JERUSALEM: Only a week before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intends to kick-start annexation plans in the occupied West Bank, Israel’s premier is facing challenges at home and abroad.
When Netanyahu clinched a coalition deal with former rival Benny Gantz, the longtime premier said political steps on annexing Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley could start from July 1.
The move forms part of a broader US peace plan, which foresees the eventual creation of a Palestinian state but denies their key demands such as a capital in east Jerusalem.
Palestinians reject annexation and thousands took part in a protest Monday in the town of Jericho, although other West Bank rallies have failed to draw large crowds.
For Netanyahu, Washington’s plan and its green light provide a “historic opportunity” to “apply sovereignty” over swathes of the West Bank.
The premier has just months left before his pro-Israeli ally, US President Donald Trump, risks being booted out of office in November elections.
Despite a call supported by over 1,000 lawmakers from 25 countries for “decisive” action to prevent annexation, Israel stands to benefit from indecision within the European Union.
The country’s top trade partner stands opposed but remains divided on possible retaliatory measures.
Israel’s leader must still decide how much territory he intends to annex, according to a European diplomat closely following the developments.
“For Netanyahu it’s a question of ‘swallowing the elephant’, of knowing the size of the piece he’ll swallow,” he told AFP.
The prime minister has stepped up meetings with leaders from settlements, home to more than 450,000 Israelis who live alongside more than 2.8 million West Bank Palestinians.
Netanyahu faces opposition from some settlement leaders and a scaled-down proposal has emerged, of annexing certain settlements or settlement blocs such as Ma’ale Adumim, Gush Etzion or Ariel.
“The scope of annexation will definitely impact the intensity of the international reaction,” said Nimrod Goren from Jerusalem’s Hebrew University.
The response from Palestinians would also affect steps taken abroad.
“Whether there will be violence erupting from Gaza or the West Bank, that will lead other countries to step up their response,” said Goren, founder of the Mitvim think-tank for regional foreign policy.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has taken a back seat for the past decade, as Middle East leaders have contended with the Arab Spring uprisings and the emergence of the Daesh group.
Israel, for its part, continues to warn of dangers posed by its arch foe Iran and its increased influence in the region.
Netanyahu’s government has also sought to improve relations with Gulf states, notably the United Arab Emirates.
For the first time, an Emirati official published an opinion piece in an Israeli newspaper earlier this month to warn against jeopardizing any warming of ties.
“Annexation will certainly and immediately upend Israeli aspirations for improved security, economic and cultural ties with the Arab world and with the UAE,” Yousef Al-Otaiba, Emirati ambassador to Washington, wrote in top-selling daily Yediot Aharonot.
Israel has formal diplomatic ties with only two Arab states, neighbors Jordan and Egypt.
Senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat told AFP that a “large international coalition” including Arab, African and European countries back the Palestinians against Israel’s annexation plan.
In addition to opposition from the international community, Netanyahu must also weigh Washington’s position on unilateral annexation.
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo indicated that the US would not stand in Israel’s way.
“Decisions about Israelis extending sovereignty to those places are decisions for the Israelis to make,” he said, moments after the UN and the Arab League joined in calls for Israel to abandon its plans.
The UN coordinator for the Middle East, Nickolay Mladenov, said annexation risked “upending more than a quarter of a century of international efforts in support of a future viable Palestinian state.”
Any Israeli annexation of Palestinian land would be a “crime,” Palestinian representative Riad Al-Maliki told the UN Security Council.
The US peace deal anticipates the move as part of a negotiating process, although Palestinian officials cut ties with Washington in 2017 and have rejected the latest proposals out of hand.
Netanyahu’s coalition partner, Defense Minister Gantz, has also warned against taking steps which would damage relations with Amman.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi last week said annexation posed an “unprecedented danger to the peace process.”
Fears of violence have also raised concerns among the Israeli electorate, whose support for annexation has fallen below 50 percent.
With an economic crisis brought on by the coronavirus pandemic and a recent spike in infections, many Israelis are prioritising their daily lives over the annexation plans.
