Jordan, Saudi Arabia conduct three airdrops in southern Gaza

Jordan, Saudi Arabia conduct three airdrops in southern Gaza
This handout picture released by the Jordanian army shows humanitarian aid being airdropped from a military aircraft over the Gaza Strip on May 30, 2024. (File/AFP)
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Updated 15 July 2024
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Jordan, Saudi Arabia conduct three airdrops in southern Gaza

Jordan, Saudi Arabia conduct three airdrops in southern Gaza
  • One airdrop of food supplies took place in Al-Mawasi, where thousands of displaced Palestinians are sheltering

AMMAN: The Jordanian Armed Forces, in collaboration with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center, conducted three airdrops of humanitarian aid in the southern Gaza Strip on Monday.

The airdrops involved two Royal Jordanian Air Force aircraft and one from Egypt, according to a statement carried by Jordan News Agency.

One airdrop of food supplies took place in Al-Mawasi, in the city of Khan Younis, where thousands of displaced Palestinians are sheltering, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

In a CNN interview earlier this month, Queen Rania explained the reason for the airdrops in an area where the UN has reported a widespread food crisis.

“We found that after trying so hard in vain to persuade Israel to open the land access points, that we had to do something. We couldn’t just sit idle and watch people starving,” she said.

She added the airdrops were desperate measures to address a desperate situation, describing them as “drops in an ocean of unmet needs.”

Queen Rania echoed King Abdullah’s comments that the airdrops were far from sufficient and could not replace the large-scale humanitarian access needed to deal with the issue.

Since October, Jordan has conducted 117 airdrops independently and participated in 266 others with international partners.

The Jordanian army reiterated its commitment to continuing support efforts, including an airbridge from Marka Airport in Amman to El Arish International Airport in North Sinai, which facilitates both airdrops over Gaza and the organization of ground aid convoys.
 


Jordan reopens West Bank crossing after deadly attack

Jordan reopens West Bank crossing after deadly attack
Updated 42 sec ago
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Jordan reopens West Bank crossing after deadly attack

Jordan reopens West Bank crossing after deadly attack
AMMAN: Jordan reopened a border crossing with the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Tuesday, two days after a truck driver shot dead three Israeli guards in a rare attack.
The Jordanian national carried out his attack at the Allenby Crossing on Sunday nearly a year into the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, which has also seen a spike in violence in the West Bank.
Israel’s military shot dead the attacker, saying that he had killed three Israelis working as “security guards” who were not in the army or police.
Jordan’s authorities closed the crossing, also known as the King Hussein Bridge, after the attack.
The shooting was the first such incident in the area since the 1990s.
The crossing, in the Jordan Valley, is the only international gateway for Palestinians from the West Bank that does not require entering Israel, which has occupied the territory since 1967.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a Jordanian security source said Jordan had reopened the crossing to passengers, but that it would remain closed to freight traffic.
The reopening came as Jordan held a parliamentary election Tuesday, with the Israel-Hamas war weighing heavily on voters’ minds.
Analysts predicted a high abstention rate, with Islamist candidates struggling to harness public anger over the devastating war sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel.
Following the attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the assailant as a “despicable terrorist” inspired by “a murderous ideology” which he said was fueled by Israel’s regional arch-foe Iran.
Hamas praised the attack but did not claim responsibility for it, adding it “affirms the Arab peoples’ rejection of the occupation, its crimes, and its ambitions in Palestine and Jordan.”

Israel defense minister says Gaza truce deal a ‘strategic opportunity’

Israel defense minister says Gaza truce deal a ‘strategic opportunity’
Updated 10 September 2024
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Israel defense minister says Gaza truce deal a ‘strategic opportunity’

Israel defense minister says Gaza truce deal a ‘strategic opportunity’
  • Yoav Gallant firmly supports the first stage of a three-phase ceasefire deal announced by US President Joe Biden
  • He also says Hamas’s military capabilities had been severely damaged after more than 11 months of war

TEL AVIV: Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant offered his support for a hostage release agreement in the first phase of a Gaza truce deal, saying it would give Israel a “strategic opportunity” to address other security challenges.
Bringing the hostages home is “the right thing to do,” Gallant told foreign journalists.
“Achieving an agreement is also a strategic opportunity that gives us a high chance to change the security situation on all fronts,” he said.
Israel, which has been at war with Palestinian militants in Gaza since Hamas’s October 7 attack, is also engaged in near-daily clashes with Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement on its northern border with Lebanon.
Urging the international community to keep up the pressure on Hamas to reach an agreement, Gallant said he firmly supported the first stage of a three-phase ceasefire deal announced by US President Joe Biden on May 31, hoping to build on it for an eventual end to the war.
“Israel should achieve an agreement that will bring about a pause for six weeks and bring back hostages,” Gallant told journalists at a sit-down on Monday at his office. His remarks were released for publication on Tuesday.
Gallant also said Hamas’s military capabilities had been severely damaged after more than 11 months of war and that it no longer existed as a military formation in Gaza.
“Hamas as a military formation no longer exists. Hamas is engaged in guerrilla warfare and we are still fighting Hamas terrorists and pursuing Hamas leadership,” he said.
His comments came as mediators the United States, Qatar and Egypt struggle to reach an agreement between Israel and Hamas to end the war in Gaza, which has killed nearly 41,000 people.
The widespread destruction has produced a dire humanitarian situation in the besieged territory, underscored by the recent confirmation of its first polio case in 25 years.


