Jordan hosts Israeli-Palestinian talks in bid to halt violence

This picture taken on February 24, 2023 shows ongoing construction works in the Jewish settlement of Givat Zeev, between Jerusalem and Ramallah. (AFP)
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Updated 26 February 2023
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Jordan hosts Israeli-Palestinian talks in bid to halt violence

  • King Abdullah urges further efforts to calm tensions in occupied territories during talks with US president’s adviser

AMMAN: Israel and Palestinian officials pledged at a meeting in Jordan on Sunday to de-escalate surging violence.

The talks brought together top Israeli and Palestinian security chiefs for the first time in many years, officials said, and aimed to restore calm in Israel, the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

The meeting was held as anxiety mounts of escalation in the runup to the holy month of Ramadan that begins in late March.

Israel committed to stop authorization of any settler outposts in the occupied West Bank for six months during the meeting.

In a joint statement at the end of the meeting in Aqaba, Israel and Palestinian officials said they would work closely to prevent "further violence" and "reaffirmed the necessity of committing to de-escalation on the ground.”

Host nation Jordan, along with Egypt and the US, considered "these understandings as major progress towards re-establishing and deepening relations between the two sides," the statement said.

The five parties agreed to meet again in the Egyptian city of Sharm El-Sheikh next month to achieve the goals discussed on Sunday.

Reuters reported on Sunday that US President Joe Biden’s adviser on the Middle East, Brett McGurk, would also be present at the talks.

Jordan’s King Abdullah on Sunday met McGurk and highlighted the need to step up efforts toward calm and de-escalation in the Palestinian territories, and to cease any unilateral measures that could lead to instability and undermine peace prospects.

According to a Jordanian royal court statement, the king called for the relaunch of negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis in a bid to reach a just and comprehensive peace based on the two-state solution, guaranteeing the establishment of an independent, viable, and sovereign Palestinian state on the June 4, 1967, lines, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

The king noted Jordan’s commitment to safeguarding holy sites in Jerusalem, under the Hashemite Custodianship, the statement said.

In February, King Abdullah met with Biden in Washington, where he called for a resumption of the stalled Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations, and in January he met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Amman where, the royal court said at the time, he had pointed out the need to maintain calm and end violence.

Palestinian factions, including the Hamas group, which governs the Gaza Strip, condemned the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority for taking part in the meeting.

In a joint statement, several unnamed Palestinian factions in Gaza reportedly denounced the Palestinian Authority’s participation in the Aqaba meeting, describing its involvement as a “crime and in violation of the national consensus,” adding the talks were “rejected by all Palestinian factions and people.”

They claimed the Aqaba meeting was scheduled to discuss “security schemes to annihilate the Palestinian resistance.”

Political analyst Amer Sabaileh said: “The situation is expected to go out of control in the West Bank which will then give the green light to the Israeli government to adopt more escalatory measures in the occupied territories.

“The most dangerous escalation would be isolating the Palestinian Authority and excluding it from any political formula (to resolve the conflict) so that Israel could annex more Palestinian land,” he added.


Israel military says three projectiles fired from north Gaza

Updated 7 sec ago
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Israel military says three projectiles fired from north Gaza

JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said it identified three projectiles fired from the northern Gaza Strip that crossed into Israel on Monday, the latest in a series of launches from the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.
“One projectile was intercepted by the IAF (air force), one fell in Sderot and another projectile fell in an open area. No injuries were reported,” the military said in a statement.

Sudan army air strike kills 10 in southern Khartoum: rescuers

Updated 35 min 46 sec ago
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Sudan army air strike kills 10 in southern Khartoum: rescuers

  • Strike targeted a market area of the capital’s Southern Belt ‘for the third time in less than a month’
  • War between Sudan’s regular army and the paramilitary forces has killed tens of thousands of people

PORT SUDAN, Sudan: Ten Sudanese civilians were killed and over 30 wounded in an army air strike on southern Khartoum, volunteer rescue workers said.
The strike on Sunday targeted a market area of the capital’s Southern Belt “for the third time in less than a month,” said the local Emergency Response Room (ERR), part of a network of volunteers across the country coordinating frontline aid.
The group said those killed burned to death. The wounded, suffering from burns, were taken to the local Bashair Hospital, with five of them in a critical condition.
Since April 2023, the war between Sudan’s regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed tens of thousands of people.
In the capital alone, the violence killed 26,000 people between April 2023 and June 2024, according to a report by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Khartoum has experienced some of the war’s worst violence, with entire neighborhoods emptied out and taken over by fighters.
The military, which maintains a monopoly on the skies with its jets, has not managed to wrest back control of the capital from the paramilitary.
Of the 11.5 million people currently displaced within Sudan, nearly a third have fled from the capital, according to United Nations figures.
Both the RSF and the army have been repeatedly accused of targeting civilians and indiscriminately shelling residential areas.


