AMMAN: Jordan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates has denounced the burning of a copy of the Qur’an in the Danish capital Copenhagen, reported Jordan News Agency on Saturday.
Citing a statement issued by the ministry, Jordan described the Qur’an burning incident as an “act of hatred and a manifestation of Islamophobia and inciting violence and disrespecting religions.”
The ministry further stressed its rejection and denunciation of irresponsible behavior that provoke Muslims’ feelings, fuel hatred, and threaten peaceful coexistence.
The recurrence of such racist acts and behaviors, it added, oblige the international community to address and ban them, pass laws that criminalize and prevent insulting religious symbols and sanctities, work to spread a culture of peace and acceptance of the other, raise awareness of the values of common respect, enrich the values of harmony and tolerance, and reject extremism, fanaticism and incitement to hatred.
On Friday, the extreme right group Danske Patrioter posted on its Facebook page a video of a man burning what seemed to be a Qur’an and trampling an Iraqi flag.
Copenhagen’s police deputy chief, Trine Fisker, said that “not more than a handful” of protesters had gathered Friday across from the Iraqi Embassy.
“I can also confirm there was a book burnt. We do not know which book it was,” she said.
Jordan condemns Qur’an burning in Denmark
https://arab.news/rpwne
Jordan condemns Qur’an burning in Denmark
- Jordan described the incident as an “act of hatred and a manifestation of Islamophobia and inciting violence and disrespecting religions”
- The Foreign Affairs Ministry stressed its rejection of irresponsible behaviors that provoke Muslims’ feelings and fuel hatred
F/A-18 fighter jet goes overboard from US carrier in the Red Sea
- The incident Tuesday marks the latest mishap to mar the deployment of the Truman
DUBAI: An F/A-18 fighter jet landing on the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier in the Red Sea went overboard, forcing its two pilots to eject, a defense official said on Wednesday.
The incident Tuesday marks the latest mishap to mar the deployment of the Truman, which has been essential in the airstrike campaign by the US against Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
The F/A-18 Super Hornet landed on the Truman after a flight, but “the arrestment failed,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity about the incident now under investigation.
“Arrestment” refers to the hook system used by aircraft landing on carriers, which catches steel wire ropes on the flight deck. It remains unclear what part of the system failed.
The two pilots on board were later rescued by a helicopter and suffered minor injuries in the incident, the official added. No one on the flight deck was hurt.
Tuesday’s incident was the latest to see the Navy lose an F/A-18, which cost about $60 million. In April, another F/A-18 fighter jet slipped off the hangar deck of the Truman and fell into the Red Sea. The crew members who were in the pilot seat of the Super Hornet and on the small towing tractor both jumped away.
In December, the guided-missile cruiser USS Gettysburg mistakenly shot down an F/A-18 after ships earlier shot down multiple Houthi drones and an anti-ship cruise missile launched by the rebels. Both aviators in that incident also survived.
And in February, the Truman collided with a merchant vessel near Port Said, Egypt.
The Truman, based out of Norfolk, Virginia, has seen its deployment extended multiple times amid the Houthi airstrike campaign. It had been joined recently by the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier operating out of the Arabian Sea.
Syria’s Sharaa confirms indirect talks with Israel to ease tensions
- Ahmed Al-Sharaa said random Israeli interventions have violated the 1974 armistice agreement
- He called on the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force to return to the Blue Line of separation
PARIS: President Ahmed Al-Sharaa said Wednesday that Syria was holding “indirect talks” with Israel to calm tensions between the two countries, following Israeli strikes and threats against Syria since Bashar Assad’s ouster.
“There are indirect talks (with Israel) taking place through mediators to calm the situation and try to contain the situation so it does not reach the point where it escapes the control of both sides,” Sharaa told a press conference in Paris alongside French President Emmanuel Macron.
“Random Israeli interventions... have violated the 1974” armistice, Sharaa said, adding that “since we arrived in Damascus, we have told all relevant parties that Syria is committed to the 1974 agreement.”
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on the country since Assad’s December ouster and has said it wants to prevent advanced weapons from falling into the hands of the new authorities, whom it considers jihadists.
Israeli troops have also entered the UN-patrolled buffer zone along the 1974 armistice line on the Golan Heights and carried out incursions deeper into southern Syria.
