GCC offers to host peace talks between Yemeni factions, including Houthis, in Riyadh

Fighters loyal to Yemen's government are deployed at the Al-Jawba frontline facing the Houthis in the country's northeastern province of Marib. (File/AFP)
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Updated 15 March 2022
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GCC offers to host peace talks between Yemeni factions, including Houthis, in Riyadh

  • Announcement came on the day a car bomb attack targeted southern military commander’s convoy
  • Yemeni officials said the peace talks are contingent on the Houthis accepting the invitation

AL-MUKALLA: The Gulf Cooperation Council is sponsoring unprecedented and comprehensive peace talks between warring factions in Yemen, including the Iran-backed Houthis, that could begin in Riyadh before the end of this month.

“The Gulf Cooperation Council will invite all Yemeni components, both supporters and oppositions, and the putschist Houthis would have some seats in the talks,” a senior government official told Arab News. The talks might start on March 27 and would continue for at least one week, they added.

Former Yemeni government ministers and outspoken politicians such as Ahmed Al-Maysari, Saleh Al-Jabwani and Abdul Aziz Al-Jubari would be invited. “Almost no one will be excluded,” the official said.

Meanwhile, a car bomb attack on Tuesday on a convoy in which a Yemeni southern military commander was traveling in Abyan province killed two soldiers and seriously injured two more, according to a Reuters report that quoted a military official.

Brig. Gen. Abdul Latif Al-Sayed survived the assassination attempt, said Mohammed Al-Naqib, spokesman for the Southern Armed Forces. Two assailants were also killed, he added.

Al-Sayed is the commander in Abyan of the Security Belt, the military forces of the separatist Southern Transitional Council. In October last year, the governor of Aden, who is a member of the STC, survived a car bomb attack in the port city that killed six people.

The announcement of the proposed GCC-sponsored peace talks came the day after Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi met Nayef Falah Al-Hajraf, the council’s secretary general, in Riyadh. SABA, the official Yemeni news agency, reported that the two men discussed GCC support for moves to end the war in Yemen and the Houthi coup, based on peace talks, continuing efforts to fully implement the Riyadh Agreement and other issues.

They also reportedly discussed the GCC’s financial support for the devalued Yemeni riyal, to address deteriorating services and to alleviate the suffering of the Yemeni people.

Yemeni officials said the peace talks are contingent on the Houthis accepting the invitation. They added that the rebels might intensify their military operations across the country, and in particular outside the besieged central city of Marib, in an attempt to improve their negotiating position if they agree to participate.

“They will carry out major military operations in Marib and on other fronts to thwart any agreement (and force acceptance of) their onerous conditions that they have repeatedly floated during previous talks,” the official said.

The Houthis have rejected previous peace proposals, including the Saudi initiative, and insist that the Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen must first halt its airstrikes and lift alleged restrictions on Sanaa airport and Hodeidah seaport.

Najeeb Ghallab, undersecretary at Yemen’s Information Ministry, told Arab News that the internationally recognized government of Yemen would strongly support any Arab initiative to end the war, but warned that Houthi resistance could sabotage the proposed peace talks.

“We are most supportive of any Arab role to bring Yemenis together under the umbrella of the Gulf Cooperation Council,” he said.

However, he added that powerful factions inside the Houthi movement, which benefit from the war, and Iran, which uses the rebels as its stooge, would reject any calls for peace.

“The Houthis believe that gathering Yemenis … under one umbrella will weaken their role,” said Ghallab.


Hamas official says ‘ready’ for Gaza ceasefire, urges Trump to ‘pressure’ Israel

Updated 14 sec ago
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Hamas official says ‘ready’ for Gaza ceasefire, urges Trump to ‘pressure’ Israel

  • Hamas political bureau member Bassem Naim: ‘We call on the US administration and Trump to pressure the Israeli government to end the aggression’
JERUSALEM: A senior Hamas official said Friday that the group is “ready for a ceasefire” in Gaza and urged US President-elect Donald Trump to “pressure” Israel to “end the aggression.”
“Hamas is ready to reach a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip if a ceasefire proposal is presented and on the condition that it is respected” by Israel, Hamas political bureau member Bassem Naim said. “We call on the US administration and Trump to pressure the Israeli government to end the aggression.”

