Qatar PM says Gaza truce, hostage release deal agreed

1 / 2
Palestinians react to news on a ceasefire deal with Israel, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, January 15, 2025. (Reuters)
2 / 2
A man waves Palestinian flags as Palestinians react to news on a ceasefire deal with Israel, in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, January 15, 2025. (Reuters)
Short Url
Updated 16 January 2025
Follow

Qatar PM says Gaza truce, hostage release deal agreed

  • “I can’t believe that this nightmare of more than a year is finally coming to an end. We have lost so many people, we’ve lost everything,” said a 45-year-old Gazan

DOHA: Qatar’s prime minister announced that Israel and Hamas had agreed Wednesday to a ceasefire and the release of hostages held in Gaza, adding he hoped the deal would pave the way for a permanent end to the fighting.
After mediators earlier said a deal had been reached, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cautioned that some issues in the framework remained “unresolved,” though it hoped the “details will be finalized tonight.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who holds a largely ceremonial role, said the deal was the “right move” to bring back hostages seized during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack that sparked the war.
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani told a press conference that the ceasefire would take effect on Sunday.
“The two belligerents in the Gaza Strip have reached a deal on the prisoner and the hostage swap, and (the mediators) announce a ceasefire in the hopes of reaching a permanent ceasefire between the two sides,” he said.

The first phase of the deal would see Hamas release 33 captives, he added, “including civilian women and female recruits, as well as children (and) elderly people... in return for a number of prisoners who are being held in Israeli prisons.”
Demonstrators in Tel Aviv calling for the release of the hostages embraced as news of the agreement spread, while thousands across Gaza celebrated the deal to halt the hostilities that have devastated much of the Palestinian territory.
“I can’t believe that this nightmare of more than a year is finally coming to an end. We have lost so many people, we’ve lost everything,” said Randa Sameeh, a 45-year-old displaced from Gaza City to the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.
Hamas said the ceasefire was the “result of the legendary steadfastness of our great Palestinian people and our valiant resistance in the Gaza Strip for over 15 months.”
Pressure to put an end to the fighting had ratcheted up in recent days, as mediators Qatar, Egypt and the United States intensified efforts to cement an agreement.
On Wednesday, Qatar’s Sheikh Mohammed said the three countries would monitor the implementation of the ceasefire via a body based in Cairo.
US President Joe Biden said he was “thrilled” at the development, adding the deal would “halt the fighting in Gaza, surge much needed humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians, and reunite the hostages with their families.”

The agreement came after months of failed bids to end the deadliest war in Gaza’s history, and days ahead of the inauguration of Biden’s successor Donald Trump, who hailed the deal even before it was officially announced by the White House.
Trump had warned Hamas of “hell to pay” if it did not free the remaining captives before he took office, and envoys from both his incoming administration and Biden’s outgoing one had been present at the latest negotiations.
“This EPIC ceasefire agreement could have only happened as a result of our Historic Victory in November,” Trump said on social media.
The president-elect added that his White House would “continue to work closely with Israel and our Allies to make sure Gaza NEVER again becomes a terrorist safe haven.”
Hamas sparked the war in Gaza by staging the deadliest-ever attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, resulting in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Palestinian militants also took 251 people hostage during the attack, 94 of whom are still being held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign in Gaza has killed 46,707 people, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the UN considers reliable.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi pointed to the “importance of accelerating the entry of urgent humanitarian aid” into Gaza, as he welcomed news of the deal.
Egypt’s state-linked Al-Qahera news outlet cited a security source as saying coordination was “underway” to reopen the Rafah crossing on Gaza’s border with Egypt to allow the entry of international aid.
The state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper also reported that talks were underway to open the crossing.
Among the sticking points in successive rounds of talks had been disagreements over the permanence of any ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli troops and the scale of humanitarian aid for the Palestinian territory.
The UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, facing an Israeli ban on its activities set to take effect later this month, said it will continue providing much-needed aid.
Netanyahu, who vowed to crush Hamas in retaliation for the October 7 attack, has opposed any post-war role for the militant group in the territory.


Gaza rescuers say Israeli air strikes kill 25

Updated 8 sec ago
Follow

Gaza rescuers say Israeli air strikes kill 25

  • The overall death toll in the Gaza war has reached 51,201
  • Israel resumed its aerial and ground assault on Gaza on March 18
GAZA:: Gaza’s civil defense agency reported that Israeli air strikes since dawn on Sunday have killed at least 25 people across the Gaza Strip, including women and children.
Israel resumed its aerial and ground assault on Gaza on March 18, reigniting fighting after a two-month ceasefire that had paused more than 15 months of war in the coastal territory.
“Since dawn today, the occupation’s air strikes have killed 20 people and injured dozens more, including children and women across the Gaza Strip,” Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for the civil defense agency told AFP.
In a separate statement later, the agency reported that five people were killed in an Israeli drone strike on a group of civilians in eastern Rafah.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday vowed to continue the war and bring home the remaining hostages held in Gaza without yielding to Hamas’s demands.
“We are at a critical stage of the campaign, and at this point, we need patience and determination to win,” Netanyahu said in a statement, rejecting calls from the militants to end the war and withdraw troops from Gaza.
Since Israel resumed its offensive last month, at least 1,827 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
The overall death toll in the Gaza war has reached 51,201, the majority of them civilians, according to the ministry, figures the UN considers reliable.
The war broke out after Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel in October 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
During that attack, Palestinian militants abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still held hostage in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.

