The Israeli military said Wednesday its soldiers killed an alleged militant in Gaza whom it said posed a threat to its forces, as the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas stretched into a fourth day.
It appeared to be the first time since the ceasefire began Sunday that the Israeli military said it struck targets in Gaza. It was not clear whether the killing would affect the deal.
The truce is supposed to bring calm to war-battered Gaza for at least six weeks and see 33 Hamas-held hostages released in return for hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces are pressing ahead with a major military operation in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin for a second day. At least 10 people have been killed, Palestinian health officials say.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. Around 100 hostages still remain in Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed dead. The rest have been released, rescued, or their bodies recovered.
Israel’s military campaign has killed over 47,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to local health authorities, who say women and children make up more than half of the fatalities but do not say how many of the dead were fighters. Israel says it killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
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Israel’s Netanyahu will probably visit Trump in the next few weeks, official says
UNITED NATIONS – Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations believes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will travel to Washington to meet President Donald Trump “in a few weeks.”
Danny Danon told reporters Wednesday: “I’m sure he would be one of the first foreign leaders invited to the White House.”
Danon said he expects their discussions to include the current ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and the release of hostages taken during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack in southern Israel.
Israel says it killed a militant in Gaza, an apparent first since the ceasefire began
TEL AVIV, Israel — The Israeli military said Wednesday its soldiers killed an alleged militant in Gaza whom it said posed a threat to forces, as the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas stretched into a fourth day.
It appeared to be the first time the Israeli military said it struck targets in Gaza since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas began Sunday. It was not clear whether the killing would affect the deal.
The military said troops in southern Gaza saw several armed suspects. It said troops then “eliminated” an alleged militant with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group identified by the military as Akram Atef Farhan Zanon.
The militant group had no immediate comment.
The ceasefire will see a six-week pause in the war in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. Israel and Hamas are expected to begin talks soon over extending the truce.
Israel's military has said it will uphold the agreement but would act against perceived threats.
UN envoy visits Syria and urges forming a new national army
DAMASCUS, Syria — U.N. special envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen said Wednesday during a visit to Damascus that forming a new national army in Syria should be a priority for the country’s rulers — the former insurgents who toppled President Bashar Assad.
Bringing Syria's disparate factions together into one military is “vital for stability, but it also requires careful management in a way that avoids competing armies and fragmented command structures,” he said.
Pedersen said he is concerned about ongoing fighting in northeastern Syria between Turkish-backed groups and U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led forces.
He said Turkey and the U.S. have crucial roles to play in negotiating an end to the fighting “so this does not end in the full military confrontation that will not serve the interests of the Syrian people,” he said.
He also criticized Israel’s occupation of Syrian territory in a buffer zone set up as part of a 1974 ceasefire agreement. Israeli forces captured the area after Assad’s fall, and Israeli officials have said they will remain there until a new arrangement is established to ensure Israel’s security.
“There is no excuse for what is what the Israelis are now doing,” Pedersen said. “And this needs to stop.”
Speaking at Davos, the Syrian foreign minister has high hopes for economic recovery
BEIRUT — Syria's new foreign minister said Wednesday at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos that his country hopes it can follow in the footsteps of economic powerhouses like Singapore and Saudi Arabia as it begins rebuilding after nearly 14 years of war.
“We need the help of the international community to help us in this new experiment,” Asaad al-Shibani said.
He also pledged that Syria's government and constitution will be representative of all of the country's communities.
Western nations, although they have moved to restore ties with Damascus since former President Bashar Assad was overthrown by a lightning insurgent offensive last month, are still somewhat circumspect about the new rulers, led by the Islamist former rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
“All the time they ask us about the how to guarantee the rights of (this or) that group and how to guarantee the rights of the woman — in Syria all of us will be under the Constitution and under the rule of law,” al-Shibani said.
The committee of experts formed to draft a new constitution — a process that could take years — will comprise all “the different groups of Syria” including women, he said.
Israel pulls more troops out of Gaza
JERUSALEM — The Israeli military said Wednesday it was drawing down soldiers from the Gaza Strip, as a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas holds for a fourth day.
Also Wednesday, Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said that troops will begin to withdraw Saturday from a corridor that bisects northern Gaza from the south. That will pave the way for Palestinians prevented from heading north to return to their homes.
The withdrawal would only happen once the next batch of hostages set to be freed Saturday are in Israeli custody, Shoshani said.
The military shared footage of what it said were tanks crossing out of Gaza. It said the force leaving, the Givati Brigade Combat Team, spent weeks in Jabaliya in northern Gaza, where Israel launched a major offensive late last year.
Under the first stage of the three-phase ceasefire agreement, Israel is to withdraw troops from parts of Gaza and displaced Palestinians will begin returning to what's left of their homes.
