Latest news with #USEnvoy
Khaleej Times
2 days ago
- General
- Khaleej Times
Hamas response to ceasefire offer 'totally unacceptable', says US envoy
The US envoy to the Middle East on Saturday criticised Hamas over its response to a US-proposed ceasefire deal, with the militant group saying it would free 10 living hostages from Gaza. "It is totally unacceptable and only takes us backward," Steve Witkoff wrote on X. "Hamas should accept the framework proposal we put forward as the basis for proximity talks, which we can begin immediately this coming week. "That is the only way we can close a 60-day ceasefire deal in the coming days in which half of the living hostages and half of those who are deceased will come home to their families and in which we can have at the proximity talks substantive negotiations in good-faith to try to reach a permanent ceasefire," he added.
Al Jazeera
3 days ago
- General
- Al Jazeera
Israel attacks western Syria despite recent indirect talks to calm tensions
Israel has struck western Syria, the Israeli military and Syrian state media have reported, in the first such aerial attack on the country in almost a month, the day after the United States envoy to Damascus said conflict between the neighbouring countries is 'solvable'. Syrian state media reported late Friday that one person was killed and three others injured by an Israeli air strike around the coastal city of Latakia. 'A strike from Israeli occupation aircraft targeted sites close to the village of Zama in the Jableh countryside south of Latakia,' Syria's Alikhbaria state TV reported. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, meanwhile, reported that jets likely to be Israeli struck military sites on the outskirts of Tartous and Latakia, on the Mediterranean coast. The Israeli strike follows Syria acknowledging indirect talks with Israel earlier this month to calm tensions. The Israeli military claimed responsibility for the strike, saying it had 'struck weapon storage facilities containing coastal missiles that posed a threat to international and Israeli maritime freedom of navigation, in the Latakia area of Syria'. 'In addition, components of surface-to-air missiles were struck in the area of Latakia,' it said, adding that it would 'continue to operate to maintain freedom of action in the region, in order to carry out its missions and will act to remove any threat to the State of Israel and its citizens'. The Israeli strike came a day after US envoy to Syria Thomas Barrack's visit to Damascus aimed at rebuilding ties under Syria's new administration, during which he said the conflict between Israel and Syria is 'solvable' and needed to start with 'dialogue'. 'I'd say we need to start with just a non-aggression agreement, talk about boundaries and borders,' Barrack told journalists on Thursday. The two countries have technically been at war since the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948. A state of heightened tension and deep enmity between Israel and Syria accelerated during the 1967 war, which also drew in Egypt and Jordan, and Israel's subsequent occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights. Israel has carried out frequent attacks in Syria both during the Bashar al-Assad rule and since his ouster. Shortly before the fall of al-Assad's regime, Israel seized more Syrian territory near the border, claiming it was concerned about President Ahmed al-Sharaa's interim administration, which it has dismissed as 'jihadist'. During a meeting between US President Donald Trump and al-Sharaa in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, earlier in May, the US leader urged al-Sharaa to normalise relations with Israel. While al-Sharaa has not commented on possible normalisation with Israel, he has stated his support for returning to the terms of a 1974 ceasefire agreement that created a United Nations buffer zone in the Golan Heights.