Syrian Airlines announces resumption of direct flights to the UAE

Workers give maintenance to a Syrian Arab Airlines Airbus A320-200 aircraft at Damascus international airport (AFP)
Updated 9 min 46 sec ago
Follow

Syrian Airlines announces resumption of direct flights to the UAE

  • Syrian Airlines said that it is working to expand its network as quickly as possible

DUBAI: Syrian Airlines on Sunday officially announced the resumption of direct flights between Syria and the UAE, the Syrian Arab News Agency reported.

The initial phase will include exceptional flights to Dubai and Sharjah.

According to a statement on the airline’s official Facebook page, four weekly flights will operate between Damascus and Dubai on Saturdays, Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, with plans to expand to daily services soon.

Flights to Sharjah will run on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays, with efforts underway to increase them to daily flights.

Damascus-Abu Dhabi routes will operate on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Syrian Airlines said that it is working to expand its network as quickly as possible, pending the necessary approvals from relevant authorities.

Travelers are encouraged to contact the airline’s offices inside or outside Syria for more information.


Yemen’s Houthis say two killed in US stikes on Sanaa area

Updated 38 min 8 sec ago
Follow

Yemen’s Houthis say two killed in US stikes on Sanaa area

  • The Iran-backed group reported two deaths and 11 injured in the “US aggression on Sanaa”

SANAA: At least two people were killed in overnight US strikes in and around Yemen’s capital Sanaa, media controlled by the Houthi militants reported Sunday, in the latest such air raid.
The Iran-backed group’s Al-Masirah channel, citing the militants’ health ministry, reported two deaths and 11 injured in the “US aggression on Sanaa, the capital, and the governorate.”
The channel earlier said one person was killed in an air strike on the governorate’s Bani Matar area, where a deadly US raid was reported a week ago.
Beyond Sanaa, the Houthis said Sunday that air strikes also hit Yemen’s Marib and Amran provinces.
Earlier this week, the group said that US strikes on the fuel port of Ras Issa killed at least 80 people and wounded 150 in the deadliest attack of Washington’s 15-month campaign against the Houthis.
The US military has hammered the Yemeni Houthis with near-daily air strikes for the past month in a bid to stamp out their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
Claiming solidarity with Palestinians, the rebels began attacking the key maritime route and Israeli territory after the Gaza war began in October 2023.
The US strikes began in January 2024 but have multiplied under President Donald Trump, starting with an offensive that killed 53 people on March 15.
Houthi attacks on the Red Sea shipping route, which normally carries about 12 percent of global trade, have forced many companies into costly detours around the tip of southern Africa.


Lebanese authorities detain people they say were planning rockets attacks on Israel

Updated 46 min 18 sec ago
Follow

Lebanese authorities detain people they say were planning rockets attacks on Israel

  • The army said it “detained several people who were involved in the operation.”
  • The arrests are linked to other detentions announced earlier this week, it added

BEIRUT: Lebanese authorities have detained several people who they say were planning to launch rockets into Israel and confiscated the weapons they were intending to use, the military said Sunday.
The army said in a statement that the arrests are linked to other detentions announced earlier this week. It added that as military intelligence was investigating that case they got information that a new rocket attack was being planned.
The army said troops raided an apartment near the southern port city of Sidon and confiscated some of the rockets and the launchers and “detained several people who were involved in the operation.” it said the detainees were referred to judicial authorities.
On Wednesday, the army said in a statement that authorities detained several people, including a number of Palestinians, who were involved in firing rockets in two separate attacks toward Israel in late March that triggered intense Israeli airstrikes on parts of Lebanon. Lebanon’s Hezbollah group denied at the time that it was behind the firing of rockets.
Also Sunday, an Israeli drone strike on the southern Lebanese village of Kawthariet Al-Siyad killed one person, the state-run National News Agency said.


