Palestinian leader Abbas lays ground for succession

Palestinian leader Abbas lays ground for succession
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas speaks during a conference in Cairo, Egypt. (AP/File)
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Updated 28 November 2024
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Palestinian leader Abbas lays ground for succession

Palestinian leader Abbas lays ground for succession
  • Abbas, 89, still rules despite his term as head of the Palestinian Authority ending in 2009, and has resisted pressure to appoint a successor or a vice president
  • He said the Palestinian National Council chairman, Rawhi Fattuh, would be his temporary replacement should the position should become vacant

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Wednesday announced who would replace him in an interim period when the post becomes vacant, effectively removing Hamas from any involvement in a future transition.
Abbas, 89, still rules despite his term as head of the Palestinian Authority ending in 2009, and has resisted pressure to appoint a successor or a vice president.
Under current Palestinian law, the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) takes over the Palestinian Authority in the event of a power vacuum.
But the PLC, where Hamas had a majority, no longer exists since Abbas officially dissolved it in 2018 after more than a decade of tensions between his secular party, Fatah, and Hamas, which ousted the Palestinian Authority from power in the Gaza Strip in 2007.
In a decree, Abbas said the Palestinian National Council chairman, Rawhi Fattuh, would be his temporary replacement should the position should become vacant.
“If the position of the president of the national authority becomes vacant in the absence of the legislative council, the Palestinian National Council president shall assume the duties... temporarily,” it said.
The decree added that following the transition period, elections must be held within 90 days. This deadline can be extended in the event of a “force majeure,” it said.
The PNC is the parliament of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which has over 700 members from the Palestinian territories and abroad.
Hamas, which does not belong to the PLO, has no representation on the council. The PNC deputies are not elected, but appointed.
The decree refers to the “delicate stage in the history of the homeland and the Palestinian cause” as war rages in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, after the latter’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel in October last year.
There are also persistent divisions between Hamas and Fatah.
The decree comes on the same day that a ceasefire entered into force in Lebanon after an agreement between Israel and Hamas’s ally, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
The Palestinian Authority appears weaker than ever, unable to pay its civil servants and threatened by Israeli far-right ministers’ calls to annex all or part of the occupied West Bank, an ambition increasingly less hidden by the government of Benjamin Netanyahu.


North Gaza hospital director says Israeli strikes hit facility

North Gaza hospital director says Israeli strikes hit facility
Updated 6 sec ago
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North Gaza hospital director says Israeli strikes hit facility

North Gaza hospital director says Israeli strikes hit facility
  • Kamal Adwan hospital is one of the last functioning health centers in the area
  • Four staff were killed and no surgeons were left at the site
BEIT LAHIA, Palestinian Territories: The director of north Gaza’s Kamal Adwan hospital said Israel conducted several strikes on Friday that hit the facility, one of the last functioning health centers in the area.
“There was a series of air strikes on the northern and western sides of the hospital, accompanied by intense and direct fire,” Hossam Abu Safieh said, adding that four staff were killed and no surgeons were left at the site.

UN says Syria fighting has displaced 280,000 so far

UN says Syria fighting has displaced 280,000 so far
Updated 4 min 22 sec ago
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UN says Syria fighting has displaced 280,000 so far

UN says Syria fighting has displaced 280,000 so far
  • UN’s Samer AbdelJaber: ‘The figure we have in front of us is 280,000 people since November 27’
  • ‘That does not include the figure of people who fled from Lebanon during the recent escalations’

GENEVA: The escalation in fighting in Syria has displaced around 280,000 people in just over a week, the United Nations said on Friday, warning that numbers could swell to 1.5 million.
“The figure we have in front of us is 280,000 people since November 27,” Samer AbdelJaber, head of emergency coordination at the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), told reporters in Geneva.
“That does not include the figure of people who fled from Lebanon during the recent escalations” in fighting there, he added.
The mass displacement has happened since militants led by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) launched their lightning offensive a little more than a week ago.
That occurred just as a tenuous ceasefire in neighboring Lebanon took hold between Israel and Syrian President Bashar Assad’s ally Hezbollah, following two months of full-blown war that drove hundreds of thousands to flee into Syria.
WFP warned that the fresh mass-displacement inside Syria, more than 13 years after the country’s civil war erupted, was “adding to years of suffering.”
AbdelJaber said the WFP and other humanitarian agencies were “trying to reach the communities wherever their needs are,” and that they were working “to secure safe routes so that we can be able to move the aid and the assistance to the communities that are in need.”
He also stressed the urgent need for more funding to ensure humanitarians are “ready for any scenario basically in terms of displacements that could evolve in the coming days or months.”
AbdelJaber cautioned that “if the situation continues evolving (at the current) pace, we’re expecting collectively around 1.5 million people that will be displaced and will be requiring our support.”


