GAZA: The US for a second week in a row has blocked a UN Security Council statement supporting the right of Palestinians to demonstrate peacefully and endorsing Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ call for an independent investigation into deadly protests in Gaza.
Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour told reporters at UN headquarters in New York Friday evening that 14 of the 15 council nations agreed to the statement, but the US, Israel’s closest ally, objected.
Mansour called the US rejection “very irresponsible,” saying it gives Israel “the green light to continue with their onslaught against the civilian population” in Gaza.
He said the UN will keep all its options open including seeking a Security Council presidential statement or resolution, going to the UN General Assembly or the Gene
va-based Human Rights Council where there are no vetoes, and urging Secretary-General Guterres to establish an independent investigation.
“We will not give up,” Mansour said. “We will continue knocking on doors.
The Arab League’s UN Ambassador Maged Abdelaziz said Arab ministers will discuss options to pursue the Palestinian issue at a meeting in Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh on April 12 ahead of a summit of Arab leaders in the country on April 15.
Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon called on the Security Council to condemn Gaza’s Hamas rulers for exploiting children as human shields and to end their provocations.
Hamas rulers, who are orchestrating the demonstrations, say the protests are against a decade-old border blockade by Israel. But Israel accuses the group of using the protests as cover for trying to infiltrate the border and attack Israelis. It has warned that anyone approaching the border fence is risking their lives.
Israel captured Gaza, a thin strip of land along the Mediterranean coast, from Egypt in the 1967 Mideast war and occupied the area for nearly four decades before withdrawing all troops and settlements in 2005. Hamas, a militant group sworn to Israel’s destruction, won legislative elections the following year and in 2007 seized control of Gaza from the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority, headed by Mahmoud Abbas.
Israel and Egypt have maintained a blockade on Gaza in an attempt to weaken the group. Since then, Israel and Hamas have fought three wars, while attempts at internal Palestinian reconciliation have repeatedly failed, in large part because of Hamas’ continued refusal to disarm.
Gaza’s 2 million residents receive only a few hours of electricity each day, tap water is undrinkable and the coastline has been polluted by tons of untreated sewage. Hamas says the demonstrations are meant to draw attention to the harsh conditions in Gaza. But with public discontent rising, it also appears to be an attempt by the group to shake up the situation after other options failed.
International organizations like the World Bank and UN say the blockade continues to stifle the economy. They have repeatedly urged Israel to ease the restrictions significantly.
While thousands of Palestinians have gathered for nonviolent protests, dozens of young men have approached the border and thrown stones, firebombs and burning tires toward the border fence. Israel has mobilized snipers and other special forces on the other side of the fence.
Witness accounts and amateur videos have shown some demonstrators appeared to be unarmed or far from the fence when they were shot.
Hamas has called for a series of demonstrations in the coming weeks, culminating on May 15, the 70th anniversary of Israel’s establishment. Palestinians mark the date as their “naqba,” or catastrophe, when hundreds of thousands were forced or fled from their homes.
Hamas’ top Gaza official, Yehiyeh Sinwar, made a surprise visit to one of the protests and appeared to issue a new threat. “Wait for our great move, when we breach the borders and pray at Al-Aqsa,” referring to the major Muslim shrine in Jerusalem. Sinwar’s threat could set the stage for another serious round of violence in the coming weeks.
US blocks UN call for Gaza probe
US blocks UN call for Gaza probe
- Paris condemns Israeli army's 'indiscriminate fire' in Gaza
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Gaza rescuers say 15 killed in Israeli strikes
- On Thursday the civil defense agency reported the deaths of at least 40 residents in Israeli strikes
Gaza City: Gaza’s civil defense agency said Friday that 15 people, including 10 from the same family, had been killed in two overnight Israeli strikes.
Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said on Telegram that “our crews recovered the bodies of 10 martyrs and a large number of wounded from the house of the Baraka family and the neighboring houses targeted by the Israeli occupation forces in the Bani Suhaila area east of Khan Yunis,” in the southern Gaza Strip.
Bassal later announced that a separate strike hit two houses in northern Gaza’s Tal Al-Zaatar, where crews had “recovered the bodies of five people.”
The Israeli military, which did not immediately comment, has intensified its aerial bombardments and expanded its ground operations in the Gaza Strip since it resumed its offensive in the besieged Palestinian territory on March 18.
On Thursday, the civil defense agency reported the deaths of at least 40 residents in Israeli strikes, most of them in camps for displaced civilians, as Israel pressed its offensive.
Israeli military intercepts missile launched from Yemen
- Iran-backed Houthi militia have regularly fired missiles and drones targeting Israel
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said Friday it had intercepted a missile launched from Yemen, from where the Iran-backed Houthi militia have regularly fired missiles and drones targeting Israel.
“Following the sirens that sounded a short while ago in several areas in Israel, a missile launched from Yemen was intercepted,” Israel’s army said on Telegram, adding that aerial defense systems had been deployed “to intercept the threat.”
US strike on Yemen fuel port kills at least 38, Houthi media say
WASHINGTON: US strikes on a fuel port in Yemen killed at least 38 people on Thursday, Houthi-run media said, one of the deadliest days since the United States began its attacks on the Iran-backed militants.
The United States has vowed not to halt the large-scale strikes begun last month in its biggest military operation in the Middle East since President Donald Trump took office in January, unless the Houthis cease attacks on Red Sea shipping.