'I thought I'd died.' How land mines are continuing to claim lives in post-Assad Syria

Updated 20 April 2025
Follow

'I thought I'd died.' How land mines are continuing to claim lives in post-Assad Syria

  • Contamination from land mines and explosive remnants has killed at least 249 people, including 60 children, and injured another 379 since Dec. 8
  • Farming remains the main source of income for residents in rural Idlib, making the presence of mines a daily hazard

IDLIB: Suleiman Khalil was harvesting olives in a Syrian orchard with two friends four months ago, unaware the soil beneath them still hid deadly remnants of war.
The trio suddenly noticed a visible mine lying on the ground. Panicked, Khalil and his friends tried to leave, but he stepped on a land mine and it exploded. His friends, terrified, ran to find an ambulance, but Khalil, 21, thought they had abandoned him.
“I started crawling, then the second land mine exploded,” Khalil told The Associated Press. “At first, I thought I’d died. I didn’t think I would survive this.”
Khalil’s left leg was badly wounded in the first explosion, while his right leg was blown off from above the knee in the second. He used his shirt to tourniquet the stump and screamed for help until a soldier nearby heard him and rushed for his aid.
“There were days I didn’t want to live anymore,” Khalil said, sitting on a thin mattress, his amputated leg still wrapped in a white cloth four months after the incident. Khalil, who is from the village of Qaminas, in the southern part of Syria’s Idlib province, is engaged and dreams of a prosthetic limb so he can return to work and support his family again.
While the nearly 14-year Syrian civil war came to an end with the fall of Bashar Assad on Dec. 8, war remnants continue to kill and maim. Contamination from land mines and explosive remnants has killed at least 249 people, including 60 children, and injured another 379 since Dec. 8, according to INSO, an international organization which coordinates safety for aid workers.
Mines and explosive remnants — widely used since 2011 by Syrian government forces, its allies, and armed opposition groups — have contaminated vast areas, many of which only became accessible after the Assad government’s collapse, leading to a surge in the number of land mine casualties, according to a recent Human Rights Watch (HRW) report.
‘It will take ages to clear them all’
Prior to Dec. 8, land mines and explosive remnants of war also frequently injured or killed civilians returning home and accessing agricultural land.
“Without urgent, nationwide clearance efforts, more civilians returning home to reclaim critical rights, lives, livelihoods, and land will be injured and killed,” said Richard Weir, a senior crisis and conflict researcher at HRW.
Experts estimate that tens of thousands of land mines remain buried across Syria, particularly in former front-line regions like rural Idlib.
“We don’t even have an exact number,” said Ahmad Jomaa, a member of a demining unit under Syria’s defense ministry. “It will take ages to clear them all.”
Jomaa spoke while scanning farmland in a rural area east of Maarrat Al-Numan with a handheld detector, pointing at a visible anti-personnel mine nestled in dry soil.
“This one can take off a leg,” he said. “We have to detonate it manually.”
Psychological trauma and broader harm
Farming remains the main source of income for residents in rural Idlib, making the presence of mines a daily hazard. Days earlier a tractor exploded nearby, severely injuring several farm workers, Jomaa said. “Most of the mines here are meant for individuals and light vehicles, like the ones used by farmers,” he said.
Jomaa’s demining team began dismantling the mines immediately after the previous government was ousted. But their work comes at a steep cost.
“We’ve had 15 to 20 (deminers) lose limbs, and around a dozen of our brothers were killed doing this job,” he said. Advanced scanners, needed to detect buried or improvised devices, are in short supply, he said. Many land mines are still visible to the naked eye, but others are more sophisticated and harder to detect.
Land mines not only kill and maim but also cause long-term psychological trauma and broader harm, such as displacement, loss of property, and reduced access to essential services, HRW says.
The rights group has urged the transitional government to establish a civilian-led mine action authority in coordination with the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) to streamline and expand demining efforts.
Syria’s military under the Assad government laid explosives years ago to deter opposition fighters. Even after the government seized nearby territories, it made little effort to clear the mines it left behind.
‘Every day someone is dying’
Standing before his brother’s grave, Salah Sweid holds up a photo on his phone of Mohammad, smiling behind a pile of dismantled mines. “My mother, like any other mother would do, warned him against going,” Salah said. “But he told them, ‘If I don’t go and others don’t go, who will? Every day someone is dying.’”
Mohammad was 39 when he died on Jan. 12 while demining in a village in Idlib. A former Syrian Republican Guard member trained in planting and dismantling mines, he later joined the opposition during the uprising, scavenging weapon debris to make arms.
He worked with Turkish units in Azaz, a city in northwest Syria, using advanced equipment, but on the day he died, he was on his own. As he defused one mine, another hidden beneath it detonated. After Assad’s ouster, mines littered his village in rural Idlib. He had begun volunteering to clear them — often without proper equipment — responding to residents’ pleas for help, even on holidays when his demining team was off duty, his brother said.
For every mine cleared by people like Mohammad, many more remain.
In a nearby village, Jalal Al-Maarouf, 22, was tending to his goats three days after the Assad government’s collapse when he stepped on a mine. Fellow shepherds rushed him to a hospital, where doctors amputated his left leg.
He has added his name to a waiting list for a prosthetic, “but there’s nothing so far,” he said from his home, gently running a hand over the smooth edge of his stump. “As you can see, I can’t walk.” The cost of a prosthetic limb is in excess of $3,000 and far beyond his means.