Middle East latest: Rights group accuses Israel of genocidal acts in Gaza

Human Rights Watch on Thursday accused Israel of causing the deaths of thousands of Palestinians by systematically restricting and targeting Gaza’s water supply in a campaign that amounted to “acts of genocide.”

The rights group is the latest among a growing number of critics to accuse Israel of genocidal acts in its war in Gaza. Israel vehemently denies the allegations, saying its war is directed at Hamas militants, not Gaza’s civilians.

More than 45,000 Palestinians have been killed in 14 months of war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas militants. The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but has said more than half of the fatalities are women and children.

An Israeli airstrike on a house in central Gaza early Thursday killed at least five people, including a boy and two women, hospital officials said. Seven people were wounded, and neighbors dug under the rubble searching for survivors.

“No place is safe,” said a nearby resident, Umm Abed Darweesh. “When we go out, we do not expect that we will return.”

Elsewhere in the region, Israel launched heavy airstrikes on Houthi rebel sites in Yemen early Thursday, killing at least nine people, officials said, shortly after a Houthi missile badly damaged a school building in central Israel.

Throughout the war in Gaza, the Iran-backed Houthis have also been attacking shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden — attacks they say won’t stop until there is a ceasefire in Gaza.

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Here’s the latest:

UN chief says Syria must not miss opportunity for a peaceful political transition

UNITED NATIONS – The United Nations chief says the Syrian people have a long-sought chance to start a peaceful and inclusive political transition leading to democratic elections — and “the opportunity cannot be missed.”

But Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Thursday that “if the ongoing situation is not managed carefully — by Syrians themselves, with the support of the international community — there is a real risk that progress could unravel.”

Guterres said the United Nations is mobilizing to facilitate a transition process and U.N. special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, was in Damascus this week urging a broad Syrian dialogue to chart a way forward which he hopes can start “as soon as possible.”

While stability has returned to parts of Syria, he said, there are still significant hostilities in the north and a major threat from Islamic State group extremists in many parts of the country. He also said Israel must end its incursion into the demilitarized buffer zone between the two countries, which violates a 1974 Disengagement Agreement.

With more than 130,000 people missing in Syria, he announced the appointment of Karla Quintana, who led Mexico’s commission searching for tens of thousands of people who disappeared, to head of the Independent Institution on Missing Persons in Syria established by the U.N.

US-backed force in Syria calls on northern Syrians to fight Turkish troops

DAMASCUS, Syria — The main U.S.-backed force in Syria has called on residents of a northern town to carry weapons and fight Turkish troops and fighters they back, saying “resistance is the only way to victory.”

The statement by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces came a day after intense fighting between their fighters and Turkey-backed gunmen in the country’s northern province of Aleppo, mainly near the border town of Kobani and the Tishrin dam on the Euphrates river.

The SDF said despite U.S. efforts to reduce tension in the area, Turkish troops and fighters they back launched a wide offensive on the area on Wednesday on the area of the dam. It said SDF fighters repelled the attack.

Earlier this week, the SDF said U.S.-led mediation efforts have failed to reach a permanent truce in Syria’s north between the force’s fighters and Turkish-backed gunmen.

On Tuesday, the SDF suggested the demilitarizing of Kobani and placing the redistribution of security forces under U.S. supervision.

Kobani featured in international headlines a decade ago when it came under a monthslong siege by members of the Islamic State group. SDF fighters broke the siege in early 2015.

Israeli police detain 4 Israelis who crossed illegally into Lebanon

Israel police said Thursday that it detained four Israeli citizens who crossed into Lebanon illegally. The civilians were detained after police received a report from the Israeli army that it had apprehended them inside Lebanese territory.

The police said in a statement that the suspects were being interrogated, and officials will decide on the next steps depending on the findings.

On Wednesday, the Israeli army acknowledged that a group of Israeli settlers had briefly crossed the border into Lebanon earlier in the week before being removed by troops. The civilians involved in that border breach came from the Uri Tzafon movement, a group calling for Israeli settlement of southern Lebanon. The army called it a “serious incident” and said it was investigating.

Netanyahu says Israel is acting for whole world by striking Houthis

JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel was acting “for the entire international community” by attacking the Houthi rebels in Yemen, following deadly Israeli strikes carried out on Yemen overnight.

“They are not only attacking us — they are attacking the entire world, attacking the international shipping and trade routes. Thus, when Israel acts against the Houthis, it acts for the entire international community,” said Netanyahu.

Early Thursday, Israel carried out two waves of airstrikes on ports and power plants in Yemen it said were being used by the Houthi rebels, who have fired over 200 drones and missiles at Israel since the start of the war Oct. 7, 2023.

The airstrikes killed at least nine people, according to the Houthi-controlled satellite channel al-Masirah, and came after a missile fired by the Houthis collapsed a school building in central Israel.

Netanyahu suggested that more Israeli strikes on the Iranian-backed militant group could be coming.

“After Hamas, Hezbollah and the Assad regime in Syria, the Houthis are almost the last remaining arm of Iran’s axis of evil,” he said. “They are learning and they will learn the hard way, that whoever harms Israel pays a very heavy price for it.”

Israel’s defense minister orders military to complete Oct. 7 investigation by January

JERUSALEM — Israel’s defense minister said Thursday he has ordered the military to finish its investigation into what went wrong on Oct. 7, 2023 by January.

In a statement, defense minister Israel Katz said he would halt appointments for new generals until the military finishes its investigation into the failings of that day. Katz said he wanted to read the investigation and understand its findings before choosing new generals.

