RAMALLAH: Friday prayer took place at Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem amid strict Israeli security measures and police obstacles that limited the number of worshippers able to reach the mosque.
And as tensions remained high and violence continued, two Israeli women were shot dead when their car was attacked in the occupied West Bank.
The Islamic Awqaf Department in Jerusalem reported that 130,000 worshippers offered prayers at Al-Aqsa on the third Friday of Ramadan, half as many compared with last year. Israeli forces closed the main access point to the mosque and deployed more than 2,300 soldiers at the gates of Al-Aqsa and the Old City, preventing men below the age of 55 from entering Jerusalem and reaching the mosque.
After Friday prayer, a demonstration took place during which a banner that read “Do not test our patience; Al-Aqsa is a red line” was displayed.
Clashes began at dawn when Israeli police assaulted dozens of worshippers who tried to enter the mosque through the Bab Hatta Gate for Fajr prayer. They also attacked stall owners and vendors in the area.
Sheikh Talib Al-Silwadi, one of the most prominent clerics in Ramallah, who has called on Palestinians to pray at Al-Aqsa during Ramadan, told Arab News that the mosque holds great religious significance for Muslims as it is considered the gateway to heaven.
“Considering the Israeli challenges, we must defend it with all power,” he said. “The least we can do for Al-Aqsa, which faces the danger of Judaization, is to pray in it during Ramadan.”
Earlier, around midnight, Israeli forces arrested a number of young men from Al-Thawri neighborhood of Silwan after a settler shot at them in the nearby town of Al-Tur. Officers also stormed Al-Makassed Hospital in Al-Tur, saying they were searching for injured people.
Meanwhile, two Israeli women, who according to local media reports were sisters, were killed and their mother seriously wounded when their car came under fire near the Jewish settlement of Hamra in the occupied West Bank. Palestinian militant group Hamas, which rules Gaza, praised the shooting but did not claim responsibility for it.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had ordered a security assessment of the situation. Following the attack, the Israeli army put the city of Jericho and the Jordan Valley under lockdown, set up military checkpoints, and launched a comprehensive search of Palestinian vehicles. Other forces were observed conducting search operations in the mountains and valleys. Israeli army forces also stepped up security procedures at military checkpoints surrounding Nablus.
Col. Hertzi Halevi, chief of the Israel Defense Forces, described the Hamra attack as severe. Hamas and the Islamic Jihad said they considered it retaliation for continual Israeli violations at Al-Aqsa, and a message to Israeli authorities that the assault on Muslim prayers at the mosque during Ramadan would not be tolerated.
The Israeli police chief, Yaakov Shabtai, urged settlers who own licensed weapons and are proficient in using them to carry them in support of the army, police and security forces in the face of Palestinian attacks.
Esmat Mansour, a Palestinian expert on Israeli affairs, told Arab News that the Hamra attack was no less dangerous in terms of its implications than missiles fired toward Israel from Lebanon and Gaza.
“It could complicate the security scene more and cause a shift in the security situation in the West Bank,” he said.
Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian vehicles in Taqu, southeast of Bethlehem, with stones, damaging several. They did the same near the northern entrance to Ramallah. Under the protection of large numbers of Israeli army forces, settlers also attacked Palestinian properties in Khirbet Humsa Al-Tahta in the northern Jordan Valley.
At dawn on Friday, extremist settlers from “price tag” terrorist gangs set fire to vehicles belonging to residents of the Arab city of Kafr Qassem in Israel, vandalized property with racist, anti-Arab graffiti and caused other damage. These gangs are responsible for racist attacks in many Palestinian towns. They also target holy places, mosques, churches, and Islamic and Christian cemeteries.
Israeli restrictions at Al-Aqsa Mosque cut number of worshipers at Friday prayers in half
https://arab.news/664zp
Israeli restrictions at Al-Aqsa Mosque cut number of worshipers at Friday prayers in half
- Amid heightened tensions and continuing violence in many places, two Israeli women were shot dead in their car in the occupied West Bank
- After Friday prayer, a demonstration took place during which a banner that read “Do not test our patience; Al-Aqsa is a red line” was displayed
Residents of Gaza Strip cautioned against helping Israel with protests
CAIRO: Palestinian groups threatened punishment on Thursday for “collaborators” furthering Israeli goals after the first substantial protests against the war in Gaza and Hamas’ rule.