Any Israeli annexation a 'crime': Palestinians tell UN
https://arab.news/mdwcy
Any Israeli annexation a 'crime': Palestinians tell UN
- Israel’s leader must still decide how much territory he intends to annex
- The move forms part of a broader US peace plan
Israeli army maneuvers on Lebanese border amid claims of dismantling Hezbollah military structures
- Lebanon interior minister: New checkpoints at Beirut Airport to control all incoming items
BEIRUT: Security authorities at Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport effectively fulfill their responsibilities, caretaker Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi said on Monday.
Mawlawi’s assurance followed his meeting with the Central Security Council.
In response to Israeli claims that Hezbollah was receiving cash through the airport, Mawlawi emphasized that the council had set up new checkpoints to inspect all items entering through the airport.
He stressed that the Lebanese army was fulfilling its duties to control the Lebanese border with the Syrian Arab Republic “despite the challenges” and urged increased cooperation from Syrian authorities.
Syria’s Ministry of Interior announced on Sunday that it had seized shipments of weapons intended for smuggling into Lebanon through land routes in the Talkalakh area of Homs.
On Jan. 26, Syrian security forces reportedly discovered a missile depot at a former regime site in Homs. They also seized a weapon shipment that was “intended for Hezbollah.”
There are six official border crossings between the Syrian Arab Republic and Lebanon and numerous illegal crossings along a 375-km border.
On Monday, the Israeli army said that it was continuing its “defensive operations” in southern Lebanon, under agreements with Lebanon, to maintain the operational gains in the region.
Recently, the Israeli army said it conducted extensive operations to eliminate threats in the region, “dismantle Hezbollah’s infrastructure, and prevent any potential dangers to Israel and its citizens.”
The announcement came a day after Defense Minister Israel Katz toured Israeli military positions in southern Lebanon, where Israeli forces continue to violate the ceasefire agreement.
The ceasefire between the Israeli army and Hezbollah was extended at Israel’s request through US mediation until Feb. 18.
Israel is exerting pressure on Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah and eliminate its military presence south of the Litani line. Israeli threats to disarm Hezbollah extend beyond this region to areas north of the Litani and even to the Lebanese border with Syria.
Since the ceasefire began, Israeli airstrikes have repeatedly targeted vehicles transporting weapons and ammunition, as well as storage facilities for stockpiling arms.
In its statement, the Israeli army clarified that during a survey operation in the border area, troops from the 769th Brigade discovered weapons storage facilities. These facilities contained mortar shells, rockets, explosives, firearms, and a significant amount of military equipment. All the weapons were confiscated, and the storage sites were dismantled.
The statement indicated that Israeli soldiers “eliminated several Hezbollah members in the area and apprehended suspects who posed a threat to Israeli forces.”
The Israeli army announced it was conducting a military exercise on Monday in the Upper Galilee region, which has remained in a state of tension following months of military operations against Hezbollah.
The Israeli army issued a warning against civilian entry into areas expected to see “increased military activity.”
Israeli media reports indicate that residents of northern settlements in Israel have begun repairing their homes after damage caused by “fire from Hezbollah.”
The Israeli military has withdrawn from the western region of southern Lebanon and from certain villages in the central area while still maintaining its presence in other towns.
At the same time, it is engaged in bulldozing and demolition activities in the eastern sector, where it has not retreated from any villages.
It seems likely that the military will continue to occupy strategic positions in southern Lebanon.
Former MP Mustafa Alloush stated that Israel’s release of information about the significance of maintaining control over strategic heights and five key points overlooking the southern territories, as well as a substantial portion of occupied Palestine, was quite plausible.
He stated that Hezbollah was giving Israel reasons to justify its actions, evident both in the deployment of drones and in the group’s insistence on maintaining resistance without disarming.
Additionally, remarks from Hezbollah’s leadership, including statements made by its secretary-general, ministers, and MPs, emphasized that the resistance was regaining its strength and readiness.
Alloush claimed that Israel was leveraging this situation to conduct its daily airstrikes, which have targeted areas from Nabatieh and the Bekaa to northern Lebanon.
