Results of Palestine census will cause concern for Israel, analyst says

A Palestinian member of a census commission walks past Israeli soldiers patrolling in the West Bank city of Hebron. (AFP file photo)
A Palestinian member of a census commission walks past Israeli soldiers patrolling in the West Bank city of Hebron. (AFP file photo)
Short Url
Updated 30 December 2022
Follow

Results of Palestine census will cause concern for Israel, analyst says

A Palestinian member of a census commission walks past Israeli soldiers patrolling in the West Bank city of Hebron. (AFP)
  • Figures show Palestinians now equal to Jews in terms of population
  • There are now 14.3 million Palestinians around the world, it says

RAMALLAH: The results of a 2022 census carried out by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics will worry Israel’s leaders, according to a Palestinian political expert.

“Israelis are constantly concerned about Palestinian demographic superiority as they want control over the Palestinians … still, at the same time, they want a pure Jewish society,” Ghassan Al-Khatib told Arab News.

“The most important fact is that we are equal to the Jews in terms of demography,” he said.

The survey showed a high growth rate among Palestinians and that half of them were part of the diaspora living outside Palestine, he added.

The figures also indicate that Palestinian society is young, with more than a third of its population aged under 15.

Al-Khatib said Israel was unable to give up the West Bank for political reasons but also unable to annex it for demographic reasons, which constituted an embarrassment for Israel.

“There is a great contradiction between demographic aspects and democratic principles in Israel,” he said.

The survey shows that there are now about 14.3 million Palestinians around the world. Of those, 5.4 million are in the West Bank and Gaza Strip — an increase of 2.4 percent from the previous year — while 1.7 million are in Israel, 6.4 million in Arab countries and 761,000 elsewhere in the world.

It is expected that by the end of this year the number of Jews living in Israel and its settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem will be 7.1 million, or about the same number as there are Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza Strip and Israel.

Israel, whose leaders reject the idea of Palestinians establishing an independent state, has always feared their becoming a majority.

A senior official at the statistics bureau, who asked not to be named, told Arab News that the survey’s key revelation was the demographic equality between the number of Jews living in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.

“The most important fact is that we are equal to the Jews in terms of demography and the high growth rate of Palestinians, and that half of Palestinians live in the diaspora outside Palestine,” the person said.

The survey shows that children aged 14 or under account for 38 percent of the population in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, while those aged 65 years and above represent just 3 percent in Palestine, 4 percent in the West Bank and 3 percent in the Gaza Strip.

It also shows that the average size of a Palestinian family dropped to five members in 2021, from six in 2010.

The survey also highlights the growing problem of unemployment, especially among young graduates. In the Gaza Strip, 45 percent of people of working age are jobless, with the figure standing at 14 percent in the West Bank.

The unemployment rate is 21 percent among men and 39 percent among women.

The survey shows that Israeli authorities destroyed 1,058 buildings — 353 of them residential properties — in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 2022, the largest proportion of which (29 percent) were in the Jerusalem governorate.

Israel, meanwhile, is building hundreds of settlement units. At the end of 2018, there were more than 700,000 settlers living in 151 settlements on Palestinian lands in the West Bank.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, as of Monday, 224 Palestinians had been killed in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

According to the Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, there were 4,700 Palestinians in Israeli occupation prisons at the end of November, including 34 women and about 150 children.

 


Lebanese army says troops exchange tear gas, smoke bomb fire with Israeli forces

Lebanese army says troops exchange tear gas, smoke bomb fire with Israeli forces
Updated 7 sec ago
Follow

Lebanese army says troops exchange tear gas, smoke bomb fire with Israeli forces

Lebanese army says troops exchange tear gas, smoke bomb fire with Israeli forces

CAIRO: The Lebanese army said on Saturday that it had fired tear gas at Israeli forces in response to attacks by smoke bombs fired by the Israelis in the Bastra area of southern Lebanon.
“Elements of the Israeli enemy violated the withdrawal line and fired smoke bombs at a Lebanese army patrol that was accompanying a bulldozer removing an earthen berm erected by the Israeli enemy north of the withdrawal line, the blue line, in the Bastra area,” the Lebanese army said in a statement.
“The Lebanese patrol responded to the attack by firing tear bombs...forcing them to withdraw to the occupied Palestinian territories.”
Andrea Tenenti, a spokesperson for UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force in the area, said: “There has been tension today. UNIFIL is in touch with the parties to decrease tensions and prevent a misunderstanding. At the moment we are on the ground, monitoring the situation and trying to bring calm back to the area.”


Lebanese troops rescue 27 migrants from sinking boat off Lebanon’s coast

Lebanese troops rescue 27 migrants from sinking boat off Lebanon’s coast
Updated 23 September 2023
Follow

Lebanese troops rescue 27 migrants from sinking boat off Lebanon’s coast

Lebanese troops rescue 27 migrants from sinking boat off Lebanon’s coast
  • The army did not say where the migrants were heading nor did it give their nationalities

