BEIRUT: An Israeli drone strike on a car Monday near the Lebanon-Syria border killed a prominent Syrian businessman who was sanctioned by the United States and had close ties to the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, according to pro-government media and an official from an Iran-backed group.
Mohammed Baraa Katerji was killed when a drone strike hit his car near the area of Saboura, a few kilometers or miles inside Syria after apparently crossing from Lebanon. Israel’s air force has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in recent years, mainly targeting members of Iran-backed groups and Syria’s military. But it has been rare to hit personalities from within the government.
The strike also came as Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah group have been exchanging fire on an almost daily basis since early October, after the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
An official from an Iran-backed group said that Katerji was killed instantly while in his SUV on the highway linking Lebanon with Syria. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media.
The pro-government Al-Watan daily quoted unnamed “sources” as saying that Katerji, 48, was killed in a “Zionist drone strike on his car.” It gave no further details.
Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Britain-based opposition war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said that Katerji was killed while in a car with Lebanese license plates, adding that he was apparently targeted because he used to fund the “Syrian resistance” against Israel in the Golan Heights, as well as his links to Iran-backed groups in Syria.
Israel, which has vowed to stop Iranian entrenchment in its northern neighbor, has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets in government-controlled parts of Syria in recent years, but it rarely acknowledges them.
The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, sanctioned Katerji in 2018 as Assad’s middleman to trade oil with the Daesh group and for facilitating weapons shipments from Iraq to Syria.
The US Treasury declined Associated Press requests for comment. The sanctions imposed on Katerji were authorized under an Obama-era executive order issued in 2011 that prohibits certain transactions with Syria. A search of the OFAC database indicates that the sanctions were still in effect against Katerji and his firm at the time of his death.
OFAC said in 2018 that Katerji was responsible for import and export activities in Syria and assisted with transporting weapons and ammunition under the pretext of importing and exporting food items. These shipments were overseen by the US designated Syrian General Intelligence Directorate, according to OFAC.
It added that the Syria-based Katerji Company is a trucking company that has also shipped weapons from Iraq to Syria. Additionally, in a 2016 trade deal between the government of Syria and IS, the Katerji Company was identified as the exclusive agent for providing supplies to IS-controlled areas, including oil and other commodities.
Katerji and his brother, Hussam — widely referred to in Syria as the “Katerji brothers” — got involved in oil business a few years after the country’s conflict began in March 2011. Hussam Katerji is a former member of Syria’s parliament.
Israeli drone strike along Lebanon-Syria border kills Syrian businessman close to the government
https://arab.news/9m5p3
Israeli drone strike along Lebanon-Syria border kills Syrian businessman close to the government
- Mohammed Baraa Katerji was killed when a drone strike hit his car near the area of Saboura, a few kilometers inside Syria
- Strike came as Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah group have been exchanging fire on an almost daily basis since early October
Israel violated global child rights treaty in Gaza, UN committee says
GENEVA: A UN committee has accused Israel of severe breaches of a global treaty protecting children’s rights, saying its military actions in Gaza had a catastrophic impact on them and are among the worst violations in recent history.
Palestinian health authorities say 41,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its military campaign in response to cross-border attacks by Hamas on Oct. 7. Of those killed in Gaza, at least 11,355 are children, Palestinian data shows, and thousands more are injured.
“The outrageous death of children is almost historically unique. This is an extremely dark place in history,” said Bragi Gudbrandsson, vice chair of the Committee.
“I don’t think we have seen a violation that is so massive before as we’ve seen in Gaza. These are extremely grave violations that we do not often see,” he said.
Israel, which ratified the treaty in 1991, sent a large delegation to the UN hearings in Geneva between September 3-4.
They argued that the treaty did not apply in Gaza or the West Bank and that it was committed to respecting international humanitarian law. It says its military campaign in Gaza is aimed at eliminating Hamas.
The committee praised Israel for attending but said it “deeply regrets the state party’s repeated denial of its legal obligations.”
The 18-member UN Committee monitors countries’ compliance with the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child — a widely adopted treaty that protects them from violence and other abuses.
In its conclusions, it called on Israel to provide urgent assistance to thousands of children maimed or injured by the war, provide support for orphans, and allow more medical evacuations from Gaza.
The UN body has no means of enforcing its recommendations, although countries generally aim to comply.
During the hearings, the UN experts also asked many questions about Israeli children, including details about those taken hostage by Hamas, to which Israel’s delegation gave extensive responses.
Spanish prime minister, Palestinian leader urge Mideast de-escalation
MADRID: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Thursday called for a de-escalation of the conflict in the Middle East.
“Today the risk of escalation is once more increasing in a dangerous way” in Lebanon, said Sanchez, at a news conference withvisitingPalestinianPresident Mahmoud Abbas.
