US envoy’s anti-Hezbollah stance causes controversy in Lebanon

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Updated 07 February 2025
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US envoy’s anti-Hezbollah stance causes controversy in Lebanon

US envoy’s anti-Hezbollah stance causes controversy in Lebanon
  • Ortagus told reporters that she believes excitement from the Lebanese diaspora about the future of Lebanon “is largely in part, of course, because Hezbollah was defeated by Israel”
  • Ortagus said she informed Aoun that “we don’t want to look at Lebanon as a donor country”

BEIRUT: Morgan Ortagus, US deputy special envoy to the Middle East, caused controversy following her meeting with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Friday, after making comments about militant group Hezbollah.

Ortagus, who arrived in Beirut on Thursday evening, emphasized “US commitment to strengthening close relations with Lebanon.”

However, she told reporters that she believes excitement from the Lebanese diaspora about the future of Lebanon “is largely in part, of course, because Hezbollah was defeated by Israel. And we are grateful to our ally, Israel, for defeating Hezbollah.

“But it’s also thanks to you, thanks to the Lebanese people. It is thanks to President Aoun and Prime Minister-designate Nawaf Salam, and everyone in this government who is committed to an end of corruption, who is committed to reforms and who are committed to making sure that Hezbollah is not a part of this government in any form, and that Hezbollah remains disarmed and militarily defeated.”

She continued: “That, of course, starts with the pressure that US President Donald Trump is now placing on the Islamic Republic of Iran so that they can no longer fund their terror proxies through the region.”

Ortagus added: “We will be working again to make sure that the Islamic Republic of Iran doesn’t achieve a nuclear weapon and that they are unable to inflict chaos and harm into this country and to so many other countries around the region, which they were allowed to do for decades. That ends with President Trump.

“We’re incredibly hopeful that hope comes because we know that we have men and women of character, of resilience, of transparency. The men and women of character in this government will ensure that we start to end corruption. That we end influence from Hezbollah and that we embark on the reforms for Lebanon, that all of you, the people of Lebanon, deserve.”

Ortagus said she informed Aoun that “we don’t want to look at Lebanon as a donor country. You’re a beautiful, sophisticated country that deserves to have the most impressive businessmen and women, the most impressive businesses, companies and country from around the world investing in here. We want to get to Lebanon, back to that place where it is, the place and the hope of the Middle East. And I know we’ll get there together.”

Asked about the US stance on Hezbollah’s potential inclusion in the upcoming Lebanese government, Ortagus said: “I am certainly not afraid of Hezbollah. I am not afraid of them because they have been defeated militarily. We have set clear red lines in the US, and they will not be able to terrorize the Lebanese people, and that includes by being part of the government. The end of Hezbollah’s reign of terror in Lebanon and around the world has started, and it is over.”

The US, she said, “is committed to the Feb. 18 deadline for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon. This date is part of negotiations I had with my partner Eric Trager at the National Security Council, and with the Lebanese government and the Israeli government. Feb. 18 will be the day for redeployment, whenever the IDF troops finish their redeployment and, of course, the Lebanese troops will come in behind them. We are very committed to that firm date.”

Aoun told Ortagus that “the permanent stability in southern Lebanon hinges on Israel’s full withdrawal from the recently occupied territories and the implementation of Resolution 1701 in all its aspects, including the provisions of the ceasefire agreement that took effect on Nov. 27.”

Aoun said: “Israeli attacks must cease. The killing of innocent civilians and soldiers, the destruction of homes, and bulldozing and burning of agricultural lands must stop.” He also pointed out that “the release Lebanese hostages is an integral part of the agreement.”

He added: “The Lebanese Army is prepared to deploy in the evacuated villages and towns, and Israel must adhere to the Feb. 18 deadline for completing its withdrawal.

“Our cooperation with UNIFIL is ongoing and focused on implementing Resolution 1701, aiming to establish stability and gradually restore life to the areas liberated from occupation.

“These areas require a comprehensive reconstruction plan, including essential means of livelihood for returnees, following the extensive damage caused by Israeli aggression to crops and property.”

Aoun’s media office said that he and Ortagus discussed the formation of the Lebanese government. The president emphasized that “the consultations to form the government are nearing completion, with the goal of creating a harmonious and effective government that will meet the hopes and aspirations of the Lebanese people, as outlined in my oath speech.”

