JERUSALEM: Pedestrians walk on a thick layer of soot from tires set ablaze in frequent clashes with Israeli troops. Cars navigate around potholes in streets littered with garbage. Motorists honk in a traffic jam near an Israeli checkpoint that is framed by the towering cement slabs of Israel’s separation barrier.
It’s morning rush hour in Ras Khamis, a neglected, restive Arab neighborhood of Jerusalem where President Donald Trump’s recent recognition of the contested city as Israel’s capital has been met by cynicism, defiance and new fears that Palestinians will increasingly be marginalized.
Trump’s pivot on Jerusalem “is regrettable, saddening and unfair,” said Yasser Khatib, 42, who runs a supermarket across the street from the barrier that separates several Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem from the rest of the city.
Khatib said he has strong religious ties to the city and that his family’s roots go back generations. “We have no life without Jerusalem,” he said as he sold snacks to school children. “Trump can say whatever he wants.”
Palestinians make up 37 percent of Jerusalem’s population of 866,000, up from 26 percent in 1967 when Israel captured east Jerusalem, expanded the city’s boundaries into the West Bank and annexed the enlarged municipal area to its capital.
The international community says east Jerusalem is occupied territory and that the city’s fate must be determined in negotiations with the Palestinians who seek a capital in the eastern sector.
Trump couched his Jerusalem comments — viewed in the Arab world as a show of pro-Israel bias — by saying he is not taking a position on the boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in the city.
Yet he made no specific mention of the city’s large Palestinian population, which could reach 44 percent by 2040, according to the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research think tank.
Despite Israel’s portrayal of Jerusalem as united, there are stark differences between Arab and Jewish areas after what critics say is half a century of neglect and discrimination.
“On the ground, Israel is not investing much in developing the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem,” said Yitzhak Reiter, in charge of the Jerusalem Institute’s mapping of the physical and social infrastructure of Arab neighborhoods.
In many spheres, “the city is still divided, with two different transport systems, two different policies on building and construction.”
Israel would have to invest billions of dollars in Arab areas to reach parity with Jewish neighborhoods, he said.
For now, 79 percent of Arab residents fall below the poverty line, compared to 27 percent of Jews, according to Jerusalem Institute figures.
Welfare services maintain four offices in the Arab east, compared to 19 offices in Jewish areas, said the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. Arab schools have a shortage of hundreds of classrooms, ACRI said. The west has 34 post offices, compared to nine in the east.
Mayor Nir Barkat’s office said he developed a plan “unprecedented in scope and budget allocation to reduce gaps in east Jerusalem” and made progress in alleviating “50 years of neglect” inherited from predecessors. Among other things, the city opened more than 800 classrooms in Arab schools, with 1,000 more in the pipeline, the statement said.
ACRI said the added classrooms included many spaces rented in existing residential buildings.
Jerusalem is the largest mixed city in the Holy Land, and Arabs and Jews interact in daily life, including in malls and hospitals. Many Palestinians work in shops and restaurants in west Jerusalem, typically earning more there than on the east side.
Yet east-west infrastructure gaps remain wide.
Israel may be unwilling to invest heavily in areas that could one day come under Palestinian rule, said Reiter, adding that efforts to maintain a strong Jewish majority may also play a role.
Palestinians claim Israel is trying to drive Arabs out of Jerusalem.
Ziad Hammouri, a community organizer, said Trump’s new position on Jerusalem boosts Israel’s attempts to “control east Jerusalem and to exclude Palestinians from Jerusalem.”
One plan floated by a Cabinet minister — and opposed by Barkat — would place tens of thousands of Palestinians who live inside the municipal boundaries but beyond the separation barrier under a new Israeli-run municipality, thus sharply reducing the number of Palestinians counted as Jerusalemites.
These areas, including Ras Khamis, have seen apartment towers rise in recent years as Israel stopped enforcing building restrictions there.
East Jerusalemites desperate for housing moved there in large numbers, despite fears that they would eventually be “zoned out” of Jerusalem.
On the “Jerusalem side” of the barrier, it’s difficult for Palestinians to obtain building permits, because of lack of outline plans or discriminatory zoning, said Israeli rights groups. Many Palestinians built without permits, and 88 homes were demolished in 2016, the most in a decade, ACRI said.
Barkat’s office said a low share of permit application come from Arab neighborhoods, and that a high percentage of those are approved.
Since 1967, Israel has built large neighborhoods for Jews in the annexed east, now home to 212,000 Israelis.
Palestinian Ismail Siam said a one-story home he built on his land for two adult children was demolished by Israel twice in 14 months, on grounds that he did not have a building permit.
