DUBAI: Bahraini Minister of Defense Affairs Major General Abdullah bin Hassan Al-Nuaimi held talks on Monday with his Israeli counterpart Benny Gantz.
During a phone call, the officials discussed the importance for regional stability in the Middle East of a new deal to normalize relations with Israel, the Bahrain News Agency reported.
They also talked about their expectations to establish a close partnership between the two defense ministries. This would contribute to enhancing the capabilities of both countries and will maintain regional security, the BNA added.
The Israeli defense minister also offered to host his Bahraini partner on an official visit to Israel, and they agreed to continue the dialogue together.
Bahrain and Israel announced on Friday they would normalize relations after the UAE made a similar deal last month.
Earlier on monday, Zayed bin Rashid Al-Zayani, Bahrain’s industry and trade minister, and Israel’s regional cooperation minister Ofir Akunis discussed trade, industry and tourism cooperation.
Normalization will “positively impact both countries' economies,” BNA said.
Defense ministers of Bahrain and Israel hold talks
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Defense ministers of Bahrain and Israel hold talks
- The officials discussed the importance for regional stability in the Middle East
- The Israeli defense minister also offered to host his Bahraini partner on an official visit to Israel
Syria Kurd forces chief says agreement with Sharaa ‘real opportunity’ to build new Syria
DAMASCUS: The head of the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said Tuesday that an accord reached with the new leaders in Damascus is a “real opportunity to build a new Syria.” “We are committed to building a better future that guarantees the rights of all Syrians and fulfills their aspirations for peace and dignity,” Mazloum Abdi said in a posting on X.
The Syrian presidency announced on Monday an agreement with the SDF to integrate the institutions of the autonomous Kurdish administration in the northeast into the national government.
Israeli fire kills 4 Palestinians in Gaza Strip, 3 in the occupied West Bank
Israeli fire has killed four people and wounded 14 in the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours, Palestinian officials said, even as a fragile ceasefire with Hamas has largely held.
Israeli strikes have killed dozens of Palestinians who the army says had approached its troops or entered unauthorized areas in violation of the January truce.
Israel last week suspended supplies of goods and electricity to the territory of more than 2 million Palestinians as it tries to pressure the militant group to accept an extension of the first phase of their ceasefire. That phase ended March 1. Israel wants Hamas to release half of the remaining hostages in return for a promise to negotiate a lasting truce.
Hamas instead wants to start negotiations on the ceasefire’s more difficult second phase, which would see the release of remaining hostages from Gaza, the withdrawal of Israeli forces and a lasting peace. Hamas is believed to have 24 living hostages and the bodies of 35 others.
Israel-Gaza war behind record high US anti-Muslim incidents, advocacy group says
- Muslim advocacy group says it recorded over 8,600 incidents in 2024
- Rights advocates have noted rising Islamophobia, antisemitism since start of Israel-Gaza war
WASHINGTON: Discrimination and attacks against American Muslims and Arabs rose by 7.4 percent in 2024 due to heightened Islamophobia caused by US ally Israel’s war in Gaza and the resulting college campus protests, a Muslim advocacy group said on Tuesday.
The Council on American Islamic Relations said it recorded the highest number of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab complaints — 8,658 — in 2024 since it began publishing data in 1996.
Most complaints were in the categories of employment discrimination (15.4 percent), immigration and asylum (14.8 percent), education discrimination (9.8 percent) and hate crimes (7.5 percent), according to the CAIR report.
Rights advocates have highlighted an increase in Islamophobia, anti-Arab bias and antisemitism since the start of Israel’s devastating assault on Gaza.
The CAIR report also details police and university crackdowns on pro-Palestinian protests and encampments on college campuses.
Demonstrators have for months demanded an end to US support for Israel. At the height of college campus demonstrations in the summer of 2024, classes were canceled, some university administrators resigned, and student protesters were suspended and arrested.
Human rights and free speech advocates condemned the crackdown on protests which were called disruptive by university administrators. Notable incidents include violent arrests by police of protesters at Columbia University and a mob attack on pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“For the second year in a row, the US-backed Gaza genocide drove a wave of Islamophobia in the United States,” CAIR said. Israel denies genocide and war crimes accusations.
Last month, an Illinois jury found a man guilty of hate crime in an October 2023 fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy.