Hezbollah supporters expressed their discontent with Ortagus’s statements, gathering outside Beirut’s Rafic Harari International Airport for a sit-in to protest her remarks.

Other Hezbollah activists criticized Ortagus’s ring bearing the star of David, which was visible when she was shaking Aoun’s hand.

The US envoy subsequently headed to southern Lebanon accompanied by a US delegation. Along with a number of Lebanese Army officers, she inspected the area where the Lebanese military has been redeployed.

This is Ortagus’s first visit to Lebanon. It came in parallel with an Israeli raid on Friday afternoon on Baysarieh in the Zahrani region, north of the Litani Line, following a violent day of Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon, Bekaa and the Syrian border, breaching the ceasefire agreement.

Lebanon’s National News Agency said that “the Israeli Army carried out bombings in two stages on Kfarkila.”

An explosion occurred in a house in Tayr Harfa, which witnessed the Israeli army’s withdrawal, killing two adults and several kids. According to the security bodies, it appeared that the house had been previously booby-trapped by the Israeli forces.

The Lebanese Army sent reinforcements to the Kald Al-Sabeh area in the Hermel barrens following tensions in the area, due to confrontation between the Bekaa tribes and Syrian Arab Republic forces.

Syrian personnel pushed into the villages of Al-Fadiliya, Blouza, Jermash and Hawik, to reinforce their presence in the Lebanese-inhabited Assi basin villages inside the Syrian territory.


‘No life without water’: settler attacks threaten West Bank communities

‘No life without water’: settler attacks threaten West Bank communities
Updated 5 sec ago
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‘No life without water’: settler attacks threaten West Bank communities

‘No life without water’: settler attacks threaten West Bank communities
  • Israeli settlers recently attacked the system of wells, pumps and pipelines of the Ein Samiyah spring
  • The damage to Ein Samiyah’s water facilities was not an isolated incident
KAFR MALIK, Palestinian Territories: From his monitoring station on a remote hill in the occupied West Bank, water operator Subhil Olayan keeps watch over a lifeline for Palestinians, the Ein Samiyah spring.
So when Israeli settlers recently attacked the system of wells, pumps and pipelines he oversees, he knew the stakes.
“There is no life without water, of course,” he said, following the attack which temporarily cut off the water supply to nearby villages.
The spring, which feeds the pumping station, is the main or backup water source for some 110,000 people, according to the Palestinian company that manages it – making it one of the most vital in the West Bank, where water is in chronic short supply.
The attack is one of several recent incidents in which settlers have been accused of damaging, diverting or seizing control of Palestinian water sources.
“The settlers came and the first thing they did was break the pipeline. And when the pipeline is broken, we automatically have to stop pumping” water to nearby villages, some of which exclusively rely on the Ein Samiyah spring.
“The water just goes into the dirt, into the ground,” Olayan said, adding that workers immediately fixed the damage to resume water supply.
Just two days after the latest attack, Israeli settlers – some of them armed – splashed in pools just below the spring, while Olayan monitored water pressure and cameras from a distance.
His software showed normal pressure in the pipes pulling water from the wells and the large pipe carrying water up the hill to his village of Kafr Malik.
But he said maintenance teams dared not venture down to the pumping station out of fear for their safety.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, deadly settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank have become commonplace.
Last week, settlers beat a 20-year-old dual US citizen to death in the nearby village of Sinjil, prompting US ambassador Mike Huckabee to urge Israel to “aggressively investigate” the killing.
Issa Qassis, chairman on the board of the Jerusalem Water Undertaking, which manages the Ein Samiyah spring, said he viewed the attacks as a tool for Israeli land grabs and annexation.
“When you restrict water supply in certain areas, people simply move where water is available,” he said at a press conference.
“So in a plan to move people to other lands, water is the best and fastest way,” he said.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, several Israeli politicians and officials have become increasingly vocal in support of annexing the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.
Most prominent among them is Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, himself a settler, who said in November that 2025 would be the year Israel applies its sovereignty over the Palestinian territory.
Qassis accused Israel’s government of supporting settler attacks such as the one on Ein Samiyah.
The Israeli army said that soldiers were not aware of the incident in which pipes were damaged, “and therefore were unable to prevent it.”
The damage to Ein Samiyah’s water facilities was not an isolated incident.
In recent months, settlers in the nearby Jordan Valley took control of the Al-Auja spring by diverting its water from upstream, said Farhan Ghawanmeh, a representative of the Ras Ein Al Auja community.
He said two other springs in the area had also recently been taken over.
In Dura Al-Qaraa, another West Bank village that uses the Ein Samiyah spring as a back-up water source, residents are also concerned about increasingly long droughts and the way Israel regulates their water rights.
“For years now, no one has been planting because the water levels have decreased,” said Rafeaa Qasim, a member of the village council, citing lower rainfall causing the land to be “basically abandoned.”
Qasim said that though water shortages in the village have existed for 30 years, residents’ hands are tied in the face of this challenge.
“We have no options; digging a well is not allowed,” despite the presence of local water springs, he said, pointing to a well project that the UN and World Bank rejected due to Israeli law prohibiting drilling in the area.
The lands chosen for drilling sit in the West Bank’s Area C, which covers more than 60 percent of the territory and is under full Israeli control.
Israeli NGO B’Tselem reported in 2023 that the legal system led to sharp disparities in water access within the West Bank between Palestinians and Israelis.
Whereas nearly all residents of Israel and Israeli settlements have running water every day, only 36 percent of West Bank Palestinians do, the report said.
In Dura Al-Qaraa, Qasim fears for the future.
“Each year, the water decreases and the crisis grows – it’s not getting better, it’s getting worse.”

