Israel’s Rafah attack set Hamas talks ‘backward’: Qatar PM tells forum

Addressing the opening session of the Qatar Economic Forum Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said the attacks on Rafah had set back peace talks. (AFP)
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Updated 14 May 2024
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Israel’s Rafah attack set Hamas talks ‘backward’: Qatar PM tells forum

  • Emir says Israel looks set to stay in Gaza waging war

DOHA, QATAR: Israel’s military operation in Rafah has set truce negotiations with Hamas “backward,” mediator Qatar said on Tuesday, adding that talks have reached “almost a stalemate.”
“Especially in the past few weeks, we have seen some momentum building but unfortunately things didn’t move in the right direction and right now we are on a status of almost a stalemate,” Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani told the Qatar Economic Forum.
“Of course, what happened with Rafah has set us backward.”
Qatar, which has hosted Hamas’s political office in Doha since 2012, has been engaged — along with Egypt and the United States — in months of behind-the-scenes mediation between Israel and the Palestinian militant group.
Israel continued to fight Hamas in Rafah on Monday, despite US warnings against a full-scale assault on the south Gaza city that is crowded with displaced Palestinians.
“There is no clarity how to stop the war from the Israeli side. I don’t think that they are considering this as an option... even when we are talking about the deal and leading to a potential ceasefire,” Sheikh Mohammed said.
Israeli politicians were indicating “by their statements that they will remain there, they will continue the war. And there is no clarity on what Gaza will look like after this,” he added.


Syria president in Cairo for Arab summit on Gaza: state media

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Syria president in Cairo for Arab summit on Gaza: state media

DAMASCUS: Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in Cairo on Tuesday to attend an Arab League summit on countering US President Donald Trump's widely condemned plan for Gaza, Syrian state media reported.
Sharaa arrived "to attend the extraordinary Arab Summit in Cairo on developments on the Palestinian issue", state news agency SANA reported.


Egypt to host emergency Arab League summit to counter Trump’s Gaza plans 

Updated 04 March 2025
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Egypt to host emergency Arab League summit to counter Trump’s Gaza plans 

  • The Arab League summit in Cairo will address Trump’s Gaza plans and efforts to protect Palestinian rights
  • Egypt’s reconstruction plan includes recovery, infrastructure restoration, and a two-state solution, but financing concerns remain

DUBAI: An emergency Arab League summit will be held in Cairo on Tuesday to counter US President Donald Trump’s Gaza plans.  

Organized by Egypt, the summit aims to respond to Trump’s proposals to take control of Gaza and resettle Palestinians, as well as to address the Israeli Prime Minister’s stance on ending the ceasefire and resuming hostilities in Gaza. 

The summit will focus on creating a unified Arab response that protects Palestinian rights and makes Gaza habitable again.  

Egypt’s Plan 

Egypt has yet to release full details of its proposal, but former Egyptian diplomat Mohamed Hegazy outlined a plan in three technical phases over three to five years.  

The first phase, lasting six months, would focus on early recovery and debris removal. The second phase would involve an international conference to set out detailed reconstruction plans and restore infrastructure.  

The final phase would include the provision of housing and services, as well as the establishment of a political track for implementing a two-state solution, with an independent Palestine alongside Israel. 

Experts have raised concerns over the plan’s financing, with the UN estimating the cost of rebuilding Gaza at over $50 billion. 

Trump’s Resettlement Plan 

The summit follows US President Trump’s statement last month, in which he proposed taking control of Gaza and resettling Palestinians in Egypt and Jordan.   

Tensions have heightened as Israel blocked all humanitarian aid to Gaza on March 1, citing Hamas’s refusal to extend the ceasefire, which was meant to begin its second phase.