Yemen’s Houthis say they downed a US drone in Saada

Yemen’s Houthis say they downed a US drone in Saada
Updated 10 September 2024
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Yemen’s Houthis say they downed a US drone in Saada

Yemen’s Houthis say they downed a US drone in Saada

DUBAI: Yemen’s Houthis downed a US MQ-9 drone in Saada province, the Iran-aligned group’s military spokesperson Yahya Saree said on Tuesday.


Polls open in Jordan’s parliamentary elections

Polls open in Jordan’s parliamentary elections
Updated 10 September 2024
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Polls open in Jordan’s parliamentary elections

Polls open in Jordan’s parliamentary elections
  • Of Jordan’s 11 million people, 5.1 million are registered voters aged over 18

AMMAN: Polls opened on Tuesday in Jordan’s first parliamentary elections under a new law aimed at diluting the strong impact of tribalism and bolstering political parties, with Islamists expected to gain support due to anger over Israel’s war in Gaza.
The 2022 electoral law is meant to be pave the way for political parties to play a bigger role, but the election is still expected keep the 138-seat parliament in the hands of tribal and pro-government factions.
The new law for the first time directly allocates 41 seats for over 30 licensed and mostly pro-government parties. It also raised the quota for women’s representation to 18 from 15 seats and lowered the age for elected deputies to 25 from 30.
Of Jordan’s 11 million people, 5.1 million are registered voters aged over 18. There are 1,623 candidates, including 353 women, competing for seats over 18 districts
Jordan retains a voting system that favors sparsely-populated tribal and provincial regions over the densely-populated cities mostly inhabited by Jordanians of Palestinian descent, which are Islamic strongholds and highly politicized.
Officials say powerful King Abdullah’s decision to go ahead with the polls was a message that politics is continuing as normal despite the Gaza war that has cast its shadow over Jordan’s economic and political outlook.
In a country where anti-Israel sentiment runs high, the Gaza war is expected to help the electoral fortunes of the Islamists, the country’s largest opposition, who have led some of the region’s biggest rallies backing the militant Palestinian Hamas group, their ideological allies.


Gaza agency says Israeli strike kills 40 in humanitarian zone

Gaza agency says Israeli strike kills 40 in humanitarian zone
Updated 10 September 2024
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Gaza agency says Israeli strike kills 40 in humanitarian zone

Gaza agency says Israeli strike kills 40 in humanitarian zone
  • Hamas denies fighters present at site of Israeli strike in Al-Mawasi
  • Palestinian officials say Israel has killed at least 40,988 since Oct. 7

CAIRO: Gaza’s civil defense agency said Tuesday that an Israeli strike on a humanitarian zone in the south of the Palestinian territory killed 40 people and wounded 60 others, with the Israeli army saying it had targeted a Hamas command center in the area.

The strike hit Al-Mawasi — in Gaza’s main southern city of Khan Yunis — which was designated a safe zone by the Israeli military early in the war, with tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians seeking refuge there.

However, Israel’s military has occasionally carried out operations in and around the area, including a strike in July that it said killed Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, and which Gaza health authorities said killed more than 90 people.

Gaza civil defense official Mohammed Al-Mughair told AFP early Tuesday that “40 martyrs and 60 injured were recovered and transferred” to nearby hospitals following the overnight strike.

“Our crews are still working to recover 15 missing people as a result of targeting the tents of the displaced in Mawasi, Khan Yunis,” Mughair added.

In a separate statement, civil defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal said that people sheltering in the camp had not been warned of the strike, adding a shortage of tools and equipment was hindering rescue operations.

“More than 20 to 40 tents were completely damaged,” he said, adding the strike left behind “three deep craters.”

“There are entire families who disappeared under the sand in the Mawasi Khan Yunis massacre.”

The Israeli military said in a statement early Tuesday that its aircraft had “struck significant Hamas terrorists who were operating within a command and control center embedded inside the Humanitarian Area in Khan Yunis.”

“The terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip continue to systematically abuse civilian and humanitarian infrastructure, including the designated Humanitarian Area, to carry out terrorist activity against the State of Israel and IDF troops,” it added.

Hamas said in a statement on Tuesday that claims its fighters were present at the scene of the strike were “a blatant lie.”

Over the course of the war, Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields, an accusation the group denies.

Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, including some hostages killed in captivity, official Israeli figures show.

Militants seized 251 hostages during the attack, 97 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive in the Gaza Strip has so far killed at least 40,988 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

The UN human rights office says most of the dead are women and children.

The vast majority of Gaza’s 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once during nearly a year of war, according to the United Nations.

From 1,200 inhabitants per square kilometer before the war, the Al-Mawasi humanitarian zone now houses “between 30,000 and 34,000 people per square kilometer,” and its protected area shrank from 50 square kilometers to 41, the UN has calculated.

The United States, Qatar and Egypt have been mediating in efforts to forge a ceasefire and hostage-prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hamas, but talks remain stalled.

Hamas is demanding a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza as part of any deal, but Israel insists troops must remain along the Gaza-Egypt border.