JERUSALEM: Israeli police have raided a long-established Palestinian-owned bookstore in east Jerusalem, detaining the owners and confiscating books about the decades-long conflict. The police said the books incited violence.
The Educational Bookshop, established over 40 years ago, is a hub of intellectual life in east Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed to its capital in a move not recognized internationally. Most of the city’s Palestinian population lives in east Jerusalem, and the Palestinians want it to be the capital of their future state.
The three-story bookstore that was raided on Sunday has a large selection of books, mainly in Arabic and English, about the conflict and the wider Middle East, including many by Israeli and Jewish authors. It hosts cultural events and is especially popular among researchers, journalists and foreign diplomats.
The bookstore’s owners, Ahmed and Mahmoud Muna, were detained, and police confiscated hundreds of titles related to the conflict before ordering the store’s closure, according to May Muna, Mahmoud’s wife.
She said the soldiers picked out books with Palestinian titles or flags, “without knowing what any of them meant.” She said they used Google Translate on some the Arabic titles to see what they meant before carting them away in plastic bags.
Police raided another Palestinian-owned bookstore in the Old City in east Jerusalem last week.
In a statement, the police said the two owners were arrested on suspicion of “selling books containing incitement and support for terrorism.”
As an example, the police referred to an English-language children’s coloring book entitled “From the River to the Sea,” a reference to the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea that today includes Israel, the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Palestinians and hard-line Israelis each view the entire area as their national homeland. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government is opposed to Palestinian statehood, has said Israel must maintain indefinite control over all the territory west of the Jordan.
Israeli-Palestinian tensions have soared since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack out of Gaza triggered the war there. A ceasefire has paused the fighting and led to the release of several Israeli hostages abducted in the attack as well as hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Tensions have also soared in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7 attack and abducted around 250 people. The war the followed has killed over 47,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. It does not say how many were fighters. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, and the Palestinians want all three territories for their future state. The last serious and substantive peace talks broke down after Netanyahu returned to power in 2009.
Israeli police raid Palestinian bookshop in east Jerusalem, claiming incitement to violence
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Israeli police raid Palestinian bookshop in east Jerusalem, claiming incitement to violence
- The Educational Bookshop, established over 40 years ago, is a hub of intellectual life in east Jerusalem
Lebanese army expands presence in areas along Litani River
- It follows the launch last week of rockets toward Israel, and retaliatory Israeli airstrikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut
BEIRUT: A large contingent of the Lebanese army entered Yohmor Chkeif, north of the Litani River in Nabatieh governorate, southern Lebanon, on Wednesday. Rockets were launched from the area toward Israel last week.
A security source said forces patrolled the village, which is surrounded on three sides by the river. A video shared on social media appeared to show the troops entering the village.
The residents of another village north of the Litani River reported seeing Lebanese army Cessna drones in the skies over Nabatieh on Wednesday. An army unit, in cooperation with the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, recently entered Zawtar Al-Charqiyeh, which is located in the same governorate.
Ali Al-Amin, the editor-in-chief of the Janoubia news website, told Arab News the region is characterized by its valleys, mountains and rugged terrain. Under Hezbollah directives, only civilians are allowed in the area. But a Lebanese army unit entered Hezbollah military sites in Wadi Zawtar Al-Charqiyeh, close to the river, he added.
The valley was targeted by at least 200 raids during the recent war between Israel and Hezbollah. It reportedly contains large Hezbollah camps, training centers and weapon storage facilities.
The arrival of the Lebanese army in the area effectively marks the end of Hezbollah’s military presence there, Al-Amin said, though the group has not officially stated this. He suggested that Hezbollah might have reached an understanding with the army behind closed doors.
Last week, the army seized empty rocket launchers that had targeted Israel twice in the space of a week. An investigation has been launched in an attempt to identify those who fired the missiles. They remain unknown, although the Lebanese army said it arrested suspects from Syria and Palestine.
The launch of the rockets resulted in a significant deterioration in the security situation in Lebanon, jeopardizing the ceasefire agreement as retaliatory Israeli airstrikes targeted the southern suburbs of Beirut for the first time since the peace deal came into effect four months ago. Dozens of people were killed or injured by the Israeli strikes.
Army commander Gen. Rodolphe Haikal inspected the South Litani Sector Command two days ago and reinforced the Lebanese military’s commitment to the implementation of UN resolutions and the ceasefire agreement.