“They want to expel us from the city,” said Siam, 54, standing near patches of floor tiles left from the demolished house.
The plot faces large construction sites for Jewish neighborhoods across a ravine.
Most Palestinians in Jerusalem have residency status.
After 1967, most Palestinians didn’t consider the more secure citizenship option, which would have meant recognizing Israeli rule. In recent years, growing numbers have applied, but increasingly encountered bureaucratic hurdles.
Prolonged absence can put Palestinian residents at risk of expulsion; close to 15,000 have been stripped of residency rights since 1967.
Palestinians in the city can vote in local elections, but have largely refrained from doing so, to avoid the perception that they accept Israeli rule.
East Jerusalem residents also feel increasingly abandoned by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s West Bank self-rule government. Israel clamps down on Palestinian Authority activities in Jerusalem, limiting Abbas’ influence in the city.
The leadership vacuum was briefly filled over the summer when Muslim clerics led a successful grassroots campaign against metal detectors Israel had installed at east Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. Islam’s third-holiest shrine, built on the remnants of Judaism’s holiest site, is a frequent flashpoint of violence.
After Trump’s decision, city residents mounted only small protests, compared to larger marches in the West Bank and elsewhere.
Activist Yara Hawari said rallying large crowds is difficult when there is no narrow objective, such as removing the metal detectors.
“What we are asking is simple, an end to colonization,” she said. “But it’s not as tangible.”
Palestinians, a large Jerusalem minority, feel Trump snub
Palestinians, a large Jerusalem minority, feel Trump snub
Israel military issues evacuation orders for three areas of south Beirut
- Evacuation orders issued ahead of planned Israeli strikes on multiple buildings
“You are located near facilities and interests affiliated with Hezbollah, which the IDF (Israeli military) will work against in the near future,” spokesman Avichay Adraee wrote on X, alongside maps identifying three sites due to be targeted.
Israeli military reports soldier killed in battle north of Gaza on Saturday
CAIRO: The Israeli military said on Sunday that a fighter in the Nachshon Regiment (90), Kfir Brigade, was killed in battle north of Gaza on Saturday.
Israel pummels south Beirut as Hezbollah targets Haifa area
- Israel’s military reported “heavy rocket barrage” on Haifa, saying synagogue was hit
- Lebanese authorities say over 3,452 people have been killed since October last year
BEIRUT: Israel launched a wave of air strikes on Hezbollah bastions in Beirut and south Lebanon on Saturday, as the Iran-backed militants said they fired on several Israeli military bases around the coastal city of Haifa.
Israel’s military reported a “heavy rocket barrage” on Haifa and said a synagogue was hit, injuring two civilians.
Since September 23, Israel has escalated its bombing of targets in Lebanon, later sending in ground troops after almost a year of limited, cross-border exchanges of fire begun by Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in support of Hamas in Gaza.
In the Palestinian territory, where Hamas’s attack on Israel triggered the war, the civil defense agency reported 24 people killed in strikes on Saturday.
Security services in Israel said two flares landed near Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in the town of Caesarea, south of Haifa, but he was not home.
The incident comes about a month after a drone targeted the same residence, which Hezbollah claimed.
Israel’s military chief, in comments issued Saturday, said Hezbollah has already “paid a big price” but Israel will keep fighting until tens of thousands of its residents displaced from the north can return safely.
“We will continue to fight, to implement plans, to go further, conduct deep strikes, and hit Hezbollah very hard,” Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said on a visit earlier in the week to the Kfar Kila area of south Lebanon.
AFPTV footage showed fresh strikes Saturday on the southern suburbs of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, after Israel’s military called on residents to evacuate.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported a series of strikes.
The Israeli military said aircraft had targeted “a weapons storage facility” and a Hezbollah “command center.”
The NNA also reported strikes on the southern city of Tyre, including in a neighborhood near UNESCO-listed ancient ruins. Israel’s military late Saturday said it had hit Hezbollah facilities in the Tyre area.
In Lebanon’s east, the health ministry said an Israeli strike in the Bekaa Valley killed six people including three children.
Hezbollah said it fired a guided missile which set an Israeli tank ablaze in the southwest Lebanon village of Shamaa, about five kilometers (three miles) from the border.
Late Saturday, after Israel reported the rocket barrage on Haifa, Hezbollah said it had targeted five military bases, including the Stella Maris naval base which it said it fired on earlier in the day.
In eastern Lebanon, funerals were held for 14 civil defense staff killed in an Israeli strike on Thursday.
