AFP Asia Business

Israel-Hamas truce holding after first hostage-prisoner swap

A fragile ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war was holding Monday, following the exchange of three hostages for 90 Palestinian prisoners in an agreement aimed at ending more than 15 months of war in Gaza.The three Israeli hostages released Sunday, all women, were reunited with their families and taken to hospital in central Israel, where a doctor said they were in stable condition.Hours later in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Palestinian prisoners released by Israel left Ofer prison on buses, with jubilant crowds celebrating their arrival.As the ceasefire took effect, thousands of displaced, war-weary Palestinians set off across the devastated Gaza Strip to return home.The truce began on the eve of Donald Trump’s inauguration for a second term as US president. Trump has claimed credit for the agreement after months of fruitless negotiations.If all goes according to plan, the first phase of the truce would last six weeks during which the parties would negotiate a permanent ceasefire, which has not been agreed yet.Despite the risks, hundreds of Palestinians were streaming through an apocalyptic landscape in Jabalia in northern Gaza, one of the worst-hit areas in the war.”We are finally in our home. There is no home left, just rubble, but it’s our home,” said Rana Mohsen, 43.The initial 42-day truce was brokered by mediators Qatar, the United States and Egypt.It should enable a surge of sorely needed humanitarian aid into Gaza, as more Israeli hostages are released in exchange for Palestinians in Israeli custody and Israeli forces leave some areas.During the initial phase of the truce, 33 Israeli hostages are due to be returned from Gaza in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinians.- Reunited -The first three released hostages, Emily Damari, Romi Gonen and Doron Steinbrecher, returned to Israel after Hamas fighters handed them over to the Red Cross in a bustling square in Gaza City, surrounded by gunmen in fatigues and balaclavas.”In Emily’s own words, she is the happiest girl in the world; she has her life back,” Damari’s mother Mandy said on Monday, adding that her daughter was “doing much better than any of us could have expected” even after losing two fingers.Damari, a British-Israeli dual national, was at home in Kfar Aza in southern Israel when Hamas gunmen stormed the area on October 7, 2023, injuring her hands and legs and taking her hostage.Steinbrecher’s family said in a statement that “our heroic Dodo, who survived 471 days in Hamas captivity, begins her rehabilitation journey today”.In Tel Aviv, there was elation among the crowd who had waited for hours for the news of their release, with the Hostages and Missing Families Forum campaign group hailing their return as “a beacon of light”.On Monday, however, there was anxiety in Israel over the next phases of the truce, with columnist Sima Kadmon warning in the Yedioth Ahronoth daily that the coming hostage releases may be more painful.”Some of them will arrive on gurneys and wheelchairs. Others will arrive in coffins. Some will arrive wounded and injured, in dire emotional condition,” she wrote.Journalist Avi Issacharoff, one of the creators of hit series Fauda, lashed out against the Israeli government for what he said was its failure “to engage in any way on the ‘day after’ the war”.Following the return of the three hostages, the Israel Prison Service confirmed the release of 90 Palestinian prisoners early Monday.In the West Bank town of Beitunia, near Ofer prison, Palestinians cheered and chanted as buses carrying prisoners arrived, with some climbing atop and unfurling a Hamas flag.”All the prisoners being released today feel like family to us. They are part of us, even if they’re not blood relatives,” Amanda Abu Sharkh, 23, told AFP.One freed detainee, Abdul Aziz Muhammad Atawneh, described prison as “hell, hell, hell”.The next hostage-prisoner swap should take place on Saturday, a senior Hamas official told AFP.International Committee of the Red Cross president Mirjana Spoljaric called on all sides to “adhere to their commitments to ensure the next operations can take place safely”.- ‘Rise again’ -UN relief chief Tom Fletcher said 630 trucks carrying desperately needed aid had entered into Gaza in the hours after the start of the truce, with 300 of them headed to the north of the territory.Qatar said that 12.5 million litres of fuel would enter Gaza over the first 10 days of the truce.The war has devastated much of the Palestinian territory and displaced the vast majority of its population of 2.4 million, but Hamas on Monday vowed that Gaza and its people would “rise again”.”Gaza, with its great people and its resilience, will rise again to rebuild what the occupation has destroyed,” Hamas said in a statement.The World Food Programme said it was moving full throttle to get food to as many Gazans as possible.”We’re trying to reach a million people within the shortest possible time,” said the agency’s deputy executive director, Carl Skau.The war’s only previous truce, for one week in November 2023, also saw the release of hostages held by militants in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.Hamas’s October 7 attack, the deadliest in Israel’s history, resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.Of the 251 people taken hostage, 91 are still in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Sunday that the death toll in the war between Israel and Hamas had reached 46,913.burs-ser/jsa/ami

