UNITED NATIONS: An “overwhelming” number of UN Security Council members oppose Israel’s decision to deduct money that Palestinians transfer to the families of people killed, injured or imprisoned for attacks on Israel from their monthly tax revenue, Kuwait’s UN ambassador said Friday.
Mansour Al-Otaibi told reporters after a closed-door council meeting that Israel’s action was “in violation of existing bilateral agreements.”
US Mideast envoy Jason Greenblatt came to New York from Washington to defend close ally Israel.
He told the council that the Palestinian Authority’s decision to reject the latest tax transfer was only hurting the Palestinian people because they were rejecting the 95 percent of the tax revenue that Israel is not withholding, according to a diplomat at the meeting.
Greenblatt said it was “inappropriate” to focus on Israel, which was withholding 5 percent to 7 percent of the monthly tax revenue because of the Palestinian Authority’s “abhorrent practice” of paying that money “to terrorists and their families,” the diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity because discussions were private.
“The Palestinian Authority is refusing to accept over $150 million in revenue to protest the fact that $11 million is being withheld, only to make a political point,” the diplomat quoted Greenblatt as saying. “Does that sound like a governing authority that is concerned with the welfare of its people?“
Kuwait’s Mansour, who called for the Security Council consultations along with Indonesia’s UN Ambassador Dian Djani, said the Palestinians “have the right ... to do whatever they want with their money.”
He said UN Mideast envoy Nikolay Mladenov, who briefed the council by video, said “there is a need for mediation on this to solve it.”
Mansour said an “overwhelming” number of members on the 15-nation Security Council “think that this is a unilateral decision, it’s not acceptable, it’s a violation of the Oslo agreement and Paris protocol, and this is Palestinian money.”
Indonesia’s Djani said Israel’s suspension of international observers in Hebron coupled with the withholding tax revenue were making things “more and more difficult once again for the Palestinian people — so that’s why we are raising this issue, because we don’t want to continue to escalate an issue.”
The diplomat said Greenblatt told the council that members who disagree with Israel’s decision to withhold the customs revenues were free to discuss it with the Israeli government.
But in the meantime, the diplomat said, Greenblatt asked the Security Council to send a united message to the Palestinian Authority to stop “its irresponsible decision to reject the transfer of the remaining funds.”
Kuwait: Many in UN oppose Israel action on Palestinian taxes
Kuwait: Many in UN oppose Israel action on Palestinian taxes
- Israel deducts money that Palestinians transfer to the families of people killed, injured or imprisoned for attacks on Israel from their monthly tax revenue
- Kuwait’s UN ambassador says Israel’s action was “in violation of existing bilateral agreements”
Libya military says air strikes target smuggling sites
- The Libyan Army said the air strikes “targeted and destroyed fuel trafficking sites in Zawiya, specifically in Asban,” a semi-rural area outside of the city
ZAWIYAH, Libya: Libya’s UN-recognized authorities have launched air strikes targeting drug trafficking and fuel smuggling hubs west of the capital, a military statement said on Monday.
It remained unclear if there were casualties from the strikes in Zawiya, a city on the Mediterranean coast about 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of the capital Tripoli.
Libya was plunged into chaos after a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed strongman Muammar Qaddafi in 2011, with armed groups exploiting the situation to fund their activities through fuel smuggling and the trafficking of migrants.
The Libyan Army said the air strikes “targeted and destroyed fuel trafficking sites in Zawiya, specifically in Asban,” a semi-rural area outside of the city.
It also called on locals to clear areas it labelled as “strongholds for trafficking and crime.”
In May 2023, the Tripoli-based government carried out drone strikes as part of an anti-smuggling operation, killing at least two people and injuring several others, authorities said at the time.
Those strikes followed clashes between armed groups suspected of involvement in human trafficking and smuggling of fuel and other contraband goods.
Libya’s eastern-based parliament accused the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity of targeting the home of one of its lawmakers, an opponent of the government.
