WASHINGTON: The United States on Wednesday rebuked Israel for demolishing the home of a Palestinian activist in east Jerusalem, saying its ally was damaging its own standing.
The unusually forceful US condemnation of Israeli actions came hours after Fakhri Abu Diab, a campaigner against demolitions, said that dozens of Israeli personnel tore down his home of 38 years near the Old City.
“Ten of us were living here — my wife, my three children and five members of the extended family. Now we’re literally on the street, asking neighbors and passers-by to help us,” Abu Diab told AFP in Jerusalem.
“We have become homeless,” he said.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the United States condemned the demolition and would encourage Israel not to target other homes.
“He has been an outspoken community leader including against demolition and now his family has been displaced,” Miller said of Abu Diab.
“These acts obstruct efforts to advance a durable and lasting peace and security that would benefit not just Palestinians, but Israelis,” he told reporters.
“They damage Israel’s standing in the world, and they make it ultimately more difficult for us to accomplish all of the things we are trying to accomplish that would ultimately be in the interests of the Israeli people,” he said.
He noted that part of the building dates before 1967, when Israel captured east Jerusalem — home of sites holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians — in the Six-Day War. Israel later annexed east Jerusalem, a move not recognized by most of the international community.
Abu Diab responded to the US condemnation: “I thank them, but they should have put pressure beforehand on the Israelis to prevent the demolition of my house.”
“It was an act of revenge, part of the campaign by the Israelis against the Palestinians of Jerusalem that has only grown since October 7,” he said.
On October 7, Hamas militants infiltrated Israel from the besieged Gaza Strip and killed around 1,160 people, mostly civilians, and took an estimated 250 people hostage, in the deadliest-ever attack in the country.
Around 130 of the hostages are believed to remain in Gaza.
Israel has responded with a relentless military campaign in the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 28,500 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory.
The United States, while backing Israel’s right to respond, has voiced alarm over civilian casualties in Gaza Strip and criticized Israeli settlers’ violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
Campaigners charge that Israel turns to demolishing homes as collective punishment or to enforce legal rulings favoring Israelis.
US rebukes Israel for demolishing activist home in Jerusalem
https://arab.news/5ympr
US rebukes Israel for demolishing activist home in Jerusalem
- Abu Diab responded to the US condemnation: “I thank them, but they should have put pressure beforehand on the Israelis to prevent the demolition of my house”
Israel’s West Bank land registration is a tool for annexation, NGO says
RAMALLAH: An Israeli rights group has denounced a government decision to launch extensive land registration for parts of the occupied West Bank, saying it could help advance annexation of the Palestinian territory.
“It is a tool for annexation,” said Yonatan Mizrachi of the Settlement Watch project at Israeli nongovernmental organization Peace Now.
The West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, has no comprehensive land registry, with some areas unregistered or residents holding deeds from before the Israeli occupation.
The Israeli security Cabinet on Sunday decided to initiate a land registration process in the West Bank’s Area C, which covers more than 60 percent of the territory and is under full Israeli control.
Though the process would likely take “years” according to Mizrachi, he said that Palestinians in Area C could lose land if Israeli authorities do not accept their claim to it.
This might lead to “a massive land theft,” Peace Now said, adding that the process could result “in the transfer of ownership of the vast majority of Area C to the (Israeli) state.”
“The Palestinians will have no practical way to realize their ownership rights,” the anti-settlement group said.
Some Israeli ministers have advocated the annexation of the West Bank, home to around 3 million Palestinians as well as some 500,000 Israelis living in settlements that are illegal under international law.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right politician who lives in a settlement, has said that 2025 would be the year Israel extends its sovereignty over parts of the West Bank.
To Mizrachi, the government’s decision was primarily “about ... the places where they want to expand settlements,” including in areas considered state land.
He mentioned remarks by Defense Minister Israel Katz, who praised the move in the official statement announcing it.
Katz said that launching land registration “is a revolutionary decision that brings justice to Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria,” the biblical name that the Israeli government uses to refer to the West Bank.
The process will lead to the “strengthening, establishment and expansion” of settlements, Katz was quoted as saying.