BEIRUT: The Lebanese army and the country’s civil defense recused early Saturday 27 migrants whose boat was sinking off the coast of north Lebanon, the military said in a statement.
The army did not say where the migrants were heading nor did it give their nationalities.
Over the past years, thousands of Lebanese, Syrians and Palestinian migrants took the dangerous trip from Lebanon across the Mediterranean seeking a better life in Europe. Such migrations intensified since the country’s historic economic meltdown began in October 2019.
Lebanon has hosted refugees for years. It has some 805,000 UN-registered Syrian refugees, but officials estimate the actual number to be between 1.5 million and 2 million. Lebanon is also home to tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees and their descendants, many living in 12 refugee camps scattered around the country.
Over the past months, thousands of Syrian citizens fleeing worsening economic conditions in their war-torn country made it to Lebanon through illegal crossing points seeking better opportunities. Lebanese officials have warned that the flow of Syrian refugees could create “harsh imbalances” negatively affecting the country’s delicate demographic structure.
Last month, Lebanese troops detained dozens of Lebanese and Syrian traffickers in the country’s north while they were preparing to send migrants on boats to Europe across the Mediterranean Sea.
A boat carrying migrants from Lebanon capsized off Syria’s coast in September last year, leaving at least 94 people dead, one of the deadliest incidents involving migrants, and was followed by a wave of detentions of suspected smugglers.
In neighboring Syria, a navy patrol stopped a boat Saturday carrying migrants off the coast of Latakia, according to the pro-government Sham FM radio station. It gave no further details but such incidents are rare in Syria, where a 12-year conflict has killed half a million people and left large parts of the country in ruins.


GCC, UK urge Iraq to complete demarcation of borders with Kuwait

GCC, UK urge Iraq to complete demarcation of borders with Kuwait
Updated 23 September 2023
Follow

GCC, UK urge Iraq to complete demarcation of borders with Kuwait

GCC, UK urge Iraq to complete demarcation of borders with Kuwait

DUBAI: The foreign ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council member states and UK Secretary of State James Cleverly have urged Iraq to complete the demarcation of Kuwaiti-Iraqi maritime borders.

In a joint statement released Friday, the officials urged Iraq to respect international agreements, especially regarding the demarcation of Kuwaiti-Iraq borders.

The statement followed a meeting between Cleverly and GCC Secretary-General James Al-Budawi on the sidelines of the 78th session of the UN General Assembly in New York.

“They underlined the importance of Iraq’s commitment to Kuwait’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” according to a joint statement published on KUNA news agency.

Tensions have been rising between Kuwait and Iraq after the Iraqi Federal Supreme Court earlier this month ruled an agreement regulating navigation in the Khor Abdullah waterway was unconstitutional. The court said the law that ratified the accord should have been approved by two-thirds of Parliament.

Kuwait’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sheikh Jarrah Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah met the UN Baron Tariq Ahmad, and EU Deputy Secretary-General Enrique Mora. (KUNA)

Kuwait’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sheikh Jarrah Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah has discussed with UN officials and Western diplomats the latest Iraqi Supreme Court verdict regarding Khor Abdullah.

Sheikh Jarrah met Thursday the German Minister of State Tobias Lindner, UK Minister of State for the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia and the UN Baron Tariq Ahmad, and EU Deputy Secretary-General Enrique Mora.

The land border between the two was demarcated by the UN in 1993 after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, but it did not cover the length of their maritime boundaries, which was left for the two oil producers to resolve.

An agreement between the two nations was reached in 2012 and ratified by each of their legislative bodies in 2013.


Iraqi PM will visit Russia in the next few weeks — statement

Iraqi PM will visit Russia in the next few weeks — statement
Updated 23 September 2023
Follow

Iraqi PM will visit Russia in the next few weeks — statement

Iraqi PM will visit Russia in the next few weeks — statement

BAGHDAD: Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani will visit Moscow in the next few weeks, an Iraqi foreign ministry statement quoted Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein as saying during a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.


Bahrain making progress on human rights, says FM

Bahrain making progress on human rights, says FM
Updated 23 September 2023
Follow

Bahrain making progress on human rights, says FM

Bahrain making progress on human rights, says FM
  • Bahrain signed the Comprehensive Security Integration and Prosperity Agreement with the US last week
  • Bahraini minister stressed the importance of diplomatic and economic cooperation between countries

NEW YORK CITY: Bahrain has grown immensely in diplomatic cooperation, human rights, tolerance, and social progress, Bahraini Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdullatif Al-Zayani said on Friday.

The minister referenced the signing of the Comprehensive Security Integration and Prosperity Agreement between the US and Bahrain, signed last week, which will enhance coordination between the two countries in defense, security, technology and investment.

Al-Zayani stressed the importance of dialogue and good-neighborliness in the approach to settling international disputes, a peace process supporting an independent Palestinian state, and the solution of conflicts in Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Sudan “in a way that preserves the unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of these countries.”

Al-Zayani also called for the implementation of international conventions “to criminalize religious, sectarian and racial hate speech. We must prevent the misuse of ‘freedoms’ in media and digital platforms for religious contempt or to incite extremism, terrorism and intolerance.”

Cooperation in security, nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction, cybercrime and international navigation was critical, he added.

On economic cooperation, the minister welcomed the announcement of the India-Middle East-Europe Economic corridor, which was unveiled during the G20 summit in New Delhi this year. The corridor is to connect India with Europe via the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel and Greece.

Al-Zayani also praised Saudi Arabia for announcing earlier this month the establishment of a global water organization to be based in Riyadh.

The minister discussed many of his country’s recent strides in ensuring human rights, including the creation of an impartial, independent judiciary supported by international human rights experts, promotion of the freedom of press and media, encouragement of trade unions, and criminal justice and corrections reform.

“The Kingdom of Bahrain is proud of the advancement of women, and her contribution as active partner in the process of comprehensive development. She is a minister, a parliamentarian, a judge and ambassador,” he said, adding that Bahraini women made up 22 percent of the cabinet, 56 percent of the workforce in the government sector, and 34 percent of the diplomatic corps.