Arab leaders promise to work on reconstruction of Gaza, press for ceasefire
UN chief calls for permanent and immediate Gaza ceasefire
Iraq pledges $40 mn for Gaza, Lebanon reconstruction
Egypt's Sisi urges Trump to apply pressure for Gaza ceasefire
Updated 17 May 2025
AFP
BAGHDAD: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Saturday called for increased pressure “to halt the massacre in Gaza,” speaking at an Arab League summit hours after Israel announced an intensified operation in the besieged Palestinian territory.
UN chief Antonio Guterres told the Baghdad meeting that “we need a permanent ceasefire, now,” while Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi urged his US counterpart Donald Trump to “apply all necessary efforts... for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.”
The summit comes straight after a Gulf tour by Trump, who sparked uproar earlier this year by declaring that the United States could take over Gaza and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
The scheme that included the proposed displacement of Palestinians prompted Arab leaders to come up with an alternative plan to rebuild the territory at a March summit in Cairo.
Guterres said that “we reject the repeated displacement of the Gaza population, along with any question of forced displacement outside of Gaza.”
The UN secretary-general also said he was “alarmed by reported plans by Israel to expand ground operations and more.”
The Israeli military said it had launched “extensive strikes” on Saturday as part of the “initial stages” of a fresh offensive, more than 19 months into the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack.
Sanchez, who has sharply criticized the Israeli offensive, said world leaders should “intensify our pressure on Israel to halt the massacre in Gaza, particularly through the channels afforded to us by international law.”
He said his government planned a UN resolution demanding an International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s war methods.
The “unacceptable number” of war victims in Gaza violates the “principle of humanity,” he said.
Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani told the summit that his country backs the creation of an “Arab fund to support reconstruction efforts” after crises in the region.
He pledged $20 million to the reconstruction of Gaza and a similar amount for Lebanon.
Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said the Baghdad meeting would endorse previous Arab League decisions on Gaza’s reconstruction countering Trump’s widely condemned proposal.
During his visit to the region this week, Trump reiterated that he wanted the United States to “take” Gaza and turn it into a “freedom zone.”
Iraq pledges $40 mn for Gaza, Lebanon reconstruction
Iraq has only recently regained a semblance of normality after decades of devastating conflict and turmoil, and its leaders view the summit as an opportunity to project an image of stability.
Baghdad last hosted an Arab League summit in 2012, during the early stages of the civil war in neighboring Syria, which in December entered a new chapter with the overthrow of longtime ruler Bashar Assad
In Riyadh, Trump met Syria’s interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, a onetime jihadist whose Islamist group spearheaded the offensive that toppled Assad.
Sharaa, who was imprisoned in Iraq for years after the US-led invasion of 2003 on charges of belonging to Al-Qaeda, missed the Baghdad summit after several powerful Iraqi politicians voiced opposition to his visit.
Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani represented Damascus instead.
The summit also comes amid Iran’s ongoing nuclear talks with the United States.
Trump has pursued diplomacy with Iran as he seeks to avert threatened military action by Israel — a desire shared by many of the region’s leaders.
On Thursday, Trump said a deal was “getting close,” but by Friday, he warned that “something bad is going to happen” if the Iranians do not move fast.
Tunisia hands lengthy prison terms to top politicians and former security officials
A total of 21 were charged in the case, with 10 already in custody and 11 having fled the country
Updated 09 July 2025
Reuters
TUNIS: A Tunisian court on Tuesday handed jail terms of 12 to 35 years on high-profile politicians, including opposition leader Rached Ghannouchi and former security officials, a move that critics say underscores the president’s use of the judiciary to cement authoritarian rule.
Among those sentenced on charges of conspiring against the state in the major mass trial, were Nadia Akacha, the former chief of staff to President Kais Saied, local radio Mosaique FM said. Akacha who fled abroad received 35 years.
Ghannouchi, 84, veteran head of the Islamist-leaning Ennahda party, was handed a 14-year term.