“They weren’t involved with any (armed) party... they were just waiting to answer calls for help,” said Ali Al-Zein, a relative of one of the dead.
Lebanese authorities say more than 3,452 people have been killed since October last year, with most casualties recorded since September.
Israel announced the death of a soldier in southern Lebanon, bringing to 48 the number killed in fighting with Hezbollah.
In Hamas-run Gaza, the Israeli military said it continued operations in the northern areas of Jabalia and Beit Lahia, the targets of an intense offensive since early October.
Israel said its renewed operations aimed to stop Hamas from regrouping.
A UN-backed assessment on November 9 warned famine was imminent in northern Gaza, amid the increased hostilities and a near-halt in food aid.
Israel has pushed back against a 172-page Human Rights Watch report this week that said its displacement of Gazans amounts to a “crime against humanity,” as well as findings from a UN Special Committee that pointed to warfare practices that “are consistent with the characteristics of genocide.”
A foreign ministry spokesman dismissed the HRW report as “completely false,” while the United States — Israel’s main military supplier — said accusations of genocide “are certainly unfounded.”
The Gaza health ministry on Saturday said the overall death toll in more than 13 months of war has reached 43,799.
The majority of the dead are civilians, according to ministry figures which the United Nations considers reliable.
In Rafah, southern Gaza, Jamil Al-Masry told AFP a house was hit, causing “a massive explosion.”
“We went to the house, only to find it in ruins, with fire raging and smoke and dust everywhere.”
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Demonstrators in Tel Aviv on Saturday reiterated demands that the government reach a deal to free dozens of hostages still held in Gaza.
The protest came a week after mediator Qatar suspended its role until Hamas and Israel show “seriousness” in truce and hostage-release talks.
In a rare claim of responsibility for a strike on Syria, Israel said it targeted the Islamic Jihad group on Thursday.
A statement from the group on Saturday confirmed that “prominent leader” Abdel Aziz Minawi and external relations chief Rasmi Yusuf Abu Issa were killed in the air raid on Qudsaya, in the Damascus area.
Islamic Jihad still holds several Israeli hostages taken during the October 7 attack.
Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad are all backed by Israel’s arch-enemy Iran, which said Friday it supported a swift end to the nearly two-month war in Lebanon.
With diplomacy aimed at ending the Gaza war stalled, a top government official in Beirut said on Friday that US ambassador Lisa Johnson had presented a 13-point proposal to halt the Israel-Hezbollah conflict.
It includes a 60-day truce, during which Lebanon will deploy troops to the border. The official added that Israel has yet to respond to the plan.
UK doubles aid to war-torn Sudan
- Fighting broke out in April 2023 between the army under the country’s de facto ruler Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo
LONDON: The UK on Sunday announced a £113 million ($143 million) aid boost to support more than one million people affected by the war in Sudan, doubling its current package.
The new funding will be targeted at the 600,000 people in Sudan and 700,000 people in neighboring countries who have fled the conflict.
“The brutal conflict in Sudan has caused unimaginable suffering. The people of Sudan need more aid, which is why the UK is helping to provide much-needed food, shelter and education for the most vulnerable,” Foreign Secretary David Lammy said in a government press release.
“The UK will never forget Sudan,” he vowed.
Fighting broke out in April 2023 between the army under the country’s de facto ruler Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
Last month, United Nations experts accused the warring sides of using “starvation tactics” against 25 million civilians, and three major aid organizations warned of a “historic” hunger crisis as families resort to eating leaves and insects.
Lammy is due to visit the UN Security Council on Monday, where his ministry said he will call on the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) to keep the vital Adre border crossing open indefinitely to allow aid deliveries.
“We cannot deliver aid without access. Starvation must not be used as a weapon of war,” he said.
The new funding package will support UN and NGO partners in providing food, money, shelter, medical assistance, water and sanitation, said the Foreign Office.
Deaths in the conflict are likely to be “substantially underreported,” according to a study published this week, which found more casualties in Khartoum State alone than current empirical estimates for the whole country.
Sudan women sexually exploited in Chad camps
- Some victims said among those who exploited them were humanitarian workers and local security forces
- Nidhi Kapur, who works on preventing sexual exploitation and abuse, said exploitation represents a deep failure by the aid community
- Many of the women interviewed were unaware of the free hotline and feedback boxes put up by UN agencies to report abuse anonymously
ADRE, Chad: Crossing into Chad, the 27-year-old thought she’d left the horrors of Sudan’s war behind: the bodies she ran over while fleeing, the screams of girls being raped, the disappearance of her husband when gunmen attacked. But now she says she has faced more suffering — being forced as a refugee to have sex to get by.
