Trump expected to bring peace to Ukraine, though picture unclear on Middle East: WEF panel

BURJ AL-MULUK: Lebanon’s heath ministry said Israeli fire killed one person Monday and wounded seven others in the south, in a second day of violence as residents tried again to return to border villages.
The bloodshed, which one analyst said was unlikely to re-spark war, came hours after the extension of a deadline for Israeli forces to withdraw from south Lebanon under a November ceasefire deal.
The ministry said Israeli fire killed 24 returnees on Sunday.
“Israeli enemy attacks as citizens attempt to return to their towns that are still occupied have led... to one dead and seven wounded,” the health ministry said Monday in a statement.
It reported one dead and two wounded in the border town of Adaysseh, with others wounded in Bani Hayyan, including a child, as well as in Yarun and Hula.
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said earlier Monday that Lebanon had agreed to an extension of the ceasefire deal between Hezbollah and Israel until February 18, after the Israeli military missed Sunday’s deadline to withdraw.
In south Lebanon, residents accompanied by the army were again trying to return to their villages, official media and AFP correspondents reported.
Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem is scheduled to deliver a televised address at 6:30 p.m. (1630 GMT).
In the village of Burj Al-Muluk, an AFP photographer saw dozens of men, women and children gathering in the morning behind a dirt barrier, some holding yellow Hezbollah flags, hoping to reach the border town of Kfar Kila, where the Israeli military is still deployed.
In the city of Bint Jbeil, an access point for many border villages, Hezbollah supporters were distributing sweets, water and images of former chief Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli strike in September.
Others handed out stickers celebrating the “victory from God” as women held pictures of slain Hezbollah fighters.
“They think they are scaring us with their bullets, but we lived under the bombing and bullets don’t scare us,” said Mona Bazzi in Bint Jbeil.
The official National News Agency (NNA) said that Lebanese “army reinforcements” had arrived near the border town of Mais Al-Jabal, where people had started to gather at “the entrance of the town” in preparation for entering alongside the military.
It said the Israeli army had “opened fire in the direction of the Lebanese army” near the town, without reporting casualties there.
“We waited in a long line for hours, but couldn’t enter,” said Mohammed Choukeir, 33, from Mais Al-Jabal, adding that Israeli troops “were opening fire from time to time on civilians gathered at the entrance of the town.”
In nearby Hula, where the health ministry reported two wounded, the NNA said residents entered “after the deployment of the army in several neighborhoods.”
Under the ceasefire deal that took effect on November 27, the Lebanese military was to deploy in the south alongside United Nations peacekeepers as the Israeli army withdrew over a 60-day period, which ended on Sunday.
Hezbollah was also to pull back its forces north of the Litani River — about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border.
Both sides have traded blame for delays in implementing the deal, which came after more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, including two months of all-out war.
Lebanon’s army said Sunday that it had entered several border areas including Dhayra, Maroun Al-Ras and Aita Al-Shaab.
An AFP photographer in Aita Al-Shaab on Monday saw widespread destruction, with newly returned families among the ruins of their homes, as bulldozers worked to open roads and rescue teams searched for any bodies leftover from the conflict.
Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee on Monday called again for south Lebanon residents to “wait” before returning.
Hilal Khashan, professor of political science at the American University of Beirut, said he did not expect a return to major violence.
“Hezbollah no longer wants any further confrontation with Israel, its goal is to protect its achievements in Lebanon,” he told AFP.
The health ministry said Monday that Israeli fire killed 24 people who were trying to return to their villages the previous day, updating an earlier toll of 22 dead.
The Israeli military had said soldiers “fired warning shots to remove threats” where “suspects were identified approaching the troops.”
The Lebanese army said Sunday it would “continue to accompany residents” returning to the south and “protect them from Israeli attacks.”

NUSEIRAT, Palestinian Territories: Masses of displaced Palestinians began streaming toward the north of the war-battered Gaza Strip on Monday after Israel and Hamas said they had reached a deal for the release of another six hostages.

The breakthrough preserves a fragile ceasefire and paves the way for more hostage-prisoner swaps under an agreement aimed at ending the more than 15-month conflict, which has devastated the Gaza Strip and displaced nearly all its residents.

Israel had been preventing Palestinians from returning to their homes in northern Gaza, accusing Hamas of violating the terms of the truce, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said late Sunday they would be allowed to pass after the new deal was reached.

Crowds began making their way north along a coastal road on foot Monday morning, carrying what belongings they could, AFPTV images showed.

“It’s a great feeling when you go back home, back to your family, relatives and loved ones, and inspect your house — if it is still a house,” displaced Gazan Ibrahim Abu Hassera said.

Hamas called the return “a victory” for Palestinians that “signals the failure and defeat of the plans for occupation and displacement.”

Its ally Islamic Jihad, meanwhile, called it a “response to all those who dream of displacing our people.”

The comments came after US President Donald Trump floated an idea to “clean out” Gaza and resettle Palestinians in Jordan and Egypt, drawing condemnation from regional leaders.

President Mahmud Abbas, whose Palestinian Authority is based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, issued a “strong rejection and condemnation of any projects” aimed at displacing Palestinians from Gaza, his office said.

Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, said that Palestinians would “foil such projects,” as they have done to similar plans “for displacement and alternative homelands over the decades.”

For Palestinians, any attempt to move them from Gaza would evoke dark memories of what the Arab world calls the “Nakba,” or catastrophe — the mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel’s creation in 1948.

“We say to Trump and the whole world: we will not leave Palestine or Gaza, no matter what happens,” said displaced Gaza resident Rashad Al-Naji.

Trump had floated the idea to reporters Saturday aboard Air Force One: “You’re talking about probably a million and half people, and we just clean out that whole thing.”

Moving Gaza’s roughly 2.4 million inhabitants could be done “temporarily or could be long term,” he said.

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich — who opposed the truce deal and has voiced support for re-establishing Israeli settlements in Gaza — called Trump’s suggestion of “a great idea.”

The Arab League rejected the idea, warning against “attempts to uproot the Palestinian people from their land,” saying their forced displacement could “only be called ethnic cleansing.”

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said “our rejection of the displacement of Palestinians is firm and will not change. Jordan is for Jordanians and Palestine is for Palestinians.”

Egypt’s foreign ministry said it rejected any infringement of Palestinians’ “inalienable rights.”

Israel had said it would prevent Palestinians’ passage to the north until the release of Arbel Yehud, a civilian woman hostage who it maintained should have been freed on Saturday.

But Netanyahu’s office later said a deal had been reached for the release of three hostages on Thursday, including Yehud, as well as another three on Saturday.

Hamas confirmed the agreement in its own statement Monday.

During the first phase of the Gaza truce, 33 hostages are supposed to be freed in staggered releases over six weeks in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinians held by the Israelis.

The most recent swap saw four Israeli women hostages, all soldiers, and 200 prisoners, nearly all Palestinian, released Saturday in the second such exchange during the fragile truce entering its second week.

“We want the agreement to continue and for them to bring our children back as quickly as possible — and all at once,” said Dani Miran, whose hostage son Omri is not slated for release during the first phase.

The truce has brought a surge of food, fuel, medicines and other aid into rubble-strewn Gaza, but the UN says “the humanitarian situation remains dire.”

Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack that ignited the war, 87 remain in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.

The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 47,306 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.