Ghannouchi who was the speaker of the elected parliament dissolved by Saied, has been in prison since 2023, receiving three sentences of a total of 27 years in separate cases in recent months.
A total of 21 were charged in the case, with 10 already in custody and 11 having fled the country.
The court sentenced former intelligence chief Kamel Guizani to 35 years, former Foreign Minister Rafik Abdessalem to 35 years, and Mouadh Ghannouchi, son of Rached Ghannouchi, to 35 years. All three have fled the country.
Saied dissolved the parliament in 2021 and began ruling by decree, then dissolved the independent Supreme Judicial Council and sacked dozens of judges, a move that opposition called a coup which undermined the nascent democracy that sparked in 2011 the Arab Spring uprisings.
Saied rejects the accusations and says his steps are legal and aim to end years of chaos and corruption hidden within the political elite.
Most opposition leaders, some journalists, and critics of Saied have been imprisoned since he seized control of most powers in 2021.
This year, a court handed jail terms of 5 to 66 years to opposition leaders, businessmen and lawyers on charges of conspiring as well, a case the opposition says is fabricated in an attempt to stamp out opposition to the president.
Human rights groups and activists say Saied has turned Tunisia into an open-air prison and is using the judiciary and police to target his political opponents.
Saied rejects these accusations, saying he will not be a dictator.
‘Hostage,’ Eli Sharabi’s memoir about life in Hamas captivity, is coming to the US
Sharabi reveals how his faith gave him the resilience to endure the horrific conditions and overcome mental anguish
Updated 09 July 2025
AP
NEW YORK: A memoir by an Israeli man held in captivity for more than a year by Hamas is coming out this fall in the US Eli Sharabi’s “Hostage,” written in Hebrew and already a bestseller in Israel, is the first published memoir by anyone kidnapped by Hamas during the deadly surprise attack of Oct. 7, 2023. Harper Influence, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, announced Tuesday that the English-language edition of his book will come out this Oct. 7, the 2-year anniversary.
Sharabi, 53, was released in early February and has said that he had shrunk to under 100 pounds — less than the weight of his youngest daughter, who was killed along with his wife and older daughter. More than 1,000 were killed in the attack and more than 200 taken hostage.
“It was important to me that the story come out as quickly as possible, so that the world will understand what life is like inside captivity,” Sharabi said in a statement. “Once they do, they will not be able to remain indifferent. But I also want readers to know that even in the darkest of times, you can always seek out the light and choose humanity.”
According to Harper Influence, Sharabi writes about his experience with his captors in “stark, unflinching prose, detailing the relationships the hostages formed with one another, including Alon Ohel, still a hostage in Gaza, with whom Sharabi formed an unbreakable father-son bond.”
“Along the way, Sharabi reveals how his faith gave him the resilience to endure the horrific conditions and overcome mental anguish,” the announcement reads in part.
Palestinian teen dies from head injury after Israeli forces opened fire
Ahmed Al-Awiwi, 19, from Hebron, was shot in the head by Israeli soldiers about six months ago
He underwent brain surgery, but his health worsened, leading to his death on Tuesday evening
Updated 08 July 2025
Arab News
LONDON: A Palestinian teen died of his wounds six months after being shot when Israeli forces opened fire in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, the Palestinian Ministry of Health announced on Tuesday.
Ahmed Al-Awiwi, a 19-year-old from the city, was shot in the head by Israeli forces during confrontations in Bab Al-Zawiya, which erupted after settlers stormed the area.
Al-Awiwi was admitted to Al-Ahli Hospital a week ago to undergo brain surgery. Subsequently, his health worsened, leading to his death on Tuesday evening, the ministry added.
This week, Israeli forces killed two Palestinians in the West Bank. Wissam Ghassan Hasan Ishtiya, 37, was shot on Sunday by Israeli forces in Salem, a village east of Nablus, after they stormed the area and surrounded two houses, firing live ammunition. Qusay Nasser Mahmoud Nassar, 23, also from Salem, was killed by Israeli fire.
