NICOSIA: The European Union will offer economic aid for Lebanon when the head of the bloc’s executive and the Cypriot president jointly visit Beirut on Thursday, a Cypriot official said on Tuesday.
EU member Cyprus has grown increasingly concerned at a sharp increase in the number of Syrian refugees making their way to the Mediterranean island. Lebanon, a mere 100 miles (185 km) away from Cyprus, hosts hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees.
“The President of the European Commission will present an economic aid package for Lebanon,” Cypriot government spokesperson Konstantinos Letymbiotis said in a statement.
President Ursula von der Leyen, due in Cyprus on Wednesday, would jointly travel to Beirut with the Cypriot President, Nikos Christodoulides on Thursday morning.
Discussions would focus on challenges Lebanon presently faces and stability reforms it needs, Letymbiotis said.
Nicosia has lobbied the bloc for months to extend aid to Lebanon similar to deals the EU has with Turkiye, Tunisia, and more recently, Egypt.
“The implementation of this (package) was at the initiative of President Christodoulides and the Republic of Cyprus and is practical proof of the active role the EU can play in our region,” Letymbiotis said.
Lebanon, in the throes of an economic meltdown since 2019, has not enacted most of the reforms required by the International Monetary Fund to get access to its funding, but has asked friendly countries to continue backing it.
Some Lebanese officials have used the growing presence of migrants and refugees in the country as a bargaining chip, threatening to stop intercepting migrant boats destined for Europe unless Lebanon received more economic support.
Cyprus took in more than 2,000 Syrians who arrived by sea in the first quarter of this year, compared to just 78 in the same period of last year. Earlier this month, it took the unprecedented step of dispatching patrol vessels to international waters off Lebanon to discourage crossings and said it was suspending the processing of asylum applications from Syrians.
EU’s von der Leyen to unveil aid for Lebanon to stop refugee flows, says Cyprus
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EU’s von der Leyen to unveil aid for Lebanon to stop refugee flows, says Cyprus
- Discussions would focus on challenges Lebanon presently faces and stability reforms it needs
- Nicosia has lobbied the bloc for months to extend aid to Lebanon similar to deals the EU has with Turkiye, Tunisia, and more recently, Egypt
Several people killed in Israeli airstrike near Aleppo in Syria, say state media and war monitor
BEIRUT: Several pro-regime fighters were killed in an overnight Israeli strike that targeted a factory near Aleppo, in the north of Syria, an NGO reported early Monday.
“At least 12 pro-Iranian fighters of Syrian and foreign nationalities were killed in an Israeli air strike on a position in the town of Hayyan, north of Aleppo, setting off strong explosions in a factory,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Syrian state media also reported on the air strike and said a number of people were killed. Citing a military source, state media said the air attack targeted sites in the vicinity of Aleppo, the second reported attack on the country in less than a week.
The strikes at around 12:20 a.m. (2120 GMT on Sunday) “led to a number of fatalties and some material damage,” the source said, without elaborating.
Israel launched air attacks on May 29 on Syria’s central region as well as the coastal city of Baniyas, killing a child and injuring ten civilians, according to Syrian state media.
For years Israel has been carrying out attacks against what it has described as Iran-linked targets in Syria, where Tehran’s influence has grown since it began supporting President Bashar Assad in the civil war that started in 2011.
In April, Iran retaliated by firing missiles at Israel after a presumed Israeli strike that destroyed a building in Iran’s embassy compound in Damascus and killed several Iranian officers including a top general.
Israel seeks a ‘governing alternative’ to Hamas in Gaza. It’s been tried and failed before
- Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel "will not accept the rule of Hamas at any stage in any process aimed at ending the war"
- An Israeli analyst of Palestinian affairs he has "not heard of any local players that are brave enough to present themselves as an alternative to Hamas"
JERUSALEM: Israel is looking into an alternative local governing body for Gaza, the defense minister said Sunday, proposing a future beyond Hamas but giving no idea who those challengers might be.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s comments came at a time of new uncertainty in the eight-month war. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under growing pressure from many Israelis to accept a new ceasefire deal proposed by US President Joe Biden, while far-right allies threaten to collapse his government if he does.
