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Wafa Mustafa had long dreamed of returning to Syria but the absence of her father tarnished her homecoming more than a decade after he disappeared in Bashar al-Assad’s jails.Her father Ali, an activist, is among the tens of thousands killed or missing in Syria’s notorious prison system, and whose relatives have flocked home in search of answers after Assad’s toppling last month by Islamist-led rebels.”From December 8 until today, I have not felt any joy,” said Mustafa, 35, who returned from Berlin.”I thought that once I got to Syria, everything would be better, but in reality everything here is so very painful,” she said. “I walk down the street and remember that I had passed by that same corner with my dad” years before.Since reaching Damascus she has scoured defunct security service branches, prisons, morgues and hospitals, hoping to glean any information about her long-lost father.”You can see the fatigue on people’s faces” everywhere, said Mustafa, who works as a communications manager for the Syria Campaign, a rights group.In 2021, she was invited to testify at the United Nations about the fate of Syria’s disappeared.The rebels who toppled Assad freed thousands of detainees nearly 14 years into a civil war that killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions.Mustafa returned to Branch 215, one of Syria’s most notorious prisons run by military intelligence, where she herself had been detained simply for participating in pro-democracy protests in 2011.She found documents there mentioning her father. “That’s already a start,” Mustafa said. Now, she “wants the truth” and plans to continue searching for answers in Syria.”I only dream of a grave, of having a place to go to in the morning to talk to my father,” she said. “Graves have become our biggest dream”.- A demand for justice -In Damascus, Mustafa took part in a protest demanding justice for the disappeared and answers about their fate.Youssef Sammawi, 29, was there too. He held up a picture of his cousin, whose arrest and beating in 2012 prompted Sammawi to flee for Germany.A few years later, he identified his cousin’s corpse among the 55,000 images by a former military photographer codenamed “Caesar”, who defected and made the images public.The photos taken between 2011 and 2013, authenticated by experts, show thousands of bodies tortured and starved to death in Syrian prisons.”The joy I felt gave way to pain when I returned home, without being able to see my cousin,” Sammawi said.He said his uncle had also been arrested and then executed after he went to see his son in the hospital.”When I returned, it was the first time I truly realised that they were no longer there,” he said with sadness in his voice.”My relatives had gotten used to their absence, but not me,” he added. “We demand that justice be served, to alleviate our suffering.”While Assad’s fall allowed many to end their exile and seek answers, others are hesitant.Fadwa Mahmoud, 70, told AFP she has had no news of her son and her husband, both opponents of the Assad government arrested upon arrival at Damascus airport in 2012.She fled to Germany a year later and co-founded the Families For Freedom human rights group.She said she has no plans to return to Syria just yet.”No one really knows what might happen, so I prefer to stay cautious,” she said.Mahmoud said she was disappointed that Syria’s new authorities, who pledged justice for victims of atrocities under Assad’s rule, “are not yet taking these cases seriously”.She said Syria’s new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa “has yet to do anything for missing Syrians”, yet “met Austin Tice’s mother two hours” after she arrived in the Syrian capital.Tice is an American journalist missing in Syria since 2012.Sharaa “did not respond” to requests from relatives of missing Syrians to meet him, Mahmoud said.”The revolution would not have succeeded without the sacrifices of our detainees,” she said.

