Middle East latest: Israeli military orders another Gaza evacuation ahead of an offensive

The Israeli military on Wednesday ordered another evacuation in central Gaza ahead of an offensive in the area, even as Israel and the militant group Hamas appeared to inch closer to a ceasefire in the 14-month war.

“This is an advance warning ahead of an offensive,” Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee posted on X. The order included four residential block areas in the urban refugee camp of Bureij, where Adraee claimed that Palestinian militants fired rockets toward Israel.

He asked the residents to move to a “humanitarian zone” in the Muwasi area. The Israeli media have issued frequent evacuation orders for different parts of Gaza throughout the war, displacing more than 90% of the population, most of them multiple times.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog said he will meet Wednesday with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s Mideast envoy, Adam Boehler, at his home in Jerusalem. Boehler, a former aid to Jared Kushner, met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this week.

Talks to broker the ceasefire and hostage release deal have restarted after a monthslong pause. The deal on the table includes a six week pause in fighting in which Hamas would release 30 hostages, including three of four dual Israeli-U.S. citizens, in exchange for Israel releasing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Trump has said he wants a quick end to the war.

Israeli bombardment and offensives in Gaza have killed more than 45,000 Palestinians over the past 14 months, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The ministry’s tally does not distinguish between combatants and civilians, but it says more than of half the dead were women and children.

Israel launched its campaign in retaliation for Hamas’ October 2023 attack on southern Israel in which militants killed some 1,200 people and abducted 250 others, around 100 of whom remain in captivity.

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Here’s the latest:

Israeli settlers briefly crossed into Lebanon, the military says

JERUSALEM — A group of Israeli settlers have briefly crossed the border into Lebanon before they were removed by troops, the military acknowledged Wednesday.

The civilians who crossed the border came from the Uri Tzafon movement, a group calling for Israeli settlement of southern Lebanon. Photos posted by the group online Saturday showed a small group of activists holding signs and erecting tents inside Lebanon while Israeli soldiers were present.

After first denying the reports to Israeli media, the military said Wednesday that civilians had crossed the border “by a few meters” and were removed by troops.

The military called the border breach a “serious incident” and said it was investigating.

“Any attempt to approach or cross the border into Lebanese territory without coordination poses a life-threatening risk and interferes with the IDF’s ability to operate in the area and carry out its mission,” the military said, using the acronym for the Israel Defense Forces.

The settler group Uri Tzafon, which means “Awaken the North” in Hebrew, crossed the border in the area of the Lebanese village of Maroun A Ras. In the past, the movement has said the area is home to an old Hebrew settlement.

Groups of settler activists also have breached the Gaza border more than once since the Israel-Hamas war erupted on Oct. 7, 2023, at one point erecting small wooden tents before they were evacuated by troops. Daniela Weiss, the leader of the movement to resettle Gaza, claims she has entered Gaza twice since the start of the war.

Israel’s settler movement has been emboldened by its current government — the furthest-right in Israeli history — and is now seeking to expand to parts of southern Lebanon and the north of the Gaza.

UN envoy says Syria needs a credible and inclusive transition

DAMASCUS, Syria — The U.N. envoy to Syria said after concluding a visit to Damascus and meeting the new administration that the country needs a ” a political transition that will be credible, inclusive and include the broadest range of the Syrian society and Syrian parties.”

Geir Pedersen said Wednesday that the process should take place under a U.N. resolution adopted in 2015 to help negotiate a political solution between the government of now-deposed President Bashar Assad and the opposition.

“There is a lot of hope. We can all see the beginning of a new Syria … that in line with Security Council Resolution 2254 will adopt a new constitution that will ensure that there is a new social contract for all Syrians and that we will have free and fair elections when that time comes after a transitional period, also in line with Security Council Resolution 2254,” Pedersen said.

It is not yet clear if Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, the main former rebel group now in control of Syria, will pursue such a process. The group has set up an interim administration comprising members of its “salvation government” that had ruled its former stronghold in northern Syria. It will oversee the country until March, but the new ruler have not made clear how the transition to a new, fully empowered government would take place.

