CAIRO: Egypt’s foreign minister met a Palestine Liberation Organization delegation Thursday, calling for “unity” and the strengthening of the Palestinian Authority amid Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas in Gaza.
The conflict began after the Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, triggering massive retaliation.
During his meeting with the PLO delegation in Cairo, Badr Abdelatty “reaffirmed Egypt’s supportive stance toward the Palestinian Authority,” his office said in a statement.
The minister also reiterated “Egypt’s rejection of any plans to displace Palestinians from their lands,” it added.
Last month, Egypt hosted talks between rival Palestinian groups Fatah and Hamas to discuss bringing post-war Gaza under PA control.
Fatah, which governs parts of the occupied West Bank under the PA, dominates both the PA and the PLO, an internationally recognized representative of the Palestinian people.
It has been excluded from Gaza since Hamas seized control in 2007.
On Thursday, Abdelatty also discussed with the PLO delegation Egypt’s efforts to end the Gaza war, reach a ceasefire agreement and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.
Mediators Egypt, Qatar and the United States have been engaged in months of talks to cement a truce in Gaza, but so far to no avail.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday that a Gaza ceasefire remained close but added it may not happen before President Joe Biden hands over to Donald Trump.
“I hope that we can get it over the line in the time that we have,” said Blinken, who leaves office with Trump’s inauguration on January 20.
Hamas said at the end of last week that indirect negotiations in Doha had resumed, while Israel said it had authorized negotiators to continue the talks in the Qatari capital.
A previous round of mediation in December ended with both sides blaming the other for the impasse, with Hamas accusing Israel of setting “new conditions” and Israel accusing Hamas of throwing up “obstacles” to a deal.
Egypt top diplomat meets PLO, urges Palestinian unity
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Egypt top diplomat meets PLO, urges Palestinian unity
- During his meeting with the PLO delegation in Cairo, Badr Abdelatty “reaffirmed Egypt’s supportive stance toward the Palestinian Authority”
Human Rights Watch condemns Gaza aid centers as ‘death traps’
- At least 859 Palestinians were killed while attempting to obtain aid at GHF sites between May 27 and July 31 — most by the Israeli military — according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
JERUSALEM: Human Rights Watch on Friday accused Israeli forces operating outside US-backed aid centers in war-torn Gaza of routinely killing Palestinian civilians seeking food, as well as using starvation as a weapon of war.
“US-backed Israeli forces and private contractors have put in place a flawed, militarized aid distribution system that has turned aid distributions into regular bloodbaths,” said Belkis Wille, associate crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch.
After nearly 22 months of war in Gaza between Israeli forces and Hamas, the Palestinian territory is slipping into famine, and civilians are starving to death, according to a UN-mandated expert report.
HIGHLIGHT
After nearly 22 months of war in Gaza between Israeli forces and Hamas, the Palestinian territory is slipping into famine, and civilians are starving to death, according to a UN-mandated expert report.
Israel and the US have backed a private aid operation run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation at four sites inside Gaza, protected by US military contractors and the Israeli army.
GHF launched its operations in late May, sidelining the longstanding UN-led humanitarian system just as Israel was beginning to ease a more than two-month aid blockade that led to dire shortages of food and other essentials.
Since then, witnesses, the civil defense agency, and AFP correspondents inside Gaza have reported frequent incidents in which Israeli troops have opened fire on crowds of desperate Palestinian civilians approaching GHF centers seeking food.
At least 859 Palestinians were killed while attempting to obtain aid at GHF sites between May 27 and July 31 — most by the Israeli military — according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
“Israeli forces are not only deliberately starving Palestinian civilians, but they are now gunning them down almost every day as they desperately seek food for their families,” HRW’s Wille said in a statement.
President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff promised a plan to deliver more food to Gaza after inspecting the US-backed distribution center on Friday.
Witkoff said he had spent more than five hours inside Gaza, in a post accompanied by a photograph of himself wearing a protective vest and meeting staff at a GHF distribution center.
The foundation said it had delivered its 100 millionth meal in Gaza during the visit by Witkoff and US Ambassador Mike Huckabee to Gaza.
President Donald Trump “understands the stakes in Gaza and that feeding civilians, not Hamas, must be the priority. Today he sent his envoy to serve as his eyes and ears on the ground, reflecting his deep concern and commitment to doing what’s right,” GHF spokesperson Chapin Fay said.
