225 refugees return to Syria from Lebanon after reassurances it is safe to do so

PARIS: Syria’s foreign minister will attend an international conference in Paris on Thursday as regional and Western powers seek to shield the country during its fragile transition amid ongoing instability across the region.
Asaad Hassan Al-Shibani is leading a delegation for a first trip to the European Union since the overthrow of Bashar Assad and days after President Emmanuel Macron invited Syria’s UN-sanctioned President Ahmed Al-Sharaa to France.
“This Paris meeting in a way is to help create a protective bubble around the Syria crisis to give them time to resolve it by dissuading the bad losers from destabilising the country,” a French official said.
Regional ministers, including from Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Lebanon, will be joined with Western partners, although the United States will only have a low level diplomatic presence.
The meeting aims to coordinate efforts to bring a peaceful transition ensuring the country’s sovereignty and security, mobilize Syria’s main neighbors and partners to coordinate aid and economic support, the French foreign ministry said.
It will also discuss transitional justice and the fight against impunity.
The conference does not aim to raise funds, which will be left to an annual pledging conference in Brussels in March, but issues such as the lifting of sanctions would be discussed.
The EU has moved forward in lifting some sanctions, although that still remains blocked amid opposition from Cyprus and Greece amid concerns over maritime delimitation talks between Syria and Turkiye and assurances that sanctions could be restored quickly, two diplomats said.
They said they were hopeful a compromise could be reached this month.
Ahead of the meeting, main international donors will also take stock of the humanitarian situation, notably in northeastern Syria, where the impact of US aid cuts has had a “terrifying” impact, according to a European official.
Officials also said the subject of Western-backed Kurdish Syrian forces, the central government and Turkiye, which deems part of those forces as terrorist groups, would also be discussed.
A Turkish diplomatic source said Deputy Foreign Minister Nuh Yilmaz, who will attend the meeting, would “draw attention to the threats Syria is facing, namely the separatist terrorist organization and emphasize our country’s determination regarding the total clearance of the country from terror elements.”

JERUSALEM: A little over three weeks since it came into effect, a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas that halted the Gaza war has become increasingly fragile.
Under the truce, the warring parties have already completed five exchanges of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, but have in recent days have entered into a blame game over the implementation of the deal.
US President Donald Trump’s forceful backing of ally Israel has put the ceasefire under strain, and particularly his proposal to take over the Gaza Strip and remove its Palestinian inhabitants.
The truce is currently in its first phase. The next ones have not yet been finalized.
Here are the positions of the key actors who could decide the future of the truce:
For days now, Hamas has accused Israel of not respecting the agreement, saying that the amount and type of aid entering Gaza was insufficent.
Israeli authorities have denied the claims.
In several statements, the Palestinian militants have said they had not received machinery requested to clear the rubble in Gaza, and complained about obstacles to evacuating wounded people to Egypt under the terms of the agreement.
On Wednesday, Hamas said that as a result of the Israeli violations it would postpone indefinitely the next hostage release, which was due to take place on February 15.
Hugh Lovatt, a researcher at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told AFP that the announcement from Hamas may be an attempt to force a decision on the next phases of the truce.
“Hamas’s aim is to break the deadlock in the negotiations on the second phase of the agreement,” he said, adding that the Palestinian movement has been trying to obtain guarantees that the ceasefire will hold and the war will come of a permanent end.
It’s a “Hail Mary pass,” said Lovatt, “because they fear that Israel will take advantage of Trump’s support to impose new conditions and delay the implementation of the agreement.”
The ongoing first phase of the ceasefire is for 42 days. During this period, negotiations for the second phase were meant to start but that has not happened yet.
On Wednesday, a Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo to discuss the disputes over the agreement with Egyptian negotiators.
But a Hamas spokesman warned that the group would not bow down to the “language of threats” from the United States and Israel.
Trump on Monday said “all hell” would break out in Gaza if Hamas did not free all Israeli hostages held in the territory by Saturday noon.
Under the terms of the truce, not all hostages were meant to be freed during the first phase.
The president’s threat came soon after he announced a plan for the United States to take control of the Gaza Strip and move its almost 2.4 million residents to Jordan or Egypt.
The proposal has provoked widespread international condemnation, and experts have said it would violate international law.
Yonatan Freeman, an international relations expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said that Trump’s statements had “underscored the US backing of Israel.”
“Trump and Netanyahu have both emphasized the importance of releasing hostages,” Freeman said.
He said that despite making threats, he did not believe that either Trump of Israel’s leaders wanted the war to resume.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said Hamas cannot be allowed to use the ceasefire to “rebuild itself and recover strength.”
Echoing statements from the US president, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that Israel would resume “intense fighting” in Gaza if Hamas did not return hostages by Saturday.
Netanyahu did not specify whether he expected all the hostages to be freed, or a smaller batch due for release under the terms of the deal.
“It’s in his best interest to do it gradually,” said Mairav Zonszein, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group.
According to her, Netanyahu was deliberately being ambiguous and was “buying time” to extend the first stage of the truce and delay talks about the post-war future of the Gaza Strip.
But Netanyahu also faces domestic “public pressure” to secure the release of the remaining hostages, including through indirect negotiations with Hamas, said Zonszein.
“It could be a determining factor that when the three hostages came out last Saturday, they looked really, really bad,” she said of the three Israelis freed on Saturday.
They appeared emaciated, spurring concern among Israelis for the fate of those still in captivity.
Despite their disputes, Zonszein said that the sides have not “given up on anything yet.”
“They’re just playing power games.”