RAMALLAH: Palestinian officials have blamed the silence of the international community for the continuation of unabated “Israeli crimes, practices, and racist laws.”
It came as the Israeli army killed three Palestinians during separate incidents in the West Bank over the past 24 hours, according to Palestinian medical sources: Samir Aslan, 41, from the Qalandia camp, north of Jerusalem; Ahmed Abu Junaid, 21, from the Balata camp in Nablus; and Sanad Samamra, 18, from the town of Samu’ near Hebron.
Abu Junaid was shot in the head during an Israeli army raid, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
Aslan was detained when he tried to defend his son, Ramzi, who was being arrested during a massive raid at their camp. Aslan was bleeding but Israeli forces prevented him from receiving first aid, sources said.
“The crime of executing Aslan in his home in Qalandia camp is part of a series of daily crimes committed by the fascist Israeli occupation army,” said Rawhi Fattouh, president of the Palestinian National Council.
“Since the beginning of this year, the occupation army has executed seven people, wounded dozens, and destroyed many properties.
“The silence of the international community on the Israeli occupation’s crimes, practices, and racist laws that target our Palestinian people and their existence, enable Israel to persist with its crimes and become a state above the law, flouting all international agreements, resolutions, and principles of human rights.”
This week, Israeli authorities said they will revoke the citizenship or residency of any prisoner accused of carrying out an attack, or receiving funds from the Palestinian Authority to participate in one.
According to the draft law, “a citizen or resident who is proven to have received money from the PA to carry out a terrorist act will be considered as someone who, on his own initiative, waived his citizenship or residency, and the minister of interior will revoke their status.”
Senior Palestinian sources said that US authorities are working quietly with Palestinians and the new Israeli government in an effort to prevent further action that could undermine the fragile PA.
Hussein Al-Sheikh, secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee, held talks on Thursday in Ramallah with Hadi Amr, the US special representative for Palestinian affairs, during which he stressed the need for “a political horizon that preserves the two-state solution under international legitimacy, and for Israel to stop all its unilateral measures and daily attacks against the Palestinian people, which destroy this solution and create a challenging and complex atmosphere that affects security and stability.”
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh also met Amr and told him the US administration “is required to move urgently to put an end to the unilateral Israeli measures and threats that undermine the national authority and systematically end the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state.”
Shtayyeh said the upcoming visit by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan to the region should carry a message of hope to the Palestinian people, and a clear statement calling on the Israeli government to halt its violations and unilateral measures, and respect international laws and signed agreements.
He also called for US authorities to put real pressure on the Israeli government to release Palestinian funds that it deducts illegally.
“The Palestinian people and their leadership will not accept the fait accompli, and we will move forward in the popular, political, diplomatic and legal struggle in the face of the Israeli measures,” he added.
Palestinian political analyst Ghassan Al-Khatib told Arab News: “While US President Joe Biden’s administration could not fulfill its promise to the Palestinians to open an American consulate in East Jerusalem, it adjusted the US representative office to send its reports to the US State Department directly and not to Washington’s embassy in Jerusalem.
“The US has not yet exerted pressure on Israel, and the continuation of this method will not work in discouraging Israel from continuing its aggressive policies toward the Palestinians.”
An American policy “without teeth toward Israel will not work,” he added.
If the US genuinely and sincerely wants to help the PA and prevent its collapse, Al-Khatib said, “it could provide financial assistance to the authority and pressure Israel not to deduct from Palestinian tax money.”
Washington could also lobby its Arab friends to help the Palestinians financially, he suggested.
“The US is doing nothing to reduce Israeli aggression toward the PA and to ensure the survival of the PA and prevent its collapse,” he said.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces have started to lay cement blocks for a new segregation wall in the northern West Bank, blocking access to thousands of acres of agricultural land belonging to Palestinian families in surrounding villages. Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz approved construction of the 9-meter-high wall, which will stretch for 100 kilometers and is being built in stages, in November.
International community’s silence perpetuates Israeli violence toward Palestinians, experts say
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International community’s silence perpetuates Israeli violence toward Palestinians, experts say
- During talks with US envoy on Thursday, Palestinians urged Washington ‘to move urgently to put an end to the unilateral Israeli measures and threats’
- ‘The US has not yet exerted pressure on Israel, and the continuation of this method will not work in discouraging Israel from continuing its aggressive policies,” an expert analyst said
Israel hospital says woman killed in stabbing attack in coastal city
- Israel’s police said the suspected attacker had been arrested
“She was brought to the hospital with multiple stab wounds while undergoing resuscitation efforts, but the hospital staff was forced to pronounce her death upon arrival,” Tel Aviv Ichilov hospital said in a statement. Israel’s police said the suspected attacker had been arrested.
Yemen Houthis claim missile attack on Tel Aviv airport: statement
- Houthis also launched drones at Tel Aviv and a ship in the Arabian Sea
SANAA: Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis on Friday claimed a strike against the airport in Israel’s commercial hub of Tel Aviv on Friday, after Israeli air strikes hit rebel-held Sanaa’s international airport and other targets in Yemen.
The Israeli strikes on Thursday landed as the head of the UN’s World Health Organization said he and his team were preparing to fly out from Yemen’s Houthi rebel-held capital.
Hours later on Friday, the Houthis said they fired a missile at Ben Gurion airport and launched drones at Tel Aviv as well as a ship in the Arabian Sea.
No other details were immediately available.
Yemen’s civil aviation authority said the airport planned to reopen on Friday after the strikes that it said occurred while the UN aircraft “was getting ready for its scheduled flight.”
