LONDON: Israel “firmly rejects” pressure not to build in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday following spreading international condemnation of planned evictions of Palestinians from homes in the city claimed by Jewish settlers.
“We firmly reject the pressure not to build in Jerusalem. To my regret, this pressure has been increasing of late,” Netanyahu said during a televised address ahead of national commemorations of the Israeli capture of east Jerusalem in a 1967 war.
“I say also to the best of our friends: Jerusalem is Israel’s capital and just as every nation builds in its capital and builds up its capital, we also have the right to build in Jerusalem and to build up Jerusalem. That is what we have done and that is what we will continue to do,” Netanyahu said.
His comments come as Israel’s justice ministry said it would delay the key Monday hearing in the case that could see Palestinian families evicted from their Jerusalem homes to make way for Jewish settlers.
“In all the circumstances and in light of the attorney general’s request, the regular hearing for tomorrow, May 10, 2021 (is) canceled,” it said in a statement, adding it would schedule a new hearing within 30 days.
The delay follows days of clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli security forces, fueled in part by the dispute in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.
Meanwhile, UNICEF urged the Israeli authorities to refrain from using violence against children and release all those detained, after 37 Palestinian children have been injured and arrested in east Jerusalem in the last two days.
“Over the past two days, 29 Palestinian children were injured in east Jerusalem, including in the Old City and the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood (and) eight Palestinian children were arrested.
“A one-year old toddler was among those injured. Some children were taken for treatment at hospitals with injuries in the head and the spine,” the UN children’s body said.
UNICEF said it received reports that ambulances were restricted from arriving on location to assist and evacuate the injured and that an on-site clinic was reportedly hit and searched.
“All children should be protected from violence and kept out of harm’s way at all times. Families’ rights to access all places of worship should be preserved and those injured be assisted without restrictions,” it said in a statement.
Pope Francis expressed his concern at the unrest in Jerusalem, saying: “Violence only generates violence. Let’s stop these clashes.”
“I pray so that this might be a place of encounter and not violent clashes, a place of prayer and of peace. I invite everyone to seek shared resolutions so that the multireligious identity and multiculture of the holy city might be respected and so that fraternity might prevail,” he said after reciting the Regina Caeli prayer.
Jordan also urged Israel on Sunday to stop what it described as “barbaric” attacks on worshippers in Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque and said it would step up international pressure.
Jordan, which has custodianship of Muslim and Christian sites in Jerusalem, said Israel should respect worshippers and international law safeguarding Arab rights.
King Abdullah II condemned the violations and said he rejected attempts by Israeli authorities to change the demographic situation in east Jerusalem, and all measures aimed at changing the city’s historical and legal status. The king also called on Israel to adhere to international law and international humanitarian law.
During a phone call with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, King Abdullah said Jordan would continue to protect Islamic and Christian holy sites and to preserve its Arab and Islamic identity, and called for coordination between Arab states to put an end to the Israeli violations in east Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa mosque.
“What the Israeli police and special forces are doing, from violations against the mosque to attacks on worshippers, is barbaric (behavior) that is rejected and condemned,” the government said in a statement.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said the kingdom would do its utmost to protect rights of Palestinians against ownership claims by Jewish settlers.
“Israel as the occupying force carries responsibility for protecting rights of Palestinians in their homes,” Safadi said in comments on state media.
Tunisia, the only Arab member of the UN Security Council, in coordination with Palestine, submitted a request to hold a session on Monday to discuss the dangerous escalation and aggressive practices of the Israeli authorities in Palestinian territories.
The request was supported by China — current president of the council — along with Norway, Ireland, Vietnam, Saint Vincent, the Grenadines and Niger.
The session will also discuss Israeli attacks against the Palestinians and their insistence on their expansionist policies, including settlement plans, demolition and dispossession of homes, displacement of Palestinian families, land grabbing, and obliterating the historical and civilizational identity of Jerusalem, the Tunisian foreign ministry said.
“These practices constitute a flagrant violation of international law, a threat to international peace and security and undermine efforts aimed at achieving a just and comprehensive peace in the region,” the ministry added.
