JERUSALEM: White House aide Jared Kushner held talks on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on Thursday with the aim of restarting long-stalled peace efforts, but pessimism was high over US President Donald Trump’s pledge to reach the “ultimate deal.”
The visit comes with both Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not in position to make major concessions, some analysts say, and no details have emerged of how Trump’s team would overcome that.
Trump also faces a range of crises in addition to controversies at home that may make it difficult for him to focus on the complexities of a major Israeli-Palestinian peace push.
“We have a lot of things to talk about — how to advance peace, stability and security in our region, prosperity too,” Netanyahu said in brief public remarks as he met Kushner in Tel Aviv.
“And I think all of them are within our reach.”
Kushner, who is also Trump’s son-in-law, said: “The president is very committed to achieving a solution here that will be able to bring prosperity and peace to all people in this area.”
The US delegation was to meet Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Thursday evening. A spokesman for Abbas called the meeting “important and crucial.”
A US official said earlier that Trump “remains optimistic that progress toward a deal can be achieved.”
The visit is part of a regional tour by Kushner, Trump aide Jason Greenblatt and Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell.
They have also held talks with Egyptian, Saudi, UAE, Qatari and Jordanian officials.
“I think (the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) clearly remains important, important enough that senior officials continue to engage on it, including Jared Kushner,” Dan Shapiro, US ambassador to Israel under Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama, told journalists this week.
“But given the very poor prospects of a significant political breakthrough, I’d be surprised it if warrants a major investment by the president.”
Palestinian leaders have grown frustrated with the White House after initially holding out hope that Trump could bring a fresh approach to peace efforts despite his pledges of staunch support for Israel.
Trump aides have held a series of meetings with both sides, portraying them as hearing out concerns before deciding on a way forward, while the US president himself visited Israel and the Palestinian territories in May.
But Palestinian leaders note that the White House has not even said clearly whether its focus will be a two-state solution to the conflict, which has been longstanding US policy.
The two-state solution envisions an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, a concept which has been the focus of international diplomacy for years.
When Trump met Netanyahu at the White House in February, he said he would support a single state if it led to peace, delighting right-wing Israelis who want to annex most of the West Bank, but raising deep concern among Palestinians.
Signaling their frustration, some Palestinian leaders have spoken of taking a harder line in recent days.
Ahmed Majdalani, a senior Palestinian Liberation Organization official who is close to Abbas, said on Thursday that one option if no progress is reached would be to dissolve the Palestinian Authority — a threat that has been made in the past.
That would in theory leave Israel with the responsibility of governing and providing services to Palestinian cities in the occupied West Bank.
But at the same time, Majdalani said they could also unilaterally declare Palestinian statehood.
He said it was an option under consideration because “the American administration has not presented any initiative until now, while the Israelis continue with their settlement activities and refuse to abide by obligations they signed up to.”
A couple dozen Palestinians protested the visit on Thursday in Ramallah, burning the Israeli flag and pictures of Trump.
Netanyahu, for his part, is under pressure from his rightwing base not to make concessions to the Palestinians and to continue Jewish settlement building, and there is little incentive at the moment for him to change course, some analysts say.
He is also facing a graft investigation that limits his room for political maneuver, Shapiro noted.
Shapiro, currently a fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies think-tank in Tel Aviv, said the focus should instead be on short-term goals such as improving the Palestinian economy in order to keep the possibility of a two-state solution alive.
“I believe (Trump’s) leverage has declined considerably, at least from the point-of-view of getting major concessions or a commitment to a major program toward two states from the leaders, so that’s why I think the shift should come to the more practical on-the-ground steps,” he said.
Pessimism as Kushner holds Israeli-Palestinian talks
Pessimism as Kushner holds Israeli-Palestinian talks
More than 4 million refugees have fled Sudan since war began, UN says
GENEVA: The number of people who have fled Sudan since the beginning of the war has surpassed 4 million, a spokesperson for the UN refugee agency said on Tuesday.
UNHCR spokesperson Eujin Byun told a Geneva press briefing that the milestone was reached on Monday and that the scale of displacement was “putting regional and global stability at stake.”
US to eventually reduce military bases in Syria to one: US envoy
ISTANBUL: The United States has begun reducing its military presence in Syria with a view to eventually closing all but one of its bases there, the US envoy for the country has said in an interview.
Six months after the ouster of longtime Syrian ruler Bashar Assad, the United States is steadily drawing down its presence as part of Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR), a military task force launched in 2014 to fight the Daesh group (IS).
“The reduction of our OIR engagement on a military basis is happening,” the US envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack, said in an interview with Turkiye’s NTV late on Monday.
“We’ve gone from eight bases to five to three. We’ll eventually go to one.”
But he admitted Syria still faced major security challenges under interim leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa, whose Islamist-led coalition toppled Assad in December.
Assad’s ouster brought an end to Syria’s bloody 14-year civil war, but the new authorities have struggled to contain recent bouts of sectarian violence.
Barrack, who is also the US ambassador to Turkiye, called for the “integration” of the country’s ethnic and religious groups.
“It’s very tribal still. It’s very difficult to bring it together,” he said.
But “I think that will happen,” he added.
The Pentagon announced in April that the United States would halve its troops in Syria to less than 1,000 in the coming months, saying the IS presence had been reduced to “remnants.”
Gaza officials say Israeli forces killed 27 heading to aid site. Israel says it fired near suspects
- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday condemned the killing of more 30 Palestinians
- He called for an “immediate and independent investigation” into the incident
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip: Palestinian health officials and witnesses say Israeli forces fired on people as they headed toward an aid distribution site on Tuesday, killing at least 27, in the third such incident in three days.
The army said it fired “near a few individual suspects” who left the designated route, approached its forces and ignored warning shots.
