Middle East latest: Palestinian militants name 3 Israeli men to be freed in next hostage release
Middle East latest: Palestinian militants name 3 Israeli men to be freed in next hostage release
The families of Israeli hostages still held by the Hamas militant group on Friday welcomed the “joyous news” that three men, all taken from the same kibbutz on Oct. 7, 2023, are expected to be freed on Saturday in exchange for more than 300 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
Hamas-led militants released the three names Friday in the latest indication that the fragile ceasefire deal — which had teetered in recent days — will hold. Nearly all the 73 remaining hostages are men, including Israeli soldiers, and about half are believed to be dead.
The sides have carried out five swaps since the ceasefire began on Jan. 19, freeing 21 hostages and over 730 Palestinian prisoners so far during the first phase of the truce. The war could resume if no agreement is reached on the more complicated second phase, which calls for the return of all remaining hostages captured in Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7, 2023, and an indefinite extension of the truce.
Here’s the latest:
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A top commander with the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon is injured after protesters attack a convoy in Beirut
BEIRUT — The departing deputy commander of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon was injured Friday when protesters attacked a convoy taking peacekeepers to the Beirut airport, the force known as UNIFIL said in a statement.
“We are shocked by this outrageous attack on peacekeepers who have been serving to restore security and stability to south Lebanon during a difficult time,” it said.
The Lebanese army intervened to disperse the protesters. The army said in a statement that acting Lebanese commander Maj. Gen. Hassan Odeh had contacted UNIFIL and promised to “work to arrest the citizens who attacked its members and bring them to justice.”
Demonstrators have been blocking the road leading to the airport and other roads in the capital. They’re protesting that Lebanese authorities revoked permission for a passenger plane from Iran to fly to Beirut on Thursday. That came after the Israeli army claimed Iran was smuggling cash to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah via civilian flights.
Israeli settlers attack a village in the West Bank and wound at least 16 Palestinians, medics say
JERUSALEM — A group of Israeli settlers descended on a Palestinian village in the southern Israeli-occupied West Bank on Friday, wounding at least 16 Palestinians, according to paramedics.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said in a statement that it brought four people to the hospital with fractures and wounds from the village of Al-Maniya, near Bethlehem. It said it treated 10 of the injured in the field.
The Israeli military described the event as a “violent confrontation” between Palestinians and Israelis that included destruction of property and physical violence, which police forces and soldiers dispersed.
The West Bank has seen a surge in violence by Israeli settlers during the war in Gaza.
These are some of the high-profile Palestinians being freed by Israel on Saturday
RAMALLAH, West Bank — Among the most prominent Palestinian prisoners set to be released Saturday is Ahmed Barghouti, 48, a close aide of Marwan Barghouti, a militant leader and iconic Palestinian political figure.
Israel sentenced Ahmed Barghouti to life on charges that he dispatched suicide bombers during the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising, in the early 2000s to carry out attacks that killed Israeli civilians. He was arrested alongside Marwan Barghouti in 2002.
Ahmed Barghouti and 23 other prisoners serving life sentences for deadly attacks against Israelis will be deported to Egypt.
Other prominent prisoners being released include the three Sarahneh brothers from the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, who have been imprisoned since 2002 for involvement in suicide bombings against Israelis during the second intifada.
Two of them — Ibrahim, 55, and Musa, 63 — are being released back to their homes while the third, 45-year-old Khalil, who was sentenced to life for driving a suicide bomber to Jerusalem for an attack that killed an Israeli police officer, is being transferred to Egypt on Saturday.
Nearly all of the 369 Palestinians being released will go back to Gaza or be deported to Egypt
RAMALLAH, West Bank — The Palestinian Authority’s commission of prisoners’ affairs has published the names of 369 Palestinians jailed by Israel slated to be released on Saturday in exchange for three Israeli hostages in the latest swap of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal.
Just eight Palestinians will be received by crowds of family, friends and supporters in the occupied West Bank. Four prisoners will be released back to their homes in east Jerusalem.