Libya is divided between the Tripoli-based GNU and a rival administration in the east, backed by military strongman Khalifa Haftar.
Footage posted on the army’s Facebook page showed a military truck smashing into the facade of a small dwelling.
Other footage showed tanks and pickup trucks mounted with machine guns driving through Zawiya.
The city hosts Libya’s second-largest oil refinery, with smugglers trafficking the fuel across the border into neighboring Tunisia.
UN envoy in rare Yemen visit to push for peace
- Grundberg’s office said his visit would also “support the release of the arbitrarily detained UN, NGO, civil society and diplomatic mission personnel”
SANAA: Hans Grundberg, the United Nation’s special envoy for war-torn Yemen, arrived Monday in the rebel-held capital in a bid to breathe life into peace talks, his office said.
Grundberg last visited the capital Sanaa, controlled by the Iran-backed Houthis, in May 2023 for meetings with the rebels’ leaders in an earlier effort to advance a roadmap for peace.
The envoy’s current visit “is part of his ongoing efforts to urge for concrete and essential actions... for advancing the peace process,” Grundberg’s office said in a statement.
Yemen has been at war since 2014, when the Houthis forced the internationally recognized government out of Sanaa. The rebels have also seized population centers in the north.
A UN-brokered ceasefire in April 2022 calmed fighting and in December 2023 the warring parties committed to a peace process.
But tensions have surged during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, as the Houthis struck Israeli targets and international shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, in a campaign the rebels say is in solidarity with Palestinians.
In response to the Houthi attacks, Israel as well as the United States and Britain have hit Houthi targets in Yemen over the past year. One Israeli raid hit Sanaa’s international airport.
Grundberg’s office said his visit would also “support the release of the arbitrarily detained UN, NGO, civil society and diplomatic mission personnel.”
Dozens of staff from UN and other humanitarian organizations have been detained by the rebels, most of them since June, with the Houthis accusing them of belonging to a “US-Israeli spy network,” a charge the United Nations denies.
US says anti-Daesh operation in Iraq kills coalition soldier
- US officials have said Daesh is hoping to stage a comeback in Syria following the fall in December of Syrian President Bashar Assad
WASHINGTON: The US military said on Monday operations against Daesh in Iraq over the past week led to the death of a non-US coalition soldier and wounded two other non-US personnel.
It also detailed operations in Syria against Daesh militants led by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, including one that resulted in the capture of what the US military’s Central Command said was an Daesh attack cell leader.
US officials have said Daesh is hoping to stage a comeback in Syria following the fall in December of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
How Israeli raids on northern Gaza hospitals compound the enclave’s healthcare emergency
- Kamal Adwan Hospital was raided by Israeli forces on Dec. 27, dealing a fresh blow to Gaza’s already devastated health system
- Israel alleged the facility was a “Hamas terrorist stronghold,” detaining its director Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, patients, and other staff
DUBAI: For months, prominent Palestinian pediatrician Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya had been pleading with the international community to protect medical staff and patients at the Kamal Adwan Hospital amid repeated Israeli assaults.
As one of just two functioning hospitals in northern Gaza, Kamal Adwan served as a lifeline for thousands in need of medical assistance under an Israeli siege that has blocked the delivery of food, shelter materials, and medical supplies since Oct. 5.
However, the pleas of Dr. Abu Safiya, the hospital’s director, fell silent on Dec. 27 when Israeli forces stormed the facility and detained him along with patients and other medical staff, alleging it was a “Hamas terrorist stronghold.”
Since early October 2024, Israel has intensified its siege on northern Gaza, mounting a series of operations intended to root out Hamas fighters. The raid on Kamal Adwan knocked the hospital out of action, dealing a fresh blow to northern Gaza’s already devastated healthcare system.
The following day, health officials said Israeli forces targeted Al-Awda Hospital, severely damaging the last functioning facility in northern Gaza. The hospital had been overflowing with patients after the Indonesian Hospital was reportedly put out of service earlier in the month.
