Days after Trump’s inauguration, White House discusses controversial plan to relocate embassy from Tel Aviv.

A Palestinian demonstrator protests against Trump’s promise to relocate the US embassy to Jerusalem [Mohamad Torokman/Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

The White House said, on Sunday, that it is in the early stages of talks to fulfil President Donald Trump’s pledge to move the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move opposed by the Palestinian leadership.

“We are at the very beginning stages of even discussing this subject,” said White House spokesman Sean Spicer.

Hundreds of Palestinians protested against the plans in cities across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, according to local media reports.

Trump reportedly spoke to hardline, right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier in the day.

Jerusalem mayor, Nir Barkat, welcomed the Trump administration’s announcement.

“This evening’s announcement has sent a clear message to the world that the US recognises Jerusalem as the indivisible capital of the State of Israel,” Barkat said in a statement.

“We will provide any and all necessary assistance to the US administration to ensure that the embassy move is done seamlessly and efficiently.”

Palestinians and their leadership strongly opposed the move.

Earlier this month, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas reportedly wrote to Trump, who was president-elect at the time, telling him not to move the US embassy.

‘Disastrous impact’

Abbas warned that such a move would have a “disastrous impact on the peace process, on the two-state solution and on the stability and security of the entire region”, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported at the time.

In addition to the Syrian Golan Heights and part of the Egyptian Sinai, Israel occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip during the 1967 war. The Sinai region was later returned to Egypt.

More than 530,000 Israelis live in Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, according to the Israeli rights group B’Tselem. They are considered illegal under international law.

Between 2009 and 2014, settlements were expanded by at least 23 percent.

Earlier on Sunday, Israeli authorities approved building permits for 566 settler homes in the occupied eastern part of the city, according to local officials.

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for Abbas, condemned the building plans and called on the United Nations to take action, particularly given the recent Security Council resolution condemning settlements .

“It is time to stop dealing with Israel as a state above the law,” he said.

Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan, reporting from West Jerusalem, said that with Trump now in the White House, the Israeli government believes it can build illegal settlements on Palestinian land without facing much criticism.

“They think that this is a retooling of the relationship with the US,” Khan said. “Under President Trump, the Israelis feel that they will have a lot more leeway to build on Palestinian land,” he added. “And this is a message to the world that they can build wherever they want, including on the land of a future Palestinian state.”

UN humanitarian aid office says 40,000 people also injured in the conflict while 10 million need ‘urgent assistance’.

The UN ranks the conflict in Yemen as one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises [Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

The United Nations’ humanitarian aid official in Yemen has said that the civilian death toll in the nearly two-year conflict has reached 10,000, with 40,000 others wounded.

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ Jamie McGoldrick said that the figure is based on lists of victims gathered by health facilities and the actual number might be higher.

McGoldrick also said that up to 10 million people need “urgent assistance to protect their safety, dignity and basic rights”, according to a separate social media post early on Tuesday.

The announcement marks the first time a UN official has confirmed such a high death toll in Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest nation.

“This once more underscores the need to resolve the situation in Yemen without any further delay,” UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said in New York.

“There’s been a huge humanitarian cost.”

The Yemen conflict pits Houthi rebels and allied forces against an Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia.

The coalition began an air campaign in March 2015 to restore the internationally recognised government that fled the country after Houthis seized the capital Sanaa.

On Monday, reports said 34 people were killed and 16 others wounded during clashes between Houthis and pro-government forces in the southern Shabwa province.

New peace plan

McGoldrick’s remarks come as UN Special Envoy to Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, held talks with Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, president of Yemen, in the southern city of Aden.

Ould Cheikh Ahmed is hoping to revive peace prospects in Yemen after Hadi rejected his proposed plan. He is due to report to the UN Security Council later this month.

The plan provides for a new unity government in Yemen and a rebel withdrawal from the capital and other cities.

“A peace agreement, including a well-articulated security plan and the formation of an inclusive government, is the only way to end the war that has fuelled the development of terrorism in Yemen and the region,” Ould Cheikh Ahmed said in a statement.

“I asked the president to act swiftly and engage constructively with the UN’s proposal for the sake of the country’s future.”

“The current political stalemate is causing death and destruction every day. The only way to stop this is through the renewal of the cessation of hostilities followed by consultations to develop a comprehensive agreement.”

Under the proposal, Hadi’s powers would be dramatically diminished in favour of a new vice president who would oversee the formation of the interim government that will lead a transition to elections.

