PKK claims Iraq attacks on Kurdish security forces
PKK claims Iraq attacks on Kurdish security forces/node/2599179/middle-east
PKK claims Iraq attacks on Kurdish security forces
The outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) claimed on Thursday two attacks in northern Iraq that wounded five Kurdish security personnel earlier this week. (AFP/File)
PKK claims Iraq attacks on Kurdish security forces
The post would close a road between two regions “in an attempt to destroy and besiege our forces,” the PKK said
It is one of many posts that the peshmerga have started building in an area considered “strategic” to the group
Updated 01 May 2025
AFP
SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq: The outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) claimed on Thursday two attacks in northern Iraq that wounded five Kurdish security personnel earlier this week.
The attacks occurred on Monday and Tuesday, targeting peshmerga bases in Dohuk province in the northern autonomous Kurdistan region, which has seen repeated clashes between Turkish forces and the PKK.
The regional authorities, who have close ties with Ankara, said on Tuesday that two separate drone attacks targeted its security forces, blaming them on a “terrorist group.”
The PKK said in a statement that it launched “minor” attacks to avoid casualties in response to the Kurdistan security forces — the peshmerga — building a new post in the area.
The post would close a road between two regions “in an attempt to destroy and besiege our forces,” the PKK said.
It is one of many posts that the peshmerga have started building in an area considered “strategic” to the group, the PKK added.
Kamran Othman of the US-based Community Peacemakers Teams, which monitors Turkish operations in Iraqi Kurdistan, told AFP Tuesday that the peshmerga were establishing a new post in a “sensitive area” long marked by tensions between the PKK and Turkish forces.
Blacklisted as a “terrorist group” by Ankara, the European Union and the United States, the PKK has fought the Turkish state for most of the past four decades.
The group maintains rear bases in the mountains of northern Iraq, where Turkish forces have also long operated bases.
The drone attacks came weeks after the PKK announced a ceasefire with Turkiye in response to their jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan’s historic call to the group to dissolve and disarm.
Despite the ceasefire, skirmishes between the foes continue in several areas of northern Iraq.
The regional authorities said the attacks aimed to “obstruct the peace process and the stability of the region.”
The PKK said in their statement that they “don’t want to enter a war with any side.”
Aid trucks start moving toward Gaza from Egypt, state-affiliated TV says
Mounting international pressure and warnings from relief agencies of starvation spreading in the enclave
Israeli military said hours earlier that ‘humanitarian corridors’ would be established for safe movement of UN convoys
Updated 4 sec ago
Reuters
CAIRO: Aid trucks started moving toward Gaza from Egypt, the Egyptian state-affiliated Al-Qahera News TV said on Sunday, after mounting international pressure and warnings from relief agencies of starvation spreading in the enclave. The Israeli military said hours earlier that “humanitarian corridors” would be established for safe movement of United Nations convoys delivering aid to Gazans and that “humanitarian pauses” would be implemented in densely populated areas.
UK party threatens to ‘force vote’ on recognizing Palestinian state
The Scottish National Party said it would table a “Palestine Recognition Bill” when parliament returns after its summer recess if Starmer did not change his position
Updated 27 July 2025
AFP
LONDON: A minor opposition party in the British parliament on Sunday threatened to bring forward legislation on recognizing Palestinian statehood and “force a vote” if Prime Minister Keir Starmer continues to oppose the move.
The Scottish National Party (SNP), which pushes for the independence of Scotland, said it would table a “Palestine Recognition Bill” when parliament returns after its summer recess if Starmer did not change his position.
The prime minister has committed to recognizing Palestinian statehood but said it must be part of a peace process in the Middle East.
The SNP threat comes after more than 220 British MPs, including dozens from Starmer’s ruling Labour party, demanded Friday that the UK government follow France and recognize a Palestinian state.
The call, in a letter signed by lawmakers from nine UK political parties, came less than 24 hours after French President Emmanuel Macron said that his country would formally do so at a UN meeting in September.
