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Dozens of Syrian Druze clerics crossed the armistice line on the Golan Heights into Israel on Friday for their community’s first pilgrimage to a revered shrine in decades.On board three buses escorted by Israeli military vehicles, the clerics crossed at Majdal Shams in the Golan, and headed to northern Israel.According to a source close to the group, the delegation of around 60 clerics was due to meet the spiritual leader of Israel’s Druze community, Sheikh Mowafaq Tarif.They then headed to the tomb of Nabi Shuaib in the Galilee -– the most important religious site for the Druze — where they arrived in the evening to pray.Followers of the esoteric monotheistic faith are mainly divided between Syria, Lebanon, Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.In Majdal Shams, the visitors were met by scores of Druze residents who sang songs to welcome them.Young boys waved the green, red, yellow, blue and white Druze flag, while the men wore traditional black garb and white and red headwear.- ‘Represent only themselves’-“We are really drowned by good feelings and we are hosting brothers after politics and the wire have separated us for a long time,” said Salim Zeidan, 74, a retired formerly teacher whose family was visiting from Syria.”We’ve been waiting to meet them for many years, it is a very emotional moment,” added Jamal Ayub, a 61-year-old farmer who had travelled from the Galilee to welcome his uncle.The visit followed an invitation from the Druze community in Israel, according to a source close to the delegation, but has been met with opposition from other Druze in Syria.The minority accounts for about three percent of Syria’s population and is heavily concentrated in the southern province of Sweida.In Israel and the occupied Golan Heights, there are around 150,000 Druze, with most of those living in Israel holding Israeli citizenship and serving in the army.However, of the roughly 23,000 living in the occupied Golan Heights, most do not hold Israeli citizenship and still see themselves as Syrian nationals.Residents of Hader village in Syria, from where the clerics departed on Friday, condemned the trip, saying in a statement that the clerics “represent only themselves”.They accused Israel of “exploiting this religious visit as a tool to sow division” and of “seeking to use the Druze community as a defensive line to achieve its expansionist interests in southern Syria”.Israel seized much of the strategic Golan Heights from Syria in a war in 1967, later annexing the area in 1981 in a move largely unrecognised by the international community.- ‘Bold alliance’ -The pilgrimage comes as Israel has voiced support for Syria’s Druze and mistrust of the country’s new leaders.Following the ouster of longtime Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in December, Israel carried out hundreds of air strikes on Syria and sent troops into the demilitarised buffer zone of the Golan in southwest Syria.Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said Thursday that 10,000 humanitarian aid packages had been sent to “the Druze community in battle areas of Syria” over the past few weeks.”Israel has a bold alliance with our Druze brothers and sisters,” he told journalists.During a visit to military outposts in the UN-patrolled buffer zone between Israel and Syria on Tuesday, Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israel would remain in the area and ensure the protection of the Druze.  In early March, following a deadly clash between government-linked forces and Druze fighters in the suburbs of Damascus, Katz said his country would not allow Syria’s new rulers “to harm the Druze”. Druze leaders immediately rejected Katz’s warning and declared their loyalty to a united Syria.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that southern Syria must be completely demilitarised, warning that his government would not accept the presence of the forces of the new Islamist-led government near its territory.