Army command said the general had highlighted the continued presence of Israeli forces in occupied Lebanese territory as the main obstacle to deployment of the army south of the Litani, and reinforcement of the ceasefire.
Further Israeli violations of the peace agreement were reported on Wednesday. According to media reports from southern Lebanon, the Israeli army “opened fire on a citizen from the border town of Odaisseh, injuring him slightly while he was driving his car on the Kfarkela-Odaisseh road.” The Ministry of Health also said a citizen was wounded by Israeli gunfire in the Odaisseh area.
The Israeli army also continued to target shelters being built by residents in border areas near homes destroyed during the conflict. A combat drone destroyed one such shelter in the center of the town of Yaroun but no casualties were reported.
At dawn, Israeli vehicles and demolition equipment based in the Labouneh area east of Naqoura, inside Lebanese territory, advanced toward Ras Naqoura. According to the National News Agency, they raised a dirt barrier that blocked the road on both directions opposite the Israeli Jal Al-Alam site, which overlooks the towns of Naqoura and Alma Al-Shaab.
The latest developments come as Russia Today reported that Lebanese security officials had received “concerning signals” suggesting that Israeli authorities intend to resume their campaign of targeted assassinations. A security source said Tel Aviv is committed to dismantling Hezbollah’s military arsenal and considers the Lebanese government’s efforts so far to achieve this to be inadequate.
The rising tensions followed a pre-dawn Israeli strike in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Tuesday that killed Hezbollah member Hassan Badir and his son. Civilians in a neighboring apartment were also reportedly killed.
In a separate security operation, the Lebanese army said on Wednesday it had shut down two illegal border crossings in the Hermel and Mashari Al-Qaa regions as part of its ongoing efforts to combat smuggling and unauthorized movements across the country’s northern and eastern border with Syria.
Gaza mass grave underscores ‘war without limits’, UN official says
- “It was shocking” to see medical workers “still in their uniforms, still wearing gloves, killed while trying to save lives,” said Jonathan Whittall, OCHA’S head
- “The ambulances were hit one by one“
UNITED NATIONS: The mass grave in Rafah where the bodies of 15 medics were found after the Israeli army fired on ambulances illustrates the “war without limits” that Israel is leading in Gaza, a UN aid official said Wednesday.
“It was shocking” to see medical workers “still in their uniforms, still wearing gloves, killed while trying to save lives,” said Jonathan Whittall, head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the Palestinian territories.
“The ambulances were hit one by one,” he said in a video conference after a mission to Gaza uncovered the mass grave. Of the 15 bodies, eight were members of the Palestinian Red Crescent and one was from the United Nations.
UN chief Antonio Guterres also expressed revulsion Wednesday at the killings.
“The secretary-general is shocked by the attacks of the Israeli army on a medical and emergency convoy on March 23 resulting in the killings of 15 medical personnel and humanitarian workers in Gaza,” spokesman Stephane Dujarric told a briefing.
OCHA said Tuesday that the first team of first aid workers was killed by Israeli forces on March 23, and that other emergency and aid teams were hit one after another over several hours while searching for their missing colleagues.
After several weeks of ceasefire in Gaza, Israel resumed its bombardments on March 18 and announced Wednesday the extension of its military operations to seize “large areas” of the territory.
Whittall said 64 percent of Gaza is under displacement orders, and that 200,000 people have been uprooted since the end of the ceasefire.
He said the 25 bakeries run by the UN’s World Food Programme have been closed since Tuesday.
“It’s an endless loop of blood, pain, death and Gaza has become a death trap,” he said. “What is happening here defies decency, it defies humanity, it defies the law.”
Libya suspends work of ‘hostile’ international NGOs: security agency
- “The plan to settle migrants of African origin in Libya is seen as a hostile act” said Gheith
TRIPOLI: Libyan authorities announced on Wednesday a decision to suspend the work of 10 international humanitarian groups, accusing the NGOs of a plan to “settle migrants” from other parts of Africa in the country.
“The plan to settle migrants of African origin in Libya is seen as a hostile act, which is aimed at altering the demographic composition of the country and threatens Libyan society,” said Salem Gheith, spokesman for the North African country’s Internal Security Agency.
Israeli airstrike targets Barzeh neighborhood in Syria’s Damascus
- Israel spent years carrying out airstrikes on Syria during former President Bashar Assad’s rule
DAMASCUS: An Israeli airstrike on Wednesday targeted the vicinity of the scientific research building in the Syrian neighborhood Barzeh in the capital Damascus, Syrian state news agency (SANA) said.
