Israeli and Palestinian officials meet in Egypt in pre-Ramadan push for calm

Palestinian protesters burn tyres during a small protest called for by Hamas east of Gaza City by the border with Israel on March 19, 2021. (AFP)
Palestinian protesters burn tyres during a small protest called for by Hamas east of Gaza City by the border with Israel on March 19, 2021. (AFP)
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Updated 19 March 2023

Israeli and Palestinian officials meet in Egypt in pre-Ramadan push for calm

Palestinian protesters burn tyres during a small protest called for by Hamas east of Gaza City by the border with Israel.
  • The five-way meeting follows a Feb. 26 US-brokered summit in Jordan

RAMALLAH/CAIRO: Israeli and Palestinian officials met on Sunday in Egypt for talks to calm tensions ahead of the holy month of Ramadan, which begins later this week.

The meeting, attended by the US and Jordan, follows a Feb. 26 US-brokered conference in Aqaba, the first of its kind in years, that secured Israeli and Palestinian pledges to de-escalate, but was challenged by factions on both sides and failed to halt violence on the ground.

Palestinian militant group Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, condemned the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority for taking part in the meeting, as it was being attended by the Israeli government “which is escalating its aggression against our people.”

But Hussein Al-Sheikh of the umbrella Palestine Liberation Organization said a Palestinian delegation attended the meeting in Sharm El-Sheikh “to defend the rights of our Palestinian people to freedom and independence, and to demand an end to this continuous Israeli aggression against us.”

Political analyst Ghassan Al-Khatib told Arab News that the parties at the meeting had no influence on the events in the West Bank — the PA had no control over those involved in the events in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, just like Israel had no control over the extremist settlers who attacked the Palestinians in Huwara town.

Al-Khatib said the US wanted to appear as if it was doing something, but the Israel Defense Forces “can’t stop its military operations in the West Bank because the extreme right-wing government wants to deliver a message to the Israeli public and the opposition that it is doing its best and using a big stick against the Palestinians.”

Al-Khatib said even if the participants reached an agreement in Sharm El-Sheikh, “Israel will not implement them, as happened in the Aqaba (meeting) on Feb. 26.”

However, Ahmed Majdalani of the PLO disagreed with Al-Khatib and told Arab News that the Palestinian participation in Sharm El-Sheikh stemmed from the national responsibility of the PA toward its people.

“What is the alternative to not participating in the meeting? Will the killing, aggression, invasions, home demolitions, and arrests stop, or will they continue?” Majdalani told Arab News.

He said the PA sought to use international and regional political influence to pressure Israel to stop all unilateral measures against Palestinians.

Regarding the opposition of several factions to the participation in the Sharm El-Sheikh meeting, Majdalani said: “It is not possible to address issues related to people’s lives with political slogans.”

The PA and the Israeli government had affirmed in Aqaba their joint readiness and commitment to immediately stop unilateral measures for three to six months, and this included an Israeli commitment to stop discussing the establishment of any new settlement units for four months and to stop approving any new settlement outposts for four months.

Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative Movement, told Arab News that he was against Palestinian participation in the Sharm El-Sheikh summit because it was a security meeting “that seeks to impose a truce without stopping settlements and occupation invasions.”

With the Israeli government facing international isolation, the PA, instead of demanding the imposition of international sanctions on Israel, is seeking to save it from its predicament, Barghouti added.

Israel did not respect any agreement reached with it and would use the Sharm El-Sheikh summit to cover up its recent massacres against the Palestinians, he said.

“The Sharm El-Sheikh summit seeks to drag the Palestinians into an internal clash while they are suffering from the daily crimes of the occupation and its settlers” Barghouti said.

Sources say that Egypt will try to pressure Israel during the summit to stop its military operations in the West Bank, but observers believe the possibility of preventing the escalation after the Sharm El-Sheikh meeting will be limited.