Far-right Israel minister Smotrich heading to the US

Updated 04 March 2025
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Far-right Israel minister Smotrich heading to the US

  • His trip comes with US President Donald Trump expected to announce whether to back the annexation of all or part of the West Bank

JERUSALEM: Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who supports the annexation of the occupied West Bank, said on Tuesday that he was traveling to the United States for a brief visit.
“The goal of this visit is to strengthen economic cooperation between Israel and the United States... and deepen the strategic alliance between our two countries,” Smotrich wrote on social media platform X.
His trip comes with US President Donald Trump expected to announce whether to back the annexation of all or part of the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
Smotrich, an ultranationalist settler whose support is key to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s parliamentary majority, said he would meet US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, as well as other US government officials.
The visit coincides with an Arab League summit on Tuesday in Cairo, where leaders are discussing a counterproposal to Trump’s February 4 plan for US control of Gaza.
Under that plan, Palestinians living in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip would be transferred to third countries, and the coastal territory would be turned into what Trump called “the Riviera of the Middle East.”
Asked when unveiling the plan whether he backed Israeli annexation of the West Bank, Trump said he would probably “make an announcement” on the issue within four weeks.
In 2024, the International Court of Justice, the UN’s top legal body, issued an advisory opinion saying that Israel’s prolonged presence in the West Bank was unlawful.
The United Nations regularly condemns Israel’s settlement expansion in the territory as illegal under international law.


Syrian refugee family that Pope Francis brought to Rome prays for him as they build new life

Updated 04 March 2025
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Syrian refugee family that Pope Francis brought to Rome prays for him as they build new life

  • Nearly a decade after Pope Francis plucked them from a refugee camp in Greece, a Syrian couple and their child have carved out a quiet life in suburban Rome
  • While they observe Ramadan, they’re praying for the hospitalized pope, whom they refer to as a gift from heaven – and a leader who showed the world migrants aren’t to be feared

ROME: Just before breaking the Ramadan fast on Sunday evening, Hasan Zaheda played basketball with his son in the tiny courtyard of the basement-level apartment on Rome’s outskirts where the refugee family is rebuilding their lives.
They have no pictures from their native Syria – they fled Damascus at the height of the civil war with only one change of clothes, diapers and milk for their toddler. But there is a framed photo of little Riad meeting Pope Francis, who brought them and two other Muslim families back with him to Italy from refugee camps in the Greek island of Lesbos almost a decade ago.
“He’s a gift from paradise,” Zaheda said Sunday, chuckling. “Pope Francis, a gift from our God, that God sent us to save us.”
As the Zahedas began to observe the holy month of Ramadan, Francis, 88, entered his third week of battling pneumonia in a hospital not far away. The least they can do, the family said, is to be close to him in prayer night and day.
“We look for his health bulletin every day,” said the mother, Nour Essa, 39, after recalling meeting the pontiff suddenly in Lesbos. “What shocked me the most is that the father of the church was a modest man, who didn’t have prejudices, open toward other ethnicities and religion.”
The family journeyed on the pope’s plane – one of the most visible moments of advocacy for migrants that marked Francis’ papacy. The Zahedas remember how kindly Francis patted Riad’s head as he passed down the aisle to speak with journalists.
But “miraculous” as it appeared to them, it was only the beginning of a new life in Italy to which they’re still adjusting.
Essa, a biologist, and Zaheda, an architect who worked as a civil servant in Damascus, decided to leave Syria in 2015 after he was drafted into the military. They sold their house to pay for a smuggler, walking through the night trying not to make a sound in the desert and at one point riding for ten hours in different trucks.
After scrambling to get through Daesh-controlled territory, they made it into Turkiye and then had three failed attempts to reach the Greek islands by boat before arriving in Lesbos in early 2016.
“I always thank God that my son was so small, and that he has no memory of all these things,” Essa said as Riad watched a Syrian soap opera in the cramped living room with his grandfather, who fled about a year after them. On the walls, Hasan’s haunting paintings of white faces against swirling black and red tell of the parents’ all-too-vivid memories.
After more than one month in a Lesbos camp, the family was approached for an interview by a stranger – Daniela Pompei, the head of migration and integration for the Catholic charity Sant’Egidio.
She had been tasked with finding families with appropriate paperwork that Francis could bring back to Rome with him, and asked them to make a decision on the spot. They accepted, and the charity, with Vatican funds, eventually brought more than 300 refugees from Greece and 150 from another papal trip to Cyprus in 2021.
Sant’Egidio’s goal was to spare migrants longer journeys by sea across different routes in the Mediterranean, which have killed tens of thousands of asylum-seekers willing to “die for hope” over the years, Pompei said.
But the real test has been integration, from processing their asylum cases to learning Italian to school and job placement. Initiatives like the pope’s make all the difference because they signal to the refugees that their new communities are willing to welcome them, despite faith differences.
“The pope has long appealed to open parishes, to welcome at least one family in each parish, to push us Catholics too to counter what he called, with a very strong term in Lampedusa, ‘the globalization of indifference,’” Pompei said.
In the characteristic Roman accent they’ve acquired, the Zaheda parents told of their challenges – having to reenroll in university so their degrees can be recognized, helping their families come to Europe, taking care of their son.
Working or studying 12 hours a day, they rarely have time to socialize with other Syrian families and the migrants who comprise most of their neighbors in the modest brick-faced apartment buildings as well as most of Riad’s classmates.
His best friend is from Ecuador, and Riad plans to study Spanish in middle school. He’s joined a local basketball team, and pictures from the court line his bedroom, where a large Syrian flag hangs by his bunkbed. He likes to read The Little Prince in English, but his Arabic is tentative, even though he spends most afternoons with his grandfather, who loves to sketch local churches.
For Sunday’s iftar – the meal breaking the day’s fast – the family topped a little table with yogurt-and-chickpea tisiyeh salad and take-out pizza in typical Roman flavors like zucchini flowers and anchovies.
As Riad packed his backpack for the school week, his parents said their future hinges on the little boy – for whom they will likely stay in Italy, instead of joining relatives in France or returning to a Syria they probably couldn’t recognize.
“I always wish that he can build his future, that he can build a position as the son of an undocumented migrant who arrived in Italy and who wanted to leave his mark in a new country,” Zaheda said.


