AMMAN: Eighty members of the Palestine Central Council (PCC) will meet on Sunday in the temporary Palestinian political capital of Ramallah to review and recommend the direction of the Palestinian struggle.
The PCC, a medium body between the Palestine National Council (PNC, Palestine’s Parliament in exile) and the PLO Executive Committee, last met in March 2015.
Its meeting is taking place five weeks after the US president, according to his own words, “took Jerusalem off the negotiating table.” Trump declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel and began steps to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Arab News sources have indicated that the PCC will take some tough decisions, including declaring Palestine a state under occupation, suing Israel in the International Criminal Court, suspending the recognition of Israel, escalating peaceful resistance and calling on Europe and other countries to recognize the state of Palestine (see recommendations to the PCC in separate story).
Anees Sweidan, director of external relations for the PLO, told Arab News that the PCC meeting will be facing some difficult choices. “Tough decisions are needed to be taken as a result of the US pronouncement on Jerusalem.” Sweidan also noted that a total review of the Oslo Accords is needed, especially concerning relations with Israel.
“It has become clear that what is needed is a total review of Oslo. There is no Israel partner for peace at the present time and we can’t keep hiding our heads in the sand. This means we need to revisit both security and economic agreements with Israel,” he said.
Najeeb Qaddoumi, a member of the PNC and PCC, told Arab News that the US could not continue to monopolize the peace process. “They have disqualified themselves as an honest broker when they sided with one part on the crucial issue of Jerusalem,” he said.
Qaddoumi believes that the time has come for genuine national unity. “We can’t really do any serious restructuring and reinvigoration of the PLO unless we are totally and honestly united.”
For PLO executive committee member Tayseer Khaled, the point of departure for the meeting on Sunday must be in honoring previous resolutions. In the 2015 meeting, Khaled told Arab News on Dec. 26: “It was decided to end our connection with the Oslo Accords and the security coordination with Israel but this has not happened.”
Ziad Khalil Abu Zayyad, Fatah spokesman for international affairs, told Al-Monitor: “In the beginning of the PCC meeting, it is expected that members will discuss the matter of withdrawing recognition of Israel as a reaction to the US decision on Jerusalem.”
In 1993, the PLO and Israel agreed to mutual recognition. The move gave Israel legitimacy, but members of PLO factions remained in jail for membership of a “terrorist organization,” and in March this year Israel declared the Amman-based Palestinian National Fund, essentially the PLO’s treasury, a terrorist organization.
While suspending security coordination and the recognition of Israel might be among the toughest decisions that will be discussed in Ramallah, it is clear that some are worried about the potential Israeli reaction.
Nabil Amer, a respected Fatah leader, believes that such escalation is a mistake. Speaking to the Raya FM radio in Ramallah, Amer said that any escalation will be painful to the Palestinian people. “I don’t add my voice to the calls for escalation. Any such escalation will be costly. We have boycotted meetings with the US; that was a good decision and that is enough.”
Even the left-wing Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) was critical of the voices of escalation. Iyad Joudeh, writing in the DFLP’s flagship publication al-Houria on Jan. 3, rejected the idea of dissolving the Palestinian Authority.
“It is illogical to dissolve the Palestinian Authority because Israel has been doing its utmost to weaken the Palestinian Authority because it knows that the PA is the nucleus of the Palestinian state,” he said. “We should think logically and retain our national accomplishments.”
Palestinian leaders are caught in a bind. On the one hand they needs to show unity and resilience, yet at the same time they must be careful not to burn all their bridges.
Because the choices that the council members make are likely to have a major effect on the trajectory of the Palestinian struggle, it is likely that the most radical decisions will be postponed for the consideration of the highest PLO body, the Palestine National Council.
Palestine Central Council meeting faces tough choices
Palestine Central Council meeting faces tough choices
Suffering in Gaza ‘almost unparalleled’: Humanitarian chief
- Norwegian Refugee Council secretary-general: Palestinians pushed ‘beyond breaking point’
- Jan Egeland: Gaza rendered ‘uninhabitable’ due Israel’s policies
LONDON: Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are experiencing “almost unparalleled” suffering, one of the world’s foremost humanitarian officials has warned following a visit to the enclave, The Guardian reported on Friday.
Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, traveled to Gaza this week, reporting that families, widows and children have been pushed “beyond breaking point” by Israel’s year-long war.