“Unless Keir Starmer stops blocking UK recognition of Palestine, the SNP will introduce a Palestine Recognition Bill when Parliament returns in September and force a vote if necessary,” said Stephen Flynn, SNP’s leader in the UK parliament.
“Keir Starmer must stop defending the indefensible, finally find a backbone and demand that Israel ends its war now,” he added.
If France formally recognizes a Palestinian state it would be the first G7 country — and the most powerful European nation to date — to make the move.
Starmer has come under rising domestic and international pressure over recognizing Palestinian statehood, as opposition intensifies to the ongoing war in Gaza amid fears of mass starvation there.
The UK leader on Saturday spoke to his French and German counterparts and outlined UK plans to airdrop aid to people in Gaza and evacuate sick and injured children, his office said.
The SNP holds nine seats in the 650-seat UK parliament.
Camp David meeting 25 years on: Could the Middle East plan have worked?
Many still wonder whether the talks could have led to an agreement and altered the course of Middle East history
US President Clinton concluded that Israeli PM Barak and Palestinian leader Arafat were unable to “reach an agreement”
Updated 26 July 2025
Jonathan Lessware
LONDON: Emerging from lush woodland, amid birdsong and with wide smiles, it was a scene that could not have been further from the slaughter currently unfolding in Gaza.
Yet through the quarter of a century that has passed since the Palestinian and Israeli leaders joined President Bill Clinton for talks at Camp David, a direct line can be drawn to the daily massacres Palestinians are now facing.
What began with cautious optimism to make major headway toward a final status peace agreement ended in failure on July 25, 2000.
Clinton solemnly “concluded with regret” that after 14 days of talks, the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had not been able to “reach an agreement at this time.”
Israel and the US media perpetuated a myth that Arafat had turned down a generous offer of a Palestinian state. Palestinians and other diplomats involved say Israel was offering nothing of the sort.
Within weeks of the talks ending, the right-wing Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon visited Haram Al-Sharif, the site of Al-Aqsa Mosque, in Jerusalem, igniting the Second Palestinian Intifada uprising against Israeli occupation.
Ariel Sharon, flanked by his security guards as he leaves the Temple Mount compound in Jerusalem on September 28, 2000. (AFP file photo)
While the talks have gone down in history as a failure, the six months that followed culminated in what many believe was the closest the two sides have come to a final status agreement.
But by the start of 2001, with Clinton out of office, Israeli elections looming, and violence escalating, the window of political timing slipped away.
Many were left to wonder whether the mistakes made during the Camp David meeting resulted in a missed opportunity that could have led to an agreement, thus altering the course of Middle East history.
Perhaps decades of episodes of bloodshed and occupation could have been averted.
Tents sheltering displaced Palestinians are seen amid war-damaged infrastructure in Gaza City on July 17, 2025. (AP)
With hindsight aside, is there anything that can be learned from those two weeks of negotiations that brought together the leaders from either side?
The talks at Camp David convened eight years after the first of the two Oslo Accords was famously signed in 1993 between Arafat and the then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin at the White House.
The agreement was designed as an interim deal and the start of a process that aimed to secure a final status agreement within five years.
Under Oslo, Israel recognized the Palestinian Liberation Organization as the representative of the Palestinian people, and the Palestinian side recognized Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (left) and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat shake hands on August 10, 1994 at the end of their meeting at the Erez crossing, as Shimon Peres (2nd L) looks on. After signing the Oslo Accord with Arafat, Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish extremist. (AFP/File)
The agreement led to the establishment of the Palestinian Authority to have limited governance over parts of the West Bank and Gaza, which Israel had annexed in 1967 along with East Jerusalem. A phased Israeli military withdrawal from occupied Palestinian territories was also meant to take place.
By the year 2000 it was clear that the Oslo process had stalled with Palestinians deeply unhappy about the lack of progress and that the Israeli occupation had become more entrenched since the agreement. The building of Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land had accelerated, restrictions against Palestinians had increased, and violence continued.
Clinton, who was in the final year of his presidency, was determined to push for a blockbuster agreement to secure his legacy.
