Israel to use withheld Palestinian tax income to pay debt to state-run electric company

Israel to use withheld Palestinian tax income to pay debt to state-run electric company
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (File/AP)
Short Url
Updated 12 January 2025
Follow

Israel to use withheld Palestinian tax income to pay debt to state-run electric company

Israel to use withheld Palestinian tax income to pay debt to state-run electric company
  • Israel withheld Palestinian Authority's sums earmarked for administration expenses in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7, 2023

JERUSALEM: Israel plans to use tax revenue it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority to pay the PA’s nearly 2 billion shekel ($544 million) debt to state-run Israel Electric Co. (IEC), the far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday.
Israel collects tax on goods that pass through Israel into the occupied West Bank on behalf of the PA and transfers the revenue to Ramallah under a longstanding arrangement between the two sides.
Since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Smotrich has withheld sums earmarked for administration expenses in the Gaza Strip.
Those frozen funds are held in Norway and, he said at Sunday’s cabinet meeting, would instead be used to pay debt owed to the IEC of 1.9 billion shekels.
“The procedure was implemented after several anti-Israeli actions and included Norway’s unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state,” Smotrich told cabinet ministers.
“The PA’s debt to IEC resulted in high loans and interest rates, as well as damage to IEC’s credit, which were ultimately rolled over to the citizens of Israel.”
The ultranationalist Smotrich has been opposed to sending funds to the PA, which uses the money to pay public sector wages.
Israel also deducts funds equal to the total amount of so-called martyr payments, which the PA pays to families of militants and civilians killed or imprisoned by Israeli authorities.


Iraq’s top court suspends new legislation that activists say undermines women’s rights

Iraq’s top court suspends new legislation that activists say undermines women’s rights
Updated 7 sec ago
Follow

Iraq’s top court suspends new legislation that activists say undermines women’s rights

Iraq’s top court suspends new legislation that activists say undermines women’s rights
  • Women’s rights advocates argue that the changes undermine previous reforms that created a unified family law and established safeguards for women
  • Proponents of the amendments, which were advocated by primarily conservative Shiite lawmakers, defend them as a means to align the law with Islamic principles and reduce Western influence on Iraqi culture

BAGHDAD: Iraq’s top court suspended implementation Tuesday of three controversial bills passed last month by the country’s parliament, including a measure that activists said undermines women’s rights.
A number of members of parliament filed a complaint alleging that the voting process was illegal because all three bills — each supported by different blocs — were voted on last month together rather than each one being voted on separately. The Federal Supreme Court issued an order, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, to suspend their implementation until the case is adjudicated.
The measures include an amendment to the country’s personal status law to give Islamic courts increased authority over family matters, including marriage, divorce and inheritance.
Women’s rights advocates argue that the changes undermine previous reforms that created a unified family law and established safeguards for women. Proponents of the amendments, which were advocated by primarily conservative Shiite lawmakers, defend them as a means to align the law with Islamic principles and reduce Western influence on Iraqi culture.
Earlier versions of the measure were seen as potentially opening the door to child marriage since some interpretations of Islamic law allow the marriage of girls in their early teens — or as young as 9. The final version passed by the parliament states that both parties must be “adults,” without specifying the age of adulthood.
The second bill was for a general amnesty law seen as benefiting Sunni detainees. Some fear it could allow the release of people involved in public corruption and embezzlement as well as militants who committed war crimes.
The third bill aimed to return lands confiscated from the Kurds under the rule of Saddam Hussein. It is opposed by some Arab groups, saying it could lead to the displacement of Arab residents.

 


Netanyahu hails Trump as ‘greatest friend Israel has ever had’

Netanyahu hails Trump as ‘greatest friend Israel has ever had’
Updated 40 min 13 sec ago
Follow

Netanyahu hails Trump as ‘greatest friend Israel has ever had’

Netanyahu hails Trump as ‘greatest friend Israel has ever had’
  • The Palestinian envoy to the United Nations: “Our homeland is our homeland, if part of it is destroyed, the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian people selected the choice to return to it”

WASHINGTON: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed Donald Trump as the “greatest friend Israel has ever had,” following a meeting between the two leaders at the White House.
“I’ve said this before, I’ll say it again: you are the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House,” Netanyahu told reporters after the meeting in Washington. “And that’s why the people of Israel have such enormous respect for you.”
 