Twenty-four prisoners serving life sentences for deadly attacks against Israelis will be sent to exile in Egypt.
The remaining 333 Palestinians who will be released Saturday were detained from the Gaza Strip after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack and Israel’s subsequent invasion of the enclave.
Israeli forces in Gaza have arrested hundreds of people in the search for militants. As part of the ceasefire deal that paused the fighting in Gaza last month, Israel committed to releasing more than 1,000 the Palestinians detained from Gaza without trial, on the condition that they had not participated in the Oct. 7 attack.
Lebanese protesters set fire to UN peacekeeping vehicles
BEIRUT — Protesters in Lebanon’s capital attacked a convoy of U.N. peacekeepers near the Beirut airport and burned three vehicles on Friday, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported. The Lebanese army intervened to disperse them.
The U.N. peacekeeping force did not immediately comment on the episode and it was unclear if anyone had been hurt.
Demonstrators have blocked the road to the airport to protest Lebanese authorities’ decision to revoke permission for a passenger plane from Iran to fly to Beirut on Thursday, leaving dozens of Lebanese passengers stranded.
The decision to ban the Iranian plane came after the Israeli army issued a statement claiming Iran was smuggling cash via civilian flights to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
Lebanon’s civil aviation agency said “additional security measures” meant some flights were temporarily rescheduled until Feb. 18 — the same day as a deadline for Israel and Hezbollah to fully implement their ceasefire agreement, including a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon.
Palestinian and other diplomats at the UN call for the Gaza ceasefire to be upheld
UNITED NATIONS — The Palestinian U.N. ambassador and diplomats from about 30 other nations urged that the Gaza ceasefire deal be upheld and for countries to oppose any plan to relocate the territory’s population.
Ambassador Riyad Mansour noted that hundreds of thousands of his fellow Palestinians eagerly returned to Gaza’s decimated north during the ceasefire.
“It is a clear signal that they want to go back to the places where they were born, where they have memories, where they have their stories,” Mansour told reporters at the U.N. headquarters on Friday.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposal to remove some 2 million Palestinians from Gaza and settle them elsewhere in the region has thrown the ceasefire’s future into further doubt.
Trump envisions redeveloping the coastal strip into a “Riviera of the Middle East.”
Kuwaiti U.N. Ambassador Tareq Al Banai retorted Friday that Arab countries “want to see a Riviera — a Palestinian, Gazan Riviera.”
In Gaza, hunger and anxiety about an uncertain future
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Displaced Palestinians in central Gaza remain fearful that the war could resume, longing for stability as they struggle to find shelter and secure food.
“The war paused, but starvation is still ongoing,” said Um Yehia Shaheen, a displaced woman from Gaza City.
Some 30 people lined up in front of a charity kitchen on Friday in Deir al-Balah, carrying buckets or pots for their share of yellow rice and small chunks of meat. Children in line held bags of flatbread. Frozen meat is now available in the market, an AP journalist confirmed.
“If it wasn’t for this charity kitchen,” she said, “we wouldn’t have been able to find an alternative for ourselves because everything is expensive and there are no humanitarian assistance coupons.”
Nearby, a camp for displaced Palestinians is filled with tents made from torn fabric and tarps, set against a backdrop of damaged and abandoned buildings.
“I’m scared the war would resume, and I hope the situation would improve and things get calm,” said Abdel Qader Saed, a displaced man from Jabaliya, “and that equipment to remove the rubble would be brought in so that if any of us went back home, we would be able to set up a tent for shelter.”
US general sees progress as Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire deadline approaches
BEIRUT — The U.S. representative on a committee overseeing the ceasefire agreement that ended the latest Israel-Hezbollah war said Friday that “significant progress” had been made ahead of a looming deadline to implement all the terms of the deal.