Thousands flee as Syrian militants push on toward Homs

Thousands flee as Syrian militants push on toward Homs
Updated 06 December 2024
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Thousands flee as Syrian militants push on toward Homs

Thousands flee as Syrian militants push on toward Homs
  • Insurgents have already captured the key cities of Aleppo in the north and Hama in the center
  • Militants led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham have pledged to press on southward to Homs

BEIRUT: Thousands of people fled the central Syrian city of Homs overnight and into Friday morning, a war monitoring group and residents said, as militant forces sought to push their lightning offensive against government forces further south.
They have already captured the key cities of Aleppo in the north and Hama in the center, dealing successive blows to President Bashar Assad, nearly 14 years after protests against him erupted across Syria.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, said thousands of people had begun fleeing on Thursday night toward western coastal regions, a stronghold of the government.
A resident of the coastal area said thousands of people had begun arriving there from Homs, fearing the militants’ rapid advance.
On Friday morning, Israeli air strikes hit two border crossings between Lebanon and Syria, Lebanese transport minister Ali Hamieh said.
The Syrian state news agency (SANA) said the Arida border crossing with Lebanon was out of service due to the attack.
The Israeli military said it had attacked weapons transfer hubs and infrastructure overnight on the Syrian side of the Lebanese border, saying these routes had been used by the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah to smuggle weapons.
Russian bombing overnight also destroyed the Rustan bridge along the key M5 highway, the main route to Homs, to prevent militants using it, a Syrian army officer told Reuters.
“There were at least eight strikes on the bridge,” he added. Government forces were bringing reinforcements to positions around the city, he said.
Militants led by the Islamist faction Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham have pledged to press on southward to Homs, a crossroads city that links the capital Damascus to the north and Assad’s heartland along the coast.
A militant operations room urged Homs residents in an online post to rise up, saying: “Your time has come.”


Israeli strikes hit two Syria border crossings with Lebanon

Israeli strikes hit two Syria border crossings with Lebanon
Updated 06 December 2024
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Israeli strikes hit two Syria border crossings with Lebanon

Israeli strikes hit two Syria border crossings with Lebanon
  • Strikes hit the Arida crossing in northern Lebanon and the Jousieh crossing which links to eastern Lebanon

BEIRUT: Israeli strikes early on Friday hit two border crossings linking Lebanon with Syria, Lebanon’s transport minister Ali Hamieh said.
The strikes hit just across the border on the Syrian side of both the Arida crossing in northern Lebanon and the Jousieh crossing which links to eastern Lebanon, Hamieh said.
Both crossings are important access points to Syria’s Homs province, where anti-government rebels are seeking to advance against government forces after sweeping through northern Syria.


Iran says it conducted a successful space launch in program long criticized by West

Iran says it conducted a successful space launch in program long criticized by West
Updated 06 December 2024
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Iran says it conducted a successful space launch in program long criticized by West

Iran says it conducted a successful space launch in program long criticized by West
  • Iran conducted the launch using its Simorgh program, a satellite-carrying rocket that had seen a series of failed launches

MANAMA, Bahrain: Iran said Friday it conducted a successful space launch, the latest for its program the West alleges improves Tehran’s ballistic missile program.
Iran conducted the launch using its Simorgh program, a satellite-carrying rocket that had seen a series of failed launches. The launch took place at Iran’s Imam Khomeini Spaceport in rural Semnan province.
There was no immediate independent confirmation the launch was successful.
The announcement comes as heightened tensions grip the wider Middle East over Israel’s continued war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip and as an uneasy ceasefire holds in Lebanon.