 


Leaders ‘should respect’ wishes of Palestinians to stay in Gaza: Palestinian UN envoy

Leaders ‘should respect’ wishes of Palestinians to stay in Gaza: Palestinian UN envoy
Updated 05 February 2025
Follow

Leaders ‘should respect’ wishes of Palestinians to stay in Gaza: Palestinian UN envoy

Leaders ‘should respect’ wishes of Palestinians to stay in Gaza: Palestinian UN envoy
  • For those who want to send them to a happy, nice place, let them go back to their original homes inside Israel, there are nice places there, and they will be happy to return to these places”

UNITED NATIONS, United States: World leaders and people should respect Palestinians’ desire to remain in Gaza, the Palestinian envoy to the United Nations said Tuesday, after US President Donald Trump said he believed people from the territory should be resettled elsewhere “permanently.”
“Our homeland is our homeland, if part of it is destroyed, the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian people selected the choice to return to it,” said Riyad Mansour. “And I think that leaders and people should respect the wishes of the Palestinian people.”
On Tuesday, Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, with the US leader saying he believed Palestinians should leave Gaza after an Israeli offensive that has devastated the territory and left most of it reduced to rubble.
Speaking ahead of the meeting, Trump said he wanted a solution that saw “a beautiful area to resettle people permanently in nice homes where they can be happy.”
At the United Nations, Mansour did not name Trump but appeared to reject the US president’s proposal.
“Our country and our home is” the Gaza Strip, “it’s part of Palestine,” he said. “We have no home. For those who want to send them to a happy, nice place, let them go back to their original homes inside Israel, there are nice places there, and they will be happy to return to these places.”
The war in Gaza erupted after Palestinian armed group Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack, which resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory response has killed at least 47,518 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN considers these figures as reliable.
The UN says more than 1.9 million people — or 90 percent of Gaza’s population — have been displaced by Israel’s offensive, with the bombing campaign having leveled most structures in the territory, including schools, hospitals and basic civil infrastructure.
The start of a ceasefire deal, which included the release of hostages held by Hamas and prisoners held by Israel, on January 19 saw Palestinians rejoice, with many returning to homes that no longer stood.
“In two days, in a span of a few hours, 400,000 Palestinians walking returned to the northern part of the Gaza Strip,” said UN envoy Mansour.
“I think that we should be respecting the selections and the wishes of the Palestinian people, and the Palestinian people at the end will make the determination, their determination.”
 

 


Palestinians will be removed from Gaza and the US will own it: Trump

Palestinians will be removed from Gaza and the US will own it: Trump
Updated 24 min 52 sec ago
Follow

Palestinians will be removed from Gaza and the US will own it: Trump

Palestinians will be removed from Gaza and the US will own it: Trump

WASHINGTON/RIYADH: President Donald Trump said that the US will own the Gaza Strip after the Palestinians that live there are moved to other countries.
Trump made the provocative comments at a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, where the two leaders are expected to discuss the fragile ceasefire and hostage deal in the Israeli-Hamas conflict.
“I don’t think people should be going back,” Trump said. “You can’t live in Gaza right now. I think we need another location. I think it should be a location that’s going to make people happy.”
Trump’s comments came as he and top advisers made the case that a three-to-five-year timeline for reconstruction of the war-torn territory, as laid out in a temporary truce agreement, is not viable.
The president has previously called on Egypt and Jordan to resettle Gazans. Both countries have flatly rejected such proposals.
But Trump said he believes both countries— as well as other countries which he did not name— will ultimately agree to take in Palestinians.
“You look over the decades, it’s all death in Gaza,” Trump said. “This has been happening for years. It’s all death. If we can get a beautiful area to resettle people, permanently, in nice homes where they can be happy and not be shot and not be killed and not be knifed to death like what’s happening in Gaza.”
The White House’s focus on the future of Gaza’s more than 2 million residents comes as the nascent truce between Israel and Hamas hangs in the balance.
Netanyahu is facing competing pressure from his right-wing coalition to end a temporary truce against Hamas militants in Gaza and from war-weary Israelis who want the remaining hostages home and for the 15-month conflict to end.
The leaders said their talks would cover a long-sought Israel-Saudi Arabia normalization deal and shared concerns about Iran’s nuclear program, as well the second phase of the hostage deal.
Trump continues to press for relocating Palestinians from Gaza even after both Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Jordanian King Abdullah II last publicly dismissed the idea.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, the Palestinian Authority and the Arab League also joined Egypt and Jordan in rejecting plans to move Palestinians out of their territories in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Yet Trump may be betting he can persuade Egypt and Jordan to come around to accept displaced Palestinians because of the significant aid that the US provides Cairo and Amman. Hard-line right-wing members of Netanyahu’s government have embraced the call to move displaced Palestinians out of Gaza.
“To me, it is unfair to explain to Palestinians that they might be back in five years,” Trump’s Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff, told reporters. “That’s just preposterous.”
Trump also signaled that he may be reconsidering an independent Palestinian state as part of a broader two-state solution to the decades-long Israel-Palestinian conflict. “Well, a lot of plans change with time,” he told reporters when asked if he was still committed to a plan like the one he laid out in 2020 that called for a Palestinian state.
“A lot of death has occurred since I left and now came back,” Trump said. “Now we are faced with a situation that’s different — in some ways better and in some ways worse. But we are faced with a very complex and difficult situation that we’ll solve.”
Netanyahu’s arrival in Washington for the first foreign leader visit of Trump’s second term comes as the prime minister’s popular support is lagging.
The prime minister is in the middle of weekslong testimony in an ongoing corruption trial that centers on allegations he exchanged favors with media moguls and wealthy associates. He has decried the accusations and said he is the victim of a “witch hunt.”
Being seen with Trump, who is popular in Israel, could help distract the public from the trial and boost Netanyahu’s standing.
“We have the right leader of Israel who’s done a great job,” Trump said of Netanyahu.
Netanyahu also praised Trump’s leadership in sealing the hostage and ceasefire deal, which went into effect the day before Trump took office. “I’ll just tell you, I am happy they are here,” Netanyahu said of Trump and his administration.
It’s Netanyahu’s first travel outside Israel since the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants in November for him, his former defense minister and Hamas’ slain military chief, accusing them of crimes against humanity during the war in Gaza. The US does not recognize the ICC’s authority over its citizens or territory.
Netanyahu met with White House national security adviser Mike Waltz and Witkoff on Monday to begin the daunting work of brokering the next phase of a ceasefire agreement.
Netanyahu said in a statement that the meeting with Witkoff and Waltz was “positive and friendly.”
The Israeli leader said he would send a delegation to Qatar to continue indirect talks with Hamas that are being mediated by the Gulf Arab country, the first confirmation that those negotiations would continue. Netanyahu also said he would convene his security Cabinet to discuss Israel’s demands for the next phase of the ceasefire when he returns to Israel at the end of the week.
Witkoff, meanwhile, said he plans to meet with Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, in Florida on Thursday to discuss the next phase in the ceasefire. Qatar and Egypt have served as key intermediaries with Hamas throughout the conflict.
Netanyahu is under intense pressure from hard-right members of his governing coalition to abandon the ceasefire and resume fighting in Gaza to eliminate Hamas. Bezalel Smotrich, one of Netanyahu’s key partners, vows to topple the government if the war isn’t relaunched, a step that could lead to early elections.
Hamas, which has reasserted control over Gaza since the ceasefire began last month, has said it will not release hostages in the second phase without an end to the war and Israeli forces’ full withdrawal. Netanyahu, meanwhile, maintains that Israel is committed to victory over Hamas and the return of all hostages captured in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack that triggered the war.
Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan is among the hostages, called on Trump to use American leverage to keep Netanyahu committed to the agreement.
Matan, 24, is among those who are expected to be included in the second phase of the deal, when all remaining living hostages — including men under the age of 50 and male soldiers — are to be exchanged for a yet-to-be-determined number of Palestinian prisoners. The second phase is also expected to include the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.
“I want President Trump to know there are certain extreme elements from within Israel who are trying to torpedo his vision,” said Zangauker, who traveled to Washington from Israel to join a planned Tuesday rally outside the White House. “We are representative of the vast, vast majority of Israel. The ultra-extremists are blackmailing the prime minister to do their bidding.”
The prime minister is also expected use the visit to press Trump to take decisive action on Iran. Tehran has faced a series of military setbacks, including Israeli forces significantly degrading Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon as well as an operation that decimated Iran’s air defenses. The moment, Netanyahu believes, has created a window to decisively address Tehran’s nuclear program.
Ahead of his meeting with Netanyahu, Trump signed an executive order that he said would increase economic pressure on Iran.
“We’re not going to allow them to have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said.