LBCI
4 days ago
- General
- LBCI
Hamas says studying 'Witkoff's new proposal' for Gaza deal
Hamas on Thursday said it was studying a new proposal from Steve Witkoff, after the U.S. envoy said he was optimistic about a possible Gaza ceasefire. "The leadership of the Hamas movement has received Witkoff's new proposal from the mediators and is currently studying it responsibly, in a manner that serves the interests of our people, provides relief, and achieves a permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip," the Palestinian militant group said in a statement. AFP
Al Arabiya
5 days ago
- General
- Al Arabiya
US envoy for Syria arrives in Damascus for historic visit
The US envoy for Syria, Thomas Barrack, arrived at the ambassador's residence in the Syrian capital on Thursday, in the first official visit since the US embassy there closed in 2012, a year after Syria's conflict broke out. Developing
Al Arabiya
7 days ago
- Politics
- Al Arabiya
Israeli strikes kill at least 52 in Gaza as Netanyahu vows to intensify attacks
At least 52 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, rescuers in the territory said on Monday, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to bring back all hostages, 'living and dead.' Netanyahu's remarks came amid confusion about the fate of a proposed 70-day ceasefire that was to see the release of 10 Israeli hostages alongside more Palestinian prisoners. Israel has in recent weeks intensified its offensive in the Gaza Strip, drawing international condemnation as little aid trickles in following a monthslong blockade that has caused severe food and medical shortages. 'If we don't achieve it today, we will achieve it tomorrow, and if not tomorrow, then the day after tomorrow. We are not giving up,' Netanyahu said of freeing the captives. 'We intend to bring them all back, the living and the dead,' he added without mentioning a possible truce. Hamas militants took 251 hostages during the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, 57 of whom remain in Gaza including 34 who the Israeli military says are dead. Hamas said Monday it had accepted a new ceasefire proposal by US envoy Steve Witkoff, presented by mediators, but a spokesman for Witkoff later denied the Palestinian group had accepted. 'What I have seen from Hamas is disappointing and completely unacceptable,' the US envoy told the US news outlet Axios. In Gaza, an early-morning Israeli strike on the Fahmi Al-Jarjawi school, where displaced people were sheltering, killed 'at least 33, with dozens injured, mostly children,' civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said Monday. The Israeli military alleged it had 'struck key terrorists who were operating within a Hamas and Islamic Jihad command and control center embedded' in the area, adding that 'numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians.' Another Israeli strike killed at least 19 people in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, Bassal said. European and Arab leaders meeting in Spain over the weekend called for an end to Israel's 'inhumane' and 'senseless' war, while humanitarian groups said the trickle of aid Israel was allowing in was not nearly enough. 'Open wound' Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares called Sunday for an arms embargo on Israel. He also pressed for humanitarian aid to enter Gaza 'massively, without conditions and without limits, and not controlled by Israel,' describing the territory as humanity's 'open wound.' In Germany, Chancellor Friedrich Merz voiced unusually strong criticism of Israel, saying: 'I no longer understand what the Israeli army is now doing in the Gaza Strip, with what goal.' The impact on Gazan civilians 'can no longer be justified,' he added. Nevertheless, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said Berlin would continue selling weapons to Israel. The Israeli military said Monday that over 'the past 48 hours, the (air force) struck over 200 targets throughout the Gaza Strip.' It also said it had detected three projectiles launched from Gaza toward Israel, as the country prepared to celebrate Jerusalem Day, an annual event marking its capture of the city's eastern sector in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. 'Two projectiles fell in the Gaza Strip and one additional projectile was intercepted,' it said. 'Situation is devastating' Israel last week partially eased its aid blockade on Gaza that had exacerbated widespread shortages of food and medicine. COGAT, the Israeli defense ministry body that coordinates civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories, said that '170 trucks... carrying humanitarian aid including food, medical equipment, and pharmaceutical drugs were transferred' into Gaza on Monday. A top World Health Organization official deplored Monday that none of the agency's trucks with medical aid had been allowed to enter the Gaza Strip since Israel ended its blockade. For more than 11 weeks, 'there has been no WHO trucks entering into Gaza for medical care support,' the WHO's Eastern Mediterranean regional director Hanan Balkhy said, adding that 'the situation is devastating.' Also on Monday, the controversial US-backed group Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said it had begun distributing food aid in the territory. 'More trucks with aid will be delivered tomorrow, with the flow of aid increasing each day,' it said in a statement. While Israel has restricted aid reaching Gaza, the war has made growing food next to impossible, with the UN saying on Monday just five percent of Gaza's farmland was now useable. The health ministry in Gaza said on Monday that at least 3,822 people had been killed by Israel in the territory since Israel ended the ceasefire on March 18, taking the war's overall toll to 53,977, mostly women and children.