Al Masirah TV said 102 people were also wounded in Thursday’s strikes on the western fuel port of Ras Isa, which the US military said aimed to cut off a source of fuel for the Houthi militant group.
Responding to a Reuters query for comment on the Houthis’ casualty figure and its own estimate, the US Central Command said it had none beyond the initial announcement of the attacks.
“The objective of these strikes was to degrade the economic source of power of the Houthis, who continue to exploit and bring great pain upon their fellow countrymen,” it had said in a post on X.
Since November 2023, the Houthis have launched dozens of drone and missile attacks on vessels transiting the waterway, saying they were targeting ships linked to Israel in protest over the war in Gaza.
They halted attacks on shipping lanes during a two-month ceasefire in Gaza. Although they vowed to resume strikes after Israel renewed its assault on Gaza last month, they have not claimed any since.
In March, two days of US attacks killed more than 50 people, Houthi officials said.
Cash crunch leaves Syrians queueing for hours to collect salaries
- Syria has been struggling to emerge from the wake of nearly 14 years of civil war, and its banking sector is no exception
- The liquidity crisis has forced authorities to drastically limit cash withdrawals, leaving much of the population struggling to make ends meet
DAMASCUS: Seated on the pavement outside a bank in central Damascus, Abu Fares’s face is worn with exhaustion as he waits to collect a small portion of his pension.
“I’ve been here for four hours and I haven’t so much as touched my pension,” said the 77-year-old, who did not wish to give his full name.
“The cash dispensers are under-stocked and the queues are long,” he continued.
Since the overthrow of president Bashar Assad last December, Syria has been struggling to emerge from the wake of nearly 14 years of civil war, and its banking sector is no exception.
Decades of punishing sanctions imposed on the Assad dynasty – which the new authorities are seeking to have lifted – have left about 90 percent of Syrians under the poverty line, according to the United Nations.
The liquidity crisis has forced authorities to drastically limit cash withdrawals, leaving much of the population struggling to make ends meet.
Prior to his ousting, Assad’s key ally Russia held a monopoly on printing banknotes. The new authorities have only announced once that they have received a shipment of banknotes from Moscow since Assad’s overthrow.
In a country with about 1.25 million public sector employees, civil servants must queue at one of two state banks or affiliated ATMs to make withdrawals, capped at about 200,000 Syrian pounds, the equivalent on the black market of $20 per day.
In some cases, they have to take a day off just to wait for the cash.
“There are sick people, elderly... we can’t continue like this,” said Abu Fares.
“There is a clear lack of cash, and for that reason we deactivate the ATMs at the end of the workday,” an employee at a private bank said, preferring not to give her name.
A haphazard queue of about 300 people stretches outside the Commercial Bank of Syria. Some are sitting on the ground.
Afraa Jumaa, a civil servant, said she spends most of the money she withdraws on the travel fare to get to and from the bank.
“The conditions are difficult and we need to withdraw our salaries as quickly as possible,” said the 43-year-old.
“It’s not acceptable that we have to spend days to withdraw meagre sums.”
The local currency has plunged in value since the civil war erupted in 2011, prior to which the dollar was valued at 50 pounds.
Economist Georges Khouzam explained that foreign exchange vendors – whose work was outlawed under Assad – “deliberately reduced cash flows in Syrian pounds to provoke rapid fluctuations in the market and turn a profit.”
Muntaha Abbas, a 37-year-old civil servant, had to return three times to withdraw her entire salary of 500,000 pounds.
“There are a lot of ATMs in Damascus, but very few of them work,” she said.
After a five-hour wait, she was finally able to withdraw 200,000 pounds.
“Queues and more queues... our lives have become a series of queues,” she lamented.
Trump administration orders Gaza-linked social media vetting for visa applicants
- New order sent to all US diplomatic missions
- Social media vetting includes NGO workers
WASHINGTON: The Trump administration on Thursday ordered a social media vetting for all US visa applicants who have been to the Gaza Strip on or after January 1, 2007, an internal State Department cable seen by Reuters showed, in the latest push to tighten screening of foreign travelers.
The order to conduct a social media vetting for all immigrant and non-immigrant visas should include non-governmental organization workers as well as individuals who have been in the Palestinian enclave for any length of time in an official or diplomatic capacity, the cable said.
“If the review of social media results uncovers potential derogatory information relating to security issues, then a SAO must be submitted,” the cable said, referring to a security advisory opinion, which is an interagency investigation to determine if a visa applicant poses a national security risk to the United States.
The cable was sent to all US diplomatic and consular posts.
The move comes as President Donald Trump’s administration has revoked hundreds of visas across the country, including the status of some lawful permanent residents under a 1952 law allowing the deportation of any immigrant whose presence in the country the secretary of state deems harmful to US foreign policy.
The cable dated April 17 was signed by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said in late March that he may have revoked more than 300 visas already.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump officials have said student visa holders are subject to deportation over their support for Palestinians and criticism of Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza, calling their actions a threat to US foreign policy interests.
Trump’s critics have called the effort an attack on free speech rights under the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
The US Constitution guarantees freedom of speech for everyone in the US, regardless of immigration status. But there have been high-profile instances of the administration revoking visas of students who advocated against Israel’s war in Gaza.
Among the most widely publicized of such arrests was one captured on video last month of masked agents taking a Tufts University student from Turkiye, Rumeysa Ozturk, into custody.
When asked about Ozturk at a news conference last month, Rubio said: “Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas” and he warned there would be more individuals whose visas could be revoked.