Assad-era minister turns himself in to new Syria authorities

Assad-era minister turns himself in to new Syria authorities
Updated 05 February 2025
Follow

Assad-era minister turns himself in to new Syria authorities

Assad-era minister turns himself in to new Syria authorities
  • Mohammed Al-Shaar was an nterior minister from 2011 to 2018 at the height of Syria’s civil war
  • He was the target of EU sanctions for involvement in 'violence against demonstrators'

DAMASCUS: A former minister under ousted Syrian president Bashar Assad has turned himself in, the interior ministry said Tuesday, making him one of the highest-profile figures captured by the new authorities.
“The minister of interior in the government of the defunct regime, Mohammed Al-Shaar, surrendered himself to the General Security Department,” an interior ministry statement said.
Shaar, the target of US and EU sanctions, was interior minister from 2011 to 2018 at the height of Syria’s 13-year civil war.
The security forces of the new authorities, which toppled the Assad government late last year, had been looking for Shaar and “raided sites where he had been hiding in the past few days,” the interior ministry said.
Since 2011, Shaar has been under European Union sanctions for involvement in “violence against demonstrators” who took to the streets that year to demand democracy.
The government’s brutal crackdown on the peaceful protests sparked a complex civil war that has killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions.
Shaar was also among top officials, including Assad, who were slapped with US sanctions in 2011.
In 2012, a Lebanese lawyer filed a lawsuit against Shaar, accusing him of having ordered hundreds of killings in Tripoli in 1986 when he was in charge of security in the northern Lebanon port city.
Also in 2012, Shaar survived two bomb attacks.
In December, he sustained light wounds to the shoulder after a deadly suicide bombing at the ministry, a Syrian security source told AFP at the time.
That attack was claimed by Al-Nusra Front, the jihadist precursor of the Islamist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham group which led the lightning rebel offensive that toppled Assad on December 8.
And in July 2012, Shaar narrowly escaped death in a bombing that killed four senior security officials including the defense minister and Assad’s brother-in-law, Assef Shawkat.
Assad himself has fled to Russia, an ally of his defunct government, and some former officials in his administration are also believed to have left Syria.