Gaza’s civil defense agency said 22 people were killed by Israeli gunfire and air strikes on Friday, including eight who were waiting to collect food aid.
Jordan delivers nearly 57 tons of aid to Gaza in latest round of airdrops
- Aircraft from the Royal Jordanian Air Force led the effort alongside planes from the UAE, Germany, France, and Spain
AMMAN: The Jordan Armed Forces-Arab Army (JAF) carried out seven airdrop operations over Gaza on Friday, delivering close to 57 tons of humanitarian aid, including food supplies, relief items, and baby formula, the Jordan News Agency reported.
The mission, conducted in cooperation with multiple international partners, brings the total amount of aid delivered via airdrop since operations resumed last week to 148 tonnes.
Aircraft from the Royal Jordanian Air Force led the effort alongside planes from the UAE, Germany, France, and Spain. In total, the latest operation involved two Jordanian aircraft, one Emirati, two German, one French, and one Spanish.
The JAF said the airdrops were conducted under Royal directives aimed at intensifying humanitarian relief to Gaza amid the ongoing Israeli military offensive. They are part of broader Jordanian efforts to deliver urgent assistance to civilians in the besieged Strip.
In a statement, the JAF reaffirmed its commitment to its humanitarian mission “whether through airdrops or land convoys.”
Since the start of the war, Jordan has carried out 133 airdrop missions independently and participated in an additional 276 joint operations with allied nations.
Israel intercepts Houthi missile fired from Yemen
- The Houthis targeted Israel’s Ben Gurion airport using a Palestine 2 hypersonic ballistic missile
- Israel has carried out several retaliatory strikes in Yemen
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said it intercepted a missile fired from Yemen on Friday, which the Iran-backed Houthi militants said they had launched.
“Following the sirens that sounded a short while ago in several areas in Israel, a missile that was launched from Yemen was intercepted,” the Israeli military said.
The Houthis targeted Israel’s Ben Gurion airport “using a ‘Palestine 2’ hypersonic ballistic missile,” their military spokesman Yahya Saree said in a video statement.
The militants have launched repeated missile and drone attacks against Israel since their Palestinian ally Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel sparked the Gaza war.
The Houthis, who say they are acting in support of the Palestinians, paused their attacks during a two-month ceasefire in Gaza that ended in March, but renewed them after Israel resumed major operations.
Israel has carried out several retaliatory strikes in Yemen, targeting Houthi-held ports and the airport in the militant-held capital Sanaa.`
A settler accused of killing a Palestinian activist is to be freed, as Israel still holds the body
- Witnesses said one of the shots killed Awdah Hathaleen, an English teacher and father of three
- The Israeli military is still holding Hathaleen’s body and says it will only be returned if the family agrees to bury him in a nearby city
TEL AVIV: An Israeli settler accused of killing a prominent Palestinian activist during a confrontation captured on video in the occupied West Bank will be released from house arrest, an Israeli court ruled Friday.
The video shot by a Palestinian witness shows Yinon Levi brandishing a pistol and tussling with a group of unarmed Palestinians. He can be seen firing two shots, but the video does not show where the bullets hit.
Witnesses said one of the shots killed Awdah Hathaleen, an English teacher and father of three, who was uninvolved and was standing nearby.
The Israeli military is still holding Hathaleen’s body and says it will only be returned if the family agrees to bury him in a nearby city. It said the measure was being taken to “prevent public disorder.”
The confrontation occurred on Monday in the village of Umm Al-Khair, in an area of the West Bank featured in “No Other Land,” an Oscar-winning documentary about settler violence and life under Israeli military rule.
In a court decision obtained by The Associated Press, Judge Havi Toker wrote that there was “no dispute” that Levi shot his gun in the village that day, but she said he may have been acting in self-defense and that the court could not establish that the shots killed Hathaleen.
Israel’s military and police did not respond to a request for comment on whether anyone else may have fired shots that day. Multiple calls placed to Levi and his lawyer have not been answered.
The judge said Levi did not pose such a danger as to justify his continued house arrest but barred him from contact with the villagers for a month.
