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Palestinian, 21, killed in dawn assault in Nablus

Mourners attend the funeral of 21-year-old Palestinian Amir Ihab Bustami in Nablus in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Monday. He was killed in an Israeli army raid. (Reuters)
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Updated 13 February 2023
Mohammed Najib
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Palestinian, 21, killed in dawn assault in Nablus

  • Condemnation of ‘continuation of Israeli aggression against Palestinian people’
  • Mustafa Barghouti: ‘We will not submit to fascist occupation and racist apartheid regime’
Updated 13 February 2023
Mohammed Najib

RAMALLAH: A 21-year-old Palestinian was killed during an Israeli army operation in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus at dawn on Monday.

Israeli forces also arrested two youths, who were among eight people injured, Palestinian officials said.

The death of Amir Ihab Bustami brings the number of Palestinians killed since the beginning of 2023 to 48, including 10 children and a woman.

In addition, 30 Jerusalemites were wounded on Monday morning during clashes in the Jabal Al-Mukaber neighborhood, and two houses demolished.

The latest death came as Israel’s Cabinet announced that it would legalize nine settlements in the West Bank, claiming that the move was in response to recent Palestinian attacks in Jerusalem.

Fatah Revolutionary Council member Taysir Nasrallah told Arab News: “What happened in Nablus tonight is a continuation of the Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people, targeting all components of civil society with collective punishment and putting all Palestinians in a pressure cooker that will explode in everyone’s face sooner or later.”

He called for urgent action to curb current Israeli policy to help stop its aggressive measures.

The Nablus operation came just hours after the Israeli Cabinet's decision late on Sunday to escalate the use of force against Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Nasrallah added that the decision was reckless and affected the Palestinian presence in the region.

Israeli settlements in the West Bank are considered illegal under international law because they are on land the state captured from Jordan in 1967. Israel disputes that interpretation, saying the land is historically Jewish.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government relies on the support of two Jewish nationalist parties led by settlers — Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism Party and Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power Party.

The extremist parties have been pushing for the authorization and expansion of settlements, but observers believe that the move would conflict with the US administration’s wish to halt further developments.

In response to Israel’s current stance, Nasrallah told Arab News: “These decisions would detonate the situation to a degree whose results cannot be predicted.

“It makes it imperative for us to accelerate the Palestinian national dialogue to agree on a unified strategy to confront these decisions in particular, and the policy of the Israeli government in general.”

Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of Palestinian National Initiative, said that “the alliance of racist extremists, led by Netanyahu with the fascist religious fundamentalism represented by Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, is dragging the region into a comprehensive explosion.”

He told Arab News that the Palestinian people would not submit to the fascist occupation and the racist apartheid regime, adding that the occupation was waging an open war against the people, in full view of the world, by its decision to legalize nine new settlements and to prepare to rebuild four previously removed settlements in the northern West Bank.

The Israeli escalation coincided with devastating raids on the Gaza Strip and the continuation of the demolition of Palestinian homes in Jerusalem, especially in Jabal Al-Mukaber, he added.

The Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday denounced Israel’s decision to “legalize” settlement outposts in the occupied territories and build new settlement units.

It described the Israeli decision as an “unacceptable provocative act that would fuel the severely congested situation in the occupied territories, in a way that warns of an increase in the scope and pace of violence, which will have dire repercussions on the security and stability of the entire region.”

The condemnations came amid an admission by former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett that he ordered a change in the firing regulations while in office, in order to kill a larger number of Palestinians.

Bennett made the remarks to settlers radio, as reported on Israel’s Channel 7 on Sunday.

He said that he traveled to meet soldiers and officers after the killing of Sgt. Maj. Noam Raz in Jenin, and demanded that the rules of engagement were changed.

He added: “This measure led to the killing of a large number of terrorists in a year-and-a-half of my mandate.”

He said that operations had been carried out against what he termed “terrorist nests”, leading to the attacks at that time ceasing.

Topics: Palestine Israel

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Iraq says to eliminate pollutant gas flaring by end of 2027

The sun sets behind burning gas flares at the Dora (Daura) Oil Refinery Complex in Baghdad on December 22, 2024. (AFP)
Updated 24 December 2024
AFP
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Iraq says to eliminate pollutant gas flaring by end of 2027

  • The office of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani in a statement Monday evening pointed to “a rise in the level of eliminating gas flaring” in the country
Updated 24 December 2024
AFP

BAGHDAD: Iraqi authorities on Monday announced that the energy-rich country would eliminate the polluting practice of gas flaring by the end of 2027, a statement from the prime minister’s office said.
Gas flaring during the production or processing of crude is intended to convert excess methane to carbon dioxide, but the process is often incomplete, resulting in further methane release.
Iraq has the third highest global rate of gas flaring, after Russia and Iran, having flared about 18 billion cubic meters of gas in 2023, according to the World Bank.
The office of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani in a statement Monday evening pointed to “a rise in the level of eliminating gas flaring” in the country.
The office said that the current rate of elimination stood at 67 percent, with the aim of raising that rate to 80 percent by the end of 2025.
It added that the country aims to fully eliminate gas flaring by the end of 2027, compared to the previous administration’s target of 2030.
In 2017, Iraq joined a World Bank-led initiative aiming to end gas flaring globally by 2030.
Gas flaring is cheaper than capturing the associated gas, processing and marketing it.
In an April report, Greenpeace Middle East and North Africa said gas flaring “produces a number of cancer-linked pollutants including benzene.”
Iraq is considered by the United Nations to be one of the five countries most vulnerable to some impacts of climate change.
In recent years, it has suffered increasingly from droughts and further desertification, with the country gripped by dust storms much of the year.
 