In addition, Israeli airstrikes targeted Hama airport, in west-central Syria, according to local officials.
Israel spent years carrying out airstrikes on Syria during former President Bashar Assad’s rule, targeting what they said were Iran-linked military installations and weapons transfers from Tehran intended for the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.
Israel PM says seizing more of Gaza to force Hamas to free hostages
- The military is “dissecting the (Gaza) Strip and increasing the pressure step by step so that (Hamas) will return our hostages,” Netanyahu said
- Netanyahu added that Israel will keep applying military pressure until Hamas frees the remaining hostages
JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that the military was “dissecting” the Gaza Strip and seizing territory to pressure Hamas into freeing hostages still held in the territory.
It came as rescuers said 34 people were killed in continued Israeli strikes on the territory, including on a UN building.
The military is “dissecting the (Gaza) Strip and increasing the pressure step by step so that (Hamas) will return our hostages,” Netanyahu said in a statement, adding that Israel “is seizing territory, striking terrorists, and destroying infrastructure.”
He added that the army is “taking control of the ‘Morag Axis’,” a strip of land that is expected to run between the southern governorates of Khan Yunis and Rafah.
The name of the axis refers to a former Israeli settlement that was evacuated when Israel unilaterally pulled out of Gaza in 2005.
Defense Minister Israel Katz earlier said Israel would bolster its military presence in the Palestinian territory to “destroy and clear the area of terrorists and terrorist infrastructure.”
The operation would “seize large areas that will be incorporated into Israeli security zones,” he said in a statement, without specifying how much territory.
Gaza’s civil defense agency said an Israeli strike that targeted a UN building “housing a medical clinic in Jabalia refugee camp” killed at least 19 people, including nine children.
The Israeli army said it struck Hamas militants “inside a command and control center” in north Gaza’s Jabalia. It separately confirmed to AFP the building housed a UN clinic.
The Palestinian foreign ministry, based in the occupied West Bank, condemned the “massacre” at the clinic run by UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, and called for “serious international pressure” to halt Israel’s widening offensive.
Israel has on several occasions conducted strikes on UNRWA buildings housing displaced people in Gaza, where fighting has raged for most of the past 18 months.
The Israeli military accuses Hamas of hiding in school buildings where thousands of Gazans have sought shelter — a charge denied by the Palestinian militant group.
Israel also carried out deadly air strikes in southern and central Gaza on Wednesday. The civil defense said dawn strikes killed at least 13 people in Khan Yunis and two in Nuseirat refugee camp.
In February, Katz announced plans for an agency to oversee the “voluntary departure” of Palestinians from the territory.
That followed Israel’s backing of a proposal from US President Donald Trump for the United States to take over the territory after relocating its 2.4 million Palestinian inhabitants. The proposal outraged Gazans and drew widespread international condemnation.
Israel resumed intense bombing of Gaza on March 18 before launching a new ground offensive, ending a nearly two-month ceasefire.
An Israeli group representing the families of hostages still held in Gaza said they were “horrified” by Katz’s announcement of expanded military operations.
“Has it been decided to sacrifice the hostages for the sake of ‘territorial gains?’” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum asked in a statement.
At least 1,066 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel resumed military operations, the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said.
That took the overall toll to at least 50,423 since the war began with Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, according to Israeli figures.
Hunger loomed in Gaza City as bakeries closed due to worsening shortages of flour and sugar since Israel blocked the entry of supplies from March 2.
“I’ve been going from bakery to bakery all morning, but none of them are operating, they’re all closed,” Amina Al-Sayed told AFP.
On Sunday, Netanyahu offered to let Hamas leaders leave Gaza but demanded the group abandon its arms.
Hamas has signalled willingness to cede power in Gaza but calls disarmament a “red line.”
Egypt, Qatar and the United States are attempting to broker a new ceasefire and secure the release of the remaining Israeli hostages.
A senior Hamas official said Saturday the group had approved a new ceasefire proposal, while Netanyahu’s office said Israel had submitted a counteroffer. The details remain undisclosed.
Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir visited Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Wednesday.
The visit drew condemnation not only from Hamas but also from neighboring Jordan, which acts as custodian of the holy site, as well as Qatar and other governments.
Ben Gvir has repeatedly challenged the longstanding convention that Jews may visit but not pray at the compound, stoking Palestinian fears about Israeli intentions.