The meeting in the resort city “aims to support dialogue between the Palestinian and Israeli sides to work to stop unilateral actions and escalation, and break the existing cycle of violence and achieve calm,” a statement from Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said.

This could “facilitate the creation of a climate suitable for the resumption of the peace process,” it added.

It said the aim of the meeting was to support dialogue between the Palestinian and Israeli sides to work to stop unilateral measures and escalation, break the existing cycle of violence, and achieve calm in a way that paved the way for creating an appropriate climate that contributed to the resumption of the peace process.

In addition to achieving calm during the month of Ramadan, the Sharm El-Sheikh security meeting aimed to push Israel to abide by the conclusions of the Aqaba meeting, the statement said.

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Palestinians and Israelis clash at UN over Netanyahu actions

Palestinians and Israelis clash at UN over Netanyahu actions
Updated 23 March 2023

Palestinians and Israelis clash at UN over Netanyahu actions

Palestinians and Israelis clash at UN over Netanyahu actions
  • Ambassador Riyad Mansour takes issue with Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich denying the existence of Palestinians as a people
  • Israel’s UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan hits back, accusing the Palestinian leadership of regularly inciting terrorism and erasing Jewish history

UNITED NATIONS: The Palestinians and Israel clashed over the future intentions of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far right-wing government at a UN Security Council meeting Wednesday, with the Palestinian UN ambassador pointing to an Israeli minister’s statement “denying our existence to justify what is to come.”
Israel’s UN ambassador countered that the minister had apologized, and accused the Palestinian leadership of regularly inciting terrorism and erasing Jewish history.
The council’s always contentious monthly meeting on the Mideast was even more acrimonious in the face of comments and actions by Israel’s new coalition government, which has faced relentless protests over its plan to overhaul the judiciary and strong criticism of Tuesday’s repeal by lawmakers of a 2005 act that saw four Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank dismantled at the same time that Israeli forces withdrew from the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian ambassador Riyad Mansour told the Security Council the statement by firebrand Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich claiming there’s “no such thing” as a Palestinian people wasn’t part of “a theoretical exercise” but was made as Israel’s unlawful annexation of territory the Palestinians insist must be part of their independent state “is more than underway.”
While not all Israeli officials go as far as denying the existence of Palestinians, some deny Palestinian rights, humanity and connection to the land, Mansour said.
Last year was the deadliest for Palestinians in the West Bank, with the past three months “even worse,” he said. So far this year, 85 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, and Palestinian attackers have killed 15 Israelis, according to a tally by The Associated Press.
Nonetheless, with the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the approach of the Jewish holiday Passover and Christianity’s Easter observance, Mansour said the Palestinians decided to be “unreasonably reasonable” and leave no stone unturned to prevent bloodshed.
The Palestinian envoy urged the Security Council and the international community to mobilize every effort “to stop annexation, violence against our people, and provocations.” Everyone has a duty to act now “with every means at our disposal, to prevent a fire that will devour everything it encounters,” he said.
Israel’s UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan called his country “unquestionably the most vibrant liberal democracy in the Middle East” and accused the Palestinians of repeating lies, glorifying terrorists who spilled innocent Israeli blood and “regurgitating fabrications” that are not going to solve the decades-old conflict.
“To the Palestinian representative, I say: ‘Shame on you. Shame on you.’ It is so audacious that you dare condemn the words of Israeli minister who apologized and clarified what he meant, while your president and the rest of (the) Palestinian leadership regularly, regularly incite terrorism, never condemn the murders of Israeli civilians, praise Palestinian terrorists, and actively attempt to rewrite facts and the truth by erasing Jewish history,” he said.
Erdan accused the Palestinians of being “dead set on encouraging more violence” while Israel has taken significant steps to de-escalate the current tensions by sitting down with Palestinian officials in Jordan in February and on Sunday in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
In a joint communique afterward, the two sides had pledged to take steps to lower tensions ahead of the sensitive holiday season — including a partial freeze on Israeli settlement activity and an agreement to work together to “curb and counter violence.”
The Palestinians seek the West Bank and Gaza Strip as an independent state, with east Jerusalem as its capital. Israel captured those territories in the 1967 Mideast war. Since then, more than 700,000 Israelis have moved into dozens of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem — which most of the world considers illegal and an obstacle to peace.
But Netanyahu’s government has put settlement expansion at the top of its agenda and has already advanced thousands of new settlement housing units and retroactively authorized nine wildcat outposts in the West Bank.
The repeal of the 2005 act on the four West Bank settlements came after Sunday’s agreement, and a Palestinian shooting attack that wounded two Israelis in the West Bank underscored the difficulties in implementing the joint communique. The United States, Israel’s closest ally, criticized the repeal, summoning Israel’s US ambassador, and other countries were also critical.
Netanyahu appeared to back down Wednesday, saying his government has no intention of returning to the four abandoned settlements.
Ambassador Erdan echoed him, saying “the state of Israel has no intention of building any new communities there,” but he said the new law “rights a historic wrong” and will allow Israelis to enter areas that are “the birthplace of our heritage.”