‘We slept in peace’: War-weary Gazans savour truce’s first night

For the first time in more than a year, war-displaced Gazan Ammar Barbakh awoke on Monday feeling refreshed after a night spent in a tent, but free of Israeli attacks.”This is the first time I sleep comfortably and I’m not afraid,” Barbakh, 35, told AFP a day after a fragile truce in the Israel-Hamas war took hold.”We didn’t hear any shelling, and we weren’t afraid,” he said.Barbakh, from Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, pitched a tent on the rubble of his former home.Despite the destruction, he was thrilled to have had a peaceful sleep.”It’s a beautiful feeling, and I hope the ceasefire continues”, said Barbakh.Thousands of displaced Palestinians like him have headed back to their home areas across the Gaza Strip since the ceasefire came into effect on Sunday.For Samer Daloul, “it was the first night we slept in peace” since the war’s first truce, a one-week pause in November 2023 about two months after fighting erupted.”The sound of fighter jets and drones was present all night, but the air strikes stopped,” said Daloul.The new-found calm has given him a chance to reflect on the grave losses he suffered during the war, including the deaths of 32 of his relatives, he said.”I’m happy and sad at the same time,” said Daloul, expressing his hope that the initial 42-truce would hold and give way to a permanent ceasefire.In the tiny coastal territory, practically everyone knows at least one person from the tens of thousands killed in the war, or at the very least someone who lost a loved one.And nearly all of the besieged territory’s 2.4 million residents have been displaced at least once during the war, according to UN figures.Many have nowhere to return to with more than 60 percent of buildings across Gaza damaged by fighting, shelling or air strikes.- Rebuilding -Daloul has been sheltering in a school building along with 12 family members, five of them children.Other displaced Gazans have built makeshift shelters or erected tents with whatever material they could find amid severe shortages.In central Gaza, pedestrians and drivers moved around freely on Monday along the main coastal road that hugs the Mediterranean Sea, a semblance of normal life save for the rows of hundreds of tents housing displaced families.Even those with a house — or mere walls — to return to must still guarantee basic conditions before proper rebuilding can begin.Still, some took to repainting a wall still standing, or searched through the rubble for any belongings the could still salvage.Noha Abed, 28, has returned with her husband and three children to the family’s home in the southern city of Rafah, which now has only one livable room.”Our house was beautiful, a one-storey building with three rooms. We lost everything,” she told AFP.But after cleaning it and putting their belongings in what is left of the house, Abed said the family “want to live in it until the rebuilding happens”.For now, her focus is on securing “food, water, electricity, beddings and blankets” for the family, who had been sleeping in a tent further north for about 10 months, said Abed.Despite the difficult conditions, she said that this was “the first night I sleep without being afraid for my children”.Looking ahead, Abed said, “the most important thing is that the war does not resume.”bur-az-crb-dla/jd/ami