Israel said Palestinians could begin returning to the north of the war-battered Gaza Strip on Monday after a deal was reached with Hamas for the release of another six hostages, according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.The breakthrough preserves a fragile ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, which has devastated the Gaza Strip and displaced nearly all its residents, paving the way for more hostage-prisoner swaps under a deal aimed at ending the more than 15-month conflict.Israel had been preventing vast crowds of Palestinians from using a coastal road to return to northern Gaza, accusing Hamas of violating the truce agreement by failing to release civilian women hostages.”Hamas has backtracked and will carry out an additional phase of releasing hostages this Thursday,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement, adding that three hostages would be released that day, with another three captives set for release on Saturday.Palestinian leaders meanwhile slammed a plan floated by US President Donald Trump to “clean out” Gaza, vowing to resist any effort to forcibly displace residents of the war-battered territory.Trump said Gaza had become a “demolition site”, adding he had spoken to Jordan’s King Abdullah II about moving Palestinians out.”I’d like Egypt to take people. And I’d like Jordan to take people,” Trump told reporters.Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, who is based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, “expressed strong rejection and condemnation of any projects” aimed at displacing Palestinians from Gaza, his office said.Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, told AFP that Palestinians would “foil such projects”, as they have done to similar plans “for displacement and alternative homelands over the decades”.Islamic Jihad, which has fought alongside Hamas in Gaza, called Trump’s idea “deplorable”. For Palestinians, any attempt to move them from Gaza would evoke dark memories of what the Arab world calls the “Nakba”, or catastrophe — the mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel’s creation in 1948.”We say to Trump and the whole world: we will not leave Palestine or Gaza, no matter what happens,” said displaced Gaza resident Rashad al-Naji.- Jordan, Egypt reject displacement -Trump floated the idea to reporters Saturday aboard Air Force One: “You’re talking about probably a million and half people, and we just clean out that whole thing.”Moving Gaza’s roughly 2.4 million inhabitants could be done “temporarily or could be long term”, he said.Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich — who opposed the truce deal and has voiced support for re-establishing Israeli settlements in Gaza — called Trump’s suggestion of “a great idea”. The Arab League rejected the idea, warning against “attempts to uproot the Palestinian people from their land”.”The forced displacement and eviction of people from their land can only be called ethnic cleansing”, the league said in a statement.Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said “our rejection of the displacement of Palestinians is firm and will not change. Jordan is for Jordanians and Palestine is for Palestinians.”Egypt’s foreign ministry said it rejected any infringement of Palestinians’ “inalienable rights”.In Gaza, cars and carts loaded with belongings jammed a road near the Netzarim Corridor that Israel has blocked, preventing the expected return of hundreds of thousands of people to northern Gaza.Israel had said it would prevent Palestinians’ passage until the release of Arbel Yehud, a civilian woman hostage. She is among those slated for return on Thursday, according to Netanyahu’s office.Hamas said that blocking returns to the north also amounted to a truce violation, adding it had provided “all the necessary guarantees” for Yehud’s release.Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee said Monday that residents would be allowed to return on foot starting at 07:00 am (0500 GMT) and by car at 9:00 am.- ‘Dire’ humanitarian situation -During the first phase of the Gaza truce, 33 hostages are supposed to be freed in staggered releases over six weeks in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.The most recent swap saw four Israeli women hostages, all soldiers, and 200 prisoners, nearly all Palestinian, released Saturday — the second such exchange during the fragile truce entering its second week.Dani Miran, whose hostage son Omri is not slated for release during the first phase, demonstrated outside Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem on Sunday.”We want the agreement to continue and for them to bring our children back as quickly as possible — and all at once,” he said.The truce has brought a surge of food, fuel, medicines and other aid into rubble-strewn Gaza, but the UN says “the humanitarian situation remains dire”.Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack that ignited the war, 87 remain in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 47,306 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.burs-tym/rsc