Gallant, part of Israel’s three-member War Cabinet who recently urged the government to have a detailed postwar plan for Gaza, said in a briefing that “we seek a governing alternative to Hamas. The framework for this includes isolating areas, removing Hamas operatives in these areas and bringing in other forces that will enable the formation of a governing alternative.”
That will achieve Israel’s goals of removing Hamas’ military and governing authority in Gaza and returning home the remaining hostages taken in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that sparked the war, Gallant said. He stressed that “we will not accept the rule of Hamas at any stage in any process aimed at ending the war.”
In response to questions, an Israeli defense official told The Associated Press that Gallant hopes to enable isolated, Hamas-free areas in Gaza to become “hubs of local government” and identify forces that can enable a longer-term formation of a government.
Israel is looking for “local non-hostile actors,” the official said, adding that Gallant believes that “Palestinians should be governing Palestinians.” Israel would facilitate surges of aid to the areas, and the local forces would be responsible for distributing it to strengthen their authority.
But that approach is challenging and has failed before, one expert said.
“I haven’t heard of any local players that are brave enough to present themselves as an alternative to Hamas,” said Michael Milshtein, an Israeli analyst of Palestinian affairs at Tel Aviv University and a former military intelligence officer.
Milshtein said Gallant’s “wishful thinking” would amount to a suicidal mission for any local leader. Hamas has threatened anyone cooperating with Israel’s government.
“Although Hamas suffered severe damage over the past eight months, their impact on the public is still very strong,” he said.
Milshtein noted that Israel has tried this approach in the past. In the 1970s and ‘80s, Israel tried to establish “village leagues,” empowering local Palestinian leaders.
“They were considered in the eyes of Palestinians as collaborators, and it ended in a very tragic manner,” he said. Unless Israel maintains a constant presence in Gaza, any “alternative forces” they try to install will be too fragile, he added.
Netanyahu has said Israel will maintain security control over Gaza but delegate civilian administration to local Palestinians unaffiliated with Hamas or the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the occupied West Bank. He has ruled out a path to Palestinian statehood.
Top ally the US has proposed that a reformed Palestinian Authority would govern Gaza with the assistance of Arab and Muslim nations.
The Hamas attack on Oct. 7 in southern Israel killed around 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducted about 250. About 100 hostages remain in Gaza, along with the bodies of around 30 more.
Over 36,430 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza by Israel’s offensive, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Its count doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants. Israel blames Hamas for civilian deaths, accusing it of operating from dense residential areas.
At least five people including a young girl were killed Sunday in a strike on a street in Zawayda, central Gaza, according to Palestinian health officials and AP journalists at Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital who counted the bodies.
The United States continued to press Israel on the ceasefire proposal outlined by Biden, who said Friday it’s time for the war to end. Many of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced and shelter with few supplies, large parts of the territory have been destroyed and the United Nations has warned of “full-blown” famine.
The deal’s first phase would last six weeks and include a “full and complete ceasefire,” a withdrawal of Israeli forces from all densely populated areas of Gaza and the release of a number of hostages, including women, older people and the wounded, in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Biden acknowledged that moving into the next phase of the deal would require more negotiations.
“This was an Israeli proposal. We have every expectation that if Hamas agrees to the proposal – as was transmitted to them, an Israeli proposal – then Israel would say yes,” White House National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby told ABC.
Also Sunday, officials from Egypt, Israel and the US ended a meeting in Cairo without any apparent agreement to reopen the crucial Rafah crossing into Gaza, which has been closed since Israel took over the Palestinian side of it in early May, Egypt’s state-run television channel Al-Qahera News reported.
Israel’s military continues to press into Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, in search of what’s been described as Hamas’ last stronghold even as the militants regroup elsewhere in the territory.
Citing an unnamed official, Al-Qahera News said Egypt affirmed that Israel must withdraw its forces from the Palestinian side of the crossing before it can reopen. The report said Egypt accused Israel of blocking the delivery of badly needed humanitarian aid to Gaza, which Israel denies.