The Israeli army still holds El-Hamames Hill, located at the southwestern entrance to the town of Khiam.
This strategic hill overlooks the entire town of Khiam and the Hasbaya region, all the way to Ebel Al-Saqi.
It also holds the strategic Awida Hill, between Adaisseh and Taybeh, in the Marjeyoun district.
It overlooks the entire western sector up to Tyre and the whole central sector up to the Litani River and the western Bekaa from the direction of Jezzine.
The Israeli army also holds the hill of Khallet Wardeh, a strategic point located southwest of the town of Aita Al-Shaab in the Bint Jbeil district and overlooking the southern coast from Tyre to Naqoura and the western sector up to Tayr Harfa and Al-Jbein.
Israeli forces are still penetrating the strategic Shebaa and Kfar Shuba hills, which overlook the entire Arqoub region and the western Bekaa to the north, Hasbaya and Marjeyoun to the west, and Mount Hermon and Syrian lands to the west.
Syrian president says elections could take up to five years
- Ahmed Al-Sharaa said infrastructure for the vote needs rebuilding
- A transitional government has been installed to steer Syria until March 1
DAMASCUS: Syrian Arab Republic President Ahmed Al-Sharaa said Monday that organizing elections could take up to five years, the week after he was appointed interim president and less than two months after ousting Bashar Assad.
“My estimate is that the period of time will be approximately between four and five years until the elections,” Sharaa said in a pre-recorded interview broadcast on a private Syrian television channel.
In late December, he told Al Arabiya TV the election process could take four years.
The infrastructure for the vote “needs to be re-established, and this takes time,” Sharaa added on Monday.
He also promised “a law regulating political parties,” adding that Syria would be “a republic with a parliament and an executive government.”
Military commanders last Wednesday appointed Sharaa interim president, after opposition factions toppled Assad on December 8, ending more than five decades of the family’s iron-fisted rule.
Sharaa’s appointment has been welcomed by key regional players Egypt, Qatar, Turkiye and Saudi Arabia.
Sharaa was also tasked with forming an interim legislature, and the Assad-era parliament was dissolved, along with the Baath party, which ruled Syria for decades.
Syria’s constitution was also repealed, and the Assad-era army and security forces were dissolved, as were armed groups, including Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham.
A transitional government has been installed to steer Syria until March 1.
Russia tells Hamas to ‘keep promises’ on hostage release
- Russia has called for the release of dual Russian-Israeli citizen Alexander Trufanov and Maxim Herkin, an Israeli man from Donbas area of Ukraine with Russian relatives
MOSCOW: A deputy Russian foreign minister met Monday with a senior Hamas official in Moscow and urged Hamas to keep “promises” to release a Russian hostage, the ministry said.
Mikhail Bogdanov, who is also President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy on the Middle East, met with Musa Abu Marzuk, a senior member of Hamas’s political bureau.
Russia has called for the release of dual Russian-Israeli citizen Alexander Trufanov and Maxim Herkin, an Israeli man from the Donbas area of Ukraine with Russian relatives.
At their talks, Bogdanov “again placed particular stress on the necessity of carrying out the promises given by Hamas’s leadership on releasing from imprisonment Russian citizen Trufanov and other hostages,” the ministry said.
Trufanov, known as Sasha, was abducted on October 7, 2023, with his girlfriend, Sapir Cohen, from the Nir Oz kibbutz near the Gaza border.
His father was killed in the attack and his mother and grandmother were abducted and released in November 2023. The family had emigrated to Israel from Russia in the late 1990s.
Islamic Jihad, a militant group allied with Hamas, published undated clips of Trufanov in November 2024.
Herkin emigrated to Israel from Ukraine with his mother and was taken from the Supernova rave music festival.
Marzuk told Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency Monday that “Trufanov will definitely be released in the near future. He will be released despite the fact that he is a soldier but the decision was taken to release him in the first stage of the deal.”
“That is our answering gesture to Russia’s position on the Palestinian question,” Marzuk was quoted as saying in translated comments.