Israel said Palestinians could begin returning to the north of the war-battered Gaza Strip on Monday after a deal was reached with Hamas for the release of another six hostages, according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.The breakthrough preserves a fragile ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, which has devastated the Gaza Strip and displaced nearly all its residents, paving the way for more hostage-prisoner swaps under a deal aimed at ending the more than 15-month conflict.Israel had been preventing vast crowds of Palestinians from using a coastal road to return to northern Gaza, accusing Hamas of violating the truce agreement by failing to release civilian women hostages.”Hamas has backtracked and will carry out an additional phase of releasing hostages this Thursday,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement, adding that three hostages would be released that day, with another three captives set for release on Saturday.Palestinian leaders meanwhile slammed a plan floated by US President Donald Trump to “clean out” Gaza, vowing to resist any effort to forcibly displace residents of the war-battered territory.Trump said Gaza had become a “demolition site”, adding he had spoken to Jordan’s King Abdullah II about moving Palestinians out.”I’d like Egypt to take people. And I’d like Jordan to take people,” Trump told reporters.Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, who is based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, “expressed strong rejection and condemnation of any projects” aimed at displacing Palestinians from Gaza, his office said.Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, told AFP that Palestinians would “foil such projects”, as they have done to similar plans “for displacement and alternative homelands over the decades”.Islamic Jihad, which has fought alongside Hamas in Gaza, called Trump’s idea “deplorable”. For Palestinians, any attempt to move them from Gaza would evoke dark memories of what the Arab world calls the “Nakba”, or catastrophe — the mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel’s creation in 1948.”We say to Trump and the whole world: we will not leave Palestine or Gaza, no matter what happens,” said displaced Gaza resident Rashad al-Naji.- Jordan, Egypt reject displacement -Trump floated the idea to reporters Saturday aboard Air Force One: “You’re talking about probably a million and half people, and we just clean out that whole thing.”Moving Gaza’s roughly 2.4 million inhabitants could be done “temporarily or could be long term”, he said.Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich — who opposed the truce deal and has voiced support for re-establishing Israeli settlements in Gaza — called Trump’s suggestion of “a great idea”. The Arab League rejected the idea, warning against “attempts to uproot the Palestinian people from their land”.”The forced displacement and eviction of people from their land can only be called ethnic cleansing”, the league said in a statement.Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said “our rejection of the displacement of Palestinians is firm and will not change. Jordan is for Jordanians and Palestine is for Palestinians.”Egypt’s foreign ministry said it rejected any infringement of Palestinians’ “inalienable rights”.In Gaza, cars and carts loaded with belongings jammed a road near the Netzarim Corridor that Israel has blocked, preventing the expected return of hundreds of thousands of people to northern Gaza.Israel had said it would prevent Palestinians’ passage until the release of Arbel Yehud, a civilian woman hostage. She is among those slated for return on Thursday, according to Netanyahu’s office.Hamas said that blocking returns to the north also amounted to a truce violation, adding it had provided “all the necessary guarantees” for Yehud’s release.- ‘Dire’ humanitarian situation -During the first phase of the Gaza truce, 33 hostages are supposed to be freed in staggered releases over six weeks in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.The most recent swap saw four Israeli women hostages, all soldiers, and 200 prisoners, nearly all Palestinian, released Saturday — the second such exchange during the fragile truce entering its second week.Dani Miran, whose hostage son Omri is not slated for release during the first phase, demonstrated outside Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem on Sunday.”We want the agreement to continue and for them to bring our children back as quickly as possible — and all at once,” he said.The truce has brought a surge of food, fuel, medicines and other aid into rubble-strewn Gaza, but the UN says “the humanitarian situation remains dire”.Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack that ignited the war, 87 remain in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 47,306 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.burs-tym/rsc

Lebanon said Monday it would extend a ceasefire deal with Israel until mid-February, even though the Israeli military failed to meet a deadline to withdraw its troops and killed 22 people in the south of the country. The deadly violence recorded by health officials Sunday came as residents tried to return home as Israel was scheduled to pull its troops from southern Lebanon.The withdrawal deadline is part of a ceasefire agreement reached two months ago that ended Israel’s war with Iran-backed Hezbollah, which had left the Lebanese militant group weakened.The deal that took effect on November 27 said the Lebanese military was to deploy alongside UN peacekeepers in the south as the Israeli army withdrew over a 60-day period that ends on Sunday.The parties have traded blame for the delay in implementing the agreement, and on Friday Israel said it would keep troops across the border in south Lebanon beyond the pullout date.Lebanon’s health ministry said on Sunday that Israeli forces opened fire on “citizens who were trying to return to their villages that are still under (Israeli) occupation”.It said 22 people including six women and a soldier were killed and 124 more wounded. The Lebanese army also announced the soldier’s death and said another had been wounded.The Israeli military said in a statement that its “troops operating in southern Lebanon fired warning shots to remove threats” where “suspects were identified approaching the troops”.It added that “a number of suspects… that posed an imminent threat to the troops were apprehended”.AFP journalists said convoys of vehicles carrying hundreds of people, some flying yellow Hezbollah flags, were trying to get to several border villages.”We will return to our villages and the Israeli enemy will leave,” even if it costs lives, said Ali Harb, a 27-year-old trying to go to Kfar Kila.A joint statement from the UN special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, and the head of the UNIFIL peacekeeping mission acknowledged that “conditions are not yet in place for the safe return of citizens to their villages”.