However, Maj. Gen. Jasper Jeffers’ statement appeared to leave some ambiguity on whether Israel would withdraw its forces from all of southern Lebanon by the ceasefire’s Feb. 18 deadline, saying only that he was confident “all population centers in the Southern Litani Area” would be back under Lebanese control by then.
In areas where Israeli forces pull out, the Lebanese army and a U.N. peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL are tasked with ensuring Hezbollah does not reestablish a military presence.
The deadline for Israel and Hezbollah to withdraw was initially set for late January, but Israel and Lebanon agreed to extend it. Lebanese officials say they won’t agree to another extension and adamantly reject an Israeli proposal to keep its forces in five border points after leaving other areas.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said Thursday that his country had proposed a beefed-up UNIFIL presence, including French forces, in place of Israeli troops at those five points. The monitoring committee also includes France, Lebanon, Israel and UNIFIL.
More than 360 Palestinian prisoners to be released
RAMALLAH, West Bank — The Hamas-linked prisoners’ information office says that a total of 369 Palestinians jailed by Israel will be released Saturday in exchange for three Israeli hostages held in Gaza.
It said Friday that 36 of the Palestinians scheduled for release were serving life sentences. The statement did not specify how many of them would be released into exile in Egypt ahead of deportation to other countries as part of the agreement between Israel and Hamas.
The rest of the 333 Palestinians were from Gaza, all arrested after Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that ignited the 15-month war.
Under the ceasefire deal, Israel committed to release more than 1,000 Palestinians from Gaza detained during the Israeli invasion of the enclave on the condition that they had not participated in the Oct. 7 attack.
The Palestinian Authority did not immediately announce the names of those set to be freed Saturday.
3 Israelis with dual nationalities to be released
JERUSALEM — The three men set to be freed by Hamas on Saturday in the sixth wave of hostage releases under the Israel-Hamas ceasefire are all Israeli civilians with dual nationalities.
All were from the same communal farm, Kibbutz Nir Oz, where some 80 of roughly 400 residents were taken hostage in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack.
The men are Israeli-Argentinian Iair Horn, 46, Israeli-Russian Alexander (Sasha) Troufanov, 29, and Israeli-American Sagui Dekel Chen, 36.
Horn is an Israel-Argentinian who was kidnapped along with his brother, Eitan Horn, who was staying with him at the time. Eitan Horn remains in Hamas captivity.
Chen was outside working on a bus renovation when militants stormed the kibbutz. His wife, Avital, hid in the safe room with their two daughters. Avital was seven months pregnant and gave birth to a third daughter, Shachar Mazal, in December, while Dekel Chen was in captivity.
Israeli-Russian Sasha Trufanov was taken hostage along with three members of his family: grandmother Irena Tati, mother Yelena (Lena) and his girlfriend Sapir Cohen. Sasha’s father Vitaly Trufanov was killed on October 7, 2023. The rest of his family was released in a brief ceasefire period November 2023.
Hamas released the names in a statement earlier Friday. Saturday’s release will be the sixth since the Israel-Hamas ceasefire took effect.
Turkish president blasts Trump’s Gaza proposal
ANKARA, Turkey – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan continued his strong criticism of U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposal to relocate Palestinians from Gaza, arguing that the U.S. president was making a mistake by trusting Israeli “lies” and disregarding the “history and values” of the region.
Speaking to a group of journalists on his return from a trip to three Asian nations, Erdogan urged Trump to fulfil his promises to promote peace rather than conflict.
“Believing what (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu — whose legal process is still ongoing in his country — says will do nothing but shed blood in the region,” Erdogan said, according to a transcript of comments that were made available to The Associated Press on Friday. “This will not bring the longed-for peace, on the contrary, it will deepen conflicts and increase blood and tears.”
Erdogan, a vocal advocate of Palestinian rights, also appeared to suggest that the U.S. president should refrain from taking decisions regarding the region without consultations.
“There is no room for a ‘it’s done whether you like it or not’ approach in this region,” Erdogan said. “The expulsion of the Palestinian people from Gaza is unacceptable.”
By The Associated Press