He witnessed “scene after scene of absolute despair” as Palestinian families had been torn apart by attacks, with survivors unable to bury their dead relatives.
Gaza has been rendered “uninhabitable” as a result of Israel’s policies, supported by Western-supplied weaponry, Egeland said.
“This is in no way a lawful response, a targeted operation of ‘self-defence’ to dismantle armed groups, or warfare consistent with humanitarian law,” he added.
“The families, widows and children I have spoken to are enduring suffering almost unparalleled to anywhere in recent history. There is no possible justification for continued war and destruction.”
Since last year, families across the enclave have been repeatedly forced to move from one area to another as a result of Israeli evacuation orders, which now cover 80 percent of Gaza.
The situation is even more dire in northern Gaza, where a month-long Israeli offensive and siege have cut off an estimated 100,000 people from humanitarian aid.
An Israeli brigadier general said this week that there is no intention of allowing the return of Palestinians to their homes in northern Gaza.
Such a policy of forcible transfer would amount to war crimes, humanitarian law experts have said.
As aid continues to be cut off from the Palestinian population, the UN has condemned “unlawful interference with humanitarian assistance and orders that are leading to forced displacement.”
Egeland warned of the “catastrophic impact of strangled aid flows” on the Palestinian population, with people left unable to access food or water for days at a time.
The former Norwegian foreign minister and diplomat said: “There has not been a single week since the start of this war when sufficient aid was delivered in Gaza.”
Despite the acute shortage of humanitarian aid, Israel’s parliament this week passed bills banning the UN Relief & Works Agency from operating in the Occupied Territories, designating it as a terrorist organization.
Egeland called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza to prevent the “deadly” situation from worsening, adding: “Those in power on all sides act with impunity, while millions across Gaza and the region pay a terrible price.
“Humanitarians can speak out on what we are seeing, but only those in power can end this nightmare.”
Turkiye’s foreign minister visits Athens to help mend ties between the regional rivals
- Both NATO members, Greece and Turkiye have been at loggerheads for decades over a long series of issues
ATHENS, Greece: Turkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan arrived Friday in Athens for meetings with his Greek counterpart as part of efforts to ease tension between the two neighbors and regional rivals.
Both NATO members, Greece and Turkiye have been at loggerheads for decades over a long series of issues, including volatile maritime boundary disputes that have twice led them to the brink of war. The two have renewed a diplomatic push for over a year to improve ties.
“Step by step, we have achieved a level of trust so that we can discuss issues with sincerity and prevent crises,” Greek Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis said in an interview with Turkiye’s Hurriyet newspaper published Thursday.
The meeting between the two foreign ministers follows a series of high-profile talks between Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as part of a relation-mending initiative launched in 2023.
Officials in Athens are expected to raise concerns about rising illegal migration, as Greece has seen an uptick in arrivals. And, despite deep disagreements on Israel and fighting in the Middle East, both foreign ministers are also expected to explore ways to improve regional stability.
The talks will help set the stage for a Greece-Turkiye high-level cooperation council planned for early 2025 in Ankara, Turkiye.
Turkiye’s Erdogan hopes Trump will tell Israel to ‘stop’ war
ANKARA: Turkiye’s President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that he hoped US President-elect Donald Trump will tell Israel to “stop” its war efforts, suggesting a good start would be halting US arms support to Israel.
“Trump has made promises to end conflicts... We want that promise to be fulfilled and for Israel to be told to ‘stop’,” Erdogan told reporters on a return flight from Budapest, according to an official readout.
“Mr. Trump cutting off the arms support provided to Israel could be a good start in order to stop the Israeli aggression in Palestinian and Lebanese lands,” he was cited as saying.
Turkiye has fiercely criticized Israel’s offensives in the Palestinian territory of Gaza and in Lebanon, and has halted trade with Israel as well as applied to join a genocide case against Israel at the World Court. Israel strongly denies the genocide accusations.
Trump’s presidency will seriously affect political and military balances in the Middle East region, Erdogan said, adding that pursuing current US policies would deepen deadlock in the region and spread the conflict.
Nearly 70% of Gaza war dead women and children, UN rights office says
- UN Human Rights Office: Systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law
- The youngest victim whose death was verified by UN monitors was a one-day-old boy, and the oldest was a 97-year-old woman
GENEVA:
The UN condemned on Friday the staggering number of civilians killed in Israel’s war in Gaza, with women and children comprising nearly 70 percent of the thousands of fatalities it had managed to verify.