Israel says Hamas has not given ‘status of hostages’ it says ready to free

Updated 06 January 2025
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Israel says Hamas has not given ‘status of hostages’ it says ready to free

  • A Hamas official gave a list of 34 hostages the group was ready to free

JERUSALEM: Israel said on Monday that Hamas had so far not provided the status of the 34 hostages the group declared it was ready to release in the first phase of a potential exchange deal.
“As yet, Israel has not received any confirmation or comment by Hamas regarding the status of the hostages appearing on the list,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement after a Hamas official gave a list of 34 hostages the group was ready to free in the first phase.


Shooting attack on a bus carrying Israelis in the occupied West Bank kills 3

Updated 06 January 2025
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Shooting attack on a bus carrying Israelis in the occupied West Bank kills 3

  • The attack occurred in the Palestinian village of Al-Funduq, on one of the main east-west roads crossing the territory

JERUSALEM: A shooting attack on a bus carrying Israelis in the occupied West Bank killed at least three people and wounded seven others on Monday, Israeli medics said.
Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said those killed included two women in their 60s and a man in his 40s.
Violence has surged in the West Bank since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of Gaza ignited the ongoing war there.
The attack occurred in the Palestinian village of Al-Funduq, on one of the main east-west roads crossing the territory. The identities of the attackers and those killed were not immediately known. The military said it was looking for the attackers, who fled.
Palestinians have carried out scores of shooting, stabbing and car-ramming attacks against Israelis in recent years. Israel has launched near-nightly military raids across the territory that frequently trigger gunbattle with militants.
The Palestinian Health Ministry says at least 835 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, and the Palestinians want all three territories for their future state.
Some 3 million Palestinians live in the West Bank under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority administering population centers. Over 500,000 Israeli settlers live in scores of settlements, which most of the international community considers illegal.
Meanwhile, the war in Gaza is raging with no end in sight, though there has reportedly been recent progress in long-running talks aimed at a ceasefire and hostage release.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed across the border in a massive surprise attack nearly 15 months ago, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s air and ground offensive has killed over 45,800 Palestinians in Gaza, according to local health authorities, who say women and children make up more than half of those killed. They do not say how many of the dead were militants. The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.
The war has destroyed vast areas of Gaza and displaced 90 percent of the territory’s population of 2.3 million, often multiple times. Hundreds of thousands are enduring a cold, rainy winter in tent camps along the windy coast. At least seven infants have died of hypothermia because of the harsh conditions, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Aid groups say Israeli restrictions, ongoing fighting and the breakdown of law and order in many areas make it difficult to provide desperately needed food and other assistance.


New Syria foreign minister begins first visit to UAE: state media

Updated 06 January 2025
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New Syria foreign minister begins first visit to UAE: state media

Damascus: Syria’s new foreign minister Asaad Al-Shaibani landed in the United Arab Emirates Monday on his first visit to the country since rebels toppled president Bashar Assad last month, official news agency SANA said.
“Shaibani, accompanied by defense minister Murhaf Abu Qasra and intelligence chief Anas Khattab, has arrived in the United Arab Emirates,” SANA reported.
Shaibani also posted a picture of himself on X stepping off a plane, and said he looked forward “to building constructive bilateral relations.”
The officials took office after Islamist-led rebels swept into Damascus in early December, toppling Assad after more than 13 years of civil war.
Their trip to the UAE comes after they visited its Gulf neighbors Qatar on Sunday and Saudi Arabia last week.
Both Qatar and Turkiye, which backed the anti-Assad opposition, reopened their embassies in Damascus in the aftermath of Assad’s flight to Moscow.
Turkiye has long maintained a working relationship with the HTS rebels, leaving it with a direct line to Damascus.