MOSCOW: Palestinian militant group Hamas wants Russia to push Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to begin negotiations on a national unity government for post-war Gaza, a senior Hamas official told the RIA state news agency after talks in Moscow.
Mousa Abu Marzouk, a Hamas politburo member, met Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov in Moscow.
“We discussed issues related to Palestinian national unity and the creation of a government that should govern the Gaza Strip after the war,” Marzouk was quoted as saying by RIA.
Marzouk said that Hamas had asked Russia to encourage Abbas, who is attending the BRICS summit in Kazan, to start negotiations about a unity government, RIA reported.
Abbas is head of the Palestinian Authority (PA), the governing body of the occupied Palestinian territories.
The PA was set up three decades ago under the interim peace agreement known as the Oslo Accords and exercises limited governance over parts of the occupied West Bank, which Palestinians want as the core of a future independent state.
The PA, controlled by Abbas’ Fatah political faction, has long had a strained relationship with Hamas, the Islamist movement that runs Gaza, and the two factions fought a brief war before Fatah was expelled from the territory in 2007.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has expressed strong opposition to the PA being involved in running Gaza.
Hamas wants Russia to push Palestinian president toward unity government for post-war Gaza
https://arab.news/g56mz
Hamas wants Russia to push Palestinian president toward unity government for post-war Gaza
- The Palestinian Authority, the governing body of the occupied Palestinian territories, is controlled by Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah political faction
Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says war death toll at 42,847
- The toll includes 55 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Thursday that at least 42,847 people have been killed in the year-long war between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The toll includes 55 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 100,544 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
Lebanon needs help to expand army and rebuild, caretaker PM tells Paris summit
PARIS: International support will be needed to shore up and expand Lebanon’s army and rebuild the country’s destroyed infrastructure, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati told a Paris conference convened amid Israel’s assault on Hezbollah.
Mikati said the Lebanese government had decided to recruit more troops and could deploy 8,000 soldiers as part of a plan to implement a ceasefire and UN Security Council resolution, which calls for the army to be deployed in southern Lebanon.
Putin says Middle East ‘on brink of full-scale war’
KAZAN: Russian President Vladimir Putin told a BRICS summit on Thursday that the Middle East was on the verge of full-scale war.
“The military action that started a year ago in Gaza has now spread to Lebanon. Other countries in the region are also affected,” Putin told a meeting in Kazan attended by several world leaders.
“The level of confrontation between Israel and Iran has sharply risen. This is all reminiscent of a chain reaction and puts the whole Middle East on the verge of full-scale war,” Putin said.
Violence in the Middle East will not end until the creation of an independent Palestinian state, Putin said at the summit, attended by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.
“The key demand for restoring peace and stability on Palestinian territories is carrying out the two-state formula approved by the UN Security Council and General Assembly,” the Russian president said.
He added that this would be “correcting the historical injustice toward the Palestinian people.”
“Until this question is resolved, it will not be possible to break the vicious circle of violence.”
Israeli attack on Lebanese bank violates international humanitarian law, says UN expert
- Israel attacked the offices of Al-Qard Al-Hasan bank, which it claims finances Hezbollah
- The bank offers small interest-free loans and undertakes charitable activities
NEW YORK: Israel’s multiple bombings of a financial institution in Lebanon earlier this week were illegal attacks on civilian objects under international humanitarian law, an independent human rights expert said on Wednesday.
Ben Saul, the UN special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, said that attacks on economic infrastructure are illegal “even if they indirectly sustain (the adversary’s) military activities.”
Ahead of the attack, Israel issued public warnings that it would strike the offices of Al-Qard Al-Hasan bank, which it claims finances Hezbollah.
The bank offers small interest-free loans and undertakes charitable activities. It has thousands of customers and multiple branches across Lebanon.
In armed conflict, only “military objectives” whose destruction “offers a definite military advantage” can be attacked, Saul said.
The economic activities of an adversary do not effectively contribute to military action, he added.
“Bombing banks obliterates the distinction between civilian objects and military objectives which is fundamental to protecting civilians from violence. It opens the door to ‘total war’ against civilian populations, where fighting is no longer limited to attacking militarily dangerous targets,” the expert said. “Such attacks jeopardize the right to life.”
Saul warned that international counterterrorism law does not authorize military attacks to prevent alleged terrorist financing or money laundering.
“Bombing banks is not a lawful solution to the challenges of financial crime and regulation,” he said.
To suppress terrorist financing, states should instead resort to administrative and criminal law measures, Saul added.
The attacks were the latest escalation of violence in Lebanon over the past year, with more than 2,400 people killed and 1.2 million displaced, according to the UN.
Saul joined other UN officials in calling for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
Blinken in Qatar for Gaza mediation push
- Blinken is paying his 11th trip to the region since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel
- Blinken said a ceasefire plan laid out by US leader Biden on May 31 remained on the table
DOHA: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Qatar for talks on Thursday with the key mediator on the war in Gaza, as he seeks momentum for a ceasefire after Israel’s killing the leader of Hamas.
After meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Blinken flew to Saudi Arabia and then Qatar, where he will meet the Gulf state’s Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani for assessments on where Hamas stands on a truce.
Blinken is paying his 11th trip to the region since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, after repeated disappointment as he seeks to end the Israeli retaliatory campaign in the Gaza Strip.
But days ahead of US elections, President Joe Biden has found new hope after Israel killed Hamas’s leader, Yahya Sinwar, in Gaza.
US officials had described Sinwar as intransigent in negotiations brokered by the United States, Qatar and Egypt on a ceasefire that would also see the release of hostages from Gaza.
Blinken said he spoke to Israel’s leaders “about the importance of determining whether Hamas is prepared to engage in moving forward, and the Egyptians, the Qataris are doing just that.”
“But I believe that with Sinwar gone, because he was the primary obstacle for realizing the hostage agreement, there is a real opportunity to bring them home and to accomplish the objective,” Blinken told reporters Wednesday as he left Israel.
Critics say the issue was not just Hamas but the Biden administration failing to press Israel, which has received a near continuous flow of billions of dollars in US weapons.
Hamas has yet to choose a successor to Sinwar.
Two Hamas sources said this week that the group was moving toward appointing a Doha-based ruling committee rather than a single heir.
Blinken said a ceasefire plan laid out by Biden on May 31 remained on the table but also hinted at a willingness to explore “new frameworks” to seek freedom for 97 hostages, including 34 confirmed dead, still held by militants in Gaza since on October 7, 2023.
Blinken is also looking for greater clarity on a plan for reconstruction and post-war governance of Gaza, seeing it as a vital component to efforts to end the war.
Hamas seized full control of Gaza in 2007 following an election, and for more than a decade has maintained an office in Qatar, initially with the blessing of Israel and the United States.
The office has allowed communication with the group, whose main patron is US arch-nemesis Iran, with Qatar — a nimble regional player which is also home to a major US base — channeling money to support Hamas governance of impoverished Gaza.
After the October 7 attack, the worst in its history, Israel vowed to eradicate Hamas and bring the hostages home.
Israel is also accused of killing Hamas’s Qatar-based political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, while he was visiting Iran in July.