He also said it would block “attempts to seize land” by the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in parts of the West Bank but not Area C.
Mohammed Abu Al-Rob, director of the Palestinian Authority’s communication center, said that the decision was “a dangerous escalation of Israel’s illegal policies aimed at entrenching its occupation and advancing de facto annexation.”
Area C is “an inseparable part” of the rest of the Palestinian territories, he said.
Abu Al-Rob called on the international community to “reject this unlawful decision and to take immediate, concrete action to thwart its implementation.”
Syria warns Kurds against delay in integrating into state
- Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani emphasizes that ‘our goal is not dominance but unification’
ANKARA: Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani has warned that postponing the implementation of an agreement between Syria’s new administration and Kurdish-led forces in the northeast would “prolong the chaos” in the country.
His remarks came as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, announced it was disbanding, an announcement the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which control swaths of north and northeast Syria, have not yet commented on.
The PKK’s move is “a pivotal moment” for regional stability, Al-Shaibani told a news conference in Ankara with his Turkish and Jordanian counterparts.
Syria is “implementing the national accord with the Syrian Democratic Forces and incorporating all areas under central state control,” he said.
In March, Syria’s President Ahmad Al-Sharaa and SDF chief Mazloum Abdi signed an agreement to integrate the civil and military institutions of the autonomous Kurdish administration in the northeast into the national government.
The deal, agreed three months after the overthrow of President Bashar Assad, is expected to be implemented by the end of the year.
“This process is complicated and sensitive, but it is necessary,” Al-Shaibani said, adding that “delaying the implementation of this agreement will prolong the chaos, open the door to foreign interference, and fuel separatist tendencies.”
“Our goal is not dominance but unification,” he said.
“We are keen on implementing this agreement, and we hope that the other side is seriously committed to implementing this agreement,” he added.
The SDF, the Kurdish administration’s de facto army, controls most of the oil and gas fields in Syria. The force maintains that it is independent from the PKK, but it is dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, which Ankara views as a PKK offshoot.
After years of marginalization and repression under the Assad dynasty, the Kurds took advantage of the government forces’ withdrawal during the civil war, which erupted in 2011, to establish a semi-autonomous administration.
With US backing, the SDF played a key role in the fight against Daesh, which was defeated in its last Syrian territorial stronghold in 2019.
Al-Shaibani emphasized that “the unity of Syrian territory is non-negotiable, as Syria is an indivisible, unified state, sovereign over its land and will remain so.”
“The rights of Kurdish citizens will be preserved and guaranteed on an equal footing with the rest of the Syrian people,” he added.
Syria’s Kurds have criticized a temporary constitutional declaration announced in March and said the new government failed to reflect the country’s diversity.
In February, Abdi said an initial call for the PKK to lay down weapons and disband did not concern his forces.
Jordanian and Saudi army chiefs reaffirm military partnership
- Saudi Arabia is at the forefront of efforts to enhance regional security, says Jordanian commander
- His counterpart from the Kingdom reaffirms Riyadh’s commitment to tackling regional threats
LONDON: During talks on Monday, Maj. Gen. Yousef Ahmed Al-Hunaiti, chairperson of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Jordanian Armed Forces, and his Saudi counterpart, Gen. Fayyadh Al-Ruwaili, discussed military cooperation between their countries.
They considered ways in which cooperation might be enhanced and expertise shared, and addressed the development of strategic defense partnerships and coordinated efforts to tackle regional and international security challenges.
Al-Hunaiti reaffirmed the strong ties between the nations’ armed forces, and said that Saudi Arabia is at the forefront of efforts to enhance regional security, the Jordan News Agency reported.
Al-Ruwaili praised collaborative efforts to strengthen defense and security initiatives, and reaffirmed Riyadh’s commitment to tackling regional threats.
They were joined during their meeting at the Saudi Armed Forces headquarters in Riyadh by several senior officers from both countries.
Trump signals possible sanctions relief for Syria
- Syria’s foreign ministry welcomed Trump’s remarks and said it “considers them an encouraging step toward ending the suffering of the Syrian people”
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said Monday he was considering offering sanctions relief to Syria as it seeks to rebuild after a grinding decade-plus civil war.