Kuwait pledges $90m to support earthquake survivors in Turkiye, Syria

Kuwait pledges $90m to support earthquake survivors in Turkiye, Syria
Updated 23 March 2023

Kuwait pledges $90m to support earthquake survivors in Turkiye, Syria

Kuwait pledges $90m to support earthquake survivors in Turkiye, Syria
  • It is the largest pledge from any country since the disaster in February: Kuwait News Agency
  • Financial aid will support UN in providing food, education, shelter, healthcare to around 18m people

NEW YORK: Kuwait has pledged $90 million to support survivors of the earthquakes that struck Turkiye and Syria in February.

The pledge is the largest made by any country since the disaster, the Kuwait News Agency reported on Wednesday. 

It will assist UN organizations in providing food, education, shelter, healthcare and other necessities to approximately 18 million affected people. 

The UN has appealed for $398 million for an urgent response in Syria and $1 billion for Turkiye. 

So far, 79 percent of the target number for Syria has been met, while 19 percent of the target number for Turkiye has been met. 

Martin Griffiths, UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, expressed concern that the amount of funding is nowhere near the target, but praised Kuwait’s pledge.

 


10 dead in new attack by Houthis in Yemen

10 dead in new attack by Houthis in Yemen
Updated 23 March 2023

10 dead in new attack by Houthis in Yemen

10 dead in new attack by Houthis in Yemen

JEDDAH: At least 10 Yemeni government soldiers were killed on Wednesday in a renewed Houthi militia offensive in the contested central province of Marib.

The new attack shattered a truce that had largely held since last April, and came amid renewed diplomatic efforts to end the eight-year war.

“The Houthis launched an attack on hills overlooking Harib district, south of Marib, and made progress on that front, causing the displacement of dozens of families,” a Yemeni military source said. “At least 10 soldiers were killed, in addition to an unknown number of attackers.”

The fighting comes a month after at least four soldiers were killed in the same district, and dents new optimism after Saudi Arabia and Iran, who back opposing sides in the war, agreed to restore diplomatic ties.
“The Houthis are interested in sending a clear political message that ... the Riyadh-Tehran deal does not mean they will just surrender,” said Maged Al-Madhaji, an analyst at the Sanaa Center for Strategic Studies think tank. “The Houthis lean more toward the option of a military confrontation than current negotiations.”

An exchange of hundreds of prisoners was agreed this week and Hans Grundberg, the UN secretary general’s special envoy for Yemen, has said “intense diplomatic efforts” were underway to reach a peace deal.
An open letter on Wednesday from NGOs in Yemen including included Oxfam and Save the Children urgedthe warring sides to reach a truce and move toward an “inclusive Yemeni peace process.”