US senator slams Biden administration for not punishing Israel over Gaza aid

Updated 15 November 2024
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US senator slams Biden administration for not punishing Israel over Gaza aid

  • Washington had threatened to suspend military support if aid not increased
  • Elizabeth Warren: Failure to hold Israel to account a ‘grave mistake’ that ‘undermines American credibility worldwide’

LONDON: Progressive US Sen. Elizabeth Warren has criticized the Biden administration’s failure to punish Israel after Washington delivered an ultimatum last month on improving aid deliveries to Gaza.

The Democratic senator endorsed a joint resolution of disapproval in Congress after the State Department said it would not take punitive action against Israel, The Guardian reported.

Official Israeli figures show that the amount of aid reaching Gaza has dropped to the lowest level in 11 months, despite the White House’s 30-day ultimatum threatening the loss of military support to Israel if aid was not increased.

The deadline expired on Tuesday as international humanitarian groups warned that Israel had fallen far short of Washington’s stated aid targets. Food security experts also warned that famine is likely imminent in parts of Gaza.

The State Department claimed that Israel was making limited progress on aid and was not blocking relief, meaning it had not violated US law.

Warren, senator for Massachusetts, said in a statement: “On Oct. 13, the Biden administration told Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu that his government had 30 days to increase humanitarian aid into Gaza or face the consequences under US law, which would include cutting off military assistance.

“Thirty days later, the Biden administration acknowledged that Israel’s actions had not significantly expanded food, water and basic necessities for desperate Palestinian civilians.

“Despite Netanyahu’s failure to meet the United States’ demands, the Biden administration has taken no action to restrict the flow of offensive weapons.”

The joint resolution of disapproval endorsed by Warren can enable Congress to overturn decisions by the president, if passed by the House and Senate.

Bernie Sanders, the independent senator for Vermont, said next week he will bring new joint resolutions of disapproval to block specific weapon sales to Israel.

“There is no longer any doubt that Netanyahu’s extremist government is in clear violation of US and international law as it wages a barbaric war against the Palestinian people in Gaza,” he said.

On Thursday, 15 senators and 69 Congress members announced efforts to pressure the Biden administration to hold Israeli Cabinet members to account.

The plan targets Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir for the rise in Israeli settler violence, settlement-building and destabilization across the West Bank.

Warren described the Biden administration’s failure to hold Israel to account as a “grave mistake” that “undermines American credibility worldwide.”

She added: “If this administration will not act, Congress must step up to enforce US law and hold the Netanyahu government accountable through a joint resolution of disapproval.”


Film’s ‘search for Palestine’ takes center stage at Cairo festival

Updated 15 November 2024
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Film’s ‘search for Palestine’ takes center stage at Cairo festival

  • The tale of a distinctly Palestinian road trip — through refugee camps and Israeli checkpoints

CAIRO: The tale of a distinctly Palestinian road trip — through refugee camps and Israeli checkpoints — takes center stage in director Rashid Masharawi’s latest film, which debuted at this year’s Cairo International Film Festival.
“It’s a search for home, a search for Palestine, for ourselves,” Masharawi told AFP on Wednesday after the world premiere of his new film “Passing Dreams.”
It kicked off the Middle East’s oldest film festival, which opened with a traditional dabkeh dance performance by a troupe from the war-torn Gaza Strip.
Masharawi’s film follows Sami, a 12-year-old boy, and his uncle and cousin on a quest to find his beloved pet pigeon, which has flown away from their home in a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.
Told that pigeons always return to their birthplace, the family attempts to “follow the bird home” — driving a small red camper van from Qalandia camp and Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank to the Old City of Jerusalem and the Israeli city of Haifa.
Their odyssey, Masharawi says, becomes a “deeply symbolic journey” that represents an inversion of the family’s original displacement from Haifa during the 1948 war that led to the creation of the State of Israel — a period Palestinians refer to as the Nakba, or “catastrophe.”
“It’s no coincidence we’re in places that have a deep significance to Palestinian history,” the director said, speaking to AFP after a more intimate second screening on Thursday.


