RAMALLAH: The Israeli army killed 20-year-old Palestinian man Khalil Al-Anis, shooting him in the head during a military invasion of the city of Nablus at dawn on Thursday.
Clashes erupted as Israeli army forces blew up the house of Palestinian detainee Osama Al-Taweel.
The Palestinian Red Crescent reported that about 337 others — including four children— were injured by Israeli army bullets and gas, two of them seriously, during the confrontations.
The Israeli army also directly targeted a Palestinian ambulance with live bullets and a stun grenade, which shattered the vehicle’s windshield. The paramedics were not injured.
With the death of Al-Anis, the number of Palestinians killed by the Israeli army and settlers since the beginning of this year has risen to 167. The death toll includes 36 from the Gaza Strip who were killed last May.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh accused Israel of reoccupying the West Bank and violating international and humanitarian law.
He said the occupied Palestinian territories have witnessed frequent incursions by the Israeli army, including into Al-Aqsa Mosque; shoot-to-kill offensives; arrests; and the seizure of lands in favor of settlement expansion.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, official spokesman for the Palestinian presidency, said Israel’s continued escalation would plunge the region into a spiral of violence and chaos.
He condemned Thursday’s storming of Nablus, the killing of the Al-Anis and the detonation of Al-Taweel’s house, adding that the policy of collective punishment Israel practices — whether by demolishing homes, killing citizens or besieging Jenin and Nablus — is a war crime under international law.
Israel must be punished for these crimes and serious measures must be taken to stop it from committing further ones, he added.
Gen. Akram Rajoub, governor of Jenin, said that Israelis are aiming to re-establish total control over the West Bank, from its people to its land and resources.
He told Arab News that the near-daily Israeli military incursions into Jenin are unjustified, as there was no security threat against Israeli citizens present there.
Maj. Gen. (retired) Adnan Al-Damiri, a former spokesman for the Palestinian security services, told Arab News that Israel considers the West Bank a security threat against its 700,000 soldiers and settlers who are spread throughout the territory.
“Israel’s aim — through its recent unprecedented military escalation in the West Bank — is to pressure President Mahmoud Abbas to sit down with Israeli leaders for negotiations in which the Palestinians will receive services, not political rights,” he said.
Al-Damiri added that Israel had reoccupied the West Bank since 2002, and nothing remains of the Oslo Accords except for the services provided by the Israeli Civil Administration to Palestinians. All political clauses have been canceled, he said.
He also said that Israeli policy in the West Bank “is based on imposing a fait accompli by strengthening settlements and expanding military incursions into Palestinian cities under the justification that Palestinian security services are unable or unwilling to arrest resistance fighters.”
Israelis “only want Palestinian security services to fight their people for the sake of Israel, and this is difficult to accept,” Al-Damiri said, adding: “If the Israeli army stops killing Palestinians, then it will not be called an army, and it will become idle.”
The West Bank is the only front on which Israel can claim that it is achieving victories compared to the fronts in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran, he said.
Palestinians claim that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government has become hostage to two right-wing ministers — Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.
“Netanyahu is the one who works for Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, not the other way around, and the Palestinian Authority currently only has diplomatic means to confront the dangers of the right-wing Israeli government,” Al-Damiri told Arab News.
In another development, a leading Palestinian insurance company has announced an exceptional insurance policy — the first of its kind — to cover material damages caused by settlers or the army against Palestinian vehicles. The annual policy cost is $140.
The move follows a recent significant increase in attacks by settlers and the Israeli army on Palestinian vehicles while traveling on streets connecting the cities of the West Bank.
Settlers and the army have smashed the windows of dozens of Palestinian vehicles passing through the main streets of the West Bank and burned other cars in the town of Hawara, near Nablus.
Bashar Hussein, general manager of the National Insurance Co., said that the insurance is “compensation against settler attacks and military actions.”
The aim of the service is not to profit, he said, but rather to provide a means to redress the damage and stand by Palestinians.
Israeli army kills 20-year-old Palestinian man in Nablus
https://arab.news/6drba
Israeli army kills 20-year-old Palestinian man in Nablus
- The Palestinian Red Crescent reported that about 337 others — including four children— were injured by Israeli army bullets and gas during the confrontations
- The Israeli army also directly targeted a Palestinian ambulance with live bullets and a stun grenade, which shattered the vehicle’s windshield
Houthis abduct another Yemeni employee of US Embassy in Sanaa
- Armed Houthis, including Zaynabiyat policewomen, stormed the house of Mohammed Abdullah Shammakh
- Shammakh was in a nearby market purchasing items for his family when the raid occurred
AL-MUKALLA: Yemen’s Houthi militia has abducted a Yemeni employee of the US Embassy in Sanaa, becoming the latest known victim of the Houthis’ crackdown on aid and civil society workers in Yemeni areas under their control.
A group of armed Houthis, including Zaynabiyat policewomen, have stormed the house of Mohammed Abdullah Shammakh, an administrative officer at the US Embassy in Sanaa, and abducted him after searching it, according to his friend and Yemeni journalist Sami Ghaleb.
Ghaleb, who spoke with residents of Sanaa’s Al-Ziraah neighborhood, where the abducted man lived, told Arab News on Thursday that the Houthis raided the three-story building on Oct. 10 and instructed its occupants, including children and women, to go to the roofs.
They then confined them, before storming Shammakh’s apartment and conducting a search.
Shammakh was in a nearby market purchasing items for his family when the raid occurred and was taken aback when he observed the Houthis occupying his residence, his friend said.
