Israeli army in Golan buffer zone violates 1974 deal: UN
Israeli army in Golan buffer zone violates 1974 deal: UN/node/2582428/middle-east
Israeli army in Golan buffer zone violates 1974 deal: UN
Israeli soldiers take position near the so-called Alpha Line that separates the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights from Syria, in the town of Majdal Shams, Monday, Dec. 9, 2024. (AP)
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Updated 09 December 2024
AFP
Israeli army in Golan buffer zone violates 1974 deal: UN
Amid the downfall of Assad, Israel announced a troop deployment to the Golan Heights citing “the possible entry of armed individuals into the buffer zone”
Updated 09 December 2024
AFP
UNITED NATIONS: Israeli troops that have moved into the buffer zone on the edge of the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights “constitute a violation” of the 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria, a UN spokesman said Monday.
The UN peacekeeping force deployed in the Golan Heights, known as UNDOF, “informed the Israeli counterparts that these actions would constitute a violation of the 1974 disengagement agreement,” said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
He said that the Israeli forces that entered the zone were still present in at least three locations.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Sunday he had ordered the army to “seize” the demilitarized zone in the Syrian-controlled part of the Golan Heights after militants swept Syrian president Bashar Assad from power.
Most of the Golan Heights plateau has been occupied since 1967 by Israel, which later annexed it in a move not recognized by most of the international community.
In 1974 a buffer zone was established to separate the Israeli-held and Syrian territories, with UN peacekeepers stationed there.
Amid the downfall of Assad, Israel announced a troop deployment to the Golan Heights citing “the possible entry of armed individuals into the buffer zone.”
Israeli forces “will continue to operate as long as necessary in order to preserve the buffer zone and defend Israel,” it added.
Israeli troops “have entered the area of separation and have been moving within that area where they remain in at least three locations throughout the area of separation,” Dujarric said.
“There should be no military forces or activities in the area of separation. And Israel and Syria must continue to uphold the terms of that 1974 agreement, and preserve stability in the Golan,” he said.
Israel’s top court postpones petition demanding media access to Gaza
Israel’s Supreme Court on Thursday pushed back the hearing of a petition demanding independent access for journalists to Gaza
Updated 13 min 48 sec ago
AFP
JERUSALEM: Israel’s Supreme Court on Thursday pushed back the hearing of a petition filed by an organization representing international media outlets in Israel and the Palestinian territories, demanding independent access for journalists to Gaza.
Since the Gaza war began in October 2023, Israeli authorities have prevented foreign journalists from entering the devastated territory, taking only a handful of reporters inside on tightly controlled visits alongside its troops.
On Thursday, Israel’s top court began the hearing of a petition filed by the Foreign Press Association (FPA) seeking access to Gaza.
The State Attorney acknowledged “the situation has changed” and requested a further 30 days to examine the circumstances. No date has been set for the next hearing.
Ahead of the hearing, FPA chairperson Tania Kraemer said: “We’ve been waiting really long for this day.”
“We are saying that we hope to get into Gaza, that they open Gaza after this long blockade, and we are hoping to get in there to work alongside our Palestinian colleagues,” she added.
The FPA, which represents hundreds of foreign journalists, began petitioning for independent access to Gaza soon after the war broke out in October 2023 following Hamas’s attack on Israel.
But these demands have been repeatedly ignored by Israeli authorities.
An AFP journalist sits on the FPA’s board of directors. ’No excuse’
“We have a right to inform the public, the people of the world, the Israeli public, the Palestinian population,” Nicolas Rouget, an FPA board member, said outside the courtroom ahead of the hearing.
“We feel we must stand by them, by our Palestinian colleagues in Gaza, who have been the only ones able to inform the public about this conflict over the last two years,” he added.
Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has joined the petition filed by the FPA.
While Israel has prevented foreign reporters from entering Gaza, its forces have killed more than 210 Palestinian journalists in the territory, Antoine Bernard, RSF’s director for advocacy and assistance, said on Tuesday.
“The result is an unprecedented violation of press freedom and the public’s right to reliable, independent, and pluralistic media reporting,” Bernard said.
“The Supreme Court has the opportunity to finally uphold basic democratic principles in the face of widespread propaganda, disinformation, and censorship, and to end two years of meticulous and unrestrained destruction of journalism in and about Gaza.
“No excuse, no restriction can justify not opening Gaza to international, Israeli and Palestinian media,” he said.
On October 10, Israel declared a ceasefire and started pulling back troops from some areas of the territory, as part of US President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan to end the war.
Drone attacks in Khartoum for third consecutive day: witnesses
A witness said he saw the drones heading toward the airport
Updated 23 October 2025
AFP
KHARTOUM: Drones targeted the army-held Sudanese capital and its airport on Thursday, witnesses told AFP, marking the third consecutive day of such strikes.