The envoy has been holding talks in the Gulf region in recent weeks, including in Riyadh, where he met Yemen’s central bank governor to ease a cash crisis in rebel-held areas.

One of the poorest countries in the Arab world, Yemen slid deeper into chaos when the Saudi-led coalition intervened in 2015 to push back the rebels who had seized Sanaa and other parts of the country.

The United Nations ranks the conflict in Yemen as one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

US military in Afghanistan says investigation into November gunfight confirms civilian casualties, including children.

Afghan villagers gather around the bodies of several victims killed in a firefight in Boz-e Kandahari village in Kunduz province [AP]

by Shereena Qazi, Al Jazeera

A US military investigation has found that air raids targeting the Taliban during a gun battle in northern Afghanistan last year killed 33 civilians.

Twenty-seven other civilians were wounded in the village of Boz in Kunduz city, a statement from US Forces Afghanistan said on Thursday.

The incident on November 3 saw US and Afghan troops carrying out a ground assault against the Taliban when they came under fire from the armed group, prompting a call for air reinforcements.

“Regardless of the circumstances, I deeply regret the loss of innocent lives,” General John Nicholson, the top commander of US forces and the NATO mission, said.

According to the statement, the operation was launched to capture Taliban commanders the US said were behind the capture of parts of Kunduz in October 2015.

The civilian deaths caused an uproar and the United Nations and humanitarian organisations condemned the bombing raid.

“The loss of civilian life is unacceptable and undermines efforts towards building peace and stability in Afghanistan,” Tadamichi Yamamoto, head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, said in a statement after the raid.

Residents carried more than a dozen bodies, including children, towards a local governor’s office in a show of anger.

The US statement said civilians were killed and wounded because the Taliban were using their houses as bases and, additionally, a Taliban weapons cache was hit “which also destroyed multiple civilian buildings and may also have killed civilians”.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, residents of the village said the air raids hit civilian areas where many women and children were killed.

“We don’t even know if the Taliban were actually killed in this attack. All we saw were dead bodies of the innocent people,” Ruhani, a resident of Boz village, told Al Jazeera.

“We saw dead bodies of children as young as three years old. What was their fault?”

Another resident who lost members of his family in the fight said the attack “only killed innocent people” and the houses were targeted based on “speculation”.

Charles H Cleveland, a spokesman for the US military in Afghanistan, told Al Jazeera that the raids killed at least 26 Taliban fighters including three “top leaders who led the capture of Kunduz”.

“The only real option we had at that point was to conduct air strikes as the Taliban were attacking Afghan and US forces vigorously,” he said.

“The village is not a normal village. There are a lot of Taliban fighters there. However, the only real solution to prevent civilian casualties is for the Taliban to not hide behind civilians,” he said, adding that “even one civilian casualty is too many for us.”

The carnage underscored worsening insecurity since the Taliban in October 2016 overran Kunduz city for the second time in a year, as NATO-backed Afghan forces struggled to rein in the fighters.

Civilians being killed by NATO has been one of the most divisive issues in its 15-year battle with the Taliban, prompting strong public and government criticism.

Bombing in Kandahar kills seven people, including five UAE diplomats, and wounds Ambassador Juma al-Kaabi.

AP

by Al Jazeera

The United Arab Emirates says five of its diplomats died in a bombing in Afghanistan’s Kandahar that killed at least 11 people and wounded 17 others, including Juma al-Kaabi, the UAE ambassador to Afghanistan.

The official Emirati news agency, WAM, said the officials were “on a mission to carry out humanitarian, educational and development projects”.

The blast, which struck the provincial governor’s office during a visit by the UAE delegation, was one of a string of bombings that hit three Afghan cities on Tuesday, killing nearly 50 people and wounding 100.

Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the UAE’s prime minister and vice president, said on Twitter that “there is no human, moral or religious justification for the bombing and killing of people trying to help” others.

On the Afghan side, authorities said the dead included two politicians, a deputy governor from Kandahar and an Afghan diplomat stationed at its embassy in Washington.

The diplomats were expected to open a number of UAE-backed projects as part of an aid programme to Afghanistan.

In honour of the dead, government institutions across the UAE were directed to fly the flag at half-mast for three days.

The Taliban denied carrying out the bombing, saying the attack was a result of “internal local rivalry”.