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether they knew at the time that WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was there. Israel’s attack came a day after the Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed the firing of a missile and two drones at Israel.
Yemen’s Houthis have stepped up their attacks against Israel since late November when a ceasefire took effect between Israel and another Iran-backed group, Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
The Houthis Al-Masirah TV said the Israeli strikes killed six people, after earlier Houthi statements said two people died at the rebel-held capital’s airport, and another at Ras Issa port.
The strikes targeting the airport, military facilities and power stations in rebel areas marked the second time since December 19 that Israel has hit targets in Yemen after rebel missile fire toward Israel.
In his latest warning to the rebels, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would “continue until the job is done.”
“We are determined to cut this branch of terrorism from the Iranian axis of evil,” he said in a video statement.
UN chief condemns ‘escalation’ between Yemen’s Houthis and Israel
- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calls Israeli strikes on Sanaa airport ‘especially alarming’
NEW YORK: The UN chief on Thursday denounced the “escalation” in hostilities between Yemen’s Houthi militias and Israel, terming strikes on the Sanaa airport “especially alarming.”
“The Secretary-General condemns the escalation between Yemen and Israel. Israeli airstrikes today on Sana’a International Airport, the Red Sea ports and power stations in Yemen are especially alarming,” said a spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a statement.
Israeli air strikes pummeled Sanaa’s international airport and other targets in Yemen on Thursday, with Houthi militia media reporting six deaths.
The attack came a day after the Houthis fired a missile and two drones at Israel.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on social media he was at the airport during the strike, with the UN saying that a member of its air crew was injured.
The United Nations put the death toll from the airport strikes at three, with “dozens more injured.”
UN chief Guterres expressed particular alarm at the threat that bombing transportation infrastructure posed to humanitarian aid operations in Yemen, where 80 percent of the population is dependent on aid.
“The Secretary-General remains deeply concerned about the risk of further escalation in the region and reiterates his call for all parties concerned to cease all military actions and exercise utmost restraint,” he said.
“He also warns that airstrikes on Red Sea ports and Sana’a airport pose grave risks to humanitarian operations at a time when millions of people are in need of life-saving assistance.”
The UN chief condemned the Houthi militias for “a year of escalatory actions... in the Red Sea and the region that threaten civilians, regional stability and freedom of maritime navigation.”
The Houthis are part of Iran’s “axis of resistance” alliance against Israel.
Bodies of about 100 Kurdish women, children found in Iraq mass grave
TAL AL-SHAIKHIA, Iraq: Iraqi authorities are working to exhume the remains of around 100 Kurdish women and children thought to have been killed in the 1980s under former Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein, three officials said.
The grave was discovered in Tal Al-Shaikhia in the Muthanna province in southern Iraq, about 15-20 kilometers (10-12 miles) from the main road there, an AFP journalist said.
Specialized teams began exhuming the grave earlier this month after it was initially discovered in 2019, said Diaa Karim, the head of the Iraqi authority for mass graves, adding that it is the second such grave to be uncovered at the site.
“After removing the first layer of soil and the remains appearing clearly, it was discovered that they all belonged to women and children dressed in Kurdish springtime clothes,” Karim told AFP on Wednesday.
He added that they likely came from Kalar in the northern Sulaimaniyah province, part of what is now Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, estimating that there were “no less than 100” people buried in the grave.
Efforts to exhume all the bodies are ongoing, he said, adding that the numbers could change.
Following Iraq’s deadly war with Iran in the 1980s, Saddam’s government carried out the ruthless “Anfal Operation” between 1987 and 1988 in which it is thought to have killed around 180,000 Kurds.
Saddam was toppled in 2003 following a US-led invasion of Iraq and was hanged three years later, putting an end to Iraqi proceedings against him on charges of genocide over the Anfal campaign.
Karim said a large number of the victims found in the grave “were executed here with live shots to the head fired at short range.”
He suggested some of them may have been “buried alive” as there was no evidence of bullets in their remains.
Ahmed Qusai, the head of the excavation team for mass graves in Iraq, meanwhile pointed to “difficulties we are facing at this grave because the remains have become entangled as some of the mothers were holding their infants” when they were killed.
Durgham Kamel, part of the authority for exhuming mass graves, said another mass grave was found at the same time that they began exhuming the one at Tal Al-Shaikhia.
He said the burial site was located near the notorious Nugrat Al-Salman prison where Saddam’s authorities held dissidents.
The Iraqi government estimates that about 1.3 million people disappeared between 1980 and 1990 as a result of atrocities and other rights violations committed under Saddam.
Brother of suspected ‘terrorist’ stabs Tunisia National Guard officer
TUNIS: The brother of a suspected “terrorist” on Thursday stabbed a Tunisian National Guard officer in the eastern Monastir governorate, a judicial source told AFP.
Earlier in the day, a National Guard unit attempted to arrest the suspect — accused by authorities of being a member of a “terrorist group” — at his home, said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity.
During the arrest operation, his brother attacked the officer, the source added.
The source said the officer was hospitalized following the stabbing in his abdomen and was recovering after undergoing surgery.
An investigation was opened by the judicial division combatting terrorism, the source added.
Neither of the brothers, both of whom were taken into police custody, have been named, and the Tunisian interior ministry did not respond to AFP’s request for comment.
Tunisia saw a surge in jihadist groups after the 2011 revolution that overthrew the dictatorship of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
Attacks claimed by jihadists in recent years have killed dozens of soldiers and police officers, as well as some civilians and foreign tourists.
Jihadist attacks in Sousse and the capital Tunis in 2015 killed dozens of tourists and police, but authorities say they have since made significant progress against extremism.