Hundreds of Palestinians have rallied in recent days in north and central Gaza, some chanting “Hamas out” in a rare show of opposition to the group whose October 2023 raid on Israel triggered a devastating offensive in the enclave.
More demonstrations, which Israel’s government has applauded, were being planned on Thursday.
A statement by the “Factions of the Resistance,” an umbrella group including Hamas, threatened punishment for leaders of the “suspicious movement,” which Palestinians took to mean the street marches.
“They persist in blaming the resistance and absolving the occupation, ignoring that the Israeli extermination machine operates nonstop,” it said.
“Therefore, these suspicious individuals are as responsible as the occupation for the bloodshed of our people and will be treated accordingly.”
Hamas officials have said people have the right to protest, but rallies should not be exploited for political ends or to exempt Israel from blame for decades of occupation, conflict, and displacement in Palestinian territories.
Some protesters said they took to the streets to voice rejection of continued war, adding that they were exhausted and lacked basics like food and water.
“We are not against the resistance. We are against war. Enough wars, we are tired,” said a resident of Gaza City’s Shejaia neighborhood, which saw protests on Wednesday.
“You can’t call people collaborators for speaking up against wars, for wanting to live without bombardment and hunger,” he added via a chat app.
Videos on Wednesday, whose authenticity Reuters could not verify, showed protests in Shejaia in the north where the rallies began and in the central Gaza areas of Deir Al-Balah, indicating the protests were spreading.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the rallies showed Israelis’ decision to renew the military offensive in Gaza after a ceasefire was working.
Hamas police, the group’s enforcers, are again off the streets.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz urged Gaza residents to keep expressing their discontent.
“Learn from the residents of Beit Lahia,” he wrote on X, referring to the first protest. “Just as they did, demand the removal of Hamas from Gaza and the immediate release of all Israeli hostages — this is the only way to stop the war.”
A Palestinian official with a militant group said protests were allowed — but not cooperation with Israel.
“Those suspicious figures try to exploit legitimate protests to demand an end to the resistance, which is the same goal as Israel’s,” he told Reuters via a chat app.
US Senator Sanders to force Senate votes on blocking arms for Israel
WASHINGTON: US Senator Bernie Sanders said on Thursday he would force votes next week on resolutions that would block $8.8 billion in arms sales to Israel, citing the human rights crisis faced by Palestinians in Gaza after Israel’s bombardment of the enclave and its suspension of aid deliveries.
“(Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu has clearly violated US and international law in this brutal war, and we must end our complicity in the carnage,” Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said in a statement announcing his plan.
More than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli campaign in Gaza, Palestinian officials say. It was launched after thousands of Hamas-led gunmen attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and abducting 251 as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Much of Gaza has been reduced to rubble, leaving hundreds of thousands of people sheltering in tents or bombed-out buildings.
A decades-long tradition of strong bipartisan support for Israel in the US Congress means resolutions to stop weapons sales are unlikely to pass, but backers hope that raising the issue will encourage Israel’s government and US administrations to do more to protect civilians.
“No humanitarian aid has entered Gaza in more than three and a half weeks since Israeli authorities announced a complete blockade – that’s no food, water, medicine, or fuel since the start of March,” Sanders said in a statement.
Last month, the UN Human Rights Chief accused Israel on Wednesday of showing an unprecedented disregard for human rights in its military actions in Gaza and said Hamas had violated international law.
The Senate voted overwhelmingly in November to block three resolutions introduced by Sanders that would have halted transfers of weapons approved by the administration of then-President Joe Biden, a Democrat whom progressives criticized as doing too little to help Palestinians as conditions in Gaza worsened.
President Donald Trump, who began a second term on Jan. 20 and is a fierce advocate for Israel, has reversed Biden’s efforts to place some limits on what arms are sent to Netanyahu’s government.
Last month, Trump sidestepped the congressional review process to approve billions of dollars in military sales to Israel.
US law gives Congress the right to stop major foreign weapons sales by passing resolutions of disapproval. Although no such resolution has both passed Congress and survived a presidential veto, the law requires the Senate to vote if a resolution is filed. Such resolutions have at times led to angry debates embarrassing to past presidents.