On Dec. 29, the Palestinian health ministry said Israeli strikes had left two facilities in Gaza City — Al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital and Al-Wafaa Hospital — with significant damage.
“Hospitals have once again become battlegrounds, reminiscent of the destruction of the health system in Gaza City earlier this year,” the World Health Organization said in a statement.
Israel has long accused Hamas of using civilian hospitals for military purposes, employing patients and medical staff as human shields — a claim that the Palestinian militant group that governs Gaza has consistently denied.
In its latest raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital, the Israeli military said its troops had killed 20 “terrorists” and detained 240 others, including Dr. Abu Safiya on suspicion of being “a Hamas terrorist operative.”
On Friday, Israel confirmed it was holding Dr. Abu Safiya, but did not specify where. In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces said he was “currently being investigated by Israeli security forces” as he was suspected of being a “terrorist” and for “holding a rank” in Hamas.
Israel launched its military operation in Gaza in retaliation for the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and saw around 250 taken hostage, including many foreign nationals.
The air and ground campaign in Gaza has caused the death of some 45,400 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, and left 108,000 wounded, according to the Palestinian health ministry. Around 100 Israelis remain captive in Gaza, but a third are believed to be dead.
Kamal Adwan Hospital has been the target of around 50 recorded attacks on or near the facility since early October 2024, according to the WHO.
The latest raid left the hospital’s laboratory, surgical unit, engineering and maintenance department, operating theater, and medical store severely damaged by fire.
Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesperson, denied troops had entered the facility or started the fire.
“While IDF troops were not in the hospital, a small fire broke out in an empty building inside the hospital that is under control,” he said. A preliminary investigation had found “no connection” between the military operation and the fire, he added.
Dr. Abu Safiya’s detention has sparked global outcry as UN agencies, rights groups, and non-governmental organizations demanded his immediate release.
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A viral image of Dr. Abu Safiya, believed to depict his final moments before his arrest, shows him walking alone, dressed in his white lab coat, among the rubble of a devastated street towards Israeli tanks.
Healthcare workers around the world joined an online solidarity campaign, prompting the launch of a petition calling on the US to pressure Israel to release Dr. Abu Safiya and stop targeting hospitals, medical staff, and patients.
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, urged global medical professionals to cut ties with Israel in protest at the arrest.
“For each Palestinian life that should and could have been saved in Gaza, we have been put to the test. And we have failed, over and over,” she posted on X. “We must not fail again. All of us must do all we can to save Dr. Abu Safiya.”
According to the Palestinian health ministry, more than 1,000 medical workers have been killed and more than 300 detained since the war between Israel and Hamas began on Oct. 7, 2023, while some 130 ambulances have been knocked out of action.
The whereabouts of Dr. Abu Safiya and his staff remains unknown, although several released detainees told CNN he was being held at the Sde Teiman military base — a facility close to the Gaza border notorious for allegations of abuse, which Israel denies.
Dr. Abu Safiya rose to prominence for documenting the challenges facing healthcare professionals in Gaza since the war began, including shortages of staff and medical supplies.
In an earlier raid on Oct. 25, he was briefly detained and questioned after refusing multiple orders to leave Kamal Adwan Hospital. The Israeli army had stormed the facility, detained many patients and 57 hospital staff, according to Gaza health authorities.
During that Israeli operation, Dr. Abu Safiya’s 15-year-old son was reportedly killed in a drone strike at the hospital gate. Dr. Abu Safiya insisted on continuing to tend to his patients, and continued to do so even after he was wounded in an attack on Nov. 23.
“We are suffering from a severe shortage of doctors, especially surgeons,” he said at the time. “Right now, we only have pediatricians — it is a huge challenge to work under these circumstances.”