Pedersen also warned of ongoing violence in parts of the country, particularly in the northeast, where Kurdish forces and Turkish-backed armed groups have clashed, and called for humanitarian assistance and for starting a process to end Western sanctions on Syria.

Israeli students walk out of class to call for release of hostages

JERUSALEM — Hundreds of Israeli students walked out of school Wednesday to call for an immediate deal to release the remaining hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza strip as there appears to be progress in ceasefire talks.

From Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, students headed for central junctions, blocking roads and holding signs with the faces of the captives remaining in Gaza after 14 months of war.

There are 100 hostages in Gaza, a third of whom Israel’s government says are dead. Hamas militants dragged them to Gaza in their Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that triggered the war.

At the high school in central Israel attended by hostages Naama Levy and Guy Illouz, who Israel’s military says was killed in the Oct. 7 attack, students crammed the auditorium with signs reading “Bring them Home Now.”

In Tel Aviv, high school students chanted “Their time is up. There’s a deal on the table.”

Netanyahu takes the stand on Day 4 of corruption trials

TEL AVIV, Israel — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the stand on the fourth day of testimony in his corruption trials Wednesday, saying the accusations against him are “idiotic.”

Netanyahu, the first sitting Israeli leader to take the stand as a criminal defendant, is on trial on charges of fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three separate cases.

Netanyahu was supposed to testify on Tuesday, but it was canceled after he requested a postponement due to “security reasons.”

Netanyahu toured the summit of Mount Hermon, part of the Syrian buffer zone that Israeli forces seized after President Bashar Assad was ousted by rebels last week. It appeared to be the first time an Israeli leader had set foot that far into Syria.

The testimony, set to take place six hours a day, three days a week for several weeks, will take up a significant chunk of Netanyahu’s working hours, prompting critics to ask if he can capably manage a country embroiled in a war on one front, containing the fallout from a second, and keeping tabs on other potential regional threats, including from Iran.

Damascus airport reopens

DAMASCUS, Syria — The Damascus airport reopened Wednesday for the first time since the fall of the government of Bashar Assad, and the first civilian plane took off from Damascus and landed in the northern city of Aleppo.

The airport is currently open only to domestic flights, but Syrian airspace is open to international traffic.

Airport officials have not yet specified when international flights will resume at the Damascus airport, but Saad Khair Bec, technical supervisor, called Wednesday’s reopening “an important day in the life of the Syrian people … after the fall of the former shabby regime.”

State institutions have been gradually returning to work in recent days, including the main port in the coastal city of Latakia.

UN migration agency head says interim Syria leaders recognize challenges ahead

GENEVA — The head of the U.N. migration agency said she was reassured by commitments she heard from Syria’s new caretaker government in meetings in Damascus, as the country seeks to rebuild after more than a half-century of rule under the Assad family.

Amy Pope, director-general of the International Organization for Migration, said in a phone interview Wednesday that Syria’s new leaders “recognize the job they have ahead of them is enormous and that they need the support of the international community.”

IOM estimates about 100,000 people — many looking to return to their former homes — have entered Syria from neighboring countries since Dec. 8, the day former President Bashar Assad fled the country as opposition fighters swarmed into the capital.

“We are also seeing about 85,000 people come out” into Lebanon through established border crossing points, she said. “It’s a rough figure: There’s certainly people who cross informally and so they’re not counted.”

Most of those found to be leaving are Shiite Muslims, she said. The armed groups who took control of Syria are primarily from the country’s majority Sunni Muslim community, including Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the terrorist-designated group that led the coalition of armed opposition groups that drove Assad from power and into asylum in Russia.

“There’s no question to me that at this moment in time, they are looking for ways to make this work, to be more inclusive, to build partnerships across the international community, to build partnerships with other governments,” Pope said of the caretaker government. “It’s just going to be a question of whether they can deliver.”

IOM said Pope was one of the first heads of a U.N. agency to visit Syria since Assad’s ouster, and she met with unspecified members of the caretaker government on Tuesday, as well as U.N. officials and advocacy groups.

She reaffirmed the IOM’s commitment to Syria. The organization has been providing assistance to people in the country since 2014 and is seeking $30 million in urgent aid funding for the next four months to try to help nearly 685,000 people in the northwest of the country.