Gaza mothers search for milk as malnutrition hits hard
GAZA STRIP: Amira Al-Taweel scoured pharmacies in northern Gaza for milk to feed her child, but could not find a single bottle to satisfy his hunger.
“Youssef needs treatment and milk, but there’s none available in Gaza,” the 33-year-old mother said at Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in central Gaza where her son was admitted suffering from malnutrition.
“I feed him, but no milk as it’s not available. I feed him wheat (flour) which makes him bloated,” she said, as Youssef lay on a narrow bed, his frail body receiving desperately needed medication through intravenous tubes in his feet.
The Hamas government media office said that at least 32 people, many of them children, have died of malnutrition in Gaza since the war broke out on Oct. 7.
Israel’s military campaign has killed 36,439 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the territory’s Health Ministry.
But aid agencies warn that the situation is even worse when it comes to children.
On Saturday, the World Health Organization said that more than four in five children had gone a whole day without eating at least once in 72 hours.
“Children are starving,” WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said in a statement.
The rise in malnutrition among Gaza’s children is largely a result of humanitarian aid that enters the Palestinian territory not reaching its intended destination, aid agencies said.
Since mid-January the UN humanitarian agency OCHA has screened more than 93,400 children under five in Gaza for malnutrition, including 7,280 who were found to be acutely malnourished.
Malnutrition is particularly prevalent in northern Gaza, which received little aid in the early months of the war.
Only in recent weeks has much of the food aid been diverted through new crossings after aid agencies warned of imminent famine.
The Israeli military said on Sunday that a total of 1,858 trucks of aid were inspected and sent into Gaza this week through its Kerem Shalom and Erez West crossings, including 764 from Egypt.
At Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, mothers were concerned about their malnourished children.
After Youssef and another baby boy, Saif, were admitted, their mothers sat next to them, worrying about how long they could survive on the food the hospital provides.
“We depend on the aid that comes here and is given to the children,” said Noha Al-Khaldi, mother of Saif, whose skin was stretched over protruding bones.
“All night long he suffers ... He was supposed to have an operation, but it was postponed.”
UAE’s foreign minister visits National Institute of Education in Singapore
- Minister affirms support in strengthening cooperation in the education sector
LONDON: The UAE’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan visited the National Institute of Education in Singapore on Sunday, the Emirates News Agency reported.
Founded in 1950, the NIE has been instrumental in developing Singapore’s teaching workforce.
Upon his arrival at the institute, Sheikh Abdullah was welcomed by Christine Goh, the NIE’s director professor.
The minister toured the institute’s facilities and was briefed on the NIE’s influential role in shaping and advancing Singapore’s educational system and contemporary teaching methodologies.
He praised the NIE as one of the world’s premier academic institutions in educational excellence and leadership. He highlighted that the NIE reflects Singapore’s robust educational system, a cornerstone of the nation’s overall development.
The foreign minister also emphasized the UAE’s commitment to strengthening educational cooperation with Singapore, noting that education is fundamental to sustainable development, progress, and the safeguarding of national achievements.
Sheikh Abdullah affirmed the UAE’s support in strengthening cooperation with Singapore in the education sector within the framework of the comprehensive partnership between the two countries.
Qatar slams Israeli attempt to classify UNRWA as a terrorist organization
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs calls on international community to stand firm in the face of Israel’s plans
DOHA: Qatar has condemned Israel’s move to classify the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees as a terrorist organization, the Qatar News Agency reported on Sunday.
The Gulf state described the action as an attempt to undermine the agency’s diplomatic immunity and criminalize its humanitarian efforts at a time when the need for its services is paramount given Israel’s war in Gaza.
Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on the international community to stand firm in the face of Israeli plans to shut down the agency and deprive millions of Palestinians of vital services in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.
The ministry reaffirmed Qatar’s unwavering support for UNRWA, emphasizing the country’s commitment to the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people. These include the establishment of an independent Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
UNRWA, which coordinates nearly all aid to Gaza, has been in crisis since January when Israel accused about a dozen of its 13,000 Gaza employees of being involved in the Oct. 7 attack.
Saudi Arabia and Jordan issued similar condemnations on Saturday.