Other alarming US incidents since late 2023 include the attempted drowning of a 3-year-old Palestinian American girl in Texas, the stabbing of a Palestinian American man in Texas, the beating of a Muslim man in New York and a Florida shooting of two Israeli visitors whom a suspect mistook to be Palestinians.
In recent days, the US government has faced criticism from rights advocates over the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian graduate student who has played a prominent role in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University.
Hundreds of thousands return home in Sudan
- Displaced families have headed back in droves, even to burned homes
PORT SUDAN: Nearly 400,000 Sudanese have returned to their homes over the past two and a half months after being displaced by the ongoing conflict, the United Nations migration agency said on Monday.
Between December and March, “approximately 396,738 individuals” returned to areas retaken from paramilitary forces by the army, which has advanced through central Sudan in recent months, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been locked in a brutal conflict between army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and his former deputy Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Daglo, who leads the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
Nearly all the returnees moved back to their homes in the central Sudanese states of Sennar, which the army largely recaptured in December, and Al-Jazira after it was retaken the following month.
Thousands more have returned to the capital Khartoum, where the army regained large areas last month and appeared on the verge of expelling the RSF.
Displaced families have headed back in droves, even to looted and burned homes, after more than a year of displacement.
Across the country, 11.5 million people are internally displaced, many of them facing mass starvation in what the UN calls the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.
A further 3.5 million people have fled across borders since the war broke out.
Parts of the country have already descended into famine, with another 8 million people on the brink of mass starvation.
On Monday, the UN’s resident and humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, said only 6.3 percent of the funding necessary to provide lifesaving aid had been received.
Nationwide, nearly 25 million people are suffering dire food insecurity.
The conflict divided the country into two parts, with the army controlling the country’s north and east while the RSF holds nearly all Darfur and parts of the south.
A medical source said RSF shelling on Sunday on a strategic city in Sudan’s south killed nine civilians and injured 21 others.
El-Obeid, the state capital of North Kordofan, came under attack by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, said the source at the city’s main hospital and several witnesses.
Boatless in Gaza: using old fridge doors to catch fish
- Israeli bombardment over more than 15 months of war has destroyed most of the boats in the harbor, wrecking the fishermen’s means of making a living
GAZA CITY: Balanced calmly on top of what was once a refrigerator door, fisherman Khaled Habib uses a makeshift paddle to propel himself through the waters of Gaza City’s fishing port.
Israeli bombardment over more than 15 months of war has destroyed most of the boats in the harbor, wrecking the fishermen’s means of making a living.
“We’re in a very difficult situation today, and struggling with the fishing. There are no fishing boats left. They’ve all been destroyed and tossed on the ground,” said Habib.
“I made this ‘boat’ from refrigerator doors and cork — and thankfully it worked.”
So he could continue feeding his family, Habib came up with the idea of stuffing cork into old fridge doors to make them buoyant.
He covered one side with wood and the other with plastic sheeting to help make the makeshift paddleboard waterproof.
Habib also crafted a fishing cage out of wire because of the lack of nets but admitted that his resulting catch was “small.”
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization said in December that the conflict had taken Gaza’s “once thriving fishing sector to the brink of collapse.”
“Gaza’s average daily catch between October 2023 to April 2024 dropped to just 7.3 percent of 2022 levels, causing a $17.5 million production loss,” the FAO said.
Habib now fishes mainly inside the small port area using dough as bait.
Despite the fragile ceasefire that came into force on Jan. 19, which essentially halted the fighting, Habib said that fishing outside the port is prohibited.
“If we go (outside the fishermen’s harbor), the Israeli boats will shoot at us, and that’s a problem we suffer from a lot.”
Habib said he catches enough fish to feed his family and tries to help others by selling the rest at an affordable price.
After dividing his catch into small plastic bags, the fisherman sells some at the high prices at the harbor market.
The first phase of the Gaza truce, which ended on March 1, had enabled the entry of vital food, shelter, and medical assistance into the Palestinian territory.
Israel announced on March 2 that it was blocking aid deliveries to Gaza, where Palestinians say they fear food shortages and price hikes.
Several other fishermen, particularly the younger generation, have also used the new makeshift floating platforms.
Habib sees the homemade paddleboards as having a dual purpose.
“If we wanted to raise a new generation to learn how to swim, boats should be made from refrigerator doors, and then everyone would learn how to swim, row, and sail,” he said.
“Thank God, now they’ve learned how to swim,” he added, looking over the water at children trying to keep their balance.