“At 4:00 am (0200 GMT) I heard the sound of two drones passing above us,” one witness said, adding that the drones were headed toward military facilities.
Another witness meanwhile said he saw the drones heading toward the airport, adding that he heard explosions shortly afterwards.
Since Tuesday, the airport — out of service for over two years — has come under repeated drone attacks blamed on the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which the regular army has been battling since April 2023.
The airport was due to reopen on Wednesday, but this was postponed “under further notice,” an airport official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Following a months-long offensive, the army recaptured Khartoum from the RSF in March, but the city remains largely devastated, with frequent power outages and the paramilitaries intensifying drone attacks on the city.
More than a million people who had been displaced by the war have returned over the past 10 months, according to the United Nations’ migration agency.
In the past weeks, the government has sought to reopen key services and move institutions back to Khartoum after they had largely fled to the de facto capital of Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast.
Now well into its third year, the war in Sudan has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced about 12 million more and triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Rubio heads to Israel as West Bank annexation moves threaten Gaza truce efforts
Israeli lawmakers voted Wednesday to advance two bills on annexing the occupied West Bank
Updated 6 min 47 sec ago
AFP
WASHINGTON: Top US diplomat Marco Rubio warned that Israel’s moves toward annexing the occupied West Bank risked undermining a fragile US-brokered truce in Gaza, as he headed to Israel on Thursday.
Israeli lawmakers on Wednesday advanced two bills paving the way for West Bank annexation, days after President Donald Trump secured a ceasefire deal aimed at ending Israel’s two-year offensive in Gaza, launched after Hamas’s October 2023 attacks.
“I think the president’s made clear that’s not something we can be supportive of right now,” Rubio said of annexation as he boarded his plane for a visit to Israel.
Annexation moves are “threatening for the peace deal,” he told reporters, acknowledging the Israeli lawmakers’ latest steps.
“At this time, it’s something that we... think might be counterproductive,” Rubio said.
Asked about increased violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank, Rubio said: “We’re concerned about anything that threatens to destabilize what we’ve worked on.”
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, and violence there has surged since the start of the war in Gaza.
According to the Ramallah-based Palestinian health ministry, Israeli troops and settlers have killed nearly 1,000 Palestinians, including militants and civilians, since October 2023.
Over the same period, at least 43 Israelis, including members of the security forces, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or Israeli operations, official figures show.
The United States remains the primary military and diplomatic supporter of Israel, and Rubio until recently had steered clear of criticizing annexation moves championed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right allies.
But a number of Arab and Muslim countries, which Washington has been courting in a bid to provide troops and money for a stabilization force in Gaza, have warned that annexation of the West Bank was a red line.
Hamas’s moderate rivals in the Palestinian Authority exercise limited self-rule in parts of the West Bank.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. (AFP)
Daily threats to truce
Rubio is the latest in a string of top US officials to visit Israel to shore up the ceasefire, following Vice President JD Vance, who was due to conclude his own trip later on Thursday.
Rubio did not rule out that the ceasefire would face threats.
“Every day there’ll be threats to it, but I actually think we’re ahead of schedule in terms of bringing it together, and the fact that we made it through this weekend is a good sign,” Rubio said.
“This was a historic peace deal that President Trump delivered on, and now we have to make sure that it continues and that we continue to build upon it.”
The truce faced its toughest test Sunday, when Israeli forces launched strikes in Gaza after two soldiers were killed. The strikes killed at least 45 Palestinians, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
Witnesses reported artillery fire in Khan Yunis on Thursday but no casualties.
During his visit, Vance warned that disarming Hamas while rebuilding Gaza would be a challenge.
“We have a very, very tough task ahead of us, which is to disarm Hamas but rebuild Gaza, to make life better for the people of Gaza, but also to ensure that Hamas is no longer a threat to our friends in Israel,” Vance said Wednesday.
The vice president inaugurated the new Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) in southern Israel, where US and allied forces will work with Israeli counterparts to monitor the truce and coordinate aid deliveries.
Under Trump’s 20-point peace plan, an international security force drawn from Arab and Muslim allies would oversee Gaza’s transition as Israeli troops withdraw.
The force would not have US troops deployed inside Gaza.
Netanyahu, facing criticism from his far-right allies for accepting the ceasefire before Hamas was destroyed, defended the agreement, calling it a success that “put the knife up to Hamas’s throat” while isolating the group regionally.
‘Children’s future slipping away’
In Gaza, civilians displaced by two years of war continued to struggle.
“We were afraid of dying during the war, and now we’re afraid of living after it,” said Maher Abu Wafah, 42.
“Our lives and our children’s future are slipping away before our eyes. We just want a stable life.”