Syria interior ministry says Sweida clashes have ‘halted’

Syria interior ministry says Sweida clashes have ‘halted’
Updated 38 min 16 sec ago
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Syria interior ministry says Sweida clashes have ‘halted’

Syria interior ministry says Sweida clashes have ‘halted’
  • Violence between the Druze and Bedouin groups that began on July 13 has left an estimated 940 dead

DAMASCUS: Tribal fighters have been evacuated from Syria’s southern city of Sweida and violent clashes have ceased, the country’s interior ministry said late Saturday.

“After intensive efforts by the Ministry of Interior to implement the ceasefire agreement, following the deployment of its forces in the northern and western regions of Sweida Governorate, the city of Sweida was evacuated of all tribal fighters, and clashes within the city’s neighborhoods were halted,” interior ministry spokesman Noureddine Al-Baba said in a post on Telegram.

In Washington, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called on the Syrian government’s security forces to prevent “jihadists from entering and ”carrying out massacres“ in the conflict-stricken south of the country.

”If authorities in Damascus want to preserve any chance of achieving a unified, inclusive and peaceful Syria... they must help end this calamity by using their security forces to prevent Daesh and any other violent terrorists from entering the area and carrying out massacres,“ Rubio said in a statement posted to X.

Sectarian clashes between armed Bedouin forces and the Druze in the community’s Sweida heartland had drawn in Syria’s Islamist-led government, Israel and other armed tribes.

US-brokered negotiations have sought to avert further Israeli military intervention, with Syrian forces agreeing to withdraw from the region.

“The US has remained heavily involved over the last three days with Israel, Jordan and authorities in Damascus on the horrifying & dangerous developments in southern Syria,” Rubio said.

He called for the Syrian government to “hold accountable and bring to justice anyone guilty of atrocities including those in their own ranks.”

“Furthermore the fighting between Druze and Bedouin groups inside the perimeter must also stop immediately,” Rubio added.

Once in control of large swathes of Syria, the Daesh was territorially defeated in Syria in 2019 largely due to the efforts of Kurdish-led forces supported by an international coalition.

Violence between the Druze and Bedouin groups that began on July 13 has left an estimated 940 dead, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor.

The count included 326 Druze fighters and 262 Druze civilians, 165 of whom were summarily executed, according to the Observatory.

The monitor also included 312 government security personnel and 21 Sunni Bedouin in the toll.

