the gathering and arrested some 25 people, DEM’s Istanbul branch said.
“We condemn in the strongest terms the police attack on the Rojava solidarity action in Sishane. This brutal intervention, oppression, and violence against our young comrades is unacceptable!” the party wrote on X, demanding the immediate release of those arrested.
At the Diyarbakir protest during the afternoon, protesters carried a huge portrait of the jailed PKK militant leader Abdullah Ocalan, an AFP video journalist reported.
“We urge states to act as they did for the Palestinian people, for our Kurdish brothers who are suffering oppression and hardship,” Zeki Alacabey, 64, told AFP in Diyarbakir.
Although Turkiye has embarked on a peace process with the PKK, it remains hostile to the SDF, which controls swathes of northeastern Syria, seeing it as an extension of the banned militant group and a major threat along its southern border.
It has repeatedly demanded that the SDF merge into the main Syrian military. A defense ministry official said on Thursday that Ankara was ready to “support” Syria’s operation against the Kurdish fighters if needed.
Demonstrators had already taken to the streets in several major Turkish cities with Kurdish majorities on Wednesday, including Diyarbakir and Van, according to images broadcast by the DEM.