- ‘Glorious day’ -An AFP correspondent saw hundreds of people gather for a collective prayer on a main road in the border town of Bint Jbeil, followed by a march to some nearby villages.Residents could also be seen heading on foot and by motorbike towards the devastated border town of Mays al-Jabal, where Israeli troops are still stationed.Some held up portraits of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, slain in an Israeli attack in late September, while women dressed in black carried photos of family members killed in the war.Hezbollah hailed a “glorious day” and praised residents’ “deep attachment to their land” in a statement on Sunday.The group also called on the backers of the ceasefire agreement — which includes the United States and France — to “assume their responsibilities in the face of these violations and crimes of the Israeli enemy”.After talks with the US, Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said Monday the government would “continue implementing the ceasefire agreement until February 18, 2025”.Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee had issued a message earlier on Sunday to residents of more than 60 villages in southern Lebanon telling them not to return.Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, the former army chief who took office earlier this month, called on residents to keep a cool head and “trust the Lebanese army” which sought their safe return home.The Lebanese army said earlier it would “continue to accompany residents” returning to the south and “protect them from Israeli attacks”.- Truce holding -Israeli forces have left coastal areas of southern Lebanon but are still present in areas further east.The ceasefire deal stipulates that Hezbollah pull back its forces north of the Litani River — about 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the border — and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south.But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Friday that the “agreement has not yet been fully enforced by the Lebanese state”, so the military’s withdrawal would continue beyond the Sunday deadline.French President Emmanuel Macron told Netanyahu in a telephone call Sunday to “withdraw his forces still present in Lebanon” and stressed the importance of restoring Lebanese state authority nationwide, his office said.The truce has generally held since November, despite repeated accusations of violations.It ended two months of full-scale war that had followed nearly a year of low-intensity exchanges.Hezbollah began trading cross-border fire with the Israeli military the day after the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by its Palestinian ally Hamas, which triggered the war in Gaza.

Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas and armed group Hamas vowed on Sunday to defy proposals for the forced displacement of Gazans, after US President Donald Trump floated a plan to “clean out” the war-battered territory. Meanwhile, Palestinian sources said a dispute linked to hostage-prisoner swaps under the Israel-Hamas truce deal may be nearing a solution that could allow vast crowds of Palestinians jamming a coastal road to return to northern Gaza.The latest swap saw four Israeli women hostages, all soldiers, and 200 prisoners, nearly all Palestinian, released Saturday — the second such exchange during the fragile truce entering its second week.After 15 months of war, Trump said Gaza had become a “demolition site”, adding he had spoken to Jordan’s King Abdullah II about moving Palestinians out of the territory.”I’d like Egypt to take people. And I’d like Jordan to take people,” Trump told reporters.Abbas, who is based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, “expressed strong rejection and condemnation of any projects” aimed at displacing Palestinians from Gaza, his office said.The Palestinian people “will not abandon their land and holy sites”, it added.Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, told AFP that Palestinians would “foil such projects”, as they have done to similar plans “for displacement and alternative homelands over the decades”.Islamic Jihad, which has fought alongside Hamas in Gaza, called Trump’s idea “deplorable”. For Palestinians, any attempt to move them from Gaza would evoke dark memories of what the Arab world calls the “Nakba”, or catastrophe — the mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel’s creation in 1948.”We say to Trump and the whole world: we will not leave Palestine or Gaza, no matter what happens,” said displaced Gaza resident Rashad al-Naji.- ‘Firm rejection’ -“You’re talking about probably a million and half people, and we just clean out that whole thing,” Trump told reporters Saturday aboard Air Force One.Moving Gaza’s roughly 2.4 million inhabitants could be done “temporarily or could be long term”, he said.Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich — who opposed the truce deal and has voiced support for re-establishing Israeli settlements in Gaza — called Trump’s suggestion of “a great idea”. The Arab League rejected the idea, warning against “attempts to uproot the Palestinian people from their land”.”The forced displacement and eviction of people from their land can only be called ethnic cleansing”, the league said in a statement.Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said “our rejection of the displacement of Palestinians is firm and will not change. Jordan is for Jordanians and Palestine is for Palestinians.”Egypt’s foreign ministry said it rejected any infringement of Palestinians’ “inalienable rights”.Almost all Gazans have been displaced by the war that began after Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.In Gaza, cars and carts loaded with belongings jammed a road near the Netzarim Corridor that Israel has blocked, preventing the expected return of hundreds of thousands of people to northern Gaza.Israel said it would prevent Palestinians’ passage until the release of Arbel Yehud, a civilian woman hostage.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said that by not releasing her and not providing a “detailed list of all hostages’ statuses”, Hamas had committed truce violations.Hamas said that blocking returns to the north also amounted to a truce violation, adding it had provided “all the necessary guarantees” for Yehud’s release.Two Palestinian sources later told AFP that Yehud would be handed over within days.”The crisis has been resolved,” said one Palestinian source familiar with the issue.Israel has yet to comment.- ‘Dire’ humanitarian situation -During the first phase of the Gaza truce, 33 hostages should be freed in staggered releases over six weeks in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.Dani Miran, whose hostage son Omri is not slated for release during the first phase, demonstrated outside Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem on Sunday.”We want the agreement to continue and for them to bring our children back as quickly as possible — and all at once,” he said.The truce has brought a surge of food, fuel, medicines and other aid into rubble-strewn Gaza, but the UN says “the humanitarian situation remains dire”.Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, 87 remain in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 47,306 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.Israel has also reached a ceasefire with Hamas ally Hezbollah in Lebanon. Although it stipulated that Israeli forces must withdraw by Sunday that has not happened.Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli troops had killed nearly two dozen people as residents tried to return to their homes near the border.The Israeli army said soldiers “fired warning shots” against “suspects”.burs-jj/sst

Palestinian-American director Cherien Dabis was in the West Bank, days away from shooting her ambitious and deeply personal drama “All That’s Left Of You,” when the events of October 7, 2023 forced a radical rethink.”We were forced to evacuate… It was really devastating to have to leave our Palestinian crew behind,” recalled Dabis.”Everyone was so excited to work on this historic Palestinian film that felt like a milestone.”The film — one of two Palestinian movies premiering at this year’s Sundance festival — follows three generations of a family who were expelled from coastal Jaffa in 1948, and sent to the West Bank.Costing between $5-8 million, it is a rare example of a major Palestinian-centered feature film getting a high-profile premiere in the West.”It’s really, really hard to make any film, but it’s particularly hard to make a Palestinian film,” said Dabis.”It’s hard to raise money for these films… I think people have perhaps been afraid to tell the story.”Both intimate and epic in scope, the film jumps chronologically, from 1948 through the decades to the near-present day.Dabis herself stars as a mother forced to confront an impossible decision when her son is wounded in 1988 during the first intifada, or uprising. Many of the stories are based on the real experiences of Dabis and her family.In one harrowing scene, a father is humiliated at gunpoint by Israeli soldiers in front of his young child, creating a father-son rift that will never heal.”I saw my dad humiliated at borders and checkpoints,” said Dabis, who visited the West Bank frequently as a child.”He confronted the soldiers, and they started screaming at him, and I was convinced they were going to kill him.”- ‘Blowback’ -Though the film centers on a single family and is deeply personal in nature, the divisive nature of its subject matter means “All That’s Left Of You” is certain to provoke criticism.Dabis says that the film does not set out to be political, but accepts that the impression is unavoidable.”We can’t tell our stories without having to answer to some political questions,” she told AFP.”We should be able to share our life experiences and tell our personal and family stories and share our points of view without having to contend with blowback.”So often we do end up fearing it, even before we have told the story.”That political reality reared again in October 2023, when the Hamas attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 47,306 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.Dabis and her team fled, and completed the film by using locations in Jordan, Cyprus and Greece standing in for her ancestral homeland.”I’m actually still shocked that we finished the film,” Dabis told the premiere audience.It does not yet have a theatrical distributor.