Arafat, on the other hand, was strongly against the talks taking place on the grounds that the “conditions were not yet ripe,” according to The Camp David Papers, a detailed firsthand account of the talks by Akram Hanieh, editor of Al-Ayyam newspaper and close adviser to the Palestinian leader.
“The Palestinians repeatedly warned that the Palestinian problem was too complicated to be resolved in a hastily convened summit,” Hanieh wrote.
Caption
Barak came to the table also looking to seal a big win that would bolster his ailing governing coalition. He was looking to do away with the incremental approach of Oslo and go for an all-or nothing final agreement.
The leaders arrived on July 11 at Camp David, the 125 acre presidential retreat in the Catoctin mountains. The secluded forested location was cut off further with a ban on cell phones and just one phone line provided per delegation to avoid leaks.
It was something Clinton joked about when he greeted Arafat and Barak before the press, saying he would not take any questions as part of a media blackout.
There was even a lighthearted moment when Arafat and Barak broke into a gentle play fight as they insisted one another entered the lodge first — an image unthinkable in the current climate.
But behind the scenes there was less joviality and deep concern grew among the Palestinian camp about how the talks would unfold.
The core issues to be discussed included the extent of territory that would be included in a Palestinian state and the positioning of the borders surrounding them.
This photo released on September 28, 1995 by the White House shows Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (2nd L) and PLO leader Yasser Arafat (2nd R) are shown signing maps representing the re-deployment of Israel troops in the West Bank. Looking on are Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak (3rd L) ; US President Bill Clinton (C) ; King Hussein of Jordan (3rd R) and PLO leader Yasser Arafat (2nd R). (AFP/File)
There was also the status and future of Israeli settlements, and the right of return of Palestinian refugees displaced when Israel was founded in 1948.
What proved to be the most contentious issue, and the one the US proved to be least prepared for, was the status of Jerusalem, and in particular sovereignty over its holy sites.
Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of their future state with full sovereignty over Haram Al-Sharif — the third holiest site in Islam. The site, known as the Temple Mount by Israelis, is also revered by Jews.
Because nothing was presented in writing and there was no working draft of the negotiations, there are differing versions of exactly what the Israelis proposed.
Israeli claims that Barak offered 90 percent of the West Bank along with Gaza to the Palestinians turned out to be far less when applied to maps. Israel also wanted to maintain security control over the West Bank.
Israel would annex 9 percent of the West Bank, including its major settlements there in exchange for 1 percent of Israeli territory.
Israel would keep most of East Jerusalem and only offer some form of custodianship over Haram Al-Sharif, nowhere near Palestinians demands. And there was nothing of substance on returning refugees.
While US media interpretations of the talks often claimed the two sides were close to an agreement, Hanieh’s account describes big gaps between their positions across the major points of contention.
With a sense of foreboding of what was to come, Hanieh wrote: “The Americans immediately adopted Israel’s position on the Haram, seemingly unaware of the fact that they were toying with explosives that could ignite the Middle East and the Islamic world.”
The fact the proposals were only presented verbally through US officials meant that nothing was ever formally offered to the Palestinians.
Barak’s approach meant “there never was an Israeli offer” Robert Malley, a member of the US negotiating team, said in an article co-written a year later that sought to diffuse the blame placed on Arafat by Israel and the US for the talk’s failure.
The Israeli leader’s approach and failures over implementing Oslo led Arafat to became convinced that Israel was setting a trap to trick him into agreeing major concessions.
The Palestinians also increasingly felt the US bias toward Israel’s position, and that all the pressure was being applied to Arafat. This undermined the US as an honest broker.
“Backed by the US, Israel negotiated in bad faith, making it impossible for Palestinians to consider these talks a foundation for a just peace,” Ramzy Baroud, the Palestinian-American editor of the Palestine Chronicle, told Arab News. “The talks were fundamentally designed to skew outcomes in Israel's favor.”
Another reason for the failure was the lack of ground work carried out before they started.