Tunisia opposition figures go on trial on state security charges

Updated 04 March 2025
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Tunisia opposition figures go on trial on state security charges

  • The defendants include politicians Jawhar Ben Mbarek, Abdelhamid Jelassi and Issam Chebbi, founder of the opposition National Salvation Front coalition — all staunch critics of Saied

TUNIS: The trial of several prominent Tunisian opposition figures accused of national security offenses is set to begin Tuesday, with rights groups denouncing the case as politically motivated.
The around 40 high-profile defendants include former diplomats, politicians, lawyers and media figures, some of whom have been outspoken critics of President Kais Saied.
The charges against them are “plotting against the state security” and “belonging to a terrorist group,” which could entail hefty sentences and even capital punishment, according to lawyers.
Saied was elected in 2019 after Tunisia emerged as the only democracy following the Arab Spring. But in 2021 he staged a sweeping power grab, and rights groups have since warned of a rollback on freedoms.
The defendants include politicians Jawhar Ben Mbarek, Abdelhamid Jelassi and Issam Chebbi, founder of the opposition National Salvation Front coalition — all staunch critics of Saied.
In a letter from his cell, Ben Mbarek called the trial a form of “judicial harassment” aimed at “the methodical elimination of critical voices,” claiming the accusations were baseless.
Activists Khayam Turki and Chaima Issa, businessman Kamel Eltaief, and Bochra BelHajj Hmida, a former member of parliament and human rights activist now living in France, have also been charged in the case.
Some of the defendants have been detained since a flurry of arrests in February 2023, after Saied dubbed them “terrorists.”
Others remain free pending trial, as some have fled abroad, according to the defense committee.
On Sunday, during a visit to the streets of the capital Tunis, Saied told a woman who asked him to intervene for her imprisoned sons — unrelated to the trial — that he “never intervenes” in judicial matters.
“Let this be clear to everyone,” he was heard telling her in a video posted on the presidency’s official Facebook page.
Other critics of Saied have been detained and charged in different cases, including under a law to combat “false news.”
In early February, the leader of Islamist-inspired Ennahdha party Rached Ghannouchi, 83, was sentenced to 22 years in prison for plotting against state security, though in a separate case.
The United Nations urged Tunisian authorities last month to bring “an end to the pattern of arrests, arbitrary detentions and imprisonment of dozens of human rights defenders, lawyers, journalists, activists and politicians.”
Tunisia’s foreign ministry dismissed the UN statement with “astonishment” and denounced its “inaccuracies.”
“Tunisia can give lessons to those who think they are in a position to make statements,” it said.