- ‘Dearth of our stories’ -Also premiering at Sundance on Sunday is documentary “Coexistence My Ass!”It follows Jewish peace activist-turned-comedian Noam Shuster-Eliassi, as she constructs a one-woman show and grapples with the consequences of Israel’s military campaign.”As an activist, I reached 20 people, and in a viral video mocking dictators, I reached 20 million people,” she told AFP, admitting she is “anxious” about how the film will be received.Earlier this week, “No Other Land,” a film by a Palestinian-Israeli activist collective about Palestinians displaced by Israeli troops and settlers in the West Bank, earned an Oscar nomination for best documentary feature.It still does not have a US distributor.”The industry has to ask itself… there obviously is a need for these films, people want to see these films,” said “Coexistence My Ass!” director Amber Fares.”I do think that perhaps in the last few years, we have seen a shift,” added Dabis.”People are understanding that there’s a dearth of our stories.. and that our stories are really missing from the mainstream narrative.”

Israeli troops killed 22 people in south Lebanon on Sunday including a soldier, health officials said, as residents tried to return home on the day Israel was meant to withdraw under a truce deal.The withdrawal deadline is part of a ceasefire agreement reached two months ago that ended Israel’s war with Iran-backed Hezbollah, which had left the Lebanese militant group weakened.The deal that took effect on November 27 said the Lebanese army was to deploy alongside UN peacekeepers in the south as the Israeli army withdrew over a 60-day period that ends on Sunday.The parties have traded blame for the delay in implementing the agreement, and on Friday Israel said it would keep troops across the border in south Lebanon beyond the pullout date.Lebanon’s health ministry said on Sunday that Israeli forces opened fire on “citizens who were trying to return to their villages that are still under (Israeli) occupation”.It said 22 people including six women and a soldier were killed and 124 more wounded. The Lebanese army also announced the soldier’s death and said another had been wounded.The Israeli military said in a statement that its “troops operating in southern Lebanon fired warning shots to remove threats” where “suspects were identified approaching the troops”.It added that “a number of suspects… that posed an imminent threat to the troops were apprehended”.AFP journalists said convoys of vehicles carrying hundreds of people, some flying yellow Hezbollah flags, were trying to get to several border villages.”We will return to our villages and the Israeli enemy will leave,” even if it costs lives, said Ali Harb, a 27-year-old trying to go to Kfar Kila.A joint statement from the UN special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, and the head of the UNIFIL peacekeeping mission acknowledged that “conditions are not yet in place for the safe return of citizens to their villages”.- ‘Glorious day’ -An AFP correspondent saw hundreds of people gather for a collective prayer on a main road in the border town of Bint Jbeil, followed by a march to some nearby villages.Residents could also be seen heading on foot and by motorbike towards the devastated border town of Mays al-Jabal, where Israeli troops are still stationed.Some held up portraits of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, slain in an Israeli attack in late September, while women dressed in black carried photos of family members killed in the war.Hezbollah hailed a “glorious day” and praised residents’ “deep attachment to their land” in a statement on Sunday.The group also called on the backers of the ceasefire agreement — which includes the United States and France — to “assume their responsibilities in the face of these violations and crimes of the Israeli enemy”.Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati earlier called on the foreign mediators “to force the Israeli enemy to withdraw”.Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee had issued a message earlier on Sunday to residents of more than 60 villages in southern Lebanon telling them not to return.Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, the former army chief who took office earlier this month, called on residents to keep a cool head and “trust the Lebanese army” which sought their safe return home.In a statement late Sunday, the Lebanese army said it would “continue to accompany residents” returning to the south and “protect them from Israeli attacks”.- Truce holding -Israeli forces have left coastal areas of southern Lebanon but are still present in areas further east.The ceasefire deal stipulates that Hezbollah pull back its forces north of the Litani River — about 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the border — and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south.But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Friday that the “agreement has not yet been fully enforced by the Lebanese state”, so the military’s withdrawal would continue beyond the Sunday deadline.French President Emmanuel Macron told Netanyahu in a telephone call on Sunday to “withdraw his forces still present in Lebanon” and stressed the importance of restoring Lebanese state authority nationwide, his office said.The truce has generally held since November, despite repeated accusations of violations.It ended two months of full-scale war that had followed nearly a year of low-intensity exchanges.Hezbollah began trading cross-border fire with the Israeli army the day after the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by its Palestinian ally Hamas, which triggered the war in Gaza.

Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas and his Hamas rivals on Sunday rejected proposals to displace people from Gaza after US President Donald Trump’s idea to “clean out” the war-torn territory.Meanwhile, Palestinian sources said a dispute linked to hostage-prisoner swaps under the Israel-Hamas truce deal may be nearing a solution that could possibly allow vast crowds of Palestinians jammed a coastal road return to northern Gaza.The latest swap saw four Israeli women hostages, all soldiers, and 200 Palestinian prisoners released on Saturday to joyful scenes, in the second such exchange during the fragile truce entering its second week.After 15 months of war, Trump said Gaza had become a “demolition site”, adding he had spoken to Jordan’s King Abdullah II about moving Palestinians out of the territory.”I’d like Egypt to take people. And I’d like Jordan to take people,” Trump told reporters, adding he expected to talk to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Sunday.Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said that “our rejection of the displacement of Palestinians is firm and will not change. Jordan is for Jordanians and Palestine is for Palestinians.”Most Gazans are Palestinian refugees or their descendants. Jordan is already home to around 2.3 million registered Palestinian refugees, according to the United Nations.For Palestinians, any attempt to move them from Gaza would evoke dark memories of what the Arab world calls the “Nakba” or catastrophe — the mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel’s creation in 1948.”We say to Trump and the whole world: we will not leave Palestine or Gaza, no matter what happens,” said displaced Gaza resident Rashad al-Naji.Egypt has previously warned against any “forced displacement” of Palestinians from Gaza into the Sinai desert, which Sisi said could jeopardise the peace treaty Egypt signed with Israel in 1979.”You’re talking about probably a million and half people, and we just clean out that whole thing,” Trump said of Gaza, whose population is about 2.4 million.Moving Gaza’s inhabitants could be done “temporarily or could be long term”, he added.- ‘Deplorable’ -Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, told AFP that Palestinians would “foil such projects”, as they have done to similar plans “for displacement and alternative homelands over the decades”.Islamic Jihad, which has fought alongside Hamas in Gaza, called Trump’s idea “deplorable” and said it encouraged “war crimes and crimes against humanity by forcing our people to leave their land”.President Abbas “expressed strong rejection and condemnation of any projects” aimed at displacing Palestinians from Gaza, a statement from his office said.Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who opposed the truce deal and has voiced support for re-establishing Israeli settlements in Gaza, said Trump’s suggestion of “helping them find other places to start a better life is a great idea”.Almost all Gazans have been displaced by the war that began after Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.The United Nations says close to 70 percent of the territory’s buildings are damaged or destroyed.On Sunday, cars and carts loaded with belongings jammed a road near the Netzarim Corridor that Israel has blocked, preventing the expected return of hundreds of thousands of people to northern Gaza.Israel announced on Saturday it would prevent Palestinians’ passage until the release of Arbel Yehud, a civilian woman hostage who Netanyahu’s office said “was supposed to be released”.- Waiting to enter -On Sunday, Netanyahu’s office said that by not releasing her on Saturday and not providing a “detailed list of all hostages’ statuses”, Hamas had committed truce violations.Hamas later said that blocking returns to the north also amounted to a truce violation, adding it had provided “all the necessary guarantees” for Yehud’s release.Two Palestinian sources later told AFP Yehud will be handed over within days.”The crisis has been resolved,” said a Palestinian source familiar with the issue.Israel has yet to comment.During the first phase of the Gaza truce, 33 hostages should be freed in staggered releases over six weeks in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.The truce has brought a surge of food, fuel medicines and other aid into rubble-strewn Gaza, but the UN says “the humanitarian situation remains dire”.Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, 87 remain in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 47,306 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.Israel has also reached a ceasefire with Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon which stipulates that Israeli forces must withdraw by a Sunday deadline.The Lebanese health ministry said Israeli troops killed nearly two dozen people on Sunday as hundreds of residents tried to return to their homes in southern Lebanon.The Israeli army said soldiers “fired warning shots” against “suspects were identified approaching the troops”.burs/imm/ami