 

Topics: Iraq gas

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Defense minister acknowledges Israel killed Hamas leader in Iran

Updated 24 December 2024
AP
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Defense minister acknowledges Israel killed Hamas leader in Iran

  • The comments by Israel Katz appeared to mark the first time that Israel has admitted killing Ismail Haniyeh
  • Katz said the Houthis leadership would meet a similar fate to that of Haniyeh
Updated 24 December 2024
AP

JERUSALEM: Israel’s defense minister has confirmed that Israel assassinated Hamas’ top leader last summer and is threatening to take similar action against the leadership of the Houthi group in Yemen.
The comments by Israel Katz appeared to mark the first time that Israel has admitted killing Ismail Haniyeh, who died in an explosion in Iran in July.
Israel was widely believed to be behind the blast, and leaders have previously hinted at its involvement.
In a speech Monday, Katz said the Houthis would meet a similar fate as the other members of an Iranian-led alliance in the region, including Haniyeh.

He also noted that Israel has killed other leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, helped topple Syria’s Bashar Assad, and destroyed Iran’s anti-aircraft systems.
“We will strike (the Houthis’) strategic infrastructure and cut off the head of the leadership,” he said.
“Just like we did to Haniyeh, Sinwar, and Nasrallah in Tehran, Gaza, and Lebanon, we will do in Hodeida and Sanaa,” he said, referring to Hamas and Hezbollah leaders killed in previous Israeli attacks.
The Iranian-backed Houthis have launched scores of missiles and drones at Israel throughout the war, including a missile that landed in Tel Aviv on Saturday and wounded at least 16 people.
Israel has carried out three sets of airstrikes in Yemen during the war and vowed to step up the pressure on the militant group until the missile attacks stop.

Topics: Israel Palestine Ismail Haniyeh

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New conflict in northeast Syria could bring ‘dramatic consequences’, UN envoy says

Geir Pedersen, UN Special envoy to Syria, talks to media before departing Damascus, Syria December 18, 2024. (REUTERS)
Updated 24 December 2024
Reuters
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New conflict in northeast Syria could bring ‘dramatic consequences’, UN envoy says

  • Turkiye regards the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants who have fought an insurgency against the Turkish state and are deemed terrorists by Ankara, Washington and the European Union
Updated 24 December 2024
Reuters

BEIRUT: Tensions in northeast Syria between Kurdish-led authorities and Turkish-backed groups should be resolved politically or risk “dramatic consequences” for all of Syria, the United Nations envoy for the country Geir Pedersen told Reuters on Monday. Hostilities have escalated between Syrian rebels backed by Ankara and the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces in the northeast since Bashar Assad was toppled on Dec. 8.
Syrian armed groups seized the city of Manbij from the SDF on Dec. 9 and could be preparing to attack the key city of Kobani, or Ayn Al-Arab, on the northern border with Turkiye.
“If the situation in the northeast is not handled correctly, it could be a very bad omen for the whole of Syria,” Pedersen said by phone, adding that “if we fail here, it would have dramatic consequences when it comes to new displacement.” The SDF — which is spearheaded by the Kurdish YPG — has proposed to withdraw its forces from the area in exchange for a complete truce. But Turkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, speaking alongside Syria’s de facto new leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa on Sunday in Damascus, said the YPG should disband totally.
Turkiye regards the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants who have fought an insurgency against the Turkish state and are deemed terrorists by Ankara, Washington and the European Union.
Pedersen said a political solution “would require serious, serious compromises” and should be part of the “transitional phase” led by Syria’s new authorities in Damascus. Fidan said he had discussed the YPG presence with the new Syrian administration and believed Damascus would take steps to ensure Syria’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday the country will remain in close dialogue with Sharaa. Kurdish groups have had autonomy across much of the northeast since Syria’s war began in 2011, but now fear it could be wiped out by the country’s new Islamist rule. Thousands of women rallied on Monday in a northeast city to condemn Turkiye and demand their rights be respected.
Pedersen said Sharaa had told him in meetings in Damascus last week that they were committed to “transitional arrangements that will be inclusive of all.”
But he said resolving tensions in the northeast would be a test for a new Syria after more than a half-century of Assad family rule.
“The whole question of creating a new, free Syria would be off to a very, extremely ... to put it diplomatically, difficult start,” he said.