On Dec. 31, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights published a report detailing the destruction of Gaza’s healthcare facilities. The report found that 27 hospitals and 12 other medical facilities had suffered 136 strikes between Oct. 7, 2023 and June 30, 2024.
The UN warned that the strikes caused “significant damage to, if not the complete destruction of, civilian infrastructure,” and pushed the healthcare system in the Palestinian territory to the “brink of total collapse.”
Just 17 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals remain partially functional, according to the WHO’s latest figures.
In its report, the UN labeled Israel’s claim that Gaza’s hospitals are being used by Hamas for military purposes as “vague” and “insufficient.”
A day earlier, UN human rights experts said the backing of allies has enabled Israel to continue committing “genocidal acts” and defying international law. They stressed that Israel needed to be held accountable for “inflicting maximum suffering” on Palestinian civilians, particularly in northern Gaza.
They noted the siege, “coupled with expanding evacuation orders, appears intended to permanently displace the local population as a precursor to Gaza’s annexation.”
Israel said the siege was aimed at preventing Hamas from regrouping.
As ceasefire talks continue, the Palestinian health ministry has called on the international community to intervene to protect healthcare professionals, secure the release of detainees, and facilitate a safe environment in which the sick and injured can receive treatment.
The closure of Kamal Adwan Hospital leaves a population of some 75,000 Palestinians in the north without access to medical care — a crisis exacerbated by bitter winter conditions and shortages of food, medicine, and shelter.
More than 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians have been repeatedly displaced, according to aid agencies, with many now enduring winter temperatures in squalid tent camps, often flooded by heavy rain, in south and central Gaza.
For those who have remained in northern Gaza, hospitals are no longer an option for shelter.
“As if the relentless bombing and the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza were not enough, the one sanctuary where Palestinians should have felt safe in fact became a death trap,” Volker Turk, the UN human rights chief, said in a statement.
Health officials say the loss of Kamal Adwan Hospital, in particular, will leave civilians in northern Gaza without treatment at the very moment they are most vulnerable.
In a post on X, Palestinian surgeon Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta said hypothermia, malnutrition, and injury had become the triad of death.
“This means that people will die of hypothermia at higher temperatures, will starve to death much quicker, and will succumb to less severe wounds.”
US temporarily eases some Syria sanctions
- Transitional government in Damascus has been lobbying to have sanctions lifted
- International community has been hesitant to roll back restrictions, many countries have said they are waiting to see how the new authorities exercise their power
WASHINGTON: The United States announced Monday that it was providing additional sanctions relief on some activities in Syria for the next six months to ease access to basic services following the fall of strongman Bashar Assad.
The US Treasury said it had issued a new general license to expand the allowed activities and transactions with Syria while Washington continues to monitor developments under the militants who overthrew Assad last month.
The move was made “to help ensure that sanctions do not impede essential services and continuity of governance functions across Syria, including the provision of electricity, energy, water, and sanitation,” the Treasury said in a statement.
Monday’s actions build on existing authorizations that support the work of international organizations, non-governmental organizations, and humanitarian and “stabilization efforts” in the region, it said.
“The end of Bashar Assad’s brutal and repressive rule, backed by Russia and Iran, provides a unique opportunity for Syria and its people to rebuild,” said deputy Treasury secretary Wally Adeyemo.
“During this period of transition, Treasury will continue to support humanitarian assistance and responsible governance in Syria,” he added.
The transitional government in Damascus has been lobbying to have sanctions lifted.
But the international community has been hesitant to roll back restrictions, and many countries — including the United States — have said they are waiting to see how the new authorities exercise their power before doing so.
The Treasury Department emphasized that it had not unblocked any property or other interests of people or entities currently on its sanctions blacklist.
This includes Assad and his supporters, the Syrian central bank and Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, a former Al-Qaeda offshoot that played a key role in toppling the former government.
It also does not authorize “any financial transfers to any blocked person other than for the purpose of effecting certain authorized payments to governing institutions or associated service providers in Syria,” the Treasury said.