 


Gaza’s ‘tragic story’ shows ‘unraveling of international law,’ Pakistan’s Ambassador to UN Asim Iftikhar Ahmad tells Arab News

Gaza’s ‘tragic story’ shows ‘unraveling of international law,’ Pakistan’s Ambassador to UN Asim Iftikhar Ahmad tells Arab News
Updated 20 July 2025
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Gaza’s ‘tragic story’ shows ‘unraveling of international law,’ Pakistan’s Ambassador to UN Asim Iftikhar Ahmad tells Arab News

Gaza’s ‘tragic story’ shows ‘unraveling of international law,’ Pakistan’s Ambassador to UN Asim Iftikhar Ahmad tells Arab News
  • As Pakistan assumes Security Council’s rotating presidency, its permanent representative decries international failure to put pressure on Israel
  • Views upcoming conference on Saudi-France-led two-state solution as “another golden opportunity … to reaffirm support for Palestinian cause”

NEW YORK CITY: A long-standing advocate of the Palestinian cause, Pakistan is using its presidency of the UN Security Council to help refocus global attention on the crisis in Gaza and the wider Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, Pakistan’s permanent representative to the UN, outlined his country’s vision in a wide-ranging interview with Arab News as the South Asian country assumed the rotating presidency of the Security Council

“It’s a tragic story. It is an unraveling of international law, international humanitarian law,” Ahmad said, decrying the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and the international community’s failure to pressure Israel to put an end to it.

Reiterating his country’s position at the UN, he said: “We want clear movement in the direction of Palestinian statehood, on the basis of the right to self-determination, on the basis of international legitimacy and UN Security Council resolutions.”

He also highlighted the significance of the upcoming conference on implementing the two-state solution — to be co-chaired by Saudi Arabia and France from July 28 to 30 — calling it “another golden opportunity for the international community to come together and to reaffirm that support for the Palestinian cause.”

Pakistani Ambassador to the United Nations Asim Iftikhar Ahmad speaks during a UN Security Council meeting  at the UN headquarters in New York on June 20, 2025. (AFP)

Pakistan’s deputy prime minister and foreign minister are expected to attend, offering the country’s full political and diplomatic backing.

In preparation, Ahmad said Pakistan has actively participated in eight preparatory roundtables addressing the political, security, humanitarian and legal dimensions of the two-state solution.

“We have described how we are going to support many of those actions,” he said.

Regarding coordination with Saudi Arabia and others involved in ceasefire negotiations, Ahmad noted that while Pakistan is “not directly involved,” it remains in close contact with key stakeholders.

“We hope that this ceasefire should be announced sooner rather than later,” he said.

Asked whether Pakistan would consider normalizing relations with Israel if a Palestinian state were recognized and the violence in Gaza ended, Ahmad was unequivocal.

“There are no indications, unfortunately, from the Israeli side on moving forward with recognition,” he said. “What we are looking at this point of time is Palestinian statehood in the context of the two-state solution.”

A general view shows the United Nations Security Council meeting on the conflict in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question, at the UN headquarters in New York City on July 16, 2025. (AFP)

Another unresolved conflict concerns the disputed Kashmir region between India and Pakistan.

In May, India launched Operation Sindoor, firing missiles at what it claimed were militant targets in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, in retaliation for a deadly April 22 attack in Pahalgam, Indian-administered Kashmir, that killed 26 civilians.

India, which has accused Pakistan of supporting terrorism in Indian-administered Kashmir, said that Pakistan-based insurgents were behind the attack — claims that Islamabad denies.

Pakistan responded to India’s attacks with missile, drone and artillery strikes along the Line of Control and on military installations, in what it called Operation Bunyan-ul-Marsoos, sparking intense cross-border exchanges until a ceasefire was brokered on May 10.

Ahmad linked these events to the broader unresolved status of the region.

“This recurring conflict was the result of Indian unprovoked aggression against Pakistan, which Pakistan had to respond to in accordance with the right to self-defense, in accordance with the UN Charter,” he said.

He welcomed international mediation efforts and reiterated Pakistan’s position. “We want to have this dialog with India. We want to address the issues between us, and in particular the core issue of Jammu and Kashmir.”

He restated the legal basis for Pakistan’s claims. “This position derives itself from the resolutions of the UN Security Council on Jammu and Kashmir,” which call for a plebiscite for the Kashmiri people.

However, “that plebiscite has not been held because India has refused to comply.”

Ahmad argued that lasting peace in South Asia is unlikely without resolving this “core issue.”

Turning to the credibility of the Security Council itself, Ahmad was blunt in his critique. “It’s very clear; resolutions are there. The problem is about implementation,” he said, citing both Kashmir and Palestine as long-neglected issues.