Arab League foreign ministers announced they would hold an emergency meeting on Tuesday at Palestine’s request, which has been supported by a number of countries.
Hossam Zaki, assistant secretary-general of the Arab League, said in a statement “the meeting will discuss Israeli crimes and attacks in the occupied city of Jerusalem, Islamic and Christian holy sites, especially Al-Aqsa Mosque, and attacks on worshipers, in addition to the brutal Israeli attacks and plans to seize the homes of Palestinian families in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood to empty the city of its residents and displace its people.”
Zaki said the decision was taken to raise the level of the meeting to the ministerial level, instead of ambassadorial, in proportion to the “seriousness of the Israeli attacks that are part of the Zionist regime’s systematic policy to Judaize Jerusalem and change the existing legal and historical status of the city and its sanctities.”
The Arab Parliament also said it will hold an emergency session on May 19 in Cairo to discuss the same issues.
Adel bin Abdulrahman Al-Asoumi, president of the Arab Parliament, stressed the need for Israel to stop the ongoing crimes committed against the Palestinian people, and support all their rights, foremost of which is the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, with east Jerusalem as its capital.
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation is also set to hold an emergency session on Tuesday.
Dozens of Palestinians and several Israeli police officers have been wounded in clashes in recent days in east Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, the scene of a long-running land dispute and located a short walk from flashpoint holy sites.
The case dates back to before the creation of the state of Israel, when a small Jewish community lived in Sheikh Jarrah.
After Israel’s independence and the 1948 war with its Arab neighbors, east Jerusalem came under the control of Jordan.
Many refugees settled in the district after fleeing Zionist forces in other parts of what was now Israel.
Israel then seized east Jerusalem in the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed it.
Early this year, the Jerusalem district court ruled in favor of Jewish settlers who laid claim to land in the Sheikh Jarrah district, now home to around 30 Palestinians from four families.
Palestinians argue that discriminatory laws mean they are unable to claim back their properties inside what is now Israel.
The Palestinian families’ lawyer, Hosni Abu Hussein, also accused the settlers of fraud.
“The registration of the lands in the name of the settlement association took place through fraud and deception, in collusion with the commissioner of public properties and the registrar of Israeli lands,” he told AFP.
The dispute, in a strategic location close to Jerusalem’s Old City, has added fuel to tensions around the nearby Al-Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third-holiest mosque, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Hamas in Gaza have threatened attacks against Israel if the high-profile case goes against the Palestinian families.
(With Reuters and AFP)
Netanyahu says Israel firm on Jerusalem as global concern mounts
https://arab.news/rjyy3
Netanyahu says Israel firm on Jerusalem as global concern mounts

- Pope Francis has also called for an end to the violence in Jerusalem
- Tunisia calls for UN Security Council meeting, as Arab League and Arab Parliament to hold emergency sessions to discuss Israeli crimes and attacks
Israel carries out strikes on two Syrian cities, Syrian state news agency says

- Israel bombed Syria frequently when the country was governed by Assad, targeting a foothold established by his ally Iran during the civil war
CAIRO: Israeli strikes targeted the vicinity of Syria’s Damascus, Hama and Daraa countryside late on Friday, Syrian state news agency SANA reported.
The strikes on Damascus countryside killed one civilian and injured four others in Hama, SANA added.
Israel’s repeated strikes on Syria act as a warning to the new Islamist rulers in Damascus, which Israel views as a potential threat on its border.
The Israeli army confirmed the strikes on Syria on Friday, saying it targeted “a military site, anti-aircraft cannons, and surface-to-air missile infrastructure.”
The Israeli army has previously said it targeted Syria’s military infrastructure, including headquarters and sites containing weapons and equipment, since mainly Sunni Muslim Islamist fighters toppled President Bashar Assad in December.
Earlier on Friday, Israel bombed an area near the presidential palace in Damascus, in its clearest warning yet to Syria’s new Islamist-led authorities of its readiness to ramp up military action, which has included strikes it said were in support of the country’s Druze minority.
Israel bombed Syria frequently when the country was governed by Assad, targeting a foothold established by his ally Iran during the civil war.
Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces claims to have seized strategic western town

- RSF paramilitaries say they took key town of Al Nahud in West Kordofan state
- Area is home to the headquarters of the 18th Infantry Brigade
CAIRO: Sudan’s notorious paramilitary group claimed a “sweeping victory” Friday saying it took control of the key town of Al Nahud in West Kordofan state in a fight that intensified a day earlier.
A victory there by the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, would mark a strategic loss for Sudan’s military in its war with the paramilitary force as the territory is home to the headquarters of the 18th Infantry Brigade.
The Sudanese army didn’t immediately comment on its social media channels on whether it lost Al Nahud to its rival.
Sudan’s Culture and Information Minister Khalid Ali Aleisir said on his Facebook account on Friday the RSF committed crimes against defenseless citizens in the town, looting their properties and destroying public facilities.
The RSF said on its Telegram channel Friday that it destroyed vehicles belonging to the army and seized their weapons and ammunition during the battle for Al Nahud. The paramilitary group also claimed that it managed to secure the city’s facilities and markets after defeating the army.
The war erupted on April 15, 2023, with pitched battles between the military and the RSF in the streets of the capital Khartoum that quickly spread to other parts of the country.
RSF attacks in Al Nahud have killed more than 300 unarmed civilians, the Preliminary Committee of Sudan Doctors’ Trade Union said on Facebook on Friday. The Associated Press couldn’t independently verify that figure.
The Resistance Committees of Al Nahud condemned the RSF attacks, which it said began Thursday morning.
“They invaded the city, stormed residential neighborhoods, terrorized unarmed civilians, and committed cold-blooded murders against innocent civilians whose only crime was to cling to their dignity and refuse to leave their homes to the machine of killing and terror,” the Resistance Committees said Thursday on Facebook.
An army loss of Al Nahud would impact its operational capabilities in Northern Kordofan state, according to the Sudan War Monitor, an open source collaborative project that has been documenting the two-year-war. Al Nahud is a strategic town because it’s located along a main road that the army could use to advance into the Darfur region, which the RSF mostly controls.
Al Nahud also shelters displaced people fleeing from Al-Obeid, Umm Kadada, Khartoum and El-Fasher — the provincial capital of North Darfur province, according to the Darfur Victims Support Organization.
Meanwhile, in North Darfur, the fighting has killed at least 542 people in the last three weeks, though the actual death toll is likely higher, according to UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk. This figure includes the recent RSF attacks on El Fasher and Abu Shouk displacement camp, which killed at least 40 civilians.
“The horror unfolding in Sudan knows no bounds,” said Türk i n a statement on Thursday.
Türk also mentioned “extremely disturbing” reports of extrajudicial killings committed by RSF, with at least 30 men in civilian clothing executed by the paramilitary fighters in Al Salha in southern Omdurman.
“I have personally alerted both leaders of the RSF and SAF to the catastrophic human rights consequences of this war. These harrowing consequences are a daily, lived reality for millions of Sudanese. It is well past time for this conflict to stop,” said Türk.
The war in Sudan has killed at least 20,000 people, but the real toll is probably far higher. Nearly 13 million people have fled their homes, 4 million of them streaming into neighboring countries.
Half the population of 50 million faces hunger. The World Food Program has confirmed famine in 10 locations and warns it could spread further, putting millions at risk of starvation.
Tunisia court jails former officials including former PM Larayedh

- The sentences are for 18 to 36 years, and apply to eight people
TUNIS: A Tunisian court on Friday handed down lengthy prison sentences against former officials, including former Prime Minister Ali Larayedh, a senior figure in the opposition Ennahda party, on charges of facilitating the departure of militants to Syria over the past decade.
TAP state news agency quoted a judicial official as saying that the sentences are for 18 to 36 years, and apply to eight people.
West Bank residents losing hope 100 days into military assault

- Israel’s military in late February deployed tanks in Jenin for the first time in the West Bank since the end of the second intifada
JENIN: On a torn-up road near the refugee camp where she once lived, Saja Bawaqneh said she struggled to find hope 100 days after an Israeli offensive in the occupied West Bank forced her to flee.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been displaced in the north of the territory since Israel began a major “anti-terrorist operation” dubbed “Iron Wall” on Jan. 21.