 


Five migrants drown, 28 missing off Tunisia

Five migrants drown, 28 missing off Tunisia
Updated 23 March 2023

Five migrants drown, 28 missing off Tunisia

Five migrants drown, 28 missing off Tunisia
  • Romdhane Ben Amor of the Tunisian Forum for social and economic rights said it had sunk “because it was overloaded” with 38 people
  • The boat had set off from the coastal region of Sfax in the direction of the Italian island of Lampedusa

TUNIS: Five migrants from sub-Saharan Africa drowned and another 28 were missing Wednesday after their boat capsized off Tunisia, a rights group said.
“Five migrants’ bodies were recovered and five other migrants were rescued, but 28 are still missing,” said Romdhane Ben Amor of the Tunisian Forum for social and economic rights (FTDES).
He said it had sunk “because it was overloaded” with 38 people, mostly from the Ivory Coast.
The boat had set off from the coastal region of Sfax in the direction of the Italian island of Lampedusa, a popular launchpad for people from people escaping war and persecution across Africa to try to reach safety in Europe.
The sinking is the latest such tragedy on the central Mediterranean, known as the world’s deadliest migration route.
It comes a month after President Kais Saied made an incendiary speech accusing migrants from sub-Saharan Africa of representing a “plot” against Tunisia and causing a wave of crime.
His comments sparked a wave of violence against black migrants, and landlords fearing fines evicted hundreds of people who are now camping in the streets of Tunis.
Migrants, many of whom fear they will face violence if they go home, have called on the United Nations’ refugee agency UNHCR to evacuate them.
Around 21,000 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa are believed to be in the country of 12 million people.


Israel’s policies ‘threaten ties with Arab countries’

Israel’s policies ‘threaten ties with Arab countries’
Updated 22 March 2023

Israel’s policies ‘threaten ties with Arab countries’

Israel’s policies ‘threaten ties with Arab countries’

RAMALLAH: The Israeli government’s extremist policies are threatening diplomatic ties with Arab countries amid efforts to normalize relations, political analysts and observers warn.

On Wednesday, the Jordanian Parliament voted in support of a proposal to expel the Israeli ambassador from Amman in protest at comments by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

Parliamentary Speaker Ahmed Al-Safadi called on the government to take effective measures over Smotrich’s use of a map that allegedly “includes the borders of the kingdom and the occupied Palestinian territories.”

A veteran Arab diplomat, who declined to be named, told Arab News that the extremist Israeli government will not be accepted, even by countries that have normalized relations with Israel, such as the UAE.

This is especially true “when Israeli ministers state there is nothing called the Palestinian people and that Jordan is part of Israel,” the diplomat added.

“If these Israeli government policies continue, those countries will have stronger reactions that may include the withdrawal of their ambassadors from Tel Aviv.”

On Wednesday, media reports suggested that the UAE is considering reducing its diplomatic representation in Israel over Smotrich’s claim that “there is no such thing as the Palestinian people.”
 
The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs is believed to have told its ambassador to Israel, Mohammed Al-Khaja, to avoid meeting any Israeli official.
 
On Tuesday, Bahrain also condemned Smotrich’s statements.

The Bahraini Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that Bahrain rejects “incitement rhetoric and practices that contradict moral and human values, and undermine efforts and international peace.”

Israeli government policy also appears to have angered Israel’s closest ally, the US. In a rare move, the Israeli Ambassador to Washington, Michael Herzog, was summoned to the State Department on Tuesday following the passing of legislation that will allow resettlement in areas of the northern West Bank.

Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman held talks with Herzog, State Department principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said.

The two diplomats also “discussed the importance of all parties refraining from actions or rhetoric that could further inflame tensions leading into Ramadan, Passover and the Easter holidays,” Patel said.

Israeli political analyst Yoni Ben Menachem said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needs Smotrich and Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir as partners in the government coalition and has to respond to their demands.

“They will continue to blackmail him,” Ben Menachem said.

“Arab countries and the US must understand the difficult situation of Netanyahu, who is facing political blackmail,” he added.