He referred to Article 25 of the UN Charter, which affirms that all Security Council resolutions are binding, whether under Chapter VI or Chapter VII.

“There should be a review, an assessment of how the Security Council has been able to implement many of its resolutions,” he said.

He proposed that special envoys or representatives of the secretary-general could help advance implementation. “More important than adopting those resolutions is to have them implemented,” he said.

Ahmad spoke at length about the leadership role Pakistan envisioned at the Security Council — including its commitment to multilateralism and its strategic engagement across UN agencies.

Beyond peace and security, Pakistan remains actively engaged in the UN’s development, humanitarian and environmental work.

“Pakistan, being a developing country, has development challenges. We are particularly impacted by climate change,” said Ahmad, recalling the devastating floods that have repeatedly afflicted the country in recent years.

In this photograph taken on August 4, 2024 people take shelter under a temporary settlement as it rains at an agricultural land in the aftermath of monsoon floods at Johi, Dadu district in Sindh province. (AFP)

He highlighted Pakistan’s leadership in climate diplomacy, emergency response and poverty reduction through collaboration with specialized UN agencies.

“We are among the lead countries who are leading this international discourse on development, on climate change,” he said.

According to Ahmad, Pakistan is active not only in New York, but also across other UN hubs — including Geneva, Rome and Nairobi — contributing to human rights, sustainable development and climate resilience.

On issues from Palestine and Kashmir to Security Council reform, he said, Pakistan is pushing for action grounded in the UN Charter and international law. As Ahmad sees it, the July presidency is an opportunity “to bring that focus back” to the principles on which the UN was founded.

At the heart of this approach is a renewed emphasis on multilateralism — a value Ahmad calls “the cornerstone of Pakistan’s foreign policy.”

In an increasingly divided world, he stressed that “the attachment to the UN, the charter, international law, and this ability for the member states to work together through the UN” remains vital.

Pakistan, he said, aims to advance peace and security through constructive cooperation with all member states, both inside and outside the council.

Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, Pakistan’s permanent representative to the UN, in an interview  with Arab News. (AN photo)

Reflecting that goal, Pakistan’s signature open debate next week will focus on “how we can better use multilateralism and peaceful settlement of disputes to promote international peace and security.”

The aim, he added, is to “bring that discussion back to the council” and reaffirm the tools provided in the UN Charter — particularly Chapter VI on peaceful dispute resolution, Chapter VIII on regional arrangements, and the secretary-general’s role in preventive diplomacy.

“We want to bring together and reaffirm the commitment of the Security Council to really utilize these tools,” Ahmad said.

Although some expected Pakistan’s signature event to spotlight national concerns, Ahmad clarified that the debate “is not specific to any situation.” Rather, it is intended to promote “a comprehensive approach to conflict prevention, preventive diplomacy,” and “peacefully address disputes.”

“Pakistan does not believe that we are in the Security Council only to promote our own issues or agendas. Our agenda is broad, based on international law,” he said.

Ahmad argued that such a holistic approach is essential to resolving many of the crises currently on the council’s agenda — including Gaza and Kashmir.

 

 


Sudan crisis worsens as violence escalates in Kordofan and Darfur

Sudan crisis worsens as violence escalates in Kordofan and Darfur
Updated 19 July 2025
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Sudan crisis worsens as violence escalates in Kordofan and Darfur

Sudan crisis worsens as violence escalates in Kordofan and Darfur
  • “The suffering in Kordofan deepens with each passing day,” Mercy Corps Country Director for Sudan, Kadry Furany, said in a statement

CAIRO: Fighting in Sudan’s Kordofan region that has killed hundreds and ongoing violence in Darfur — the epicenters of the country’s conflict — have worsened Sudan’s humanitarian crisis, with aid workers warning of limited access to assistance.

The UN said more than 450 civilians, including at least 35 children, were killed during the weekend of July 12 in attacks in villages surrounding the town of Bara in North Kordofan province.

“The suffering in Kordofan deepens with each passing day,” Mercy Corps Country Director for Sudan, Kadry Furany, said in a statement. “Communities are trapped along active and fast-changing front lines, unable to flee, unable to access basic needs or lifesaving assistance.”

Sudan plunged into war after simmering tensions between the army and its rival, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, escalated to fighting in April 2023. 