Sudan’s army chief visited on Sunday his headquarters in the capital Khartoum, two days after forces recaptured the complex, which paramilitaries had encircled since the war erupted in April 2023.”Our forces are in their best condition,” Abdel Fattah al-Burhan told army commanders at the headquarters close to the city centre and airport.The army’s recapture of the General Command of the Armed Forces is its biggest victory in the capital since reclaiming Omdurman, Khartoum’s twin city on the Nile’s west bank, nearly a year ago.In a statement on Friday, the army said it had merged troops stationed in Khartoum North (Bahri) and Omdurman with forces at the headquarters, breaking the siege of both the Signal Corps in Khartoum North and the General Command, just south across the Nile River.Since the early days of the war, when the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) quickly spread through Khartoum, the military had to supply its troops inside the headquarters via airdrops.Burhan was himself trapped inside for four months before emerging in August 2023 and fleeing to the coastal city of Port Sudan.The recapture of the headquarters follows other gains for the army.Earlier this month, troops regained control of Wad Madani, just south of Khartoum, securing a key crossroads between the capital and surrounding states.- ‘Disregard for human life’ -With the army gaining ground in central Sudan, the RSF has set its sights on consolidating its hold on Darfur, where it controls every state capital except El-Fasher.Despite besieging it since May, the paramilitary has not managed to wrest control of the city from the army and its allied militias.Days after it issued an ultimatum demanding army forces and their allies leave the North Darfur state capital, an attack on the city’s Saudi Hospital on Friday killed 70 people and injured dozens, the United Nations said on Sunday.”The attack, reportedly carried out by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on the only functional hospital in El-Fasher, is a shocking violation of international humanitarian law,” the UN’s resident and humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, said Sunday.”The alarming disregard for human life is unacceptable,” said the UN’s most senior official in Sudan.The RSF on Sunday accused the army and its allies of striking the hospital.The late Friday drone strike destroyed the hospital’s emergency building, a medical source told AFP.World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X the “appalling” attack took place while “the hospital was packed with patients receiving care”.Both sides have been accused of targeting civilians and indiscriminately shelling residential areas, with the RSF specifically accused of ethnic cleansing, systematic sexual violence and laying siege to entire towns.The United States announced sanctions this month against RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, accusing his group of committing genocide.A week later, it also imposed sanctions against Burhan, accusing the army of attacking schools, markets and hospitals, as well as using food deprivation as a weapon of war.- ‘The best medicine is peace’ -The war in Sudan has unleashed a humanitarian disaster of epic proportions.Tens of thousands of people have been killed and, according to the United Nations, more than 12 million uprooted.Famine has been declared in parts of Sudan but the risk is spreading for millions more people, a UN-backed assessment said last month.Particularly in the country’s western Darfur region and in Kordofan in the south, families have been forced to eat grass, animal fodder and peanut shells to survive.”Above all, Sudan’s people need peace. The best medicine is peace,” Ghebreyesus said.During Sunday prayers in Rome, Pope Francis lamented how the country has become the site of “the most serious humanitarian crisis in the world”.He called on both sides to end the fighting and urged the international community to “help the belligerents find paths to peace soon”.