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U.S. NEWSTuesday 29 December 2015

Wounded fighters, civilians evacuated from war-torn Syria 

HASSAN AMMAR                  Convoys carrying wounded Syrian opposition fighters leave the Lebanese border crossing point      and generated more than
BASSEM MROUE                                                                                                                    4 million refugees.
Associated Press              of Masnaa, Monday, Dec. 28, 2015. Syrian opposition fighters, some on wheelchairs, stretchers or  Airport officials said the
MASNAA, Lebanon (AP) —                                                                                                          plane will return to Turkey
More than 100 insurgents      crutches left the Syrian mountain resort of Zabadani toward the Lebanon border, where they will   while another plane takes
and their families crossed                                                                                                      the Shiite villagers from
from Syria into Lebanon in    be flown to Turkey. 					                                  (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)                Turkey to Lebanon later
buses and ambulances on                                                                                                         on Monday. The officials
Monday as part of a U.N.-     held neighborhood in the      and ambulances arrived at    noon will be used to trans-            spoke on condition of ano-
backed truce reached          central city of Homs after    the Syrian side on the bor-  fer the rebels and their               nymity because they were
with the government that      years of combat.              der with Lebanon.            families to Turkey, which              not authorized to discuss
saw a separate group of       “The process is ongoing at    He said the next step is to  is one of the main allies              the operation.
Syrians from two insurgent-   a good pace,” Yacoub El       bring humanitarian assis-    of insurgents battling to              The deal has raised con-
besieged Shiite villages      Hillo, the U.N. Resident and  tance in the coming days     overthrow Syrian President             cerns about forced demo-
crossed into Turkey.          Humanitarian Coordinator      to besieged areas that are   Bashar Assad. The near-                graphic change in Syria,
The fighters and their fami-  in Syria, told the Lebanon-   included in this agreement.  ly five-year conflict has              a Sunni-majority country
lies will now be flown to     based Al-Mayadeen chan-       A Turkish plane that landed  claimed over 250,000 lives             with Christian and other
Turkey, while the villagers,  nel shortly after the buses   in Beirut on Monday after-                                          minorities. Assad’s family
who were also evacuated                                                                                                         and other top officials hail
on buses and ambulances,                                                                                                        from the Alawite minority,
will be transported via Leb-                                                                                                    an offshoot of Shiite Islam,
anon to government-held                                                                                                         and the government is al-
parts of Syria in a coordi-                                                                                                     lied with Shiite-majority Iran
nated process, according                                                                                                        and the Lebanese Shiite
to an activist group and                                                                                                        movement Hezbollah. The
media reports.                                                                                                                  Sunni-led opposition has
The truce deal reached                                                                                                          accused Assad and his al-
in September, which pro-                                                                                                        lies of trying to clear Sunnis
vides for the transfer of                                                                                                       out of government-held ar-
thousands of Shiite and                                                                                                         eas. The fighters who were
Sunni civilians and fight-                                                                                                      evacuated from the Syr-
ers, is one of a number of                                                                                                      ian town of Zabadani are
ground-level deals to end                                                                                                       Sunni Muslims, while those
fighting in parts of Syria.                                                                                                     coming from the northern
Earlier this month, scores                                                                                                      villages of Foua and Kfarya
of fighters and their fami-                                                                                                     are Shiites.q
lies began leaving a rebel-

                                                                                         Watchdog: Israel planning new

                                                                                         settler homes in strategic area 

                                                                                         JOSEF FEDERMAN                         southern flanks of the West
                                                                                         Associated Press                       Bank.
                                                                                         JERUSALEM (AP) — An Is-                “For these reasons, when-
                                                                                         raeli anti-settlement watch-           ever an Israeli leader tries
                                                                                         dog group on Monday said               to promote the plans in
                                                                                         the government has quietly             E1, the international com-
                                                                                         worked on plans to build               munity strongly condemns
                                                                                         more than 8,000 homes in               them,” the report said.
                                                                                         a strategic section of the             The plans are in the earli-
                                                                                         West Bank near Jerusalem.              est stages, and no actual
                                                                                         Peace Now said the homes               construction has been ap-
                                                                                         are among more than                    proved. In 2013, Prime Min-
                                                                                         55,000 housing units at vari-          ister Benjamin Netanyahu
                                                                                         ous stages of planning by              froze E1 development
                                                                                         Israel’s Housing Ministry. It          plans following heavy inter-
                                                                                         said it had obtained the               national criticism.
                                                                                         data after a two-year le-              The Housing Ministry said
                                                                                         gal battle in response to a            the plans were drawn up
                                                                                         freedom of information re-             in 2012-13, and last year,
                                                                                         quest.                                 it had paid off outstand-
                                                                                         In a report, the group said            ing contracts with design
                                                                                         the 8,372 units are envi-              teams. “During 2015 there
                                                                                         sioned for the strategic               were no activities whatso-
                                                                                         area known as E1. The Pal-             ever on site E1,” it said. “At
                                                                                         estinians strongly object              no time did the office pro-
                                                                                         to settlement of the area,             ceed with housing plans on
                                                                                         saying it would separate a             said site.” The Palestinians
                                                                                         future Palestinian state in            claim the West Bank and
                                                                                         the West Bank from east                east Jerusalem, captured
                                                                                         Jerusalem, their hoped-for             by Israel in the 1967 Middle
                                                                                         capital, and drive a wedge             East war, for an indepen-
                                                                                         between the northern and               dent state. q
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