In a fresh report, the United Nations human rights office detailed the “horrific reality” that has unfolded for civilians in both Gaza and Israel since Hamas’s attack in Israel on October 7, 2023.
It detailed a vast array of violations of international law, warning that many could amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity and possibly even “genocide.”
“The report shows how civilians in Gaza have borne the brunt of the attacks, including through the initial ‘complete siege’ of Gaza by Israeli forces,” the UN said.
It also pointed to “the Israeli government’s continuing unlawful failures to allow, facilitate and ensure the entry of humanitarian aid, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and repeated mass displacement.”
“This conduct by Israeli forces has caused unprecedented levels of killings, death, injury, starvation, illness and disease,” it continued.
“Palestinian armed groups have also conducted hostilities in ways that have likely contributed to harm to civilians.”
The report took on the contentious issue of the proportion of civilians figuring among the now nearly 43,500 people killed in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Palestinian territory.
Due to a lack of access, UN agencies have since the beginning of the Gaza war relied on death tolls provided by the authorities in Hamas-run Gaza.
This has sparked accusations from Israel of “parroting... Hamas’s propaganda messages” but the UN has repeatedly said the figures are reliable.
Youngest victim aged one day
The rights office said it had now managed to verify 8,119 of the more than 34,500 people reportedly killed during the first six months of the war in Gaza, finding “close to 70 percent to be children and women.”
This, it said, indicated “a systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law, including distinction and proportionality.”
Of the verified fatalities, 3,588 of them were children and 2,036 were women, the report said.
“We do believe this is representative of the breakdown of total fatalities — similar proportion to what Gaza authorities have,” UN rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told AFP.
“Our monitoring indicates that this unprecedented level of killing and injury of civilians is a direct consequence of the failure to comply with fundamental principles of international humanitarian law,” UN rights chief Volker Turk said in a statement.
“Tragically, these documented patterns of violations continue unabated, over one year after the start of the war.”
His office found that about 80 percent of all the verified deaths in Gaza had occurred in Israeli attacks on residential buildings or similar housing, and that close to 90 percent had died in incidents that killed five or more people.
The main victims of Israeli strikes on residential buildings, it said, were children between the ages of five and nine, with the youngest victim a one-day-old boy and the oldest a 97-year-old woman.
The report said that the large proportion of verified deaths in residential buildings could be partially explained by the rights office’s “verification methodology, which requires at least three independent sources.”
It also pointed to continuing “challenges in collecting and verifying information of killings in other circumstances.”
Gaza authorities have long said that women and children made up a significant majority of those killed in the war, but with lacking access for full UN verification, the issue has remained highly contentious.
Israel has insisted that its operations in Gaza are targeting militants.
But Friday’s report stressed that the verified deaths largely mirrored the demographic makeup of the population at large in Gaza, rather than the known demographic of combatants.
This, it said, clearly “raises concerns regarding compliance with the principle of distinction and reflect an apparent failure to take all feasible precautions to avoid, and in any event to minimize, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects.”
Khamenei aide warns against impulsive Iran response to Israel attack
- Israel is engaged in conflicts with the Iran-backed Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon
- Israeli warplanes struck military sites in Iran on October 26 in retaliation for a large Iranian missile attack
TEHRAN: An adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has warned against launching an “instinctive” response to Israeli air strikes on the Islamic republic last month.
Israel, Iran’s sworn enemy, is engaged in conflicts with the Iran-backed Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Israeli warplanes struck military sites in Iran on October 26 in retaliation for a large Iranian missile attack on Israel at the start of the month.
“Israel aims to bring the conflict to Iran. We must act wisely to avoid its trap and not react instinctively,” the adviser, Ali Larijani, told state television late Thursday.
Iran said it fired 200 missiles at Israel on October 1 in response to the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in a strike on Beirut and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh while he was in Tehran.
After Israel hit back, it warned Iran against any counterattack, but the Islamic republic has vowed to respond.
“Our actions and reactions are strategically defined, so we must avoid instinctive or emotional responses and remain entirely rational,” Larijani added.
The former parliament speaker also praised Nasrallah for accepting a ceasefire during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war rather than making an “emotional decision.”
On Sunday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said a potential ceasefire between Tehran’s allies and Israel could affect Iran’s response to the Israeli strikes.