Syria phone shops free from Assad-linked monopoly

Syrian phone shop owner Abdel Razzaq Hamra was thrilled to finally be working in peace after years of being harassed and detained by security personnel enforcing an Assad-linked company’s monopoly.Before president Bashar al-Assad was ousted last month, his security forces would raid the central Damascus district where dozens of mobile stores operate in search of phones without the Emmatel company logo.”If they would find one device without an Emmatel sticker, they would confiscate everything,” said Hamra, 33.Shuddering from fear as he recounted the story, he said he had been detained three times since 2020, lost $10,000 worth of confiscated goods and been beaten in jail.”They accused me of not working with Emmatel… so they put me in a jail cell for 101 days,” he told AFP.War profiteers connected to the Assad clan have long dominated the country’s economy, monopolising entire sectors, stifling competition and terrorising businesses.Created in 2019, Emmatel is owned by Syrian businessman Khodr Taher, also known as Abu Ali Khodr.The US Treasury Department has accused him of supplying the Syrian army’s notorious Fourth Division — headed by Assad’s brother Maher — including through the creation of a private security firm that acted as its “informal executive arm”.Assad’s wife Asma is also allegedly linked to the company, the Treasury has said.Emmatel was a distributor of telephones and IT products, including a slew of mobile phone brands.Both Taher and Emmatel have been under US sanctions since 2020 for their links to the Assad government.At least one Emmatel store was looted after Assad’s fall, videos circulating online show, and its other branches are no longer operational.- ‘Kiss your family goodbye’ -Several small phone shops told AFP they had gone bankrupt from the repeated raids and extortion under Assad’s rule.Mustafa Khalayli said he was now out of work after closing down his mobile phone shop, which had employed five people. He had been detained for a year and lost $40,000 in confiscated merchandise to successive raids.”Every day you would go into work and kiss your family goodbye like it was the last time,” Khalayli said.”We were at risk of getting arrested at any moment over a mobile phone.”Khalayli said two officers and about 20 security personnel combed his shop for three hours in search of any phones he had not bought from Emmatel.But when they found nothing, they brought him in anyway, later accusing him of bogus charges and confiscating the phones, he said.”They just wanted to take away my merchandise,” he said.”It’s pure theft”.Bigger phone companies had also been forced to close or downsize, shopkeepers told AFP.- Branch 215 -Taher had influence in the country’s security apparatus, benefitting from close ties to the Assads but also Ali Mamlouk, head of the national security bureau — according to economic publication The Syria Report.Phone shop owners said security forces linked to Branch 215 of the Military Intelligence would raid their shops, while Shabiha — pro-Assad militiamen — also stalked the stores.”There was no basis for these raids other than the fact that Emmatel was owned by Abu Ali Khodr (Taher), who used to terrorise us with Branch 215,” said phone shop owner Wissam, who did not want to give his family name for fear of reprisals.Shopkeeper Mohamed al-Malhas said “Branch 215 was more of a gang than anything else”.”One officer searched all my devices for an hour and a half,” he said, standing in his small store.”He told me: ‘Consider this a friendly visit. Only Emmatel is allowed,'” he said.Shopkeepers told AFP that those who were able to pay off security forces who raided their stores could avoid detention, but many did not have the means to do so.Mohammad Gemmo, 25, said constant harassment and extortion forced him to close his shop and sell phones in a makeshift stall on the street.He was arrested and asked to pay thousands of dollars to get out.”But I couldn’t afford it,” he said, so he spent five months in detention.”Before, selling phones was like committing some big crime,” Gemmo said.”No one dared to buy anything that did not have the Emmatel stamp,” he added.”Now, thank God, it’s over.”

Missing US journalist’s mother says new Syria leaders ‘determined’ to find son

The mother of US journalist Austin Tice, who went missing in Syria in 2012, said on Monday in Damascus that the war-torn country’s new leadership was committed to finding him.Tice was working as a freelance journalist for Agence France-Presse, McClatchy News, The Washington Post, CBS and other media outlets when he was detained at a checkpoint in August 2012.”I have been privileged to meet with the new leadership of Syria,” Debra Tice told journalists in Damascus, after holding talks with Syria’s new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.”It was so wonderful to learn that they are dedicated and determined to bring home my son, and your son,” she added.She expressed hope the incoming administration of Donald Trump, who takes office as US president later on Monday, will work to bring her son home.”Today… Trump will be sworn into office and a page will be turned,” she said.”I have great hope that the Trump administration will be very engaged in diligent work to bring Austin home.”I look forward to working closely with the team, including National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Special Presidential Envoy Adam Logan.”Debra Tice said she was “looking forward” to engaging with the Trump administration.”His people have already reached out to me,” she said.”I haven’t experienced that for the last four years, and so I’m very much looking forward to their help and involvement, and I think they’re going to be quick at it.”Last month, US officials said Syria’s new leadership had assisted in the hunt for Tice, including searches at sites of interest.”We feel it’s our duty as the US government to press on until we know with certainty what happened to him, where he is and to bring him home,” said Roger Carstens, the US pointman on hostages.He made the remarks during the first visit to Damascus by US officials since Islamist-led forces toppled autocratic Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.