Bawaqneh said life was challenging and uncertain since she was forced to leave Jenin refugee camp — one of three targeted by the offensive, along with Tulkarm and Nur Shams.
“We try to hold on to hope, but unfortunately, reality offers none,” she said.
“Nothing is clear in Jenin camp even after 100 days — we still don’t know whether we will return to our homes, or whether those homes have been damaged or destroyed.”
Bawaqneh said residents were banned from entering the camp and that “no one knows ... what happened inside.”
Israel’s military in late February deployed tanks in Jenin for the first time in the West Bank since the end of the second intifada.
In early March, it said it had expanded its offensive to more city areas.
AFP footage this week showed power lines dangling above Jenin’s streets blocked with barriers made of churned-up earth.
Wastewater pooled in the road outside the Jenin Governmental Hospital.
Farha Abu Al-Hija, a member of the Popular Committee for Services in Jenin camp, said families living in the vicinity of the camp were being removed by Israeli forces daily.
“A hundred days have passed like a hundred years for the displaced people of Jenin camp,” she said.
“Their situation is dire, the conditions are harsh, and they are enduring pain unlike anything they have ever known.”
Medical charity Doctors Without Borders in March denounced the “extremely precarious” situation of Palestinians displaced by the military assault, saying they were going “without proper shelter, essential services, and access to health care.”
It said the scale of forced displacement and destruction of camps “has not been seen in decades” in the West Bank.
The UN says about 40,000 residents have been displaced since Jan. 21.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has said the offensive would last several months and ordered troops to stop residents from returning.
Israeli forces put up barriers at several entrances of the Jenin camp in late April, AFP footage showed.
The Israeli offensive began two days after a truce came into effect in the Gaza Strip between the Israeli military and Gaza’s Hamas rulers.
Two months later, that truce collapsed and Israel resumed its offensive in Gaza, a Palestinian territory separate from the West Bank.
Since the Gaza war began in October 2023, violence has soared in the West Bank.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 925 Palestinians in the territory since then, according to the Ramallah-based Health Ministry.
Gaza rescuers say 42 killed in Israeli strikes

- Nine people were killed when an Israeli air strike hit a home in Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza
- In Gaza City, a strike on a community kitchen claimed the lives of six more
GAZA CITY: Gaza’s civil defense agency said Israeli strikes killed at least 42 people Friday in the Palestinian territory, devastated by war and under a total Israeli aid blockade for two months.
Israel resumed its military campaign in the Gaza Strip on March 18 after the collapse of a ceasefire that had largely halted the fighting.
Nine people were killed when an Israeli air strike hit a home in Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, civil defense official Mohammed Al-Mughayyir told AFP.
AFP footage in the aftermath of a strike on Bureij camp showed Palestinians searching for casualties in the rubble of a flattened building.
“They gave us no warning, no phone call — we woke up at midnight to smoke, rubble, stones, and shrapnel raining down on us,” said Mohammed Al-Sheikh, standing among collapsed concrete slabs.
“We pulled out martyrs — bodies and limbs from under the rubble.”
Another six people were killed in a strike targeting the Al-Masri family home in the northern city of Beit Lahia, civil defense official Mughayyir added.
In Gaza City, a strike on a community kitchen claimed the lives of six more, the civil defense agency reported.
Across the Gaza Strip, at least 21 other deaths were reported in similar attacks, the agency said.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Thursday that at least 2,326 people have been killed since Israel resumed its campaign in Gaza, bringing the overall death toll since the war broke out to 52,418.
The war erupted after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Militants also abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still being held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
The Israeli government says its renewed campaign aims to force Hamas to free the remaining captives, although critics charge it puts them in mortal danger.
Israel halted aid deliveries to Gaza on March 2, days before the collapse of the ceasefire which had come into effect on January 19.
The United Nations has repeatedly warned of the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe on the ground, with famine again looming.
On Friday, the International Committee of the Red Cross said the humanitarian response in Gaza was on the “verge of total collapse.”
“This situation must not — and cannot — be allowed to escalate further,” its deputy director of operations, Pascal Hundt, said in a statement.