 

Topics: Fall of Assad Syria Lebanon

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Rights groups say evidence of Assad abuses must be protected

Updated 23 December 2024
AFP
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Rights groups say evidence of Assad abuses must be protected

  • The Saydnaya complex, the site of extrajudicial executions, torture and forced disappearances, epitomised the atrocities committed against Assad’s opponents
Updated 23 December 2024
AFP

BEIRUT, Lebanon: Three rights group on Monday appealed to Syria’s new rulers to urgently preserve evidence of atrocities committed under former president Bashar Assad.
Such evidence — including government and intelligence documents as well as mass graves — will be essential for establishing the fate of tens of thousands of people forcibly disappeared, and for prosecuting those responsible for crimes under international law, the groups said.
“The transitional Syrian authorities should urgently take steps to secure and preserve evidence of atrocities committed under the government of former president Bashar Assad,” said Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons in Sednaya Prison (ADMSP).
The Saydnaya complex, the site of extrajudicial executions, torture and forced disappearances, epitomised the atrocities committed against Assad’s opponents.
“Every additional minute of inaction heightens the risk that a family may never discover the fate of their missing loved one, and an official responsible for horrific crimes may never be brought to justice,” Shadi Haroun, ADMSP program manager, said in a statement issued by Amnesty.
The statement said investigators from the three organizations visited detention facilities, mass graves and the military court after Islamist-led rebels toppled Assad on December 8.
“In all of the detention facilities visited, researchers observed that official documents were often left unprotected, with significant portions looted or destroyed,” the groups said.
They said they gathered testimony that security and intelligence personnel burned some material before they fled, but in other cases the armed groups who took control of the facilities, or newly-freed prisoners, also burned and looted material.
The researchers said they themselves saw ordinary people and some journalists “take some documents.”
“These documents may contain vital information,” the watchdogs said, calling on the new authorities to coordinate with fact-finding bodies created by the United Nations, “after urgently securing these locations and ensuring that the remaining evidence is not tampered with.”
The rights groups said they also underscored to Syria’s new authorities “the importance of securing the sites of the mass graves across the country,” having seen “local residents and families of the disappeared try to dig up some of the remains.”
They said officials from Syria’s new administration had promised the visiting researchers that they would “strengthen security around key facilities.”
On Sunday Robert Petit, the visiting head of a UN investigative body for Syria, said it was possible to find “more than enough” evidence to convict people of crimes under international law, but there was an immediate need to secure and preserve it.
 

 

Topics: Fall of Assad Syria Bashar Al-Assad US

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Women rally for equal rights in Syria after Assad’s fall to Islamists

Updated 23 December 2024
Reuters
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Women rally for equal rights in Syria after Assad’s fall to Islamists

  • Hostilities between the SDF and a Turkiye-backed Syrian force known as the Syrian National Army have escalated since Assad was ousted, with the SDF driven out of the northern city of Manbij
Updated 23 December 2024
Reuters

QAMISHLI, Syria: Thousands of women rallied in the northeastern Syrian city of Qamishli on Monday to demand the new Islamist rulers in Damascus respect women’s rights and to condemn Turkish-backed military campaigns in Kurdish-led regions of the north.
Many of the protesters waved the green flag of the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ), an affiliate of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units militia (YPG) that Turkiye deems a national security threat and wants disbanded immediately.
“We are demanding women’s rights from the new state ... and women must not be excluded from rights in this system,” said Sawsan Hussein, a women’s rights activist.
“We are (also) condemning the attacks of the Turkish occupation against the city of Kobani.”
Kurdish groups have enjoyed autonomy across much of the north since Syria’s civil war began in 2011. The Kurdish YPG militia, which leads the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) armed group, is a major force in the area.
But Syria’s power balance has shifted away from these groups since the Islamist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham group (HTS) swept into Damascus and toppled Bashar Assad two weeks ago, establishing a new administration friendly to Ankara.
Syria’s dominant Kurdish groups embrace an ideology emphasising socialism and feminism — in contrast to the conservative Sunni Islamist views of HTS, a former Al-Qaeda affiliate.
Turkiye views the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been waging an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 and is deemed a terrorist group by Turkiye, the United States and the European Union.
Hostilities between the SDF and a Turkiye-backed Syrian force known as the Syrian National Army have escalated since Assad was ousted, with the SDF driven out of the northern city of Manbij.
Syrian Kurdish leaders have warned that Turkish forces are mobilizing for an offensive on the SDF-controlled city of Kobani at the Turkish border, also known as Ayn Al-Arab.
There is widespread apprehension among Syrians that the new Damascus administration will gravitate toward hard-line Islamist rule, marginalizing minorities and women from public life.
Obaida Arnout, a spokesperson for the Syrian transitional government, said last week that women’s “biological and physiological nature” rendered them unfit for certain governmental jobs.
Hemrin Ali, an official in the Kurdish-led administration of northeastern Syria, told Reuters at Monday’s rally: “Yes to supporting the YPJ. Yes to preserving the rights and gains of the women’s revolution in northern and eastern Syria.”

 

Topics: Fall of Assad Syria PKK Syria Kurds Turkiye

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