Lockdown lifted at US naval base in Italy after ‘security incident’
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(LONDON) — A U.S. naval base in Italy was briefly placed on lockdown on Wednesday due to an “security incident,” officials said.
Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily said its shelter-in-place order was cleared at about 11:25 a.m., more than 3 hours after it first posted about an “ongoing situation” at an entry control point.
“We are grateful to our Navy Security Force personnel for their quick response,” the base said, without offering details on the nature of the incident.
The base said in an earlier social media post that a “lockdown/shelter-in-place remains in effect.” Traffic into and out of the base had been “secured” at that time, but was later reopened, the base said.
Signolla supports dozens of U.S. military commands from several branches, including the Navy, Army, Marine Corp and Air Force. NATO commands are also supported by the base.
The air base has been in operation since 1957 and covers some 1,300 acres over four main sites.
ABC News’ Joe Simonetti and Zoe Magee contributed to this report.
(LONDON) — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Monday that the international community was “surprised to see that the opposition forces moved as quickly as they did” in Syria as President Bashar Assad’s government collapsed in the face of a surprise rebel offensive.
“Everybody expected to see a much more stiff resistance from Assad’s forces,” Austin said while in Japan, during what is expected to be his last trip to the Indo-Pacific region as defense secretary.
The speed of developments, he added, “was surprising, I think, to most everybody in the international community.”
Damascus’ fall to rebel forces on Sunday marked “a moment of historic opportunity for the long-suffering people of Syria to build a better future for their country,” President Joe Biden said in a post to X, adding, “It is also a moment of risk and uncertainty.”
U.S. forces are already moving to suppress any hint of an ISIS resurgence in central and eastern Syria, where hundreds of American personnel have been active for several years alongside Kurdish forces to defeat the remnants of the jihadist group.
U.S. forces launched 75 strikes on ISIS targets in central Syria on Sunday to “disrupt, degrade and defeat” the group, the head of the U.S. Central Command said in a statement.
Austin said the strikes were designed “to keep the pressure on ISIS.”
“As this unfolds, there’s a potential that elements in the area, such as ISIS, could try to take advantage of this opportunity and regain capability,” he explained.
“We’ve been tracking ISIS as a part of our ‘Defeat ISIS’ campaign for some time, as you know, and we’ve seen cells trying to strengthen and develop additional capability out in the Vidalia Desert and those strikes were focused on those cells,” Austin said.
U.S. forces are “still evaluating the results, but I think that we’re going to find that we’ve been pretty successful,” Austin said.
(TEL AVIV) — Israeli police are responding to a suspected terror attack on buses near Tel Aviv, the Israeli Police Spokesperson’s Unit said in a statement Thursday evening.
The two buses where bombs exploded were empty and in separate parking lots about 500 meters apart from each other, the mayor of Bat Yam, where the incident occurred, said. Bat Yam is on Israel’s southern coast and is just south of Tel Aviv.
There are no injuries from the explosions, police said.
“Multiple reports have been received of explosions involving several buses at different locations in Bat Yam. Large police forces are at the scenes, searching for suspects. Police bomb disposal units are scanning for additional suspicious objects,” the Israeli Police Spokesperson’s Unit said.
Police urged the public to avoid the areas and remain alert for any suspicious items.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
(LONDON) — If Hamas doesn’t return Israeli hostages by Saturday afternoon, “the ceasefire will be terminated,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday in a statement following a meeting with his security cabinet.
“The decision that I passed unanimously in the cabinet is this: If Hamas does not return our hostages by Saturday afternoon — the ceasefire will be terminated, and the IDF will return to intense fighting until Hamas is finally defeated,” Netanyahu said.
His statement comes after President Donald Trump warned that “all hell is going to break out” unless Hamas releases all remaining hostages from Gaza by Saturday, following the group’s announcement it would delay the latest planned release after accusing Israel of violating the ceasefire agreement.
Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday that it would be “appropriate” to abandon the ceasefire unless all hostages are freed. “I would say, cancel it and all bets are off and let hell break out,” he said.
The president dismissed the “drips and drabs” process set out in the January deal that slated small groups of hostages for release during the three-phase ceasefire, in exchange for Israel freeing Palestinian prisoners and withdrawing its forces from parts of Gaza.
“I would say Saturday at 12, we want them all back,” Trump said. “I’m speaking for myself. Israel can override it. But from myself, Saturday at 12 o’clock, and if they’re not, they’re not here, all hell is going to break out.”