Sharaa said the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force must “return to the Blue Line of separation,” adding that UNDOF had made a number of visits to Damascus.
Macron condemned Israeli strikes on Syria, saying they would not guarantee “Israel’s long-term security.”
“As for bombings and incursions, I think it’s bad practice. You don’t ensure your country’s security by violating the territorial integrity of your neighbors,” Macron said.
Sharaa said that “we are trying to speak with all countries that are in contact with the Israeli side to pressure them to stop interfering in Syria’s affairs, violating its airspace and bombing some of its facilities.”
Sharaa said he and Macron discussed “the ongoing Israeli threats,” adding that “Israel has bombed Syria more than 20 times in the past week alone... under the pretext of protecting minorities.”
Israel’s military said it launched strikes near Damascus’s presidential palace early Friday after the country’s defense minister threatened intervention if Syrian authorities failed to protect the Druze minority, after sectarian clashes in Druze areas last.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said the move was a “clear message” to Syria’s new rulers.
The clashes came after a wave of massacres in March in Syria’s Alawite heartland on the Mediterranean coast.
Palestinians in razed West Bank hamlet vow to stay
- Residents of Khallet Al-Dabaa and other hamlets in the West Bank’s Masafer Yatta region have for years contended with violence from Israeli settlers and repeated demolitions
KHALLET AL-DABAA, Palestinian Territories: Standing in the rubble of what used to be his home, Palestinian farmer Haitham Dababseh cleared stones to make space for a tent after Israeli army bulldozers destroyed his village in the occupied West Bank.
Residents of Khallet Al-Dabaa and other hamlets in the West Bank’s Masafer Yatta region have for years contended with violence from Israeli settlers and repeated demolitions.
But the bulldozers that descended on Khallet Al-Dabaa on Monday carried out “the biggest demolition we’ve ever had,” said Dababseh, razing to the ground the hamlet that is home to about 100 Palestinians.
Israeli forces “came here in the past; they demolished three times, four times,” the 34-year-old farmer said, but never entirely destroyed a hamlet this size in Masafer Yatta.
“I just have my clothes. Everything I have is under the rubble.”
Behind him, his 86-year-old father struggled to move the house’s former door out of the way so that they can set up their shelter.
Khallet Al-Dabaa is one of several villages featured at length in the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land,” recounting the struggles of the Palestinian residents of the area in the West Bank’s south.
Several of the communities shown in the documentary have experienced settler attacks or army demolitions since it won an Academy Award in March.
Several years after occupying the West Bank in 1967, the Israeli army had declared Masafer Yatta a restricted firing zone.
Israeli forces regularly demolish structures that the military authorities say were built illegally in the area, where about 1,100 Palestinians live across several hamlets.
“Enforcement authorities of the Civil Administration dismantled a number of illegal structures that were built in a closed military zone in the South Hebron Hills,” the Israeli military said in a statement on the Khallet Al-Dabaa demolition.
“The enforcement actions were carried out after the completion of all required administrative procedures and in accordance with the enforcement priority framework previously presented to the Supreme Court,” it added.
Some residents, and many of their ancestors, once lived in caves in the rocky terrain to escape the area’s stifling summer heat, and built houses with stone and other materials after the Israeli firing zone designation in the 1970s.
Israeli envoy accuses UN of walking away from Gaza aid talks
- Danny Danon accuses secretary-general of ‘trying to protect a failed model’
- UN rejects proposal to close distribution system in favor of Israel-operated hubs
NEW YORK CITY: Israel’s ambassador to the UN has accused the organization of walking away from negotiations over a new Gaza aid proposal.
The remarks came after the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs on Sunday rejected a plan to deliver all aid supplies to the enclave through Israeli-operated hubs.
Israel’s security cabinet on Monday approved plans to “conquer” almost all of Gaza in a bid to step up military pressure on Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which still hold 59 Israeli hostages.
The rejected Israeli aid proposal involved the closure of the existing distribution system operated by the UN and its partners.
Speaking outside the UN Security Council on Wednesday, Israeli UN Ambassador Danny Danon said that his country’s efforts were aimed at ensuring humanitarian aid reached the right people.
“Israel has been engaged in constructive discussions to establish secure and effective aid delivery solutions that ensure food, water and medicine reach civilians, not Hamas terrorists.