The bittersweet tale is a far cry from Masharawi’s other project featured at the Cairo film festival: “From Ground Zero.”
The anthology, supervised by the veteran director, showcases 22 shorts by filmmakers in Gaza, shot against the backdrop of war.
For that project, Masharawi — who was the first Palestinian director officially selected for the Cannes Film Festival for his film “Haifa” in 1996 — “wanted to act as a bridge between global audiences” and filmmakers on the ground.
In April, he told AFP the anthology intended to expose “the lie of self-defense,” which he said was Israel’s justification for its devastating military campaign in Gaza.
The war broke out following Palestinian militant group Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in 1,206 deaths, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Israel has since killed more than 43,700 people in the Gaza Strip, according to the Hamas-controlled territory’s health ministry.
“As filmmakers, we must document this through the language of cinema,” Masharawi said, adding that filmmaking “defends our land far better than any military or political speeches.”


Speaking to an enthralled audience, the 62-year-old director — donning his signature fedora — called for change in Palestinian filmmaking.
“Our cinema can’t always only be a reaction to Israeli actions,” he said.
“It must be the action itself.”
A self-taught director born in a Gaza refugee camp before moving to Ramallah, Masharawi is intimately familiar with the “obstacles to filmmaking under occupation” — including “separation walls, barriers, who’s allowed to go where.”
Like the family in the film, “you never know if authorities will let you get to your location,” he said, especially since Masharawi refuses “on principle” to seek permits from Israeli authorities.
Instead, his crew often resorts to makeshift schemes — including “smuggling in” actors from the West Bank who do not have permission to visit Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.
“If you ask (Israeli authorities) for permission to shoot in Jerusalem, you’re giving them legitimacy that Jerusalem is theirs,” he said Thursday to raucous applause from audience members, many of them draped in Palestinian keffiyehs.
Organizers canceled the Cairo film festival last year after calls for the suspension of artistic and cultural activities across the Arab world in solidarity with Palestinians.
But this week, keffiyehs have dotted the red carpet, while audience members wore pins bearing the Palestinian flag and the map of historic Palestine.
Festival president Hussein Fahmy voiced solidarity “with our brothers in Gaza and Lebanon,” where Israel’s bombing campaign and ground offensive have killed 3,360 people.
Pride of place, Fahmy said, has been given to Palestinian cinema, with a handful of films showing during the festival and a competition to crown a winner among the 22 filmmakers in “From Ground Zero.”
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Strike hits south Beirut after Israel evacuation call

Updated 15 November 2024
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Strike hits south Beirut after Israel evacuation call

  • Israeli drone fires two missiles at the Beirut suburb of Ghobeiry before the air force carried out a ‘very heavy’ strike
  • Since September 23, Israel has ramped up its air campaign in Lebanon, later sending in ground troops

BEIRUT: An air strike hit the Lebanese capital’s southern suburbs on Friday, sending plumes of grey smoke into the sky after the Israeli military called for people to evacuate, AFPTV images showed.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said an Israeli drone fired two missiles at the Beirut suburb of Ghobeiry before the air force carried out a “very heavy” strike that levelled a building near municipal offices.
The evacuation order posted on X by Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee told residents to leave, warning of imminent strikes.
“All residents in the southern suburbs, specifically ... in the Ghobeiry area, you are located near facilities and interests affiliated with Hezbollah,” Adraee said in his post.
“For your safety and the safety of your family members, you must evacuate these buildings and those adjacent to them immediately.”
His post included maps identifying buildings in the area near Bustan High School.
Repeated Israeli air strikes on south Beirut have led to a mass exodus of civilians from the Hezbollah stronghold, although some return during the day to check on their homes and businesses.
NNA also reported pre-dawn strikes on the southern city of Nabatieh.
The Israeli military said it had struck “command centers” of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force and launchers used to fire rockets at Israel on Thursday.
It said that over the past day, the air force had struck more than 120 targets across Lebanon, including weapons storage facilities, command centers and a large number of rocket launchers.
Since September 23, Israel has ramped up its air campaign in Lebanon, later sending in ground troops following almost a year of limited, cross-border exchanges begun by Hezbollah over the Gaza war.
Lebanese authorities say that more than 3,380 people have been killed since October last year, when Hezbollah and Israel began trading fire.
The conflict has cost Lebanon more than $5 billion in economic losses, with actual structural damage amounting to billions more, the World Bank said on Thursday.