Gold rose above $3,000 for the first time Friday as President Donald Trump’s trade wars boosted demand for safe-haven assets, while stock markets bounced on signs US lawmakers would avert a government shutdown.Major US indices opened higher and remained in positive territory through the day, shrugging off a downcast reading on US consumer sentiment.European stock …

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Hamas said on Friday it was ready to free an Israeli-American hostage and the remains of four others, after the Palestinian militants and Israel resumed indirect Gaza ceasefire negotiations.However, Israel said Hamas had “not budged” following a proposal from US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.The White House accused Hamas of making “entirely impractical” demands.”Hamas is making a very bad bet that time is on its side. It is not,” a statement from Witkoff’s office and the US National Security Council said.”Hamas is well aware of the deadline, and should know that we will respond accordingly if that deadline passes.”After more than 15 months of war, the first phase of a truce between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip ended on March 1 without agreement on the next steps. A senior Hamas official said on Tuesday fresh talks had begun in Doha, with Israel also sending negotiators.”Yesterday, a Hamas leadership delegation received a proposal from the brotherly mediators to resume negotiations,” the Islamist movement said in a statement Friday.It said its reply “included its agreement to release the Israeli soldier Edan Alexander, who holds American citizenship, along with the remains of four others holding dual citizenship”.Hamas official Taher al-Nounou told AFP that all five are Israeli-Americans.US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, asked Friday at the G7 group meeting in Canada if Washington was prioritising the release of the American hostage, replied: “We care about all the hostages.” Witkoff was in Qatar this week. According to Israel, he earlier proposed extending the truce’s first phase to mid-April.The extension would see half of the hostages still in Gaza released on the day the deal comes into effect, with the rest freed at the end if agreement is reached on a permanent ceasefire, Israel said.Hamas has insisted on talks for the second phase of the deal brokered by the United States, Qatar and Egypt.- ‘Witkoff framework’ -“While Israel accepted the Witkoff framework, Hamas remains firm in its refusal and has not budged a millimetre,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said, accusing Hamas of resorting to “manipulation and psychological warfare”.During the truce’s initial six-week phase, militants released 33 hostages, including eight who were deceased, in exchange for about 1,800 Palestinian detainees held in Israeli prisons.A source close to Hamas told AFP that “new criteria have been agreed” and include “an increase in the number of detained Palestinians” to be freed.Netanyahu’s office said he will meet late Saturday with several cabinet ministers “to receive a detailed report from the negotiation team and decide next steps towards freeing the hostages”.Despite the first phase’s expiry, the ceasefire has largely held.The Palestinian Red Crescent reported four minors killed in an air strike in northern Gaza Friday as they gathered wood. Their ages were not given.Israel’s military said only that “several terrorists” were attacked as they tried to plant explosives.Israel halted aid deliveries into Gaza 13 days ago over the truce deadlock. At the weekend, it also cut off the electricity supply, which largely halted output from Gaza’s main water desalination plant.- G7 urges aid resumption -The G7 group called Friday for the resumption of “unhindered” humanitarian aid for Gaza, marking a possible shift in position by the Trump administration which had not previously criticised Israel for blocking aid.A joint statement by G7 foreign ministers “reaffirmed their support for the resumption of unhindered humanitarian aid into Gaza and for a permanent ceasefire.”On Thursday, Hamas renewed a demand for Israeli troops to withdraw from south Gaza, accusing Israel of seeking to breach the ceasefire in talks on the next phase of the accord.Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem told AFP Israeli forces should have pulled out of the Philadelphi Corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border under the first phase.Israel has insisted it needs to maintain control of the corridor to prevent weapons smuggling into Gaza from Egypt.Former US president Joe Biden had outlined a second phase involving the release of remaining living hostages, the withdrawal of all Israeli forces left in Gaza and establishment of a lasting ceasefire.”Meetings are continuing with mediators in Doha. We adhere to what was agreed upon and to entering into the second phase,” Qassem said.Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel which triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, while Israel’s military retaliation in Gaza killed more than 48,500, according to figures from the two sides.burs/srm/kir

Syria’s new temporary constitution concentrates power in interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s hands and fails to include enough protections for minorities, experts warn.The declaration, signed into law on Thursday, establishes a five-year transitional period and follows the toppling of Bashar al-Assad’s repressive government by Islamist-led rebels after nearly 14 years of civil war.”The constitutional declaration grants absolute powers to the interim president,” said Sam Dallah, a constitutional law professor and former spokesperson for the drafting committee of the 2012 constitution, who left Syria after the outbreak of the civil war.He said it establishes “a presidential-type regime”, where executive power rests with the interim president and the ministers he appoints, and does not include a post of prime minister.Under the new framework, elections based on a new constitution will take place only after the transitional period.According to the temporary constitution, Sharaa “appoints one-third” of the members of the future assembly and forms a committee to select the members of the electoral college that will elect the remaining parliamentarians.Although the document describes the judiciary as “independent”, it gives the interim president the power to appoint members of the Supreme Constitutional Court, the country’s highest judicial authority.- ‘Separation of powers’ -“If the president directly or indirectly chooses the members of the People’s Assembly, appoints and dismisses ministers, and appoints the members of the Constitutional Court, what remains of the principle of the separation of powers?” asks Dallah.”The concentration of powers in the hands of a single person will inevitably lead to the monopolisation of decision-making,” the expert warned.While the constitutional declaration draws heavily from previous constitutions, it no longer includes mention of democracy.One key change from the previous constitution is that Islamic jurisprudence is now described as “the principal source” of legislation, rather than just “a principal source”.Islam remains the religion of the head of state, Arabic the sole official language and the constitutional declaration offers no guarantees or protections for Syria’s minorities.This comes after the massacre of hundreds of civilians by the security forces in coastal Syria earlier this month, most of them members of the Alawite religious minority to which ousted President Bashar al-Assad belongs.- Minority fears -Hundreds of Kurds demonstrated in northeastern Syria on Friday against the constitutional declaration, which they say does not meet the aspirations of the country’s minorities.The temporary constitution has faced criticism from the autonomous administration, which recently reached an agreement with the new authorities for the integration of its institutions into the state.The Kurds have rejected the declaration and “any attempt to reproduce the dictatorship”. They called for “a fair distribution of power”, “recognising the rights of all Syrian components” and “adopting a decentralised democratic system of government”.”Minorities in Syria are extremely worried about the way things are going, because everything suggests that the signs point to a gradual process of transformation of the Syrian Arab Republic into the Islamic Republic of Syria,” said Tigrane Yegavian, a professor at Schiller University in Paris. “The only thing that could reassure minorities, who rightly feel threatened by the new regime, was a kind of federalisation, with a guarantee of autonomy in education and justice,” he added.But lawyer Tarek al-Kurdi, a former member of the commission established by the UN in Geneva to draft a new constitution under Assad, said “the declaration came at a difficult time for Syria, after 54 years of dictatorship and 14 years of devastating war”.”It must be approached realistically, as it cannot be compared to the constitutions of stable countries,” he told AFP.