Elsewhere on Tuesday, two suicide blasts claimed by the Taliban near Afghanistan’s parliament in Kabul killed at least 30 people and wounded 80.

In a separate incident on the same day, a suicide bomber on foot struck in the southern Helmand province, killing at least seven people, according to officials.

The target of the attack, also claimed by the Taliban, was a guesthouse used by a provincial intelligence official in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital.

Afghanistan last week welcomed the Pentagon’s decision to deploy some 300 US Marines to Helmand, where American forces engaged in heated combat until they pulled out in 2014.

The Marines will head to the poppy-growing province this spring to assist a NATO-led mission to train Afghan forces, in the latest sign that foreign forces are increasingly being drawn back into the worsening conflict.

NATO officially ended its combat mission in December 2014, but US forces were granted greater powers in June to strike armed groups as President Barack Obama vowed a more aggressive campaign.

President Erdogan says some refugees who pass screenings will be granted nationality to “make use” of their skills.

Turkey hosts more than three million refugees, mostly from Syria [AP]

by Al Jazeera

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced that some Syrian and Iraqi refugees who pass a screening process will be granted Turkish citizenship.

In a speech broadcast on television on Friday, Erdogan said that security checks would be carried out to determine who among the millions who fled war in their home countries were eligible for citizenship.

“Our interior ministry is carrying out work, and under this work, some of them will be granted our nationality after all the necessary checks have been carried out,” he said.

“There are highly qualified people among them, there are engineers, lawyers, doctors. Let’s make use of that talent … Instead of letting them work illegally here and there, let’s give them the chance to work as citizens like the children of this nation.”

Erdogan added that the interior ministry “is ready to implement the measure at any time”. But he gave no further details, notably about how many would gain Turkish nationality.

According to Turkish government figures, the country is hosting more than three million Syrians and Iraqis who have fled conflict.

The Turkish leader outlined a naturalisation plan last summer but the idea was met with angry protests and xenophobic comments on social media.

The country’s political opposition saw the plan as a scheme to widen Erdogan’s electoral basis at a time when he is pushing for constitutional reform to strengthen his powers.

Turkish media says at least three people have been wounded in the explosion outside a courthouse.

by Al Jazeera

An explosion has hit the Turkish Aegean coastal city of Izmir and ambulances have been dispatched to the scene, according to Turkish media reports.

At least one vehicle was burning close to a courthouse in the city, according to the photographs shown on national television networks.

Damage reported around the area close to one of the gates of the courthouse, where the blast happened, reports said.

The Dogan News Agency reported that at least three people were wounded in the blast.

Israeli military court convicts soldier who shot dead Palestinian Fatah al-Sharif as he was wounded and incapacitated.

by Al Jazeera

A military court has found an Israeli soldier guilty of manslaughter over the killing of a wounded Palestinian last year.

The court convened at the defence ministry building in Tel Aviv on Wednesday to issue the verdict in the high-profile case that raised questions over rules of engagement towards perceived threats by Palestinians.

A judge read out the court’s decision for more than two hours before announcing the verdict. The soldier, 20-year-old Elor Azaria, could now face a maximum 20 years in prison.

The March 24 shooting of Fatah al-Sharif, 21, as he lay overpowered on the ground was filmed by activists from the Israeli B’Tselem human rights group.

Al-Sharif and another Palestinian his age were shot as they allegedly lunged at an Israeli soldier guarding a checkpoint in Hebron in the occupied West Bank.

In the video, a combat medic, later identified as Azaria, raises and aims his rifle, then a shot is heard. The Palestinian’s head jolts, and he suddenly has what seems to be a fresh head wound.

Scuffles erupted outside the courtroom between supporters of the Israeli soldier and police officers before the verdict was announced.

Hundreds of demonstrators blocked a major Tel Aviv intersection near the courtroom and clashed with police. Journalists covering the demonstration said they were attacked by demonstrators.

Several people were arrested.

Victim’s family demands life sentence

The defendant has previously said he believed al-Sharif was wearing a bomb belt, but prosecutors cited “contradictions” in his testimony.

They said that an officer had earlier carefully turned over al-Sharif and his companion to check if they were wearing bomb belts.

At their home in Hebron, Sharif’s parents told Al Jazeera before the verdict that they would not accept anything other than a guilty verdict and a life sentence.

“He should be sentenced in this court like they do with Palestinians… life sentences, torture and then ending up dead lying in a refrigerator,” said Yusri al-Sharif, the victim’s father.