Israel’s warfare in Gaza consistent with genocide, UN committee finds

Updated 15 November 2024
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Israel’s warfare in Gaza consistent with genocide, UN committee finds

  • Committee’s report states ‘Israeli officials have publicly supported policies that strip Palestinians of the very necessities required to sustain life’
  • It raises ‘serious concern’ about Israel’s use of AI to choose targets ‘with minimal human oversight,’ resulting in ‘overwhelming’ casualties among women and children

NEW YORK: Israel’s methods of warfare in Gaza, including the use of starvation as a weapon, mass civilian casualties and life-threatening conditions deliberately inflicted on Palestinians in the territory, are consistent with the characteristics of genocide, the UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices said in a report published on Thursday.

“Since the beginning of the war, Israeli officials have publicly supported policies that strip Palestinians of the very necessities required to sustain life: food, water and fuel,” the committee said.

Statements from Israeli authorities and the “systematic and unlawful” blocking of humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza make clear “Israel’s intent to instrumentalize life-saving supplies for political and military gains,” it added.

The committee, the full title of which is the UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian people and other Arabs of the Occupied Territories, was established by the UN General Assembly in 1968 to monitor the human rights situation in the occupied Golan heights, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. It comprises the permanent representatives to the UN from three member states, currently Malaysia, Senegal and Sri Lanka, who are appointed by the president of the General Assembly.

Its latest report, which covers the period from October 2023 to July 2024, mostly focuses on the effects of the war in Gaza on the rights of Palestinians.

“Through its siege over Gaza, obstruction of humanitarian aid, alongside targeted attacks and killing of civilians and aid workers, despite repeated UN appeals, binding orders from the International Court of Justice and resolutions of the Security Council, Israel is intentionally causing death, starvation and serious injury, using starvation as a method of war and inflicting collective punishment on the Palestinian population,” the committee said.

The “extensive” Israeli bombing campaign has wiped out essential services in Gaza and caused an “environmental catastrophe” that will have “lasting health impacts,” it adds.

By early 2024, the report says, more than 25,000 tonnes of explosives, equivalent to two nuclear bombs, had been dropped on Gaza, causing “massive” destruction, the collapse of water and sanitation systems, agricultural devastation and toxic pollution. This has created a “lethal mix of crises that will inflict severe harm on generations to come,” the committee said.

The report notes “serious concern” about Israel’s use of artificial intelligence technology to choose its targets “with minimal human oversight,” the consequence of which has been “overwhelming” numbers of deaths of women and children. This underscores “Israel’s disregard of its obligation to distinguish between civilians and combatants and take adequate safeguards to prevent civilian deaths,” it adds.

In addition, Israel’s escalating censorship of the media and targeting of journalists are “deliberate efforts” to block global access to information, the committee found, and the report states that social media companies have disproportionately removed “pro-Palestinian content” in comparison with posts inciting violence against Palestinians.

The committee also condemned the continuing “smear campaign” and other attacks on the reputation of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, and the wider UN.

“This deliberate silencing of reporting, combined with disinformation and attacks on humanitarian workers, is a clear strategy to undermine the vital work of the UN, sever the lifeline of aid still reaching Gaza, and dismantle the international legal order,” it said.

It called on all states to honor their legal obligations to stop and prevent violations of international law by Israel, including the system of apartheid that operates in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and to hold Israeli authorities accountable for their actions.

“Upholding international law and ensuring accountability for violations rests squarely on member states,” the committee said.

Failure to do this weakens “the very core of the international legal system and sets a dangerous precedent, allowing atrocities to go unchecked.”

The committee will officially present its report to the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly on Monday.