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
Syrian girls’ right to schooling unrestricted, new education minister says
Half of Syria’s schools destroyed or damaged, Qadri says
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Education minister assures girls’ right to education remains unchanged
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New rulers promise equal treatment for all minority groups
DAMASCUS: Syria will remove all references to the former ruling Baath party from its educational system as of next week but will not otherwise change school curricula or restrict the rights of girls to learn, the country’s new education minister said.
“Education is a red line for the Syrian people, more important than food and water,” Nazir Mohammad Al-Qadri said in an interview from his office in Damascus.
“The right to education is not limited to one specific gender. ... There may be more girls in our schools than boys,” he said.
The secular, pan-Arab nationalist Baath Party governed Syria since a 1963 coup d’etat, seeing education as an important tool for instilling life-long loyalty among the young to the country’s authoritarian ruling system.
President Bashar Assad was toppled on Dec. 8 by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), an Islamist rebel group that some Syrians fear may seek to implement a conservative form of Islamist governance.
But Qadri’s plans reflect their wider management approach and moderate messaging so far.
Syria has long been seen to have one of the Arab world’s strongest education systems, a reputation that has largely survived 13 years of civil war.
Qadri said religion — both Muslim and Christian — will continue to be taught as a subject in school.
Primary schools will remain mixed between boys and girls, while secondary education will stay largely segregated, he said.
“After primary school, there were always schools for females and schools for males. We won’t change that,” said Qadri, who had taken to his ornately-furnished office so recently that he had not yet procured Syria’s new green, white and black flag.
Syria’s new rulers, who have long-since disavowed their former Al-Qaeda links, have said that all of Syria’s minority groups including Kurds, Christians, Druze and Alawites will be treated equal as the new government focuses on rebuilding.
They face a formidable challenge.
Syria remains under tight Western sanctions.
Entire cities were levelled in 13 years of war that Qadri said had also left about half the country’s 18,000 schools damaged or destroyed.
But the rebels have moved into government fast, extending a hand to former state employees who have shown up to work in droves.
Most of the new ministers are young — in their 30s or 40s — making 54-year-old Qadri among the oldest in government.
Born and raised in Damascus, he was imprisoned by the Assad regime in 2008 on what he said were spurious charges of inciting sectarian strife, preventing him from finishing his bachelor’s degree.
He was released a decade later and fled to northern Idlib, then under the control of HTS, becoming education minister in its Salvation Government in 2022.
He is currently finishing his masters thesis in Arabic language.
With the political and social contours of the new Syrian state still being drawn, Qadri said students would not be tested on their mandatory “nationalist studies” — previously a vehicle for teaching Baathism and Assad family history — this year.
Palestinian health ministry says 4 killed in Israeli West Bank strike
RAMALLAH: The Palestinian health ministry said Thursday that an Israeli air strike on a car killed four Palestinians and wounded three near the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarem.
The ministry announced that the Palestinians were killed “as a result of the (Israeli) bombing of a vehicle in Tulkarem camp,” which the Israeli army did not immediately confirm to AFP.
Turkiye, Iran leaders at Muslim summit in Cairo
- Relations between Egypt and Iran have been strained for decades, but diplomatic contacts have intensified since Cairo became a mediator in the war in Gaza
CAIRO: The leaders of Turkiye and Iran were in Egypt on Thursday for a summit of eight Muslim-majority countries, meeting for the first time since the ouster of Syria’s president Bashar Assad.
Turkiye historically backed the opposition to Assad, while Iran supported his rule.
The gathering of the D-8 Organization for Economic Cooperation, also known as the Developing-8, was being held against a backdrop of regional turmoil including the conflict in Gaza, a fragile ceasefire in Lebanon and unrest in Syria.
In a speech to the summit, Turkiye’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for unity and reconciliation in Syria, urging “the restoration of Syria’s territorial integrity and unity.”
He also voiced hope for “the establishment of a Syria free of terrorism,” where “all religious sects and ethnic groups live side by side in peace.”
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian urged action to address the crises in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, saying that it is a “religious, legal and human duty to prevent further harm” to those suffering in these conflict zones.
Pezeshkian, who arrived in Cairo on Wednesday, is the first Iranian president to visit Egypt since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who visited in 2013.
Relations between Egypt and Iran have been strained for decades, but diplomatic contacts have intensified since Cairo became a mediator in the war in Gaza.
Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi visited Egypt in October, while his Egyptian counterpart Badr Abdelatty traveled to Tehran in July to attend Pezeshkian’s inauguration.
Ahead of the summit, the Iranian top diplomat said he hoped it would “send a strong message to the world that the Israeli aggressions and violations in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria” would end “immediately.”
Erdogan was in Egypt earlier this year, and discussed with President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi economic cooperation as well as regional conflicts.
Established in 1997, the D-8 aims to foster cooperation among member states, spanning regions from Southeast Asia to Africa.
The organization includes Egypt, Turkiye, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Malaysia as member states.
Iraq begins repatriating Syrian soldiers amid border security assurances
DUBAI: Iraq has begun the process of returning Syrian soldiers to their home country, according to state media reports on Wednesday.
Lt. Gen. Qais Al-Muhammadawi, deputy commander of joint operations, emphasized the robust security measures in place along Iraq’s borders with Syria.
“Our borders are fortified and completely secure,” he said, declaring that no unauthorized crossings would be permitted.
Muhammadawi said that all border crossings with Syria are under tight control, stating: “We will not allow a terrorist to enter our territory.”
Turkiye won’t halt Syria military activity until Kurd fighters ‘disarm’
ISTANBUL: Turkiye will push ahead with its military preparations until Kurdish fighters “disarm,” a defense ministry source said Thursday as the nation faces an ongoing threat along its border with northern Syria.
“Until the PKK/YPG terrorist organization disarms and its foreign fighters leave Syria, our preparations and measures will continue within the scope of the fight against terrorism,” the source said.