In response, senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said Trump “must remember there is an agreement that must be respected,” in a statement cited by Reuters. “The language of ‘threats’ has no value and only complicates matters,” Zuhri added.
The president also warned that those hostages still being held in Gaza may not be in good physical condition.
“Who knows? Are they alive? Are they not alive? But I saw the condition when I saw the condition of the last ones that came out,” Trump said. “They’re not going to be alive right now, based on what I saw over the last two days, they’re not going to be alive for long.”
Trump suggested Hamas had released the healthiest captives first. “They’ve got more to send out, and they probably feel that they can’t do that, because it’s not going to make them look very good,” he said.
On Tuesday, it was announced that the oldest hostage taken during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack — Shlomo Mantzur, 86 — had been killed that day. Mansour’s death was announced by the Kibutz Kissufim where he lived and was later confirmed by the Israel Defense Forces.
Trump’s latest assertion followed Hamas’ Monday announcement that it would delay the next scheduled release of hostages, planned for Saturday.
In a statement, Hamas said the postponement was intended as a “warning message” to Israel, which it said had repeatedly violated the terms of the January ceasefire deal.
Hamas accused Israel of preventing the return of displaced Gazans to the north of the strip, blocking the planned influx of humanitarian aid and continuing to kill “many” Palestinians despite the pause in fighting.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said he instructed the IDF to prepare at the “highest level of alert” in response to Hamas’ announcement.
Following the meeting of his security cabinet on Tuesday, Netanyahu instructed the IDF to “reinforce forces in and around the Gaza Strip and to prepare for any scenario” if Hamas does not release “the Israeli hostages this coming Saturday,” an Israeli official told ABC News.
The meeting lasted about four hours and was “thorough and in-depth,” the official said.
All the cabinet members expressed support for Trump’s statement that Israeli hostages should be released by Saturday at noon and for his “revolutionary vision for the future of Gaza,” the official added.
There have so far been five rounds of exchanges between Hamas and Israel since the conflict began. Thirty-three Israeli hostages are expected to be released as part of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement due to last six weeks. The agreement was reached on Jan. 15.
The ceasefire turbulence comes as Trump continues to promote his controversial plan to permanently relocate Gaza’s population — around 2 million people — to other regional nations.
The president said during a taped Fox News interview — parts of which were released on Monday — that Gazans resettled outside of the strip would not be allowed to return to the territory, which he has said will be “a real estate development for the future.”
Pressed on his remarks in the Oval Office on Monday, the president did not repeat his assertion that Palestinians would not be given the right to return, but continued to insist that Gazans would not want to live in the devastated territory.
“We’ve spoken to a lot of Palestinians,” Trump said. “They would love to leave Gaza if they could find a place to be. And I’ve spoken to various leaders of various countries in the not so distant area from where we’re talking about the Gaza Strip, and I think they were very positive about providing land.”
“What we need is land, and if we could build a nice place for people to live safely, everybody in Gaza would do it,” Trump said. “You’re going to see that they all want to leave,” he claimed.
The president has found little foreign backing for his plan, with key regional partners like Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia all rejecting the proposal. Trump has suggested that those countries should help resettle Gazans on their territory.
Jordan has served as a humanitarian lifeline for civilians in Gaza throughout the Israel-Hamas conflict and already hosts millions of registered Palestinian refugees.
The president told reporters on Monday he could “conceivably” withhold billions of dollars in aid to Egypt and Jordan to coerce them into agreeing to host Palestinians displaced from Gaza.
The president will host Jordanian King Abdullah II at the White House on Tuesday. “I do think he’ll take, and I think other countries will take also,” Trump said of Abdullah when asked if he would accept ejected Palestinians. “They have good hearts, I think they’ll take,” he added.
Hamas has rejected Trump’s Gaza plan as “absurd.” In a statement, the group said the president’s comments “reflect a profound ignorance about Palestine and the region. Gaza is not a piece of real estate to be bought and sold; it is an inseparable part of our occupied Palestinian land.”
Nearly 400,000 people have already returned to the north since the beginning of the ceasefire, according to Gazan authorities. Palestinians interviewed by ABC News said they yearn to rebuild Gaza for themselves, the only place they say they have or will ever call home.
Netanyahu, meanwhile, framed Trump’s proposal as “a totally different vision, a much better one for the state of Israel.”
Netanyahu — who met with Trump at the White House last week — described the plan as “revolutionary, creative — and we’re discussing it. He is very determined to carry it out. It opens up many opportunities for us.”
ABC News’ Sarah Kolinovsky, Will Gretsky and Joe Simonetti contributed to this report.