But according to a survey in August by the Israel Democracy Institute, 65 percent of the Jewish public supports Azaria and his claim of self-defence.

“Israel’s political leadership has also swayed with the majority,” Al Jazeera’s Andrew Simmons said.

“Avigdor Lieberman actively campaigned in support of Azaria and he has since been appointed defence minister by Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister.”

Naftali Bennett, education minister and a member of Israel’s far-right Jewish Home party, said before the verdict that the soldier should be pardoned if found guilty.

“That is whipping up a lot of reactions,” Simmons said. “There is a split in the Israeli public opinion on how army should act in [attack] situations. In the majority are those who feel that ‘terrorists’ who attack Israeli soldiers are fair targets.”

Shortly after the shooting, the Palestinian leadership demanded the United Nations investigate what rights groups have called Israel’s “extrajudicial killings”.

There have been previous accusations that Israeli forces killed wounded Palestinian attackers who no longer posed a threat.

In a memorandum sent to the Israeli authorities in September 2016, human rights group Amnesty International highlighted at least 20 cases of apparently unlawful killings of Palestinians by Israeli forces. In at least 15 of these cases those killed were deliberately shot dead, despite posing no imminent threat to life.

Since October 2015, Israeli soldiers and settlers have been responsible for the killing of at least 244 Palestinians, including unarmed demonstrators, bystanders and alleged attackers in an upsurge in violence.

Thirty-six Israelis have also been killed in mostly stabbing and shooting incidents carried out by Palestinians.

Free Syrian Army and other groups pull out of discussions about Kazakhstan peace talks due to assault on Wadi Barada.

by Al Jazeera

Syria’s main rebel groups say they have frozen their participation in preliminary peace talks planned for Kazakhstan later this month due to several “violations” by the regime of a five-day-old truce.

Sources told Al Jazeera the groups were freezing their participation in negotiations being prepared by Russia due to a government-led assault on Wadi Barada, a rebel-held area near Damascus that is key to the capital’s water supply.

The groups suspending their participation included the Free Syrian Army, one of the biggest coalitions fighting against President Bashar al-Assad, and the Army of Conquest, another coalition of anti-government groups.

Freezing all discussions regarding the Astana or any other consultations regarding the ceasefire agreement until it is fully implemented pic.twitter.com/hLugie8yqU

— أسامة أبو زيد (@oabozayd) January 2, 2017

“As these violations are continuing, the rebel factions announce … the freezing of all discussion linked to the Astana negotiations,” they said in a joint statement.

“The regime and its allies have not stopped shooting and have launched major and frequent violations, notably in the regions of Wadi Barada and Eastern Ghouta.

“Any [advance] on the ground goes against the [ceasefire] agreement and if things don’t return to how they were before, the accord will be considered null and void,” the statement added.

Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from the Turkish city of Gaziantep near the Syria border, called the FSA’s announcement a “significant setback”.

“The rebels say they signed the ceasefire in good faith but that the Syrian regime and its ally Russia have failed to live up to their end of the deal,” he said.

“They say fighter jets have continued to pound rebel-held areas across the country with barrel bombs, particularly Wadi Barada.”

For the last two weeks, Syria’s air force, backed by Hezbollah and Shia militias, have launched almost daily bombing raids on Wadi Barada, some 15km from Damascus.

The Assad government is trying to seize control of the region which supplies the main drinking water for roughly four million inhabitants of the capital and surrounding areas.

The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said supplies had been cut since December 22 because “infrastructure was deliberately targeted and damaged”, without saying who was responsible.

Water is now being rationed in Damascus as the government is relying on reserves.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said about 1,000 civilians – all of them women and children – fled the fighting in Wadi Barada over the weekend, moving to other parts of the province.

Wadi Barada has been surrounded by government forces since mid-2015, but the siege was tightened in late December as the army piled on pressure seeking to secure a “reconciliation” deal.

It has won several of these deals in opposition areas around the capital, offering safe passage to surrendering rebels in return for retaking territory.

The opposition criticises them as a “starve or surrender” tactic.

The violence threatens the delicate ceasefire, which has been in force since midnight Thursday, and is intended to pave the way to new peace talks in Astana later this month.

Turkey and Russia are organising the talks in Astana along with ally Iran, and say they are intended to supplement, not replace, UN-backed negotiations scheduled to resume in February.