China urged an end to “illegal” sanctions on Iran as it hosted Iranian and Russian diplomats on Friday for talks Beijing hopes will restart long-stalled negotiations on Tehran’s nuclear programme.The United States withdrew from a landmark 2015 deal, which imposed curbs on Tehran’s nuclear development in return for sanctions relief, during US President Donald Trump’s first term.The Republican president has called for a new nuclear deal with Iran since his return to the White House in January, but Tehran says no such agreement is possible so long as punishing sanctions remain in place.The effort to secure a pact was given new urgency last month when the UN nuclear watchdog said Iran had significantly increased its stockpile of highly enriched uranium.Beijing hosted Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov for talks on Friday it said it hoped would help “resume dialogue and negotiation at an early time”.Meeting the diplomats, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi stressed “the comprehensive agreement on the Iranian nuclear issue is an important achievement achieved through dialogue and negotiation”.”Now the situation has reached a critical juncture again. We must buy time for peace, resolve disputes through political and diplomatic means, and oppose the use of force and illegal sanctions,” he said.And the United States should demonstrate “political sincerity and return to talks at an early date”, said a statement from the Chinese foreign ministry, which outlined proposals for resolving the Iran nuclear issue. “All parties should… refrain from actions that might escalate the situation,” the statement added. – ‘Peaceful’ nuclear programme -Gharibabadi, in turn, hailed the “constructive” talks in Beijing and said Iran’s nuclear programme “is peaceful in nature”.”But unfortunately, some countries are trying to create an unnecessary crisis in this regard,” he said.”The main root cause of the current situation is the unilateral withdrawal of the United States.”Gharibabadi told Iran’s Mehr news agency that China and Russia had backed Iran’s position that any new nuclear talks should “focus solely on the nuclear issue”.One of the reasons cited by Trump for abandoning the 2015 deal was that it did not seek to address Iran’s ballistic missile programme which he argued posed a threat to the United States.The Russian and Iranian officials met China’s Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu earlier on Friday and “exchanged views on the Iran nuclear issue and other issues of common concern”, Chinese state media said.Ma reiterated after that meeting China’s support for “political and diplomatic engagement and dialogue based on mutual respect”.”We emphasised the necessity of ending all illegal, unilateral sanctions,” Ma told reporters.Iran’s ambassador to China said later on social media platform X the meeting was a “complete success”.The talks resulted in agreements on “trilateral cooperation on important international issues, including the need for the three countries to cooperate in confronting” US sanctions, he said.The Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that “it is necessary to further continue diplomatic efforts” on Iran’s nuclear programme, and condemned “illegal” sanctions against Tehran.- ‘Maximum pressure’ -Trump has reinstated his “maximum pressure” policy of sanctions against Iran, mirroring his approach during his first term.He sent a letter to Tehran this week urging nuclear talks and warning of possible military action if it refuses.Tehran said the letter, which Trump said was addressed to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was currently “being reviewed”.”Ultimately, the United States should lift the sanctions,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in an interview published by the government’s official newspaper on Thursday.Washington upped its pressure campaign the same day by imposing sanctions on Iranian Petroleum Minister Mohsen Paknejad.The US Treasury Department also blacklisted the owners or operators of vessels it said were engaged in transporting Iranian oil to China.