When he returned home, the Houthis abducted him, leaving behind a chaotic house and a terrified family, according to Ghaled.
“He’s more like a family member than a friend. He is a great person, like his father, lovable and helpful, and he assists his neighbors,” said Ghaled, who published an article on his news site, www.alndaa.net, in which he urged the Houthis to release him and other abducted individuals.
“You are responsible for these heinous violations, and no one in the historic capital is willing to listen to your ridiculous argument. These are simply helpless employees,” Ghaled wrote on his website on Wednesday.
The US Embassy in Yemen, which is now based in Riyadh, responded to Arab News’ request for comment on the abduction of its employee in Sanaa by saying: “We are aware of that report but cannot confirm if it is true at this time.”
The US Embassy in Yemen has been closed since early 2015, and the diplomatic mission has been relocated to Riyadh, months after the Houthis seized power.
In 2021, the Houthis raided the US Embassy compound in Sanaa, abducting Yemeni employees from the building and also abducting other former and current embassy employees from their Sanaa homes.
According to lawyers in Sanaa, the Houthis recently referred six abducted US Embassy employees to court and intend to try them on espionage charges.
Over the past four months, the Houthis have abducted more than 70 Yemeni workers from UN agencies, international human rights and aid organizations, and foreign diplomatic missions, accusing them of spying for US and Israeli intelligence agencies.
Relatives of some of those abducted have told Arab News that the Houthis have denied their requests to visit them in detention, call them, or provide information about their conditions.
On Wednesday, the office of the UN Yemen envoy, Hans Grundberg, said that he discussed efforts to release the UN workers abducted by the Houthis with Nada Al-Nashif, the UN deputy high commissioner for human rights, and reiterated his appeal to the Houthis to release them.
“The UN remains steadfast in demanding their immediate and unconditional release,” Grundberg’s office said.
Middle East conflicts to leave ‘lasting scars’: IMF
- IMF lowers its predicted growth for the Middle East and Central Asia to 2.1 percent for 2024
- IMF forecasts for Lebanon, where conflict with Israel has sharply escalated this month, have been suspended
DUBAI: Gaza, Lebanon and Sudan will take decades to recover from the conflicts raging on their soil, the International Monetary Fund said on Thursday after downgrading the region’s growth forecast.
Israel’s military actions against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Sudan’s civil war would have enduring impacts, the IMF said.
“The damage caused by these conflicts will leave lasting scars at their epicenters for decades,” the global lender said in a statement.
The IMF has lowered its predicted growth for the Middle East and Central Asia to 2.1 percent for 2024, a drop of 0.6 percent due to the wars and lower oil production.
Depending on the conflicts, growth should rise to 4.0 percent next year, according to the IMF’s Regional Economic Outlook which was compiled in September.
“This year has been challenging with conflicts causing devastating human suffering and lasting economic damage,” Jihad Azour, the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia Department director, told reporters in Dubai.
“The recent escalation in Lebanon has greatly increased the uncertainty in the whole MENA region.”
IMF forecasts for Lebanon, where conflict with Israel has sharply escalated this month, have been suspended. But “conservative” estimates show a 9.0-10 percent contraction this year, Azour said.
“The impact (on Lebanon) will be severe and it will depend how long this conflict will last,” said the former Lebanese finance minister.
Saudi-led oil cuts through the OPEC+ group, aimed at propping up prices, “are contributing to sluggish near-term growth in many economies,” the IMF said.
For the region’s oil exporters, “medium-term growth is projected to moderate, as economic diversification reforms will take time to yield results,” it added.
Downside risks continue to dominate, the lender said, including fluctuating commodity prices, conflicts and climate shocks.
Syria state media report Israel strikes on town near Lebanon border
DAMASCUS: Syrian state media said Israeli strikes hit the town of Qusayr near the Lebanese border on Thursday, the latest in a series of raids in the area.
“An Israeli aggression targeted the Qusayr area in the southern Homs countryside,” causing “material damage to the industrial city and some residential neighborhoods,” the official SANA news agency said.
Doctors Without Borders surgeon detained by Israel in north Gaza hospital raid
- Mohammed Obeid, an MSF orthopaedic surgeon working at Kamal Adwan hospital in north Gaza, was detained during an Israeli military raid on the site on Oct. 26, MSF said
GENEVA: Medical charity Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said on Thursday that one of its doctors working in a north Gaza hospital has been detained by Israeli forces.
Mohammed Obeid, an MSF orthopaedic surgeon working at Kamal Adwan hospital in north Gaza, was detained during an Israeli military raid on the site on Oct. 26, MSF said.
“We are extremely alarmed by the detention of our colleague,” it said.
“We call for the safety and the protection of our colleague, and for all medical staff in Gaza who work under impossible conditions and are facing horrific violence as they try to provide care.”
Israeli military says it downed drone smuggling weapons from Egyptian territory to Israel
- Egypt says it destroyed tunnel networks leading to Gaza years ago and created a buffer zone and border fortifications that prevent smuggling
DUBAI: Israel’s military said on Thursday it shot down a drone smuggling weapons from Egyptian territory to Israel on Wednesday.
Israeli officials have said during the war in Gaza that Palestinian armed group Hamas used tunnels running under the border into Egypt’s Sinai region to smuggle arms.
Egypt says it destroyed tunnel networks leading to Gaza years ago and created a buffer zone and border fortifications that prevent smuggling.
Earlier in October, the Israeli military also said it foiled a weapon smuggling attempt from Egypt after downing a drone carrying guns and bullets.