BACKGROUND

The violence has killed at least 40,000 people and created one of the world’s worst displacement and hunger crises.

In recent months, much of the fighting has been concentrated in the Darfur and Kordofan regions.

On Thursday, the UN human rights office confirmed that since July 10, the RSF has killed at least 60 civilians in the town of Bara, while civil society groups reported up to 300 people were killed, the office said.

A military airstrike on Thursday in Bara killed at least 11 people, all from the same family. 

Meanwhile, between July 10 and 14, the army killed at least 23 civilians and injured over two dozen others after striking two villages in West Kordofan.

An aid worker with Mercy Corps said his brother was fatally shot on July 13 during an attack on the village of Um Seimima in El-Obeid City in North Kordofan.

Furany said that movement between the western and eastern areas of the Kordofan region is “practically impossible.”

The intensified fighting forced Mercy Corps to temporarily suspend operations in three out of four localities, with access beyond Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan, now being in “serious doubt,” Furany said, as a safe sustained humanitarian corridor is needed.

Mathilde Vu, an aid worker with the Norwegian Refugee Council who is often based in Port Sudan, said that fighting has intensified in North Kordofan and West Kordofan over the past several months.

 


West Bank ‘plane chalet’ helps aviation dreams scale newer heights

A guest house built in the shape of an aeroplane in the town of Qaffin, occupied West Bank. (AFP)
A guest house built in the shape of an aeroplane in the town of Qaffin, occupied West Bank. (AFP)
Updated 19 July 2025
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West Bank ‘plane chalet’ helps aviation dreams scale newer heights

A guest house built in the shape of an aeroplane in the town of Qaffin, occupied West Bank. (AFP)
  • Red and white concrete ‘plane’ has become a local landmark
  • ‘So many kids want to come,’ said 27-year-old Harsha, who built the guest house in the hills of the northern West Bank. However, the price tag, between $300 and $600 per night, is out of reach for most Palestinians, particularly as unemployment soars due

QAFFIN, West Bank: A guest house in the shape of a plane would stand out anywhere in the world, but in the occupied West Bank, devoid of airports, Minwer Harsha’s creation helps aviation dreams take flight.

“So many kids want to come,” said 27-year-old Harsha, who built the guest house in the hills of the northern West Bank, within view of the separation barrier between Israel and the Palestinian territory.

“And that’s the goal: Since we don’t have planes or airports, people come here instead,” he said.

Harsha said he designed the concrete plane himself, with a master bedroom in the cockpit and a children’s bedroom in the tail.

The price tag, between 1,000 and 2,000 shekels (about $300-$600) per night, is out of reach for most Palestinians, particularly as unemployment soars due to the war in Gaza.

He has nonetheless been pleased with the reactions to his chalet, having initially faced skepticism.

“I wanted to bring something unique, something new to the area and to Palestine,” Harsha said of the unit, which opened a month ago.

Since its launch, his red and white concrete plane has become a local landmark, featuring in local media and on social networks.

Harsha said he originally wanted to place a Palestinian flag on his chalet and call it the “Palestinian Queen,” but avoided such signs out of caution.

The guest house is located in the West Bank’s Area C, which covers more than 60 percent of the territory and is under full Israeli control.

“I just made it look like a plane. I avoided politics entirely because of the hardships our people are going through,” he said.

“We’re a people who are constantly losing things — our land, our rights, our lives.”

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, and frequently demolishes homes it says are built without permission in the mostly rural Area C.

Though no airport currently services the Palestinian territories, both the West Bank and Gaza once had their own terminals, in East Jerusalem and the southern Gaza city of Rafah, respectively.

Both were closed during the Second Intifada, the Palestinian uprising of the early 2000s, and what remains of East Jerusalem’s airport is now isolated from the rest of the West Bank by Israel’s separation barrier.

Despite difficulties and threats of demolition, Harsha believes that Palestinians can find freedom and fulfilment in projects like his.

“I encourage everyone who has land to work on it and invest in it — with creativity and ambition,” he said, flanked by his two brothers who helped him build the unit.

Harsha himself has more plans for his land.

“After this airplane, we’ll build a ship next year,” he said.

“It will be something unique and beautiful,” he said, pointing out that while many West Bank Palestinians have seen planes flying overhead, a large number of people from the landlocked territory have never seen a real ship at all.