“It was not well prepared,” Yossi Mekelberg, associate fellow of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Chatham House, told Arab News. “They went there with not enough already agreed beforehand, which is very important for a summit.”
The US hosting has also been heavily criticized, even by members of its own negotiating teams.
“The Camp David summit — ill-conceived and ill-advised — should probably never have taken place,” Aaron David Miller, another senior negotiator, wrote 20 years later. He highlighted “numerous mistakes” and a poor performance by the US team that would have made blocked reaching an agreement, even if the two sides had been in a place to reach one.
Aaron David Miller, a senior negotiator for the US, wrote 20 years later that the Camp David summit was ill-conceived and ill-advised./ (Supplied)
When Arafat held firm and refused to cave to pressure to accept Israel’s proposals, the summit drew to a close with little to show toward a final status agreement.
“While they were not able to bridge the gaps and reach an agreement, their negotiations were unprecedented in both scope and detail,” the final statement said.
There are various opinions on whether the talks were doomed to failure from the start or whether they can be viewed as a missed opportunity that could have brought peace to the region and averted the decades of bloodshed that followed.
The latter viewpoint stems as much from the diplomatic efforts in the months that followed Camp David.
Against a backdrop of escalating violence and during Clinton’s final months in office, focus shifted to a set of parameters for further final status negotiations. Both sides agreed to the landmark plan in late December but with reservations.
The momentum carried over to the Taba summit in Egypt three weeks later but the impending Israeli election meant they ran out of time. In the closing statement, the sides declared they had never been closer to reaching an agreement.
With the arrival of President George W Bush in office and Sharon defeating Barak in Israel’s election, political support for the process evaporated and the intifada raged on for another four years.
“It was a missed opportunity,” Mekelberg said of Camp David. “There was a great opportunity there, and had it succeeded, we would not be having all these terrible tragedies that we've seen.”
The way that Arafat was blamed for the failure left a particularly bitter aftertaste for Palestinians.
“The most egregious demonstration of Israel’s and the US’s bad faith was their decision to blame the talks’ collapse not on Israel’s refusal to adhere to international law, but on Yasser Arafat’s alleged stubbornness and disinterest in peace,” Baroud said.
The talks were “unequivocally doomed to failure,” he said because they rested on the false premise that the Oslo Accords were ever a genuine path to peace.
“The exponential growth of illegal settlements, the persistent failure to address core issues, escalating Israeli violence, and the continuous disregard for international principles concerning Palestinian rights all contributed to Camp David’s collapse.”
He said if any lessons are to be taken by those attempting to negotiate an end to Israel’s war on Gaza and implement a wider peace agreement, it would be that “neither Israel nor the US can be trusted to chart a path to peace without a firm framework rooted in international and humanitarian law.”
In the coming days, Saudi Arabia and France will co-chair a conference at the UN on the two-state solution to the conflict, that seeks to plot a course toward a Palestinian state. Perhaps this could help build the sustainable international framework that was lacking in July 2000.
Israeli military says it has airdropped aid into Gaza
The military’s statement did not say when the humanitarian corridors for UN convoys would open, or where
It also said the military is prepared to implement humanitarian pauses in densely populated areas
Updated 27 July 2025
AFP AP
JERUSALEM: Israel’s military said Saturday that it airdropped humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, as thousands of Palestinians face the threat of widespread famine.
“In accordance with the directives of the political echelon, the IDF recently carried out an airdrop of humanitarian aid as part of the ongoing efforts to allow and facilitate the entry of aid into the Gaza Strip,” the military posted on Telegram.
The drop included seven packages of aid containing flour, sugar and canned food, it added.
In an earlier statement, Israel’s military said humanitarian corridors will be established for United Nations convoys.
The statement issued late Saturday came after increasing accounts of starvation-related deaths in Gaza following months of experts’ warnings of famine. International criticism, including by close allies, has grown as several hundred Palestinians have been killed in recent weeks while trying to reach aid.