Since late 2023, over 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, and 7,000 injured. Israeli forces conduct daily raids on villages and towns in the Palestinian territories, where they have maintained a military occupation since June 1967.
Massacres at aid distributions overwhelm Gaza health system
All Red Cross staff now contributing to emergency response effort in besieged territory
Updated 08 July 2025
AFP
GAZA CITY: The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Tuesday that a “sharp surge” in deaths and injuries in incidents around aid distribution sites in Gaza is pushing the territory’s already stretched health system past its capacity.
The ICRC said in a statement that its field hospital in south Gaza recorded 200 deaths since the new aid distribution sites were launched in late May.
The facility also treated more than 2,200 “weapon-wounded patients, most of them across more than 21 separate mass casualty events,” it added.
“Over the past month, a sharp surge in mass casualty incidents linked to aid distribution sites has overwhelmed Gaza’s shattered health care system,” the ICRC said.
“The scale and frequency of these incidents are without precedent,” it said, adding that its field hospital had treated more patients since late May than “in all mass casualty events during the entire previous year.”
To cope with the flow of wounded, ICRC said that all its staff were now contributing to the emergency response effort.
“Physiotherapists support nurses, cleaning and dressing wounds and taking vitals. Cleaners now serve as orderlies, carrying stretchers wherever they are needed. Midwives have stepped into palliative care,” it added.
An officially private effort, the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation began operations on May 26 after Israel halted supplies into the Gaza Strip for more than two months, sparking warnings of imminent famine. GHF operations have been marred by chaotic scenes and near-daily reports of Israeli forces firing on people waiting to collect rations.
More than 500 people have been killed while waiting to access rations from its distribution sites, the UN Human Rights Office said on Friday.
The GHF has denied that fatal shootings have occurred in the immediate vicinity of its aid points.
Gaza’s health system has been at a point of near collapse for months, with nearly all hospitals and health facilities either out of service or only partly functional.
Israel’s drastic restrictions on the entry of goods and aid into Gaza since the start of the war 21 months ago has caused shortages of everything, including medicine, medical supplies, and fuel, which hospitals rely on to power their generators.
Why Israeli settler violence against Palestinians is surging in the West Bank
Settler violence has increased, with more than 820 incidents recorded in the first half of 2025 — a 20 percent rise from last year
Human rights groups accuse Israel of using attacks as an informal tool for land appropriation, with official support and military backing
Updated 08 July 2025
Jonathan Gornall
LONDON: It began with an incident of the type that has become all too familiar in the West Bank, and yet has lately been overlooked by global media coverage distracted by the wars in Gaza and Iran.
On June 25, a force of about 100 of Israeli settlers, many of them masked, descended on the Palestinian West Bank town of Kafr Malik, 17 kilometers northeast of Ramallah.
It wasn’t the first time the town had been attacked, but this time was different.
Emboldened by right-wing ministers in Israel’s coalition government, settlers across the West Bank have become increasingly aggressive toward their Arab neighbors.
Kafr Malik, which sits close to an illegal settlement established in 2019, has been attacked again and again. But this time, the consequences went beyond harassment, beatings, and the destruction of property.
Accounts of what happened vary, but the basic facts are clear. In what The Times of Israel described as “a settler rampage,” the attackers threw stones at residents and set fire to homes and cars.
Settlers had taken over vast areas in the West Bank. (AFP)
Men from the town formed a cordon to protect their families. In the words of a statement issued by the Israeli army, which until this point had not intervened, “at the scene, friction erupted between Israeli civilians and Palestinians, including mutual stone-throwing.”
The Israel Defense Forces then opened fire on the Palestinians, killing three men and wounding seven more, adding to a toll of more than 900 Palestinians killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since Oct. 7, 2023.
Five of the settlers were detained and handed over to the police. No charges have been forthcoming.
Daylight attacks like these have become increasingly commonplace in the West Bank, and routinely go unnoticed by the international community.
Attention was drawn to this one in part thanks to Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry, which issued a statement denouncing “the continued violence perpetrated by Israeli settlers, under the protection of the occupation forces, against Palestinian civilians, including the attacks in the village of Kafr Malik.”