The near-daily shootings have come after an Israeli and US-backed foundation established aid distribution points inside Israeli military zones, a system it says is designed to circumvent Hamas.
The United Nations has rejected the new system, saying it doesn’t address Gaza’s mounting hunger crisis and allows Israel to use aid as a weapon.
The Israeli military said it was looking into reports of casualties on Tuesday.
It previously said it fired warning shots at suspects who approached its forces early Sunday and Monday, when health officials and witnesses said 34 people were killed.
The military denies opening fire on civilians or blocking them from reaching the aid sites.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which operates the sites, says there has been no violence in or around them. On Tuesday,
it acknowledged that the Israeli military was investigating whether civilians were wounded “after moving beyond the designated safe corridor and into a closed military zone,” in an area that was “well beyond our secure distribution site.”
‘Either way we will die’ The shootings all occurred at the Flag Roundabout, around a kilometer (1,000 yards) from one of the GHF’s distribution sites in the now mostly uninhabited southern city of Rafah.
The entire area is an Israeli military zone where journalists have no access outside of army-approved embeds.
At least 27 people were killed early Tuesday, according to Zaher Al-Waheidi, the head of the Gaza Health Ministry’s records department.
Hisham Mhanna, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said its field hospital in Rafah received 184 wounded people, 19 of whom were declared dead on arrival and eight more who later died of their wounds.
The 27 dead were transferred to Nasser Hospital in the city of Khan Younis. Yasser Abu Lubda, a 50-year-old displaced Palestinian from Rafah, said the shooting started around 4 a.m. in the city’s Flag Roundabout area, around one kilometer (1,000 yards) away from the aid distribution hub.
He said he saw several people killed or wounded. Neima Al-Aaraj, a woman from Khan Younis, gave a similar account.
“There were many martyrs and wounded,” she said, saying the shooting by Israeli forces was “indiscriminate.”
She said she managed to reach the hub but returned empty-handed.
“There was no aid there,” she said. “After the martyrs and wounded, I won’t return,” she said.
“Either way we will die.” Rasha Al-Nahal, another witness, said “there was gunfire from all directions.”
She said she counted more than a dozen dead and several wounded along the road.
She said she also found no aid when she arrived at the distribution hub, and that Israeli forces “fired at us as we were returning.” 3 Israeli soldiers killed in northern Gaza
The Israeli military meanwhile said Tuesday that three of its soldiers were killed in the Gaza Strip, in what appeared to be the deadliest attack on Israel’s forces since it ended a ceasefire with Hamas in March.
The military said the three soldiers, all in their early 20s, fell during combat in northern Gaza on Monday, without providing details.
Israeli media reported that they were killed in an explosion in the Jabaliya area.
Israel ended the ceasefire in March after Hamas refused to change the agreement to release more hostages sooner.
Israeli strikes have killed thousands of Palestinians since then, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 people hostage in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack into Israel that ignited the war.
They are still holding 58 hostages, a third of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s military campaign has killed over 54,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were civilians or combatants.
The ministry is led by medical professionals but reports to the Hamas-run government.
Its toll is seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts, though Israel has challenged its numbers.
Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence. Around 860 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the Oct. 7 attack, including more than 400 during the fighting inside Gaza.
One dead, dozens injured as quake hits Turkey's Marmaris
- One killed and dozens injured reported the interior minister
- The quake struck at 2:17 am 10 kilometers off the coast of Marmaris, the AFAD disaster agency said
ANKARA: A 5.8 magnitude earthquake struck the Marmaris area of southwestern Turkiye early on Tuesday, killing one teenager and injuring dozens of people, the interior minister said.
A 14-year-old girl died following a panic attack and some 70 people were hurt in the province of Mugla as they rushed to find safety, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on X.
There were no initial reports of buildings destroyed, he said.
The quake struck at 2:17 am (2317 GMT on Monday) some 10 kilometers (six miles) off the coast of Marmaris, the AFAD disaster agency said.
“In Fethiye, a 14-year-old girl named Afranur Gunlu was taken to the hospital due to a panic attack but, unfortunately, despite all interventions, she passed away,” Yerlikaya said.
Marmaris’ governor, Idris Akbiyik, told the station that seven people were being treated for injuries after jumping from windows or balconies in panic but there was no immediate report of any serious damage.
Turkiye sits on top of major fault lines and earthquakes are frequent.
In 2023, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake killed more than 53,000 people in Turkiye and destroyed or damaged hundreds of thousands of buildings in 11 southern and southeastern provinces. Another 6,000 people were killed in the northern parts of neighboring Syria.
Israel intercepts Yemen missile, Houthi rebels claim attack
- In a video statement, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the group’s “missile force... carried out a military operation” targeting Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv
JERUSALEM: The Israeli army said it intercepted a missile launched Monday from Yemen, whose Houthi rebels claimed an attack targeting Israel’s main airport.
“Following the sirens that sounded a short while ago in several areas in Israel, a missile launched from Yemen was intercepted,” the army said in a statement, as loud booms were heard in the skies over Jerusalem.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels have repeatedly launched missiles and drones at Israel since the Gaza war broke out in October 2023 with Palestinian militant group Hamas’s attack on Israel.
In a video statement, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the group’s “missile force... carried out a military operation” targeting Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv.
Monday’s interception followed another the day before that was claimed by the Iran-backed rebels.
The Houthis, who say they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians, paused their attacks during a two-month Gaza ceasefire that ended in March, but began again after Israel resumed its military campaign in the territory.
While most of the projectiles have been intercepted, one missile fired in early May hit inside the perimeter of Ben Gurion airport for the first time.
Israel has carried out several strikes in Yemen in retaliation for the attacks, including on ports and the airport in the capital Sanaa.