The military’s statement did not say when the humanitarian corridors for UN convoys would open, or where. It also said the military is prepared to implement humanitarian pauses in densely populated areas.
The statement added that the military “emphasizes that combat operations have not ceased” in Gaza against Hamas. And it asserts there is “no starvation” in the territory.
Israeli airstrikes and gunshots killed at least 53 people in Gaza overnight and into Saturday, most of them shot dead while seeking aid, according to Palestinian health officials and the local ambulance service, as starvation deaths continued.
Deadly Israeli gunfire was reported twice within hours close to the Zikim crossing with Israel in the north. In the first incident, at least a dozen people waiting for aid trucks were killed, said staff at Shifa hospital, where bodies were taken. Israel’s military said it fired warning shots to distance a crowd “in response to an immediate threat” and it was not aware of any casualties.
A witness, Sherif Abu Aisha, said people started running when they saw a light that they thought was from aid trucks, but as they got close, they realized it was Israel’s tanks. That’s when the army started firing, he told The Associated Press. He said his uncle was among those killed.
“We went because there is no food ... and nothing was distributed,” he said.
On Saturday evening, Israeli forces killed at least 11 people and wounded 120 others when they fired toward crowds who tried to get food from an entering UN convoy, Dr. Mohamed Abu Selmiyah, director of Shifa hospital, told the AP.
“We are expecting the numbers to surge in the next few hours,” he said. There was no immediate Israeli military comment.
Elsewhere, those killed in strikes included four people in an apartment building in Gaza City, hospital staff and the ambulance service said.
Another Israeli strike killed at least eight, including four children, in the crowded tent camp of Muwasi in the southern city of Khan Younis, according to the Nasser hospital.
Also in Khan Younis, Israeli forces opened fire and killed at least nine people trying to get aid entering Gaza through the Morag corridor, according to the hospital’s morgue records. There was no immediate comment from Israel’s military.
Families of Americans slain in the West Bank lose hope for justice
American-born teenagers Tawfic Abdel Jabbar and Mohammad Khdour were killed in early 2024 by Israeli fire while driving in the West Bank
Updated 26 July 2025
AP
BIDDU, West Bank: When Sayfollah Musallet of Tampa, Florida, was beaten to death by Israeli settlers in the West Bank two weeks ago, he became the fourth Palestinian-American killed in the occupied territory since the war in Gaza began.
No one has been arrested or charged in Musallet’s slaying – and if Israel’s track record on the other three deaths is any guide, it seems unlikely to happen. Yet Musallet’s father and a growing number of US politicians want to flip the script.
“We demand justice,” Kamel Musallet said at his 20-year-old son’s funeral earlier this week. “We demand the US government do something about it.”
Still, Musallet and relatives of the other Palestinian-Americans say they doubt anyone will be held accountable, either by Israel or the US.
They believe the first word in their hyphenated identity undercuts the power of the second.
BACKGROUND
They believe the first word in their hyphenated identity undercuts the power of the second.
And they say Israel and its law enforcement have made them feel like culprits — by imposing travel bans and, in some cases, detaining and interrogating them.
Although the Trump administration has stopped short of promising investigations of its own, the US Embassy in Jerusalem has urged Israel to investigate the circumstances of each American’s death.
Writing on X on July 15, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said he’d asked Israel to “aggressively investigate the murder” of Musallet and that “there must be accountability for this criminal and terrorist act.”
Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and 28 other Democratic senators have also called for an investigation.
In a letter this week to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Attorney General Pam Bondi, they pointed to the “repeated lack of accountability” after the deaths of Musallet and other Americans killed in the West Bank.
Israel’s military, police and Shin Bet domestic security agency did not offer comment on the Palestinian-Americans’ deaths. Families have demanded independent investigations
American-born teenagers Tawfic Abdel Jabbar and Mohammad Khdour were killed in early 2024 by Israeli fire while driving in the West Bank.
In April 2025, 14-year-old Amer Rabee, a New Jersey native, was shot in the head at least nine times by Israeli forces as he stood among a grove of green almond trees in his family’s village.