Levi has been sanctioned by the United States and other Western countries over allegations of past violence toward Palestinians. President Donald Trump lifted the US sanctions on Levi and other radical settlers shortly after returning to office.
A total of 18 Palestinians from the village were arrested after the incident. Six remain in detention.
Eitay Mack, an Israeli lawyer who has lobbied for sanctions against radical settlers, including Levi, said the court ruling did not come as a surprise.
“Automatically, Palestinian victims are considered suspects, while Jewish suspects are considered victims,” he said.
Levi helped establish an settler outpost near Umm Al-Khair that anti-settlement activists say is a bastion for violent settlers who have displaced hundreds since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. Palestinians and rights groups have long accused Israeli authorities of turning a blind eye to settler violence, which has surged since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, along with attacks by Palestinians.
In a 2024 interview, Levi said he was protecting his own land and denied using violence.
Some 70 women in Umm Al-Khair said they were beginning a hunger strike on Friday to call for Hathaleen’s body to be returned and for the right of his family to bury him in the village.
Israel’s military said in a statement to the AP that it would return the body if the family agrees to bury him in the “nearest authorized cemetery.”
Hathaleen, 31, had written and spoke out against settler violence, and had helped produce the Oscar-winning film. Supporters have erected murals in his honor in Rome, held vigils in New York and have held signs bearing his name at anti-war protests in Tel Aviv.
Family of Palestinian-American boy held by Israel ask US govt for help securing his release
- Muhammad Zaher Ibrahim, 16, was detained 5 months ago on charges of rock-throwing
- He has yet to see a courtroom, has lost significant weight and developed scabies in jail
LONDON: A Palestinian-American family is trying to secure the release of a 16-year-old detained by Israel for more than five months, The Guardian reported.
Muhammad Zaher Ibrahim was detained at the family’s home in the occupied West Bank in February when he was 15, accused by Israel of throwing rocks at soldiers.
He was blindfolded, handcuffed and taken to Megiddo Prison in Israel where, his family say, he has lost a significant amount of weight while awaiting trial.
The family splits its time between their home in the West Bank town of Silwad and the city of Palm Bay, Florida.
His father Zaher Ibrahim wrote to his local Congressman Mike Haridopolos asking for help in securing his son’s release.
“The Megiddo Prison is notorious for brutality and suffering,” Zaher Ibrahim wrote to Haridopolos on a form seen by The Guardian. “We are kindly asking for some support in this matter. We have exhausted all efforts locally here in Israel and have no other option than to ask our local Florida office officials to reach out on our behalf.”
Haridopolos’s office said it had been informed by the State Department that the US Embassy in Israel is “following standard procedures” on the matter.
A spokesperson for the department said it has “no higher priority than the safety and security of US citizens.”
Muhammad Ibrahim’s detention first came to prominence after his cousin Sayfollah Musallet was allegedly killed by Israeli settlers in the West Bank in July.
Musallet, 20, who was also a US citizen, had been visiting relatives when he was beaten to death.
There are hundreds of Palestinian children in detention in Israeli jails, many without charge or contact with their families.
According to Defense for Children International-Palestine, as of March this year that figure was 323 aged 12-17 years.
Between 2005 and 2010, 835 Palestinian children in that age bracket were tried for stone-throwing by Israeli military courts. Only one was acquitted.
Ayed Abu Eqtaish, the West Bank-based accountability program director at Defense for Children International-Palestine, told The Guardian: “Palestinian children in Israeli prisons are totally disconnected from the outside world. They (Israel) will not recognize whether you are American, Somalian or whatever your citizenship.”
Abu Eqtaish said since Oct. 7, 2023, conditions in Israeli jails for Palestinians have worsened, adding: “Now they are stricter in punishment and sentences. We encounter problems knowing about living conditions inside prisons. There’s no family presence. Lawyer visits are very restricted.”
A State Department official told the Ibrahim family via email that embassy staff had visited him in prison but faced contact restrictions put in place by Israel.
During one welfare check, he was found to have lost 12 kg in weight. In another, staff reported that he was receiving treatment for scabies contracted in jail.
In a statement, a State Department spokesperson told The Guardian that it “works to provide consular assistance which may include visiting detained US citizens to ensure they have access to necessary medication or medical attention and facilitating authorized communications with their family or others.”