Hamas militants carried out the deadliest-ever attack on Israeli soil on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and dragging roughly 250 hostages to Gaza. The attack sparked an Israeli retaliation on Gaza that has killed over 45,000 Palestinians and laid waste to the majority of the territory.

The military has not yet released the full results of its internal investigation. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who appointed Katz — has cast off calls for a wider investigation, to much public outcry.

Iraq begins to return thousands of former Syrian soldiers

Baghdad — Iraqi authorities will begin Thursday to return thousands of former Syrian army soldiers who fled their country, officials said.

Brig. Gen. Muqdad Miri, spokesperson for the Iraqi Interior Ministry and the Security Media Cell, said the soldiers would be returned to Syria via the Al-Qaim border crossing after coordination with Syrian authorities.

A local militia official in western Iraq told the Associated Press earlier that more than 4,000 former Syrian army soldiers had crossed into Iraq after rebel forces in Syria reached Damascus and overthrew the government of Bashar Assad.

The official with the Anbar Tribal Mobilization Forces said the soldiers had turned over their weapons, ammunition and armored vehicles and would be housed in a camp.

The Iraqi government has close ties with Iran, which was formerly one of the primary backers of Assad’s government, but Baghdad has now sought to build ties with the new Syrian government.

The new authorities in Syria have set up “reconciliation centers” around the country where former soldiers come to register their names, hand over their weapons if they had not already discarded them, and receive a “reconciliation ID” allowing them the right to move freely and safely in Syria for three months.

6 Palestinians killed

in Israeli strikes on the West Bank

JERUSALEM — Israeli fire in the occupied West Bank killed six Palestinians Thursday, Palestinian health officials said, in the latest violence to strike the territory.

An airstrike in the Tulkarem refugee camp, a bastion of Palestinian militancy in the northern West Bank, killed four people and injured three others, the health officials said. Israel’s military claimed responsibility for the strike but did not say what it was targeting.

Earlier in the day, Israeli fire killed two people in Balata refugee camp, near the city of Nablus. One was an 80 year old woman shot in the chest and leg, said health officials.

Both Hamas and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an armed offshoot of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party, claimed the second person killed, Qusai Sarouji, as a fighter. Israel’s military did not immediately comment on the deaths.

Over 800 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the Hamas attack Oct. 7, 2023 that kicked off the war in Gaza. Israel has carried out near-daily military raids in the West Bank that it says are aimed at preventing attacks on Israelis, which have also been on the rise.

Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want all three territories for an independent state.

Israeli airstrike kills 5, injures 7 in central Gaza Strip

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — An Israeli airstrike hit a house in the central Gaza Strip, killing five people including a boy and two women and injuring seven others early Thursday.

Those killed and injured at the Maghazi refugee camp were transferred to Aqsa Hospital, where officials confirmed the number of fatalities. An Associated Press journalist counted the bodies.

AP footage showed medics treating a malnourished girl on a hospital bed who was bleeding from the face and severely shaking. The boy who died was transferred from an ambulance to Aqsa hospital’s morgue, where people gathered to bid farewell to dead family members.

Outside the hospital, dozens gathered to perform funeral rites for those killed, who were wrapped in white shrouds before they were moved for burial.

Some gathered at the strike site to pull out those trapped under the rubble of a partially collapsed building, with one person only using a shovel.

“No place is safe. Neither the tents nor the houses nor any place in the Gaza Strip is safe. It is all targeted. When we go out, we do not expect that we will return,” said Um Abed Darweesh, a Maghazi resident.

Israel’s defense minister warns Yemen’s Houthis it would ‘strike with force’

Israel’s defense minister said Thursday the country would “not allow the continuation” of shooting from Yemen’s Houthi rebels, hours after Israel launched heavy airstrikes on rebel sites.

“I suggest the leaders of the Houthi organization to see, to understand and remember, whoever raises a hand against the state of Israel, his hand will be cut off. Whoever harms us will be harmed sevenfold,” said Israel Katz, the defense minister.

Israel would “strike with force,” Katz said, and “not allow the continuation of this situation of shooting and threats against the state of Israel.”

The statement followed a series of intense Israeli airstrikes that shook Yemen’s rebel-held capital and a port city early Thursday and killed at least nine people, officials said, shortly after a Houthi missile targeted central Israel and badly damaged a school building.

The Iran-backed Houthis have staged attacks throughout the war on ships in the Red Sea corridor and launched missiles at Israel. The rebels have so far avoided the same level of intense military strikes that have targeted Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Israel strikes Yemen’s capital after Houthi missile targets central Israel

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Israeli airstrikes hit Yemen’s rebel-held capital and a port city early Thursday and killed at least nine people, officials said, after a Houthi missile targeted central Israel.

Israel said it conducted two waves of strikes in a preplanned operation involving 14 fighter jets and targeting infrastructure at Red Sea ports and in Yemen’s rebel-held capital.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesman, said the strikes hit targets the Iranian-backed Houthis “have been using in ways that effectively contributed to their military action.”

The strikes risk escalating conflict with the Iranian-backed Houthis, whose attacks on the Red Sea corridor have impacted global shipping. The rebels have so far avoided the same level of intense military strikes that have targeted the Palestinian Hamas militant group and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

The Houthi-controlled satellite channel al-Masirah said some of the strikes targeted power stations in the capital, as well as the Ras Isa oil terminal on the Red Sea. The channel, citing its correspondent in the port city of Hodeida, said at least seven people were killed at the nearby port of Salif, while another two were killed at Ras Isa.