Talks on releasing Herkin will be held at a “second stage,” he added.
The Russian ministry said the two also discussed “the progress of the ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip, with the stress on the importance of increasing humanitarian aid to the suffering Palestinian population.”
Gaza’s reunited twins speak of loss and joy
- The two men, from the Jabalia area of northern Gaza, were split up early in the conflict that began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023
GAZA: The emotional reunion of twin brothers in Gaza after Israel allowed movement within the enclave as part of a ceasefire deal provided a visceral image of Palestinian survival after 15 gruelling months of death, separation and destruction.
Video of the twins’ ecstatic, tearful embrace amid the crowds of people trekking home a week ago from displacement camps was widely viewed around the world. But Ibrahim and Mahmoud Al-Atout had both endured loss and hardship that tinged the joy of their reunion.
“I didn’t want to let go of him. It’s like the soul returned to the chest, the soul returned to the heart,” said one of the 30-year-old twins, Mahmoud, speaking about their experience days later in a video obtained by Reuters.
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The two men, from the Jabalia area of northern Gaza, were split up early in the conflict that began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and seizing about 250 hostages according to Israeli tallies.
The Israeli military campaign in Gaza killed more than 47,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities, and levelled much of the enclave.
Early on, Israel ordered civilians to leave the north, where its military operations were most intense, but not everybody did so. Those who did travel south were barred from returning until last week as part of the deal for a ceasefire and hostage release.
Ibrahim had ended up in the south, while Mahmoud stayed in the north.
When news came late one night that he could go back to Jabalia, Ibrahim phoned Mahmoud, who quickly dressed and rushed to a meeting point on a main road into northern Gaza.
“Imagine: I stood on my feet for six hours, standing around looking like this (and wondering) ‘where is Ibrahim? Where is Ibrahim?,’” said Mahmoud in the video obtained by Reuters.
People coming up from the south kept mistaking him for his brother, Mahmoud said, surprised he had come north so quickly. They then would tell him to wait longer because Ibrahim was traveling with his six young daughters and had to go slowly.
“He called out to me ‘Mahmoud’, and I couldn’t comprehend. I ran quickly and we hugged each other,” he said, describing their moment of reunion.
Together again
Now reunited, the two men and their families say they spend time picking through the ruins of their family home, destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in November 2023 that killed one of Ibrahim’s daughters and injured another in her head and legs.
Palestinians accuse Israel of indiscriminate bombardment. Israel says Hamas hides among the civilian population and it tries to hit the group while minimizing harm to civilians.
Ibrahim had not wanted to go south. But Israeli forces had moved toward north Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital while he was there with his family and the Red Crescent moved them all to a bigger hospital in the south where better treatment was available.
As each man spoke in the video obtained by Reuters, using big arm movements to illustrate their points, the other sat still and quiet, taking it in.
Things were hard for Ibrahim and his family in the south without home or possessions, and communications were cut off for about four months.
“I was devastated to the point where I lost weight,” said Mahmoud of that time.
Together again, they sat in the evening with a fire by the rubble of their home, cooking bread on a metal shelf, their small children gazing at them with delight.
Emir of Kuwait receives BlackRock CEO
- Larry Fink highlights importance of collaborating with Kuwait
LONDON: Sheikh Meshal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, the emir of Kuwait, received Larry Fink, chairman and CEO of BlackRock, in the presence of Crown Prince Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah.
Fink and his accompanying delegation were received at Bayan Palace on Monday, the Kuwait News Agency reported.
During the meeting, Sheikh Meshal highlighted the importance of fostering investment in Kuwait and enhancing cooperation with foreign companies.
He highlighted the significance of attracting capital to support the national economy and create job opportunities for youth to advance the country’s development.
Fink, the CEO of the US-based multinational investment company established in 1988, highlighted the importance of enhancing collaboration with Kuwait and supporting the country’s Vision 2035.
Minister of Finance Noora Al-Fassam and the Director-General of the Kuwait Direct Investment Promotion Authority Sheikh Meshaal Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah attended the meeting.