A statement released by Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din, which monitors settler violence in the West Bank, also condemned the latest violence.
“Under the auspices of (the) government and (with) military backing, settler violence in the West Bank continues and becomes more deadly by the day,” it said.
“This is what ethnic cleansing looks like.”
In the wake of the attack on Kafr Malik, Hussein Al-Sheikh, deputy to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, also laid the blame for settler violence on the Israeli government.
“The government of Israel, with its behavior and decisions, is pushing the region to explode,” he posted on X. “We call on the international community to intervene urgently to protect our Palestinian people.”
The “sad truth,” said Ameneh Mehvar, senior Middle East analyst at the independent conflict data organization ACLED, “is that this feels like deja vu, the same story repeating again and again.
“Although it’s not a new story, what is new is that settler violence is now increasing, with settlers becoming increasingly emboldened by the support that they’re receiving from the government.
“There is a culture of impunity. They don’t fear arrest, they don’t fear prosecution, and they don’t fear convictions. In the few cases when settlers are charged with an offense, less than three percent end in conviction.”
In November, Israel’s new defense minister, Israel Katz, announced that settlers would no longer be subject to military “administrative detention orders,” under which suspects can be held indefinitely without trial.
The orders remain in force for Palestinians, of whom, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society, more than 1,000 remain detained, without charge or trial.
Daylight attacks have become increasingly commonplace in the West Bank, and routinely go unnoticed by the international community. (AFP)
On July 3, figures released by the UN children’s fund, UNICEF, revealed that between Oct. 7, 2023, and June 30 this year, at least 915 Palestinians, including 213 children, have been killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
More than 9,500, including 1,631 children, have been injured.
Reflecting the recent Israeli military activity in the area, 77 percent of child killings in 2025 have been in the northern governorates of the West Bank, with the highest number of fatalities — 35 percent of the total — in Jenin.
According to figures compiled by ACLED, among the dead are 26 Palestinians killed in West Bank incidents involving settlers or soldiers escorting or protecting settlers.
Settlers have killed around a dozen people, while five more have died at the hands of “settlement emergency squads” — civilians armed by the Israeli government in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on southern Israel.
Seven were killed by the IDF, which intervened after arriving at scenes of violence initiated by settlers — exactly what happened at Kafr Malik.
that this year is on track to become one of the most violent years for settler violence since ACLED began its coverage in Palestine in 2016,” said Mehvar.
FASTFACTS
• Hamas on Friday said it was ready to start talks “immediately” on a proposal for a ceasefire in the war-torn Gaza Strip.
• Hamas ally Islamic Jihad said it supported ceasefire talks, but demanded “guarantees” that Israel “will not resume its aggression” once hostages held in Gaza were freed.
In addition, ACLED recorded more than 820 violent incidents involving settlers in the first six months of 2025 alone — a more than 20 percent increase compared to the same period last year.
“This means
Demonstrating just how emboldened settlers have become, many have clashed with units of the IDF in a series of incidents that began with the attack on Kafr Malik.
The settlers, who had been trying to establish an illegal outpost on Palestinian land near the village, turned on the soldiers, accusing the commander of being “a traitor.”
According to the IDF, they beat, choked, and hurled rocks at the troops, and slashed the tyres of a police vehicle.
Later that same evening, an army patrol vehicle in the vicinity was ambushed and stoned. The soldiers, who at first didn’t realize that their attackers were fellow Israelis, fired warning shots, one of which wounded a teenager, prompting further settler violence.
According to IDF reports, gangs of settlers tried to break into a military base in the central West Bank, throwing rocks and spraying pepper spray at troops, while in the Ramallah area an IDF security installation was torched.
These events have come as a shock to Israeli public opinion. In an editorial published on July 1, The Jerusalem Post condemned “the growing cancer of lawbreakers in (the) West Bank,” which “must be cut out, before it’s too late.”