“These are serious efforts aimed at solving a real problem — the constant and mass stealing of humanitarian aid by Hamas. Rather than engage with our proposals or seek constructive alternatives, the UN and the secretary-general chose to walk away,” he said.
“I must ask why. Why was there no attempt at a constructive dialogue, to hear ideas, to discuss them?”
The OCHA accused Israel of attempting to “reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic, as part of a military strategy.”
Jens Laerke, the office’s spokesperson, said on Tuesday: “It appears to be a deliberate attempt to weaponize the aid and we have warned against that for a very long time. Aid should be provided based on humanitarian need to whomever needs it.”
Only 16 of Gaza’s 29 Palestine Red Crescent Society clinics remain partially functional and are facing severe shortages.
Laerke relayed testimonies from colleagues in Gaza who had seen people “rummaging through garbage, trying to find something edible.”
He described the humanitarian situation in the enclave as “harsh, brutal and inhuman.”
But Danon accused UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres of protecting a failed system.
“If the goal is to exclude Hamas and deliver humanitarian assistance without political agendas, then why did the secretary-general abandon the table so quickly?
“Why is he trying to protect a failed model? I would remind the secretary-general that 59 hostages still remain in Hamas captivity. We will never leave them behind.
“Israel will continue doing what the UN should be doing: defending our people, dismantling terror and above all, fighting for the freedom of the 59 hostages held by Hamas.”
Lebanon welcomes return of Emirati tourists with pledges to ensure their safety
- Nawaf Salam announced that the security services are ready to ensure the safety and security of our Arab brothers during the summer
- Meeting was attended by the ambassadors of Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Qatar, as well as the charge d’affaires of the UAE and Kuwait
BEIRUT: Three UAE planes arriving at Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport on Wednesday are scheduled to carry Emirati nationals for the first time since a travel ban was imposed in 2024 due to the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam announced that the security services “are ready to ensure the safety and security of our Arab brothers during the summer.”
Salam welcomed the UAE’s decision to lift the ban on its citizens traveling to Lebanon.
During a meeting on Tuesday with the ambassadors of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Salam expressed hope that “this will extend to other Arab countries in the coming weeks.”
The meeting was attended by the ambassadors of Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Qatar, as well as the charge d’affaires of the UAE and Kuwait.
On the Lebanese side, the meeting was attended by the ministers of defense, interior, tourism, and public works.
Salam said he listened to the concerns of the ambassadors and assured them that “we will work to address them. I informed them of the security changes taking place at Beirut airport and its surroundings.”
President Salam’s adviser, Mounir Rabie, told Arab News: “The Gulf diplomats raised their concerns regarding the return of their nationals to Lebanon, including the need to improve and develop airport procedures, as well as security and economic concerns.”
Rabie described the atmosphere as “positive.”
He said Lebanon has proposed a plan that will include the formation of a tourism operations room to monitor all security and tourism issues.
According to Salam’s office, the diplomats were briefed on the measures taken by the Lebanese authorities at Beirut airport and its surroundings, including on the roads leading to it, to reassure these countries before they decide to lift the ban on the return of their nationals to Lebanon.
Emirati airlines resumed flights to Beirut last December, but without allowing Emirati citizens to come to Beirut.
The announcement comes after Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun met his UAE counterpart Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday, after which it was announced that the ban would be lifted.
A special reception is scheduled for the UAE passengers at the airport, with Information Minister Paul Morcos participating.
Lebanese officials and the public are counting on this step to revitalize tourism and investment activity in the country, especially in light of the stifling economic crisis it is experiencing.
A ministerial source said: “Efforts are focused on sending reassuring messages domestically and abroad that Lebanon is capable of attracting its Arab brothers once again, given the climate of stability it is keen to maintain through the security and political measures being implemented.”
The lifting of the ban on the return of Emiratis was accompanied by a series of conditions and procedures they must follow, most notably “mandatory registration in the Tawajudi service before traveling to Beirut to ensure their safety and the smooth running of the travel process, whether from the UAE or any other country. This is aimed at ensuring effective communication with citizens while abroad and avoiding the suspension of travel procedures or exposure to legal accountability.”
Emirati citizens must also “fill in the required information, including their place of residence in Lebanon, emergency numbers, and reasons for the visit, with the necessity of updating this information in the event of any change.”