Sudan paramilitaries vow ‘no surrender’ after Khartoum setback
- Rapid Support Forces said it would 'deliver crushing defeats to the enemy on all fronts'
- War has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted more than 12 million in Sudan, according to UN figures
KHARTOUM: Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces vowed on Thursday there would be “no retreat and no surrender” after rival troops of the regular army retook nearly all of central Khartoum.
From inside the recaptured presidential palace, Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, at war with his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo since April 2023, had on Wednesday declared the capital “free” from the RSF.
But in its first direct comment since the army retook what remains of the capital’s state institutions this week, the RSF said: “Our forces have not lost any battle, but have repositioned.
“Our forces will continue to defend the homeland’s soil and secure a decisive victory. There will be no retreat or surrender,” it said.
“We will deliver crushing defeats to the enemy on all fronts.”
AFP could not independently confirm the RSF’s remaining positions in the capital.
The war has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted more than 12 million, according to UN figures.
It has also split Africa’s third-largest country in two, with the army holding the north and east while the RSF controls parts of the south and nearly all of the vast western region of Darfur, which borders Chad.
On Wednesday, the army cleared Khartoum airport of RSF fighters and encircled their last major stronghold in the Khartoum area, just south of the city center.
An army source told AFP that RSF fighters were fleeing across the Jebel Awliya bridge, their only way out of greater Khartoum.
A successful withdrawal could link the RSF’s Jebel Awliya troops to its positions west of the city and then to its strongholds in Darfur hundreds of kilometers (miles) away.
On Wednesday, hours after Burhan arrived in the presidential palace for the first time in two years, the RSF announced a “military alliance” with a rebel group, which controls much of South Kordofan state and parts of Blue Nile bordering Ethiopia.
The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North, led by Abdelaziz Al-Hilu, had clashed with both sides, before signing a political charter with the RSF last month to establish a rival government.
On Thursday evening, witnesses in the Blue Nile state capital Damazin reported that both its airport and the nearby Roseires Dam came under drone attack by the paramilitaries and their allies for the first time in the war.
Fighters in retreat across the capital
Following a year and a half of defeats at the hands of the RSF, the army began pushing through central Sudan toward Khartoum late last year.
Analysts have blamed the RSF’s losses on strategic blunders, internal divisions and dwindling supplies.
Since the army recaptured the presidential palace on Friday, witnesses and activists have reported RSF fighters in retreat across the capital.
The army’s gains have been met with celebrations in its wartime headquarters in the Red Sea coastal city of Port Sudan, where displaced Sudanese rejoiced at the prospect of finally returning to Khartoum.
“God willing, we’re going home, we’ll finally celebrate Eid in our own homes,” Khartoum native Motaz Essam told AFP, ululations and fireworks echoing around him.
Burhan, Sudan’s de facto leader since he ousted civilian politicians from power in a 2021 coup, said on Wednesday the army was looking to form a technocratic government and had “no desire to engage in political work.”
“The armed forces are working to create the conditions for an elected civilian government,” Burhan said in a meeting with Germany’s envoy to the Horn of Africa, Heiko Nitzschke, according to a statement from Burhan’s office.
The RSF has its origins in the Janjaweed militia unleashed by then strongman Omar Al-Bashir more than two decades ago in Darfur.
Like the army, the RSF has sought to position itself as the guardian of Sudan’s democratic uprising which ousted Bashir in 2019.
The United States has imposed sanctions on both sides. It accused the army of attacks on civilians and said the RSF had “committed genocide.”
Burhan and Dagalo, in the fragile political transition that followed Bashir’s overthrow, forged an alliance which saw both rise to prominence. Then a bitter power struggle over the potential integration of the RSF into the regular army erupted into all-out war.
5 Syrian siblings suffocate in house fire in Tripoli
- Electricity generator in basement believed to be source of blaze
- Flames spread to bags of plastic, cardboard collected by children’s father
BEIRUT: Five children from the same Syrian family were killed in a fire at a residential building in Tripoli on Thursday afternoon.
The three brothers and two sisters are thought to have suffocated in their home after an electricity generator caught fire in the basement of the building in the Al Mina area of the city, according to media reports.
The children’s father, who was not named, works as concierge at the building. He also collects recyclable materials, such as plastic and cardboard, which he stored in nylon sacks at the family home.
It is thought these items fueled the blaze.
Rescuers from the Lebanese Civil Defense and the Lebanese Red Cross paramedic teams rushed to the scene to tackle the fire and treat the victims.