As the US diplomatic visits continued, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion urging Israel to ensure Palestinians’ access to essential goods and humanitarian aid.
Israel dismissed the ruling as a “political attempt” to pressure it under the guise of law.
A senior UN official warned Wednesday of “generational” impacts in Gaza from malnutrition among pregnant women and babies, urging a surge of aid to help prevent potential lifelong health issues.
Andrew Saberton, deputy executive director of the UN Population Fund, said 11,500 pregnant women face “catastrophic” conditions, with starvation posing severe risks to both mothers and newborns.
Twelve UN staff leave Yemen’s Sanaa after Houthi detention: UN
A total of 53 UN workers are still arbitrarily detained by the Houthis, according to the international body
Updated 23 October 2025
AFP
NEW YORK: Twelve international United Nations employees who had been held by Yemen’s Houthis inside their compound flew out of the rebel-held capital on Wednesday, the UN said.
The Iran-backed Houthis raided the UN compound in the capital Sanaa last weekend, holding 20 staff, including 15 foreigners. Five Yemeni nationals were released on Sunday.
The rebels have harassed and detained UN staff and aid workers for years, accusing them of spying, but they have accelerated arrests since the start of the Gaza war.
“Earlier today, 12 UN international staff who were among those previously held in the UN compound in Yemen departed Sanaa on a UN Humanitarian Air Service flight,” said a statement released by UN Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres’s spokesperson.
Some of them will relocate to Amman, Jordan, UN spokesman Farhan Haq told a news conference, not ruling out further travel or a return to Yemen.
The three remaining staff are now “free to move or travel,” the UN said.
“We do intend to maintain some international staff in Sanaa,” Haq said.
Among the 15 detained was UNICEF’s representative in Yemen Peter Hawkins.
The Houthis, part of Iran’s “axis of resistance” against Israel and the United States, have frequently fired on Red Sea shipping and Israeli territory during the two-year Gaza war, claiming solidarity with the Palestinians.
Israel has launched numerous retaliatory strikes, including a major attack in August that killed the Houthis’s premier and nearly half of his cabinet.
Rebel leader Abdulmalik Al-Houthi accused detained UN employees of having a hand in the attack, without giving evidence. The UN has rejected the claim.
A total of 53 UN workers are still arbitrarily detained by the Houthis, according to the international body.
The rebels stormed UN offices in Sanaa on August 31, detaining more than 11 employees, it said.
A senior Houthi official told AFP the UN staff were suspected of spying for the United States and Israel.
In mid-September, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Yemen was transferred from Sanaa to Aden, the interim capital of the internationally recognized government.
US lawmakers demand answers about American-Palestinian teenager detained in Israel
Mohammed Ibrahim, 16, has been held for 8 months since a raid on his family’s home in the occupied West Bank
Democratic senators and representatives write to Secretary of State Marco Rubio calling for action to secure release
Updated 23 October 2025
Arab News
LONDON: A group of Democratic lawmakers has written to the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, demanding the immediate release of a 16-year-old Palestinian-American who has been held in Israeli military detention for eight months.
Mohammed Ibrahim was taken by Israeli forces in February during a raid on his family home near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. The dual citizen, who was 15 when he was detained, is said to have lost a significant amount of weight and be suffering health problems.
In their letter, a copy of which was sent to the US ambassador to Israel, the 27 senators and representatives said they had “grave concern” about the treatment of Ibrahim, The Guardian newspaper reported.
“As we have been told repeatedly, ‘the Department of State has no higher priority than the safety and security of US citizens abroad,’” the lawmakers wrote. “We share that view and urge you to fulfill this responsibility by engaging the Israeli government directly to secure the swift release of this American boy.”
They also demanded to know what efforts were being made by the US government to secure Ibrahim’s release, and gave officials until Nov. 3 to respond.
The letter was led by senators Chris Van Hollen and Jeff Merkley, and representatives Kathy Castor and Maxwell Frost. The other signatories included senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
Ibrahim was accused of throwing stones at Israeli settlers, an allegation he denies. He was originally held in the notorious Megiddo Prison, before being transferred to Ofer Prison.
In testimony provided to Defense for Children International — Palestine and published his week, the teenager described how Israeli soldiers bound his hands behind his back and blindfolded him during the arrest. He said they beat him with the butts of their rifles while he was being transported for interrogation.
He described the two meager meals he receives each day, including a breakfast comprising small pieces of bread and a spoonful of labneh, and a lunch consisting of a cup of rice, sausage and pieces of bread. In addition to his considerable weight loss, Ibrahim had also contracted scabies.
Israel has long been criticized for detaining children and prosecuting them through military courts. Palestinians in the West Bank are subject to Israeli military law, and are usually tried in military rather than civilian courts.