She cradled her 7-week-old son, who she asserted was the child of an aid worker who promised her money in exchange for sex.
“The children were crying. We ran out of food,” she said of her four other children. “He abused my situation.” She and other women who spoke to The Associated Press requested anonymity because they feared retribution.
Some Sudanese women and girls assert that men, including those meant to protect them such as humanitarian workers and local security forces, have sexually exploited them in Chad’s displacement sites, offering money, easier access to assistance and jobs. Such sexual exploitation in Chad is a crime.
Hundreds of thousands of people, most of them women, have streamed into Chad to escape Sudan’s civil war, which has killed over 20,000 people. Aid groups struggle to support them in growing displacement sites.
Three women spoke with the AP in the town of Adre near the Sudanese border. A Sudanese psychologist shared the accounts of seven other women and girls who either refused to speak directly with a reporter or were no longer in touch with her. The AP could not confirm their accounts.
Daral-Salam Omar, the psychologist, said all the seven told her they went along with the offers of benefits in exchange for sex out of necessity. Some sought her help because they became pregnant and couldn’t seek an abortion at a clinic for fear of being shunned by their community, she said.
“They were psychologically destroyed. Imagine a woman getting pregnant without a husband amid this situation,” Omar said.
Sexual exploitation during large humanitarian crises is not uncommon, especially in displacement sites. Aid groups have long struggled to combat the issue. They cite a lack of reporting by women, not enough funds to respond and a focus on first providing basic necessities.
The UN refugee agency said it doesn’t publish data on cases, citing the confidentiality and safety of victims.
People seeking protection should never have to make choices driven by survival, experts said. Nidhi Kapur, who works on preventing sexual exploitation and abuse in emergency contexts, said exploitation represents a deep failure by the aid community.
Yewande Odia, the United Nations Population’s Fund representative in Chad, said sexual exploitation is a serious violation. UN agencies said displacement camps have “safe spaces” where women can gather, along with awareness sessions, a free hotline and feedback boxes to report abuse anonymously.
Yet many of the Sudanese women said they weren’t aware of the hotline, and some said using the boxes would draw unwanted attention.
The Sudanese woman with the newborn said she was afraid to report the aid worker for fear he’d turn her in to police.
She said she approached the aid worker, a Sudanese man, after searching for jobs to buy basic necessities like soap. She asked him for money. He said he’d give her cash but only in exchange for sex.
They slept together for months, she said, and he paid the equivalent of about $12 each time. After she had the baby, he gave her a one-time payment of approximately $65 but denied it was his, she said.
The man was a Sudanese laborer for Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, she said.
Two other Sudanese women said Chadian men working at MSF sites— one wearing MSF clothing — solicited them after they applied for work with the organization. The men took their phone numbers and repeatedly called, saying they’d give them jobs for sex. Both women said they refused.
Christopher Lockyear, MSF’s secretary general, said the organization was not aware of the allegations and wanted to investigate. “Asking for money or sex in exchange for access to care or a job is a clear violation of our behavioral commitments,” he said.
MSF would not say how many such cases had been reported among Sudanese refugees in Chad. Last year, out of 714 complaints made about MSF staff behavior where it works globally, 264 were confirmed to be cases of abuse or inappropriate behavior including sexual exploitation, abuse of power and bullying, Lockyear said.
Lockyear said MSF is creating a pool of investigators at the global level to enhance its ability to pursue allegations.
One woman told the AP that a man with another aid group also exploited her, but she was unable to identify the organization. Omar, the psychologist, said several of the women told her they were exploited by aid workers, local and international. She gave no evidence to back up the claims.
Another woman, one of the two who alleged they were approached after seeking work with MSF, said she also refused a local policeman who approached her and promised an extra food ration card if she went to his house.
Ali Mahamat Sebey, the head official for Adre, said police are not allowed inside the camps and asserted that allegations against them of exploitation were false. With the growing influx of people, however, it’s hard to protect everyone, he said.
The women said they just want to feel safe, adding that access to jobs would lessen their vulnerability.
After most of her family was killed or abducted in Sudan’s Darfur region last year, one 19-year-old sought refuge in Chad. She didn’t have enough money to support the nieces and nephews in her care. She got a job at a restaurant in the camp but when she asked her Sudanese boss for a raise, he agreed on the condition of sex.
The money he paid was more than six times her salary. But when she got pregnant with his child, the man fled, she asserted. She rubbed her growing belly.
“If we had enough, we wouldn’t have to go out and lose our dignity,” she said.