Despite backing opposite sides in Syria’s conflict, Ankara and Moscow have worked closely in recent months on the war, brokering a deal to evacuate civilians and surrendering rebels from Aleppo last month before government forces recaptured the northern city in full.

The truce excludes the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS group) and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, the group former known as the al-Nusra Front.

At least 27 killed and dozens wounded as blasts triggered by suicide bombers hit crowd during morning rush.

Iraqis look at the aftermath following a double blast in Al Sinak [Sabah Arar/AFP]

by Al Jazeera

At least 27 people were killed and 57 others wounded as two bombs exploded in the centre of Baghdad, according to police officials.

Police said the blasts, triggered by two suicide bombers went off on Saturday near car spare parts shops in Al Sinak during the morning rush. The first blast took place at the market’s entrance and the second was inside the area, police said.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group (ISIL, also known as ISIS) claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on its Amaq website.

Baghdad has been on high alert since October 17, the start of Iraq’s largest military operation in years to retake ISIL’s stronghold of Mosul in the country’s north.

ISIL took Mosul in 2014, and has launched several attacks in Baghdad in recent months.

The area that was targeted on Saturday is packed with wholesale markets and usually teeming with daily workers unloading vans and wheeling carts around.

“Many of the victims were people from the spare parts shops in the area, they were gathered near a cart selling breakfast when the explosions went off,” said Ibrahim Mohammed Ali, who owns a nearby shop.

Torn clothes and mangled iron were strewn across the ground in pools of blood at the site of the wreckage near Rasheed street, one of the main thoroughfares in Baghdad, an AFP news agency photographer said.

Russian president says countrywide ceasefire to begin at midnight Thursday, with Moscow and Ankara to act as guarantors.

Russia’s defence minister said the truce would include 62,000 opposition fighters across Syria [Goran Tomasevic/Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

Russian President Vladimir Putin says an agreement has been reached on a countrywide ceasefire for Syria, with Russia and Turkey to act as guarantors.

Putin said the truce would begin at midnight on Thursday (22:00 GMT) and be followed by peace talks between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government and the opposition in the Kazakh capital Astana.

“The agreements reached are, no doubt, very fragile and they demand special attention and follow-up in order to keep them and develop them. Nevertheless, this is a notable result of our joint work, efforts by the defence and foreign ministries, our partners in the regions,” he said.

“Now we need to do everything for these agreements to work, so that negotiators would come to Astana and would begin to work on real peace process. I call on the Syrian government, armed opposition, all countries involved to support these agreements.”

Putin’s announcement followed a statement carried by Syrian state news agency SANA, which said the agreement excluded the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, the group formerly known as al-Nusra Front.

Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defence minister, said the truce would include 62,000 opposition fighters across Syria, and that the Russian military has established a hotline with its Turkish counterpart to monitor compliance.

The Turkish foreign ministry confirmed the agreement and called on countries with influence on groups fighting in the country to provide the necessary support for the ceasefire to last.

“Russia and Turkey strongly support the truce and will monitor it together,” the ministry said.

Al Jazeera’s Natasha Ghoneim, reporting from the Russian capital Moscow, said three different documents had been signed in a trilateral agreement involving Russia, Turkey and Iran.

“The first document lays out an agreement between the Syrian government and opposition groups on the ground. The second document includes measures designed to control the ceasefire and the third lays out what needs to happen next in order for there to be peace talks.”

Details about the agreement remained hazy, our correspondent said, and it was unclear which opposition groups had been involved in the negotiating process.

“Just a day ago the negotiating arm of the largest group of rebels fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army said they had yet to be in contact with anyone and had not been invited to participate in talks,” our correspondent said.

Russia to ‘scale down presence’

Putin also said that the Russian military had been ordered to scale down its presence in Syria, where it has been providing crucial support to Assad’s forces.

He did not say how many troops and weapons would be withdrawn but said Russia would continue “fighting international terrorism in Syria” and would maintain its presence at both an air base in Syria’s coastal province of Latakia and the naval facility in the Syrian port of Tartus.

The Syrian conflict started as a largely unarmed uprising against Assad in March 2011, but quickly developed into a full-on armed conflict.

Staffan de Mistura, the UN special envoy to Syria, estimated in April that more than 400,000 Syrians had been killed since 2011.

Calculating a precise death toll is difficult, partially owing to the forced disappearances of tens of thousands of Syrians whose fates remain unknown.

Almost 11 million Syrians – half the country’s prewar population – have been displaced from their homes.