Settler violence has increased with more than 820 incidents recorded in the first half of 2025 — a 20 percent rise from last year. (AFP)
It added that the “aggression by certain Jewish residents of Samaria (the Jewish name for the central region of the West Bank) against Palestinians” had been “overlooked during the past 20 months amid the hyperfocus on the Israel-Hamas war and the plight of hostages and then the lightning war with Iran,” but “it can’t be ignored — or swept under the rug — any longer.
“These fringe elements within the Jewish population … are not just terrorizing Palestinians — itself an affront — but they have no qualms about directing their violence against their fellow Israelis serving in the IDF.”
But singling out the extremist settlers for condemnation overlooks the reality that they have been encouraged and emboldened by the actions of ministers within the Israeli government, said Mehvar.
On May 29, defense minister Katz and finance minister Bezalel Smotrich authorized the construction of 22 new settlements and “outposts” in the West Bank.
They made no secret of the motive. The new settlements “are all placed within a long-term strategic vision,” they said in a statement.
The goal was “to strengthen the Israeli hold on the territory, to avoid the establishment of a Palestinian state, and to create the basis for future development of settlement in the coming decades.”
It was telling that the new settlements will include Homesh and Sa-Nur, two former settlements that were evacuated in 2005 along with all Israeli settlements in Gaza. Last year, the Knesset repealed a law that prevented settlers returning to the areas.
“The reality is that there have been so many incidents of violence, either by the army or by settlers, for a long time,” said Yair Dvir, spokesperson for Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories.
“There is a state of permanent violence in the West Bank, which is happening all the time, and it’s part of the strategy of the apartheid regime of Israel, which seeks to take more and more land in the West Bank,” he told Arab News.
He accused the government of pursuing a policy of ethnic cleansing against the whole of Palestine. “And of course, it has used the war in Gaza to do the same also in the West Bank,” he added.
Keeping up with the unchecked proliferation of illegal outposts and settlements in the West Bank is extremely difficult because of the sheer pace and number of developments.
In November 2021, B’Tselem published a report revealing there were 280 settlements, of which 138 had been officially established by the state. In addition there were 150 outposts, often referred to as “farms,” not officially recognized by the state but allowed to operate freely.
Settlers had taken over vast areas in the West Bank, to which Palestinians had little or no access, B’Tselem reported in “State Business: Israel’s misappropriation of land in the West Bank through settler violence.”
“This is what ethnic cleansing looks like.” (AFP)
Some land had been “officially” seized by the state through military orders declaring an area “state land,” a “firing zone,” or a “nature reserve.” Other areas had been taken over by settlers “through daily acts of violence, including attacks on Palestinians and their property.”
The two methods of land seizure are often directly linked. “Settler violence against Palestinians serves as a major informal tool at the hands of the state to take over more and more West Bank land,” said the report.
“The state fully supports and assists these acts of violence, and its agents sometimes participate in them directly. As such, settler violence is a form of government policy, aided and abetted by official state authorities with their active participation.”
The report concluded that, in 2021, settlements in the West Bank were home to more than 44,000 settlers. But today, said Dvir, the figure is closer to 700,000.
“There has been a huge increase in the establishment of new outposts all over the West Bank in the past couple of years, even though all the settlements and outposts are illegal under international law,” he said.
“According to Israeli law, only the outposts are illegal, but they still get funding and infrastructure and, of course, are defended by the Israeli authorities.”
Mehvar fears the growth in officially sanctioned settlements is bound to see settler violence increase.
A surge in settler violence, backed by Israeli policy, is fueling clashes and land seizures across the West Bank. (AFP)
“There have always been attacks, but they were usually carried out at night, by a few individual criminals,” she said.
“But more and more we are seeing attacks in broad daylight, often in the presence of Israeli security forces, coordinated by settlers said to be communicating and organizing on WhatsApp groups.
“If more settlements are built, deep inside Palestine, not only will it make any hope of a Palestinian state almost impossible, but with so many settlers living in close proximity to Palestinian communities it will also make violence a lot more likely.”