“We are going to have to make a decision on the sanctions, which we may very well relieve. We may take them off of Syria because we want to give them a fresh start,” Trump told journalists at the White House prior to departing on a trip to the Middle East.
Syria’s authorities, who toppled longtime president Bashar Assad in December, are working to rebuild the country’s infrastructure and economy after almost 14 years of devastating conflict.
The new government has been pushing for Assad-era sanctions to be removed to revive the country’s battered economy and support reconstruction.
Syria’s foreign ministry welcomed Trump’s remarks and said it “considers them an encouraging step toward ending the suffering of the Syrian people.”
The foreign ministry statement said Assad-era sanctions “directly target the Syrian people and hinder the recovery and reconstruction process.”
Syrians “look forward to the full lifting of sanctions as part of steps that support peace and prosperity in Syria and the region, and open the possibility for constructive international cooperation,” the statement added.
Some countries have said they would wait to see how the new authorities exercise their power and ensure human rights are respected before lifting sanctions, opting instead for targeted and temporary exemptions.
A February United Nations Development Programme report estimated that at current growth rates, Syria would need more than 50 years to return to the economic level it had before its devastating civil war, and called for massive investment to accelerate the process.
UN says found 225 arms caches since Israel-Hezbollah truce
- The Lebanese army has been deploying in the south as Israeli forces have withdrawn and has been dismantling Hezbollah infrastructure there
- Israel’s military still carries out regular strikes in Lebanon, saying it is targeting Hezbollah operatives and infrastructure
BEIRUT: The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon said Monday that since a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah it had uncovered more than 225 weapons caches in the south and referred them to the army.
Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem urged Lebanon’s government and the international community to act “more effectively” to make Israel comply with the November truce, which largely ended more than a year of hostilities between Israel and the Iran-backed group, including two months of all-out war.
Under the deal, Hezbollah was to withdraw its fighters north of Lebanon’s Litani River and Israel was to pull all its forces from south Lebanon, however it has kept troops in five areas it deems “strategic.”
The Lebanese army has been deploying in the area as Israeli forces have withdrawn and has been dismantling Hezbollah infrastructure there.
Since the November 27 truce began, “peacekeepers have found over 225 weapons caches and referred them” to the Lebanese army, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon said in a statement.
UNIFIL also has a seat on the ceasefire monitoring committee, alongside truce sponsors France and the United States, and the Israeli and Lebanese governments.
“With UNIFIL support,” Lebanon’s army has “redeployed to more than 120 permanent positions south of the Litani,” the peacekeeping force said.
“Full (army) deployment is hindered by the presence of Israeli forces in Lebanese territory,” it added.
Israel’s military still carries out regular strikes in Lebanon, saying it is targeting Hezbollah operatives and infrastructure.
The ceasefire deal was based on a UN Security Council resolution that says Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers should be the only forces in south Lebanon, and that calls for the disarmament of all non-state groups.
Border positions
Hezbollah’s chief said on Monday that Lebanon and Hezbollah had fulfilled their commitments under the ceasefire, and the army has deployed in south Lebanon, “while Israel has not withdrawn, has not stopped its attacks.”
In a televised speech, Qassem said that “Israel wants to end the resistance,” referring to Hezbollah.
Israel “thinks that continuing its pressure and aggression could lead to the political end of the resistance,” he said, adding: “This will not happen.”
After heavy Israeli strikes in the Nabatiyeh area of south Lebanon last week, Qassem said Israel was “playing with fire.”
He urged the Lebanese state and ceasefire sponsors Paris and Washington to act “more effectively” and to let Israel and its backers “know that we will not submit to threats and pressure.”
He also called for swift efforts toward reconstruction.
President Joseph Aoun said last month the Lebanese army was now deployed in more than 85 percent of the south and that the sole obstacle to full control across the frontier area was “Israel’s occupation of five border positions.”
Lebanese authorities have vowed to implement a state monopoly on bearing arms, though Aoun has said disarming Hezbollah is a “delicate” matter that requires dialogue.
Hezbollah, long a dominant force in Lebanon, was heavily weakened in its latest war with Israel.