“So we must again make a fresh appeal for restraint,for a de-escalation and for peaceful coexistence between countries, in the name of peace,” he added.
Sanchez was speaking to journalists after more than an hour’s talks with Abbas.
Since the Gaza war began, Sanchez has positioned himself as a champion of the Palestinian cause within the EU.
His socialist government has increasingly taken highly critical positions toward Israel’s conduct of itscampaignagainstHamas,rivalto the Fatah party.
“The international community and Europe cannot remain impassive in the face of the suffering of thousands of innocents, largely women and children,” he added.
Israel’s military offensive has killed at least 41,272 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to data provided by the Health Ministry. The UN has acknowledged these figures as reliable.
Urging a two-state solution, long a cornerstone of international attempts to end the decades-long conflict, Sanchez said that a Palestinian nation “living side by side with the state of Israel” was the only way to “bring stability to the region.”
He pointed out that this is Abbas’s first visit to Spain since Madrid decided to recognize the state of Palestine on May 28. Ireland and Norway took the same decision in May. “Why is this a good thing? Because Palestine exists and has the right to have its state,” the premier added.
While Hamas controls the Gaza Strip, the Fatah party chaired by Abbas controls the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank.
More than 150 in Moroccan court over migration incitement
- They were among around 3,000 who people were involved in a recent mass attempt to reach Spanish territory
- In August alone, authorities reportedly blocked more than 11,300 attempts to cross into Ceuta and about 3,300 into Melilla
RABAT: More than 150 people have appeared in a Moroccan court for alleged incitement of illegal migration, a government spokesman said on Thursday, after a failed mass attempt to reach Spanish territory.
On Sunday, Moroccan police, who fired tear gas, pushed back hundreds of people who headed toward the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, an AFP photographer said, after social media posts encouraged crossing attempts.
“In the framework of the struggle against calls for clandestine immigration, 152 people appeared before a judge,” government spokesman Mustapha Baitas told a press conference.
He said a total of around 3,000 people had tried to illegally enter Ceuta after calls on social media, but all the crossing attempts failed.
A police source previously told AFP that 60 people were arrested between Monday and Wednesday last week for “fabricating and disseminating false information on social media” that encouraged “the organization of collective illegal immigration operations.”
Ceuta and its sister territory of Melilla, wedged on the North African kingdom’s Mediterranean coast, have long been a magnet for irregular migrants, being the only European Union territories on the African continent.
Those heading on Sunday toward the village of Fnideq, which abuts Ceuta, included Moroccans and migrants from other parts of Africa, including some minors, the AFP photographer said.
According to official statistic, one in four Moroccan young people aged 15-24 is neither in the job market, nor in education or training.
The Moroccan interior ministry has said that in August alone, authorities blocked more than 11,300 attempts to cross into Ceuta and about 3,300 into Melilla.
In June, 2022, at least 23 people died when around 2,000 people, many of them Sudanese, stormed the frontier at Melilla attempting to cross.
The main route out of Morocco for irregular migrants hoping to reach Spain remains by sea.
More than 22,300 migrant arrivals were registered this year by August 15 in the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, a 126 percent increase from 2023.
Six Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in occupied West Bank’s Qabatiya
- The governor, Kamal Abu Al-Rub, said four of the injured are in critical condition
RAMALLAH: Six Palestinians were killed and 18 others injured by Israeli forces during a military raid in the occupied West Bank city of Qabatiya, the governor of Jenin told Reuters on Thursday.
The governor, Kamal Abu Al-Rub, said four of the injured are in critical condition, and that Israeli forces withdrew from Qabatiya after destroying infrastructure in the area.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
Violence has surged in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza, with almost daily sweeps by Israeli forces that have involved thousands of arrests and regular gunbattles between security forces and Palestinian fighters.
Explosives put in devices before they arrived in Lebanon, says Lebanon’s UN mission
- The authorities also determined the devices, which included pagers and hand-held radios, were detonated by sending electronic messages to the devices
UNITED NATIONS: A preliminary investigation by Lebanese authorities into the communications devices that blew up in Lebanon this week found that they were implanted with explosives before arriving in the country, according to a letter sent to the UN Security Council by Lebanon’s mission to the United Nations.
The authorities also determined the devices, which included pagers and hand-held radios, were detonated by sending electronic messages to the devices, says the letter, seen by Reuters on Thursday. Israel was responsible for the planning and execution of the attacks, Lebanon’s UN mission said.
The 15-member Security Council is due to meet on Friday over the blasts.
The attacks on Hezbollah’s communications equipment on Tuesday and Wednesday killed 37 people and wounded around 3,000, overwhelming Lebanese hospitals and wreaking bloody havoc on the militant group.
Israel has not directly commented on the attacks, which security sources say were probably carried out by its Mossad spy agency, which has a long history of carrying out sophisticated attacks on foreign soil.