The five siblings were identified as Mohammed, Mahmoud, Houssam, Amani and Alaa. Their bodies were taken to three hospitals in the city.
Three other people received medical treatment at the scene, the reports said.
A source from the Lebanese Internal Security Forces told Arab News that an investigation had been launched to determine the cause of the fire.
The children’s mother had been out shopping for Eid clothes for the siblings when the fire broke out. Video footage shared on social media showed her collapsing at the entrance to the building after discovering the tragedy on her return.
Aoun: Hezbollah is cooperative on the weapons issue
- Joseph Aoun: ‘Israel is the one violating this agreement by remaining in the five hills, while Lebanon seeks to preserve this agreement’
- Aoun: ‘Reforms are more a Lebanese necessity than an international demand’
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun said that “the Lebanese army is carrying out its duties fully in southern Lebanon,” adding that “the state is committed to implementing Resolution 1701.”
He also announced that “Hezbollah is cooperative on the weapons issue,” noting that “dialogue is the key to solutions.”
His statements came on the eve of his expected visit to Paris and his participation in a summit with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron.
In an interview with France 24, Aoun said that “the ceasefire agreement must be upheld by all parties,” noting that “Israel is the one violating this agreement by remaining in the five hills, while Lebanon seeks to preserve this agreement.”
He added: “Diplomatic calls are being carried out regarding this matter, and guarantees must come from France and the US, which are partners in the Quintet Committee tasked with monitoring the implementation of the agreement.”
Aoun affirmed Lebanon’s commitment to reforms,” adding that “we don’t have any other option.”
He said: “Reforms are more a Lebanese necessity than an international demand.”
Meanwhile, the Cabinet held a meeting at the Presidential Palace, chaired by Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, during which a new central bank governor was appointed.
The governor was chosen by voting rather than consensus, but Salam, the Sunni ministers in the government, and ministers Tarek Metri and Ghassan Salameh did not vote for the new governor.
The appointment of Karim Saeed came after a prolonged vacancy in the governorship, which resulted from the failure to elect a president for the republic for more than two years, alongside the arrest of the former central bank governor, Riad Salameh, on charges of embezzlement.
The new governor received 17 votes out of 24, following his responses to the ministers’ questions.
Saeed, 61, was included in a list of three names submitted by Finance Minister Yassine Jaber to the Cabinet, alongside Eddy Gemayel and Jamil Baz.
Saeed’s name is associated with what is known as the “Harvard Plan” for addressing the economic crisis in Lebanon, which was funded by Growthgate Capital.
Saeed is a founding partner and managing partner at Growthgate Equity Partners in the UAE, a firm specializing in alternative asset management that invests in private companies throughout the Middle East and North Africa. He previously held the position of general manager of Investment Banking Services at HSBC.
Additionally, he served as a board member at Emirates Lebanon Bank.
Meanwhile in southern Lebanon, Israeli military drones killed four people in less than 24 hours.
Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Youssef Rajji received a phone call from his Egyptian counterpart, Badr Abdel Ati. The two men discussed “Egypt’s efforts to curb Israel’s ongoing escalation in southern Lebanon, urging it to withdraw from the occupied Lebanese territories and adhere to the declaration of a ceasefire.”
Two guided missiles hit a car in Yohmor Al-Shaqif, resulting in three deaths, according to the Ministry of Health.
Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee claimed that the missile strikes targeted Hezbollah operatives who were reportedly transporting weapons.
The Ministry of Health also reported the death of another man, who was killed by an Israeli drone strike near Maaroub, Tyre.
The Israeli army claimed responsibility for killing “Ahmad Adnan Bajjiga, a battalion commander in Hezbollah’s Radwan Force, in the Derdghaiya area of southern Lebanon.”
Security reports indicate that Israel has resumed its attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon, despite the ceasefire agreement between the two parties, which went into effect on Nov. 27, 2024.
These attacks have resulted in at least 105 deaths — comprising Hezbollah members, civilians and military personnel — and left around 300 others wounded.
The war, which Hezbollah launched in support of Gaza on Oct. 8, 2023, along with the subsequent ground war initiated by the Israeli army in Lebanon until the cessation of hostilities on Nov. 27, 2024, has killed 3,961 and injured 16,520, according to the Emergency Committee.