Syrian defense minister is open to ‘all possibilities’ in talks with the Kurds
DAMASCUS, Syria — Syria’s new defense minister is ready for “all possibilities” in negotiations with U.S.-backed Kurdish-led forces who control northeastern Syria, with the intention of having the war-torn country under one military force.
The former rebels who now run Syria’s government have rejected any form of federalism or autonomous regions, and aim to have all weapons solely under state control.
“We want a solution with the administration that runs eastern Syria in order to preserve the Kurdish component and find a peaceful solution with them and not to cause a large-scale war,” Murhaf Abu Qasra told reporters Wednesday.
The Kurdish forces have been fighting with Turkish-backed forces in northern Syria in the weeks since President Bashar Assad was overthrown. Turkey wants to create a border buffer zone free of the Kurdish forces, but the Kurds have been a key U.S. ally in combatting Islamic State group sleeper cells.
Israeli forces are surrounding a hospital in the West Bank and hundreds of Palestinians are trapped inside, health officials say
JENIN, West Bank — Hundreds of Palestinians were trapped in a hospital by an Israeli military operation in the occupied West Bank that has killed at least 10 people in two days, the Palestinian Health Ministry said Wednesday.
The Israeli military said its forces were trying to detonate explosive devices planted by militants beneath the road outside the hospital in the city of Jenin, and had told patients and doctors not to exit the hospital during the detonations. Dozens of military bulldozers have carved up tracts of roads in Jenin.
A nurse inside the Jenin Government Hospital said patients were “terrified” as hundreds of people were unable to leave for hours.
On Wednesday afternoon, pregnant women and older adults, one carrying an infant bundled in a blanket against the winter chill, walked past ambulances and armored vehicles away from the hospital and the Jenin refugee camp, as gunfire echoed down the empty streets and Israeli military drones and aircraft buzzed low overhead.
“There’s no medicine, no food, no supplies, nothing,” said Ashram Abu Sroor, shaking his head as he exited the hospital.
Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said Israeli forces had begun the large operation in Jenin with the main goal of clearing roadside bombs placed by militants under streets and civilian infrastructure aimed at Israeli soldiers.
Israeli forces have regularly clashed with Palestinian militants in Jenin in recent years, even before the war in Gaza.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, and Palestinians want all three territories for their future state. Escalations in one area frequently spill over.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels release crew of commercial vessel seized in 2023
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Yemen’s Houthi rebels said they released the crew of the Galaxy Leader, a ship they seized in November 2023 at the start of their campaign in the Red Sea corridor.
The rebels said Wednesday they released the sailors after mediation by Oman.
The crew of 25 included mariners from the Philippines, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine and Mexico.
The Iran-backed Houthi rebels said they hijacked the ship over its connection to Israel. They then had a campaign targeting ships in international waters, which only stopped with the recent ceasefire in Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Israel says it will keep control of the Rafah crossing with Egypt
JERUSALEM — Israel says it will maintain control of the Rafah crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip during the first phase of the ceasefire with Hamas.
A statement issued by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Wednesday denied reports that the Palestinian Authority would control the crossing.
It said local Palestinians not affiliated with Hamas who had been vetted by Israeli security would merely stamp passports at the crossing. It noted that, under international agreements, this stamp “is the only way Gazans may leave the Strip in order to enter, or be received in, other countries.”
The statement said Israeli forces would surround the crossing and that Israel must approve the movement of all people and goods through it. It said European Union monitors would supervise the crossing.
Israel captured the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing last May, forcing it to shut down. Egypt, a key mediator in more than a year of negotiations that led to the ceasefire, has demanded that Palestinians control the Gaza side.
UN says aid is flowing smoothly into Gaza
UNITED NATIONS – The U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Gaza says trucks from the U.N., aid groups, governments and the private sector are arriving and no major looting has been reported -– just a few minor incidents.
Nearly 900 trucks of aid entered Gaza on the third day of the ceasefire Tuesday, the United Nations said. That's significantly higher than the 600 trucks called for in the deal.
Muhannad Hadi, who returned to Jerusalem from Gaza on Tuesday afternoon, told U.N. reporters by video that it was one of the happiest days of his 35-year humanitarian career to see Palestinians in the streets looking ahead with hope, some heading home and some starting to clean up the roads.
In his talks with families at a communal kitchen run by the U.N. World Food Program and elsewhere, he said, they all told him they need humanitarian assistance but want to go home, to work and earn money.
“They don’t like the fact that they have been depending on humanitarian aid,” Hadi said.
Palestinians talked about resuming education for their children and about the need for shelter, blankets and new clothes for women who have been wearing the same clothes for more than a year. He said a shipment of tents is expected in the coming days.
The Associated Press
